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canchewread · 3 years

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Editor’s Note: our Book Blog feature combines a shareable quote from, and a short review of, an important left wing or left-leaning work of nonfiction I’ve read and would like to share or expound on.

Terminal Point

A little while ago, I published a lengthy piece about how corporate media coverage of the so-called “migrant crisis at the U.S. border” uniformly conformed to the dictates of the Chomsky-Herman propaganda model; regardless of the ideological bent of the outlet publishing that coverage. Towards the end of that essay, I discussed the difference between describing how America created the crises driving migration, and what is actually happening on the ground in relation to those crises; before recommending readers who wanted to know more, check out “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the mind of America” by Greg Grandin.

As longtime readers of this blog may remember, I’ve always been a big fan of Grandin’s work; in particular his scholarship on U.S. imperialism in Latin America is absolutely first rate. Given these factors, today I’d like to return to that portion of the discussion by offering a quote from (see above,) and a brief review of “The End of the Myth” here on Can’t You Read.

Frankly, for a guy whose writing is so accessible, Greg Grandin remains an extraordinarily complex thinker whose historical analysis explores a sometimes overwhelming number of “variations on a theme” in the larger scope of his primary thesis. Given the sad state of the term intellectual in our society, I won’t burden professor Grandin with the title, but as scholars go this guy genuinely fulfills his obligation to present the facts, and challenge established assumptions vigorously where warranted.

In that vein, the author opens The End of the Myth with a fundamentally sound, but deceptively simple thesis; that America has always resolved the staggering contradictions between its stated ideals, and its horrifying practices by projecting its identity, and even its very conception of the term “freedom” through the lens of an endless expansion across a wholly mythical, and ultimately metaphysical, frontier. Indeed, as Grandin notes quite early on in The End of the Myth, the contradiction between the colonial enterprise that eventually became America, and escaping the crushing poverty and violence of the old world was resolved by a genocidal project to claim the frontier before early-American settlers even had a word for the frontier. The story outpaced reality, right from the beginning.

Tracing the line of history from the foundation of the colonies, through the American Civil War, and into the modern era of Pig Empire dominated globalized trade, Grandin demonstrates that at each phase American society resolved the deferred promise of freedom inherent in its foundational mythos, by projecting the violence and conflict inherent to its settler-colonial, hyper-capitalist nature, outward and against a constantly-shifting “other.” From Manifest Destiny, to the Monroe Doctrine and on through our modern War on Terror, the solution to America’s problems has always been found in the destruction of an external enemy, and the expansion of the mythical “frontier.”

Where Grandin’s work really starts to get interesting however, is when he meticulously dissects the internal conflicts a settler colonial project of genocide and slavery created; conflicts that a romanticized vision of endless frontier expansion both rationalized, and reinforced. It is in this analysis that the author exposes the myth of freedom for those who can claim it on an endless frontier, as the skeleton key for understanding the increasingly critical flaws in Pig Empire society. After all, all wars, even an endless war based on the myth of infinite growth, have casualties, and the unrelenting legacy of violence, dehumanization, and ruthless exploitation of the eternal other have fundamentally altered American society in ways no idealized frontier could ever heal. In a wholly disturbing way then, the very existence of marginalized nonwhites inside “the nation” becomes a taunting reminder of a faltering white supremacist legacy the Pig Empire has never made any attempts to reconcile with, let alone end.

These consequences are the dark, unspoken truths of both American history and America’s present; and they are rarely if ever exposed to the public eye. In doing so, Grandin lays bare the roots of American imperialism, white supremacy, colonial exploitation, and even U.S. dominated “borderless capitalism” in the modern era. Like a cancerous tumor, the myth of the American frontier has fueled the endless growth of a Pig Empire capitalist class that threatens to unleash fascist violence to maintain control now that the frontier thesis has run into the hard walls of both history, and reality. By exposing the catastrophic fallout of worshipping frontier mythology in America’s past, Grandin does much to reveal how “the land of the free” has never really stopped being “the home of the slave.”

Importantly however the author does not remain entirely in the past. Grandin also draws stark attention to the fact that although the myth of the frontier has lost its power to obscure America’s horrifying contradictions, it has done nothing to satiate the greed and arrogance of the primary beneficiaries of those contradictions in modern life:

“The fantasies of the super-rich, no less than their capital, have free range. They imagine themselves sea-steaders, setting out to create floating villages beyond government control, or they fund life-extension research hoping to escape death or to upload their consciousness into the cloud. Mars, says one, will very soon be humanity’s “new frontier.” A hedge-fund billionaire backer of Trump who believes “human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make” and that people on public assistance have “negative value,” a man so anti-social he doesn’t look people in the eye and whistles when others try to talk with him, gets to play volunteer sheriff in an old New Mexico mining town and is thereby allowed to carry a gun in all fifty states. Never before has a ruling class been as free - so completely emancipated from the people it rules - as ours.”

Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth.

Of course, given that The End of the Myth was published in 2019, a certain percentage of the book is focused on specifically what Trump, Trumpism, and Trump’s promise to build a border wall mean for modern American politics. Even this seemingly contemporary discussion however, offers timeless insights on both the past and future of an America that continues to embrace nativist ideas and ideology. Although Grandin never uses the term, he subtly notes that in many ways Trumpism itself represents an explicit ideological rejection of endless growth along an infinite frontier, and even offers a horrifying “solution” to our present day climate crisis - white nationalist infused eco-fascism.

Look, you probably don’t need me to convince you a Pulitzer-prize winning book by a celebrated American historian is “a good read.” What I’d like to add here however is that Grandin’s book isn’t just a guide to understanding American nativism, immigration policy, and right wing fantasies of migrant invasions; this book is a guide to understanding both American political thought, and rising Pig Empire fascism - which in a lot of ways, are very much the same thing.

I don’t know if this is the best American history book ever published, but frankly I suspect it’s in the running. Even though I don’t agree with everything Grandin says in The End of the Myth, I’d still ultimately give it an enthusiastic five star rating. More importantly, I would strongly suggest this work as a must-read volume for folks looking to understand why the Pig Empire works the way it does.

Additional Resources:

Infinite Frontier (The Nation review)

America can no longer run from its past (Guardian review)

A Monument to Disenchantment (Jacobin review)

Slavery, and American Racism, Were Born in Genocide

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

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animatedrapture · 3 years

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🦈; sigh cant stop thinking abt tyat one tiktok i sent u abt the punk bf going soft after seeing his soft gf go 🥺🥺,,,, like that really do be u nd suna huh? suna wearing the fit corpse was wearinng during his anthony padilla interview and u jus dressed in oversized sweaters nd soft colors,,,,NSFW; h*lding h*nds😳,,,, es cute i believe in violetxsuna supremacy 😌😌♥️

BABY!!! YOU FEED ME 🥺 AND I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE FOR IT I JUST GO 💓💞💖💞💖💞💖💓💖💞

violetxsuna canon 👀 yo watched that interview actually and highkey the fit was great but corpse in the comments flaming his own fit 💀 also, corpse lowkey reminds me of like, 2017 violet who listened to early $uicideboy$ era and a bunch of other soundcloud rappers just cause she got influenced by her skate rat crush 😔🤚 BUT PLS YOU GIVE ME THESE IDEAS AND MY MIND JUST CREATES A WHOLE ASS MOODBOARD FOR SUNA AND I

omg NSFW,,, suna's huge hands in comparison to mine. 😳

#YOU MAKE ME SO HAPPY WHAT I—#PLS I WATCHED THAT SO MANY TIMES #🦈anon #you keep doing this and i might fall in love with u 🦈#if u consent 😳#;bubble #VIORIN SUPREMACY #ok ok but the real shipname is RiMayne bc thats my name and it sounds better

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rapuvdayear · 5 years

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2000: “Ghetto Qu’ran (Forgive Me)” 50 Cent (Trackmaster Ent./Columbia)

It’s been over a year since I teased the idea of doing a post about my favorite 50 Cent tracks, so I guess now is as good a time as ever to get around to it!

With the exception of maybe Kanye, I can’t think of another rapper with more raw talent whose career has been more disappointing. Obviously both Ye and Fiddy have been monstrously successful, but IMO they either burned brightly before descending into white supremacy apologia (Kanye) or never achieved their best possible trajectory (50). It’s not an accident to put them together in this way, either; just 12 years ago next month they faced off in what turned out to be a very underwhelming battle over whose album would sell better (this was back when album sales, not streaming numbers, still meant something). In many ways, it was a crossroads for each artist: Kanye dropped what I believe was his magnum opus, then followed it up with his fourth-best album, third-best album, and second-best album, before dropping off a cliff, while 50′s release basically removed him from the conversation about who was relevant in rap (“My Gun Go Off” and “I Get Money” are honorable mentions for the list below, but otherwise Curtis is entirely forgettable).

These days, 50 has gone the Ice Cube route and is probably more recognizable as an actor than as a rapper. So, it’s hard to remember that once upon a time he was the savior of gangsta rap and (co-)author of one of the 25 greatest albums of all time. He beat the odds to survive a shooting, link up with the two heaviest hitters (at the time) in the rap game, and even be included on some GOAT lists. He also essentially established the “flood the streets with mixtapes before your album drops” strategy of self-promotion that Gucci, Weezy, and even Drake would follow in the days before Soundcloud was the go-to resource for building a rep. He singlehandedly destroyed a rival’s career, launched a clothing line, video game, and music label, and made a halfway-decent biopic. And then... he just sort of petered out.

But! 50 is also responsible for some of my all-time favorite raps, which is why it’s so frustrating to me that he never lived up to the buzz surrounding him back in 2003. These are my five favorites, listed chronologically, with some commentary:

1) “Ghetto Qu’ran (Forgive Me)” (2000) Before the G-Unit days and before Eminem and Dre helped launch him to superstardom, Curtis Jackson was an up and coming rapper from Queens who had attracted the attention of another rap legend, Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay. A mutual friend introduced 19 year-old 50 to Jay back in 1996, and the veteran producer/DJ gave him a crash course in how to write songs and signed him to his fledgling label. The business relationship didn’t work out, but it helped lead 50 to Columbia Records’ Trackmasters imprint where he recorded Power of the Dollar in 1999. However, this debut album would never see the light of day after 50 was shot nine times while sitting in a friend’s car and subsequently dropped by Columbia. In the wake of the shooting--and then later, after 50 blew the fuck up in 2003--it became a sort of “lost cult classic” among rap fans. “How To Rob” got the most attention at the time, a funny-yet-vicious song demonstrating 50′s hunger through fantasies about sticking up famous rappers and R&B stars (the song was also clearly an homage to Biggie’s unreleased “Dreams,” and provoked an oblique diss from Ghostface). But “Ghetto Qu’ran” has had a more lasting impact, primarily because of how it was rumored to be the source of 50′s shooting, Jam Master Jay’s murder, and the Ja Rule/Murder Inc. beef. While all of that intrigue is important to rap lore, it distracts from the fact that it’s a near perfect rap song from a technical perspective: a catchy hook, a fantastic beat and sample, an effortless flow, and a well-crafted story that is equal parts celebration of the Queens underworld and subtle shots at street legends. Seriously, this is akin to what traveling bards used to do in medieval Europe, what poets in Ancient Greece wrote, what west African griots did/do, and what narcocorrido artists do now. If you want to learn about the Supreme Team, Pappy Mason, the Corley Family, and the Rich Porter/Alpo crew in Harlem, then this is a good place to start; as 50 puts it, “consider this the first chapter of the ghetto’s Qu’ran.” The secondary title to this track--“Forgive Me”--has a double meaning now. It was initially a plea to forgive 50 for the pain he caused in his criminal life but in retrospect an appeal to the figures whose names he drops. Also, it’s interesting to listen to this first and then compare 50′s voice with the next four tracks: this was recorded before the shooting, which left a bullet fragment lodged in his tongue that affected his speech and gave him his now-distinctive flow.

2) “Heat” (2003) There are several standouts on Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (“Many Men,” “Back Down,” “What Up Gangsta,” “Patiently Waiting,” and “Poor Lil’ Rich” spring to mind, and I will always love “21 Questions” for the “I love you like a fat kid loves cake” line alone) but this one has always been my fave. It’s a perfect distillation of the image that 50 was trying to project when he burst onto the scene: a hood-hardened gangster who wouldn’t hesitate to do his enemies harm. And given his recent history, you could believe him, too! There’s really nothing about this song that should be praised in any way, but I’ve been thinking about the gravity of the following line a lot in the past month or so: “The summertime is a killing season/ It’s hot out this bitch, that’s a good enough reason.” Also, 50′s boast “the DA can play this motherfucking tape in court” *has* to be one of the inspirations behind this great Key & Peele sketch, right?

3) “A Baltimore Love Thing” (2005) The Massacre was incredibly disappointing on the whole. I can remember clearly sitting around with my friends in a dorm room at the Shoreland listening to it all the way through the day that it dropped, wanting to love it but slowly realizing that it wasn’t going to live up to our expectations. “Ski Mask Way” could be an honorable mention on this list, and “Piggy Bank” is kind of funny, but otherwise it’s a steaming pile of shit. “Baltimore Love Thing,” though, is a masterpiece. It’s incredibly dark, rapped from the perspective of heroin itself (sort of like what Nas’s “I Gave You Power” does for guns) in order to detail the destruction that addiction--and, by extension, drug trafficking--leaves in its wake. Even more fucked up, 50-as-heroin voices an abusive partner addressing a woman, threatening her should she ever try to leave him. For my money, “You broke my heart, you dirty bitch, I won’t forget what you did/ If you give birth, I’ll already be in love with your kids” is one of the coldest lines in the annals of rap, full stop. In the second verse, he switches to the flip side of an abuser’s mindset: “I never steer you wrong, if you hyper I make you calm/ I’ll be your incentive, your reason for you to move forward.” All in all, it’s a great concept song that shows off 50′s range as a rapper... and is a testament to what he could have been.

4) “Hustler’s Ambition” (2005) Goddamn, I fucking love everything about this song! The beat is fantastic (great sample, btw), prefiguring the sound on a future great mixtape from the G-Unit crew. 50′s flow here is flawless, arguably the best, smoothest he’s ever been. This was basically the “theme” for 2005′s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ film, and tells the story of his come up in the drug game (or, at least, 50′s version of his carefully constructed hagiography). The lyrics are the true gems here, so I’ll just let a few of the standouts speak for themselves:

“Check my logic: fiends don’t like seeds in they weed, shit/ Send me them seeds, I’ll grow ‘em what they need”

“I sell anything, I’m a hustler, I know how to grind/ Step on grapes, put it in water, and tell you it’s wine”

“I made plans to make it, a prisoner of the state/ Now I can invite your ass out to my estate”

“Pour Cristal in the blender, make a protein shake”

and finally

“The feds watch me, icy, they can’t stop me/ Racists pointing at me, ‘Look at *****race’: Hello!”

5) “Ghetto Like A Motherfucker” (2011) I remember first encountering this track on a Tumblr compilation (I think?) called Don’t Fuck This Up, Curtis! and allowing myself to get excited that the old 50 was back! As the compilation’s name implies, around that time 50 had been releasing a string of online-only singles that were better than anything he’d put out in five or so years, and so there was some hope that he’d soon be making a triumphant return to the rap game. Sadly, this was not to be. But I still bang this track every month or so. The idea here was that 50 had written something, set it to a very sparse, stripped-down beat, and posted it online as an invitation for DIY rap producers to play with it and layer their own compositions on top of it. In that sense, it represented a melange of rap’s earliest roots--dudes spitting over vinyl cuts in basements and parks, just fucking around and having fun--and the possibilities afforded by the digital age and rap’s embrace of online platforms for mixing and remixing material (on a side note, I like to think of this as part of 21st century rap’s “punk rock” aesthetic, and would argue that this genre has done it better than any other). As with “Hustler’s Ambition,” “Baltimore Love Thing,” and “Ghetto Qu’ran,” this track gives 50 a chance to really showcase his talents as a writer and a rapper. The lyrics are as grimy as the beat, painting a picture of urban poverty and pre-fame 50, and 50 switches up his flow at multiple points throughout. Here are some of my favorite lines:

“Slim chance I’ma go back to killing roaches/ Be quiet, you can hear the rats in the wall/ Make you wanna pump crack ‘til you stack racks”

“Dice game, shake ‘em up, praying’ for a 6/ The wolves out there hungry, they lookin’ for a lick”

“****** pissed on the staircase, in the elevator/ Now I’m pissed cuz I’m starting to smell like piss, player”

and

“All a ***** need is a block and a connect/ And a box of 9 MMs to load in the TEC.”

50′s last two studio albums--Before I Self Destruct and Animal Ambition--honestly weren’t half-bad; I would venture so far as to say that they were both better than The Massacre and Curtis. But for 50 it was too little, too late, really. Too many rappers had come along since then doing what he did, only better and fresher. This is a Migos world now; we’re just living in it. And so, I’m left to ponder what could have been.

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thedecidedgamer-blog · 7 years

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Internet Culture and GamerGate

Mob mentality rules the internet. Say the wrong thing, give a differing opinion, or sometimes do nothing at all and the mob will find you. Abusive language, death threats, and more quickly follows. In 2014 an event happened that shook up the gaming industry as well as the internet in general. It was called GamerGate. This is the first episode in a series that I will be discussing internet culture, why it has been so bad, where it originated, and how it all explains the current cultural climate, including how Donald Trump became president.

Here's my patreon page if you want to support the podcast, as well as all of my social media and website:

https://www.patreon.com/thedecidedgamer

https://www.instagram.com/thedecidedgamer/

https://twitter.com/TheDecidedGamer

https://www.facebook.com/Thedecidedgamer-357816271327700/

[email protected]

http://www.thedecidedvoter.com/

As always thank you to my buddy Daren for providing the intro and outro music please subscribe to their channel on Soundcloud here: @ghostisland or the specific album it came from here: darnfelski.bandcamp.com/ Rough Transcript:

What’s up gamers, this is the TheDecidedGamer podcast, and I am Justin White. The Alt-right, hypersensitivity, white supremacy, Pepe the Frog, cuckservatives, GamerGate, Russian influences, Steve Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos, Mike Cernovich, a completely dysfunctional political system, Men’s Rights Activists, Mob Mentality all over the internet. Donald Trump as President. How did we get here? Why are these things I just described known by most in the gaming world, and more and more, known by the public at large? Why were there men with Tiki Torches walking through Charlottesville? Why are women threatened by rape and murder on the internet? Over the next few episodes I’m going to explore how the United States got here and how societal analysts have narrowed their scope on these issues far too much. This isn’t a 5 piece puzzle, it’s a 5,000 piece puzzle. And like with every puzzle, we must start with the corners first and work our way in until we can see the main picture. In this episode we’re going to find one of the corner pieces.

President Donald Trump. It’s been almost 10 months since he was sworn into office. This is a gaming podcast however, so you may be wondering what this has to do with video games. Well. Everything, really. Trump is the culmination of an incredible amount of circumstances. For most, his election was a surprise. Sure, there were some who forewarned, or supporters of his that were confident all the way through, but for the most part it was assumed somebody like Donald Trump could not win the presidency in the United States. I was one of those people. I had countless conversations with my wife, mother and sister-in-law, friends, people on the internet, that usually went something like this: I don’t think the people of the United States would elect somebody like him. Now sure, I had lot’s of reasoning behind it. I’m an economics graduate and international relations student. Hearing Trump speak about either makes my head feel like it’s about to explode. Have you played Shadow of Mordor or Shadow of War? You know how Talion can make their heads pop? It’s like that. But, why was it so widely assumed that a loud, rude, openly abusive towards women, non-public servant, unabashed rich racist could not win the presidency? An incredible under-appreciation for many things, the first of which we’re going to discuss today: Internet culture.

The most significant moment in internet culture and how it relates to today’s mob rule mentality that infests places like twitter, Facebook, reddit and other places happened in 2014. This moment in time dramatically impacted the internet as a whole, and laid important foundation for the 2016 presidential election, and generally explains why today’s social media feels like a cancer that at times seems like it is in remission, but is always ready to flare up at any given moment. It was known as GamerGate.

I’m sure most people who listen to this podcast have a general idea of what GamerGate was, but a short synopsis is due, though I know my target demographic will whole heartedly disagree. I only ask that you remain patient. I am very open to discussion, and there are plenty of ways for you to interact with the podcast, but we are now 3 years removed from the event, and much has been revealed in that time. I am not going to use names of the people involved as it can either bring up sensitive issues for the victims, or help promote abusers, and I am interested in neither circumstance occurring. Also, for my purposes here, I want to concentrate on the result of what happened.

In August of 2014 a young man posted a close to 10,000 word manifesto of sorts on some gaming forums. In this lengthy piece, he describes a girlfriend that he alleges has cheated on him with five different guys. His ex-girlfriend is an indie game developer. He also alleges in this piece that one of the guys that she cheated on him was a video game reviewer and that his ex traded sex for a positive review. This is an important part of the story, so it is vital to remember.

I’m going to pause here for a second, as I believe it incredibly important to point this out early. This stunt was done as revenge for a breakup. The world has no right knowing any personal details of this young couples life. Even if the woman in question had done what is alleged, that was between them. There is no righteousness here, it was designed to hurt the other person, and was posted in places that the boy in question knew would hurt the most. Since the posting of the quote unquote manifesto, it has been revealed that no such review of the woman’s game exists. From the very beginning of this story, whatever righteousness that people pretended to have was built on a false foundation. But, in the end none of that mattered. The damage was done, and it was done as intended.

The post is quickly deleted, but it does not matter. As we have learned in the past couple of years, anything that gets posted on the internet is never really gone. It soon finds its way on to other gaming forums, as well as 4chan, and continues to spread like wildfire. Before she knows it, the woman begins receiving threats from around the internet. Warning for those listening, the next few quotes are deeply disturbing, and if you have experienced abuse on the internet, or have kids listening please listen with caution, or skip forward. “I am going to hunt you down and behead your ugly face, you disgusting cheating feminist whore. See you soon, slut.”

“If I ever see you are doing a panel at an event I’m going to, I will literally kill you. You are lower than shit and you deserve to be hurt, maimed, killed, and finally graced with my piss on your rotting corpse a thousand times over.”

“Next time she show’s up at a con/press conference, we move. We’ll outnumber everyone, nobody will suspect us because we’ll be everywhere. We don’t move to kill, but give her a crippling injury that’s never going to fully heal and remind her of her fuckup for life. A good solid injury to the knees is usually good to this. I’d say brain damage but we don’t want to make it so she ends up too retarded to fear and respect us.”

She gets literally thousands of messages like these, as does anyone associated with her. She gets hacked, accounts of all kind are taken over, nude photographs stolen and posted all over the internet, anyone who speaks out on her behalf receives the same treatment. Her life is threatened on multiple occasions, including people posting her home address and saying that they are going to show up there and rape and kill her. Dead animals are left in her mailbox. The life and career she had built is destroyed in the matter of a few days.

This was a coordinated attack. What people did not know at the time was that guys from 4 chan, 8chan, reddit, and other places planned and coordinated these attacks. Chat logs from IRC channels show that they discussed how to hack her, who her friends and family were, and where to release information to cause the most damage. They also understood that they needed to give the internet something else to focus on. This is where the hashtag GamerGate comes from. The allegations from the exboyfriend that she traded sex for a positive game review, which again never existed, prompted the attackers to focus on what was called ethics in gaming. People in the gaming industry doing reviews for friends, paying for positive coverage, etc. It’s not that these things do not exist at some capacity, but the people who started this entire endeavor were attacking and abusing people, understanding that publicly they needed to make it about something else. They even discussed donating to a charity to give their so called movement good PR. All of this based on a lie and trusting a story from a random guy trying to get revenge on his ex girlfriend.

The attacks on the original woman, as well as many others, still continue today. Gaming websites like Polygon and Kotaku were under constant attack in their comment sections from the same mob. GamerGate received coverage from the mainstream media like CNN and MSNBC. The Guardian, Washington Post, and the New York Times all ran stories about it.

At the time this seemed like a concentrated issue. But there had been something simmering waiting to explode for years. Internet culture had been metastasizing for some time with anti-feminine ideology, Men’s Rights Activism, and much more. GamerGate was just the perfect moment in time where it all came together. In 2017 we see this type of abuse everyday. Mob mentality rules places like Twitter. A couple retweets from the right people, or wrong people, and somebody is getting ambushed from all corners of the internet. This happens no matter what type of ideology you subscribe to. What led us to GamerGate and how the internet currently functions? What was happening in the years leading up to 2014 and GamerGate? And how did the circumstances come together so perfectly and become so potent?

Next week on TheDecidedGamer podcast.

Check out this episode!

#gaming #podcast #twitch #youtube #sony #playstation #PC #xbox #microsoft

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yarrowmagdalena · 5 years

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Hey dream babes, thank you so much for your patience with this Daydreaming Wolves episode - I think it was totally worth it! I am sending you my conversation with Miel Rose of @flameandhoneycomb , which was really wonderful and had both giggles and depth. Here is what we talked about: ⠀ ⠀ 🦌Yearning for intimacy with the landscape ⠀ 🦌Eclectic magic magic⠀ 🦌Lemonbalm and Mugwort as allies⠀ 🦌Sharing between plant and human bodies⠀ 🦌How magic supports folks who live with experiences of isolation, chronic illness and suicidal ideation ⠀ 🦌Receiving support in building authentic devotional practices⠀ 🦌Staying embodied in this time and place⠀ 🦌Miel's beautiful year long class⠀ ⠀ Miel Rose is a rural, working class femme raised by hippies in the wilds of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. She is a textile artist, medicine maker, magic skills teacher, and an intuitive guidance giver who believes in her effectiveness as a wounded healer. She was raised with a strong anti-capitalist/anti-consumer ethic, which is to say that she believes in cultivating reciprocal relationships with the world around us vs. seeing the world as inert matter for our consumption. She believes in an intersectional view of systemic oppression, which is to say that she believes we are living within the death throes of a soul eating civilization whose main expressions are rape culture, colonization and genocide, white supremacy, hatred for queerness and gender variance, life destroying class disparity, and general ecocide, all of which are interlocking tentacles of the same beast. She believes that it is impossible to survive in this system without accruing some form of trauma, that personal traumatic happenings are related to systemic oppression, and that a “culture” that is based on systemic oppression is traumatizing in and of itself. She believes in centering trauma in magical work, and that committing to the process of healing our trauma is a magical act, one that ripples out through time and space.⠀ ⠀ Find the iTunes link in my profile, head to DaydreamingWolves.com or search for the podcast on Soundcloud!⠀ ⠀ #DaydreamingWolves #embodiment #plantmagic #selfcarerituals #queermagic #healingtrauma https://ift.tt/2Bit0wM

#IFTTT #Instagram Hey dream babes #thank you so much for your patience with this Daydreaming Wolves e

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iyarpage · 6 years

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Why Design Is Bad For Designers (And How To Fix That)

If you’re like most talented designers, you have an eye for aesthetics. You understand beauty, design, and symmetry at an almost fundamental level. It’s not just a nice-to-have, it’s an essential component that shapes how you see the world.

That’s the problem.

Most of the people around you, the people you work with, don’t get it. They don’t have an eye for design. They don’t understand the principles of design.

Designers Are Often Punished For Their Talents

Many designers are abused, neglected and taken for granted. It’s not supposed to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way, but for many creatives, it is.

Designing Is Amazing, When You’re In Control

Most of the time, you’re not in control are you? Most of the time you’re asked to create something you know isn’t very good. How many times have you heard a variation of, “Make it pop?” But, it’s more than that.

As a designer, you have an eye for aesthetics. You’re unconsciously aware of form, structure and layout in a way that non-designers are not. If you’re like most designers, you see the elements of design everywhere. If you’re a talented designer you’re orderly, observant and intelligent. You see and understand far more details than you share. It’s the hallmark of a brilliant designer.

Here’s why this is a problem.

Designers Are Consistently Required To Create Ugly, Poorly Performing Work For Incompetent People

When I say ugly I’m not just talking about work that’s visually unappealing. I’m talking about work that creates confusion, stress or anxiety in users. Work that pushes users and your employer further away from the goals they’re trying to achieve.

Non-designers have this bad habit.

They seem to believe they’re capable designers, that their expertise in one area, like say accounting, marketing, or investing, is automatically transferable to design. “It’s just design” they tell themselves. How hard can it be?

Non-designers wrap their awful requests in comments like these:

“I know you need four days to do this but it’s an easy project. You’re a decent designer so this shouldn’t be too hard for you to get this done in the next half hour. I mean come on, you should be grateful you even have a job. There are plenty of designers who’d love to have the opportunities you have. Just be grateful for the work you have.”

Maybe you’ve heard something similar?

Here’s the thing. Gratitude isn’t a cure for dysfunction. It’s a necessary and natural part of success.

Why design == suffering

Does design really == suffering?

It doesn’t, at least not in a healthy environment.

Okay, what does a healthy environment look like? It’s one where designers are given the freedom and constraints they need to create new things, to dream up new ideas. This typically includes a few essential ingredients.

Clear boundaries to work within. The do’s and don’ts. Clear instructions on the amount and types of risks you can take with your design. When to take these risks, why you’d go about taking them and when you shouldn’t. Boundaries can also include design philosophies (e.g. minimalism, simplicity) and values.

Frameworks to follow. A clear rationale that outlines the design process you follow on your team. Policies and procedures that outline how you go about creating consistently great work. Tools and resources used by your team to produce that work. Styles, samples and libraries (e.g. Zurb’s Foundation) used as a reference point.

Guidance and corrective feedback. Both inexperienced and experienced designers will make mistakes. As designers, we may run into a scenario where we’re happy with something that isn’t up to standard. Other times we may focus our attention on details that don’t move everyone towards their desired goals.

Ongoing training and support. Personal and professional development that increases your abilities and develops skills with new tools. Support when you run into trouble or need help. Strategic and tactical content that teaches you the when, why, and how concepts in design.

At first glance these seem pretty obvious, don’t they?

But they’re really not.

What happens when these ingredients are missing? Work shifts from a supportive environment to an oppressive one.

Oppressive environments create and maintain suffering

Your workplace runs on motivation. The more “engaged” people are at work, the better they perform. That’s the problem. Research shows most people are “disengaged at work.” That’s basically a roundabout way of saying most people hate their jobs.

Not surprising, is it? Here’s why.

Most Workplaces Rely On A Poor Motivation Strategy; The Carrot Or The Stick

Do what your boss wants (even if it’s horrible, soul sucking and tedious) and you get to keep your job. You receive some kind of financial reward. Resist and you’re punished. You’re hammered with more terrible work, placed on a PIP, demoted, or fired.

This is how we’re “motivated” at work.

Not very motivating is it? In fact, it’s this kind of poor motivation that’s created an environment of disloyalty.

In Drive, Daniel Pink’s bestselling book on motivation, Pink shares the secret behind motivation. Motivation, as it turns out, is based on three specific ingredients.

Autonomy. Our desire and ability to be self directed, to control our work to a certain extent.

Mastery. The ability to improve our skills as designers, to gain control and supremacy over our craft.

Purpose. The desire to create meaningful work that serves a greater goal.

As designers, how many of us actually can say we have this at work? If the research I shared above is accurate, not many. The question then, is why. Here’s a few of the most common reasons.

Design by non-designer. The designer’s work is consistently critiqued by non-designers who consistently ask the designers to violate their training, conscience, abilities. Their work is belittled, diminished or invalidated.

Dysfunctional management. Managers and clients make unreasonable requests due to their lack of knowledge, a misunderstanding of the basics and/or poor management. It makes sense then that 50 percent of employees quit their job to get away from a horrible boss.

Conflict between creating and selling. Many designers and developers despise sales and marketing teams. It’s hard to create meaningful work or feel you’re serving a greater purpose when you’re asked to lie, deceive, or manipulate users.

Doing trivial work that doesn’t seem to matter much to users, employers or yourself.

(This isn’t a comprehensive list.)

As it stands, designers hate their jobs for a variety of reasons.

“There’s nothing you can do to fix this…”

This is just the way things are. It’s a common objection that—fortunately for designers—is completely untrue. There’s a lot designers can do to fix a miserable situation. Why do so many designers believe their situation is hopeless?

Perception.

Many designers have been mistreated for so long, that they’ve simply accepted a lie. That this is normal, the way things are. But this isn’t the case everywhere. The good news, there is a way for designers to fix this problem. The bad news? Many designers will find a reason why the solution won’t work.

What’s the solution?

Creating results.

That’s it?! That’s the amazing solution I’ve been talking up all this time? It sounds like a complete waste of time, I know. While it sounds like generic and unhelpful advice there’s a whole lot more to this. When it comes to results there are two kinds:

Conventional results build trust and security. Being great at your job, going above and beyond, working well with others, etc. If you’re a designer whose work is excellent, you’re reliable and you’re someone your team knows they can count on.

Transformative results build trust and power. Results that make things better for your employer, the industry or users as a whole. It can be as simple as solving a unique problem for other designers, creating something helpful that others find valuable or creating something significant and meaningful.

Here’s why these results matter. Results give you more control. Remember earlier when I said, “designing is amazing, when you’re in control?” This is what I’m talking about. Giving those around you (your employer, clients, co-workers, users) what they want means they grow to depend on you.

When your employer depends on you they’re far more likely to give you the freedom and control you need to do amazing work. You know what conventional results, i.e. doing a good job at work, looks like. But what do transformative results look like?

Let’s look at three examples.

Shouldiworkforfree.com

Jessica Hische, a letterer, illustrator and type designer saw a common problem in her industry. Designers were being abused. Clients promise designers more work if they’ll do the first design project for free. New designers fell for it. Hische ran into this problem herself and finally decided to do something about.

She created shouldiworkforfree.com.

It went viral. Her simple flowchart hit a designer sore spot. Her chart was covered on AdWeek, Fast Company, LifeHacker and other top 500 sites. The change was transformative. It cemented her status as an “expert.” It also gave her a tremendous amount of trust and power.

Clients came to her with a “you’re the expert, what should I do?” attitude.

Ruby on Rails

David Heinemeier Hanson, designer and developer at 37Signals, used the Ruby programming language to build Basecamp. David extracted Ruby on Rails from his work on Basecamp and released it as open source. Ruby on Rails would be used by companies like Hulu, Shopify, Twitch, AirBnB and SoundCloud.

More than 4,500 people have contributed code to Rails. David has created transformative change by simply sharing his work. He’s created something that impacts the lives of literally billions of users every day.

TastyTuts

Gareth David had a simple idea. He wanted to create tutorials for the creative community. As an educreator, he creates in-depth, beautifully done tutorials and he shared them for free on YouTube. It’s something that lots of other people have done.

 Gareth stands out because his quality is outstanding, his tutorials are comprehensive. He takes beginners, helps them progress to competent intermediate designers and builds them up to knowledgeable pros. He’s focused on giving to others and the comments on his videos show he’s making transformative change.

youtube

Here’s the thing with transformative change…

It doesn’t have to be difficult and it doesn’t have to be hard. The sky’s the limit. If you’re creating something valuable for other people, something that solves a problem in a unique way, it’s transformative.   Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Write a book

Contribute guest posts/content [Ed: to sites like ours!]

Start a podcast and/or be a podcast guest

Create flow charts and infographics

Create helpful code

Design free templates, fonts, icons, or asset packs

Post helpful explainer and tutorial videos on YouTube

Create regular research studies on design topics

Offer free/paid workshops at libraries, community colleges, universities

Create helpful partnerships, meetups, or events

Bring helpful deals, ideas, or applications to your employer

Can you see the secret behind these ideas? It’s value. If you’d like to regain control over your work you’ll need to know how to provide value.

This is the big secret we aren’t taught in school

The world is driven by value. The more valuable you are to those around you, the more influence, power and control you’ll have over your work as a designer.  

What about you? You’re running around doing everything for everyone else. What’s in it for you? What will you get out of it? It’s a legitimate question with a wonderful answer.   It’s up to you.

Want to work from home? Earn a pay raise or the freedom to try new things? To work on amazing projects and receive preferential treatment? Provide so much value that your employer, your clients simply can’t afford to lose you? Then use the value formula to get what you need.

It goes like this:

Create X dollars of value for your employer, co-workers and users.

Capture Y percent of X.

That’s it.

It’s simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

If you’re in a miserable place where you lack the autonomy, mastery or purpose you need, find a different job. Then, work on yourself. Can you fix a problem that gets you recognition in your industry? Get to work. Think you have the makings of a great teacher? Show us.

Is Designing Bad For Designers?

If you’re not exceptional it could be bad for you. Exceptional designers aren’t like everybody else. They’re not special. They’re not untouchable.

These designers are exceptional because they use the value formula.

Employers, clients – they fight to keep them. Users gravitate towards their work. They’re paid well – more than their co-workers. They have more control over their work and their environment, whether they’re freelance or employed.

This sounds like a myth, but it’s reality for many designers

You can have it too.

Being a designer doesn’t have to be painful. Your employers and co-workers don’t have to understand structure, aesthetics or usability the way you do. They just have to trust you. Trust, as we’ve seen, comes from value. The more value you create for those around you, the more freedom, control and power you receive.

Because designing is better when it’s focused on value.

Ratatouille 2: Delicious Scene Creator – only $14!

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unixcommerce · 6 years

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Why Design Is Bad For Designers (And How To Fix That)

That’s the problem.

Most of the people around you, the people you work with, don’t get it. They don’t have an eye for design. They don’t understand the principles of design.

Designers Are Often Punished For Their Talents

Many designers are abused, neglected and taken for granted. It’s not supposed to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way, but for many creatives, it is.

Designing Is Amazing, When You’re In Control

Here’s why this is a problem.

Designers Are Consistently Required To Create Ugly, Poorly Performing Work For Incompetent People

Non-designers have this bad habit.

Non-designers wrap their awful requests in comments like these:

Maybe you’ve heard something similar?

Here’s the thing. Gratitude isn’t a cure for dysfunction. It’s a necessary and natural part of success.

Why design == suffering

Does design really == suffering?

It doesn’t, at least not in a healthy environment.

At first glance these seem pretty obvious, don’t they?

But they’re really not.

What happens when these ingredients are missing? Work shifts from a supportive environment to an oppressive one.

Oppressive environments create and maintain suffering

Not surprising, is it? Here’s why.

Most Workplaces Rely On A Poor Motivation Strategy; The Carrot Or The Stick

This is how we’re “motivated” at work.

Not very motivating is it? In fact, it’s this kind of poor motivation that’s created an environment of disloyalty.

In Drive, Daniel Pink’s bestselling book on motivation, Pink shares the secret behind motivation. Motivation, as it turns out, is based on three specific ingredients.

Autonomy. Our desire and ability to be self directed, to control our work to a certain extent.

Mastery. The ability to improve our skills as designers, to gain control and supremacy over our craft.

Purpose. The desire to create meaningful work that serves a greater goal.

As designers, how many of us actually can say we have this at work? If the research I shared above is accurate, not many. The question then, is why. Here’s a few of the most common reasons.

Doing trivial work that doesn’t seem to matter much to users, employers or yourself.

(This isn’t a comprehensive list.)

As it stands, designers hate their jobs for a variety of reasons.

“There’s nothing you can do to fix this…”

Perception.

What’s the solution?

Creating results.

Let’s look at three examples.

Shouldiworkforfree.com

She created shouldiworkforfree.com.

Clients came to her with a “you’re the expert, what should I do?” attitude.

Ruby on Rails

TastyTuts

Here’s the thing with transformative change…

Write a book

Contribute guest posts/content [Ed: to sites like ours!]

Start a podcast and/or be a podcast guest

Create flow charts and infographics

Create helpful code

Design free templates, fonts, icons, or asset packs

Post helpful explainer and tutorial videos on YouTube

Create regular research studies on design topics

Offer free/paid workshops at libraries, community colleges, universities

Create helpful partnerships, meetups, or events

Bring helpful deals, ideas, or applications to your employer

Can you see the secret behind these ideas? It’s value. If you’d like to regain control over your work you’ll need to know how to provide value.

This is the big secret we aren’t taught in school

The world is driven by value. The more valuable you are to those around you, the more influence, power and control you’ll have over your work as a designer.  

It goes like this:

Create X dollars of value for your employer, co-workers and users.

Capture Y percent of X.

That’s it.

It’s simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Is Designing Bad For Designers?

If you’re not exceptional it could be bad for you. Exceptional designers aren’t like everybody else. They’re not special. They’re not untouchable.

These designers are exceptional because they use the value formula.

This sounds like a myth, but it’s reality for many designers

You can have it too.

Because designing is better when it’s focused on value.

Ratatouille 2: Delicious Scene Creator – only $14!

Source p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;} .alignleft {float:left;} p.showcase {clear:both;} body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;}

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