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everything-laito · 3 years

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damn the brain be out here going BRRRRRR here’s the Laito and Cordelia Analysis (with a little bit of Karl sprinkled in) Part III

wow my fingers are freezing but my brain sure isn't!

aaaanyways, iiiiiit’s trauma time!!! Am I a productive member of society by writing these analyses? No. Do I gain anything by writing them? Kinda, my brain gets exercised and they’re fun to research for. But if you haven’t read the first part or the second part for some reason (I recommend reading them in order), there they are.

Once again, trigger warnings still apply; mainly about trauma, isolation, etc

I’m gonna talk about the trauma and effects it had on Laito and to attempt to extrapolate why he is the way he is. I have a lot of examples I want to go over and stuff to talk about, so I think the trauma part is going to be split between two (or maybe three) parts. I also have a little bit to say about Karlheinz.

As always, big ass rant under the cut!

Section 6: Neuroplasticity and Trauma

Oh???? More science vernacular??? You BET! Ok, neuroplasticity. I know I’ve talked about it on this blog. But, I seriously doubt that there is a madlad who has read all of my analyses (speaking of which, I should update the master list lmao) and I don’t expect anyone to do that LOL! Anyways, this neurological concept is the ability of neurons to adapt to certain circumstances or stimuli by creating new neurological pathways (through synapses). This basically relates to memory and learning. It’s why we don’t stay the same person as we grow and develop. It’s responsible from mindset changes to response to traumatic events. It plays a huge part in trauma, which is why “repressed memories” occur as well.

Trauma, taken from Psychology Today, is defined as:

...the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event. Sufferers may develop emotional disturbances such as extreme anxiety, anger, sadness, survivor’s guilt, or PTSD.

It’s a basic definition. And although I’d assume people would know what trauma is already, but knowing the lexical definition of something can be good to know before going into it.

Obviously, Laito has trauma, there’s literally no refuting that. But, the point I’m getting at, is the reason why he is the way he is today is because of neuroplasticity. As previously stated, we are going to assume the DL vampire brain works similarly or the same as a human brain. So, because of the stress put upon the brain (Cordelia’s actions and Laito’s general upbringing in a stress filled household), Laito’s brain was rewired (neuroplasticity). This section doesn’t really have much new information, but I wanted to give a baseline since there’s many people who don’t know what neuroplasticity is.

Laito’s definitely different than what he was as a kid. He still kind of had his smarts, and might have been but as we’ve deducted from the first part of this series, he might have been groomed. On top of that, the brain is easily moldable when you’re a child (which is why grooming makes sense for Laito’s case), and continues to snip brain cells off and form new connections.

Section 7: Little intermission about Karlheinz

I know I haven’t really talked about Karlheinz yet. So this will be the section that I do it in. I know this part is about Laito’s trauma, but it’s so hard to not just weave other characters into it. Nothing is stand-alone, which is why it was so hard for me to plan this out. I was debating about saving this for another analysis, but I feel like it fits.

I referenced this in Part II, Section 5 of this analysis series. Basically, Karlheinz throws Laito into the dungeon and locks him up. Not Karlheinz personally, but he ordered someone to do it. We don’t explicitly know why, but there’s several implications. A huge one is that it was part of Karlheinz’ experiment. Before Dark Fate, I was like “wait, so did Karl find out about Laito/Cordelia? And got like jealous or was like ‘nah this shit fucked up no thanks’?” I was really scratching my head on that. But in Dark Fate, you find that Karlheinz knew about Cordelia and Laito, and even really wanted it to happen. Which is all sorts of fucked up. This really put Laito in for a loop. Here’s a scene from Dark Fate:

Laito: That woman always, always believed in Karlheinz. Laito: She believed he married her because he loved her, wanted her. That’s why she was sure that one day... he will give his love only to her. Laito: But she was tricked. She wasn’t loved from the start... Laito: -And I’m a victim of this unbelievable mistake... That’s how it is. Laito: I was treated as a vent for her feelings. Yui: ...Laito-kun... Laito: I’m sure he knew that something like this will happen... He is a god after all... Laito: I was hoping that... He just overlooked it up until now... Laito: But... I was naive. Laito: I was only planned a scapegoat.

God, when I played this, that just freaking struck me to my core. That’s so awful. Ironically... Karlheinz probably has some high level of emotional intelligence. I don’t believe he could be labeled as a sociopath, considering he has this high level understanding of pathos. He’s not god in a sense that he controls everyone individually himself. He’s so good at manipulation that he basically creates fate itself (whether you believe in it or not). He’s generally intelligent and cunning, and it also just helps with the fact that he’s immortal and can time travel. He knows cause and effect by now, and I believe Lost Eden said something about how he’s done so many different “timelines.”

The definition of a god in a philosophical sense can be broken down into three words: omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. More wicked cool jargon! Yay! Here’s what they mean for extra clarification:

Omniscient: All knowing Omnipresent: All seeing Omnipotent: All doing

Sure Karlheinz doesn’t absolutely know everything, nor can see everything, and he definitely has limits to his power, but he has gained knowledge through living for so many years and time traveling; he has familiars which add to the whole “all seeing” part; and he has a lot of power. So basically, in the most semi-”realistic” sense, it would definitely be the closest being to any kind of god.

Karlheinz is probably the reason why Laito himself has such contempt towards religion, and the existence of a god in general. Sure, the boys are like “that shit’s made up by humans” in general, but it would make sense for Laito himself to have that specific hatred. It makes sense that these vampires would be like “oh that’s made up by humans” when they’ve been around forever and have seen multiple religions come and go. (I’m mainly talking about in DL’s lore case, not starting a religious argument; please don’t take it as such––just to clarify)

Section 8: Isolation

Originally, the previous part was going to be about Laito’s isolation being locked up. However, I went off the rails and it turned into that little intermission. This is going to be a shorter section, but I still wanted to talk about, and it will weave into the next section.

There is no implications about how long Laito was locked up (and tortured) in the dungeon. There’s also no implications about why he was tortured. But torture and isolation puts such stress on the brain that there’s definitely going to be some kind of outcome if persisting for a good period of time. So let’s take a look at what that does to a person.

Once again, taking this with a grain of salt. I imagine vampires don’t need to rely on social interaction as much as humans do, considering they live forever. But we don’t know. However, throwing Laito into a state of isolation implies that it would be some type of torture or harsh punishment for a vampire, which therefore implies that social interaction is a necessity for emotional function. It’s just sound, inductive logic.

So now, as for isolation, I’m using this article as reference. It’s a pretty interesting one to read. Here’s another extensive article as well. Basically isolation can cause:

Depression/anxiety

Immune system deficiencies (basically more likely to get physically ill)

Sleep cycle changes (if put underground or with limited natural light)

Hallucinations

Paranoia

Issues with processing information and more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation

We have no clue if Laito’s experience fits all of these. Also, the second one can be crossed out because vampires in DL can’t get physically sick in the way we can. Also, unsure about the sleep cycle stuff considering they are used to being in the dark. Hallucinations and paranoia can’t be crossed off nor proven.

Being isolated physically and mentally exhausts the mind, which is why it’s also a way of torture. Laito implies that he was tortured with physical devices, but regardless, it’s still stress on the mind. This type of stress definitely goes along with what was mentioned with neuroplasticity and trauma, which also supports the last bullet point: issues processing information and being more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation. Take this flashback from Maniac Prologue in HDB that I used in Part II section 5 (but here’s even more context):

Laito: ーー Let me go!! Let me out of here! Butler: I can’t, young lord. We’ve received strict orders from your father. I am deeply sorry, but please stay put for a while. Laito: What’s the point in having me chained up in here!? Butler: ーーI am very sorry. Laito: Hahahaha…You stupid old man! Do you think that this will make repent!? How foolish! That demon! Has his brain finally rotten from spending too much time with humans!? ー Cordelia appears Cordelia: ー Oh? Laito: …!? Have you come to save me? Cordelia: Oh dear. Ufufu…I’m sorry Laito, that isn’t it. Laito: Eh? Richter: ー Why are you here? Laito: …That’s my line. Cordelia: Okay, okay. No fighting! More importantly, Richter…Come here. Laito: …!? Cordelia: Nnn…Hey, Laito. You are a good boy. Laito: …!! Cordelia: Right, Laito? Laito: Yeah, that’s right. I’m…I’m a good boy after all. ーー Besides, I’m the type of person who only get more aroused from this kind of thing.

Although I also use this to support the whole Stockholm syndrome point, this could also be supported with the trauma isolation also holds. His mind is being re-molded into the facade he holds. Also, note the whole “do you think this will make me repent?!” part. Just a very interesting thing. The word “repent” implies that there’s something to feel guilty about or the person knows that what they’ve done is bad. It just goes to show that Laito has some part of guilt or moral compass still in tact.

You can also argue that this scene was when Laito just got locked up, or he’s been here for a while. Either way, he could have also been socially isolated before this too, just hanging around Cordelia like it’s implied when he was a child. Remember the whole not being in bed 9/10 times when he was a child? Yeah, controlled social isolation. We also rarely see Laito with other characters in his flashbacks. I don’t believe we see him with his brothers in any of his flashbacks from what I can recall; he’s usually with Cordelia. Just implies (to me) that he’s around her a lot. And being locked up is also a more extreme case of that, which would mold the brain even more.

I know that was a LOT to process and read. I sure hope this still is cohesive for you all. I’m pretty bad at organizing this kind of stuff; it’s a bit difficult since it all just goes together. Which, kudos on the writers of DL, because that’s just good writing. I was going to put something about gaslighting in this part, but that might be too long, so I’m going to make that a separate part or include it in the next part.

If you have any questions, feel free to just put it in the inbox. I’m planning on making the last part of this series answering all the Laito/Cordelia questions I’ve received, or just general questions pertaining to this analysis in general, whether it be tangential questions or clarifying questions.

Hope you all are still enjoying this ride as much as I am! -Corn

#analysis #diabolik lovers analysis #diabolik lovers #dialovers #dialover #laito sakamaki #sakamaki laito #raito sakamaki #sakamaki raito

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tarhalindur · 3 years

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Higurashi Gou final thoughts pt. 1

(Spoilers go under a cut:)

Taking this by arc:

Onidamashi-hen: The best executed first cour arc by a significant margin. Probably not coincidentally, it stays the closest to the structure of the OG arc and thus keeps more of OG’s tension ratchet than the other Gou arcs. I have two main issues, and I’m pretty sure both of them can be firmly pinned on the anime staff rather than Ryukishi07 himself. First, it pulls its punch on the stealth sequel aspect. I’m not entirely sure that going for a stealth sequel was the correct decision (it’s a cost/benefit tradeoff), but if you do you’re going for the wham of the sequel reveal, and the anime undercut this by putting the Rika/Hanyuu scene at the start of episode 2 rather than the end of the arc. Second, it overdoes the final Rena fight, making it so over-the-top that it’s difficult to take seriously. Neither of these issues exist in the manga (which has a believable amount of stabbing and has the Hanyuu scene at the end of the arc where it should be), and in the former case we also have a Ryukishi07 interview indicating that this was a change requested by the anime staff, so this goes on them. (Interestingly, by way of contrast I think this approach might actually work well for the Mieruko-chan adaptation that Passione has coming out later this year.)

Watadamashi-hen: The core issue here (above and beyond fridge logic after Satokowaski-hen) is the finale, which landed like a wet fart. It both escalates from zero to 100 *way* too fast and has the worst case of “tell don’t show” in the neo-question arcs - we learn about every single dead body in the arc from Ooishi’s end-of-arc narration. That’s relatively defensible for three of those bodies, which we only learn about secondhand even in OG Watanagashi-hen (though IIRC in OG two of those bodies have foreshadowing from rumors earlier in the arc, and unless I’m forgetting something that’s absent here), but all five? Yes, keeping Keiichi locked away from the final showdown removes fridge logic issues, but you have prominent security cameras - you can at least have him see the aftermath of the showdown on the screens (and freak out because of it). Adding insult to injury, the Keiichi vs. door scenes are also so over-the-top as to damage willing suspension of disbelief. The 0-to-100 issue is harder to fix, because the one thing Watadamashi did right was put the Rika-loses-it scene as an end-of-episode cliffhanger, and “Keiichi et. al. are about to enter the Saiguden” probably wanted an end-of-episode cliffhanger as well for discussion purposes (it might have been able to get away with using the commercial break). The simplest fix is the same one @tsuisou-no-despair floated: cannibalize an episode off of another first cour arc.

Tataridamashi-hen: Amusingly, I think Gou has retained OG’s tradition of having the Tatari- question arc being the weakest question arc. As I see it there are two interlocking core issues here which boil down to the same issue. Tataridamashi-hen goes for a very unconventional method of building tension: it doesn’t, instead relying on the viewer’s realization that something bad has to be coming to do so for it (the old “that can’t be right, we’ve still got twenty minutes left in the episode” reaction I more commonly associate with things like police procedurals). The problem is that this runs into the Endless Eight lesson: even flawless metatext should not be used at the expense of enjoyability of the actual text. And while the arc got some leverage out of “when exactly is this going to diverge?”, there’s a point much like Endless Eight itself when you realize where it’s going to diverge (i.e, not until the end) and that until then you’re sitting through the same events you remember from OG. It works about as well as it did for Haruhi. (Unless you’re a new viewer, but in that case staying too close to Minagoroshi-hen has other issues.) Worse, unlike Minagoroshi-hen itself (which did something similar to build tension but a) non-source readers hadn’t seen it before so it wasn’t foregone the same way and b) you had several more episodes after the subarc for the main event) the arc ends almost immediately after this. (The simplest fix here might have been cutting down on the arc time by speedrunning Minagoroshi events, reducing the amount of time you’d have to wait. You could even have a couple of obstacles collapse faster than expected; this late in the first cour it would serve as foreshadowing for Satokowashi-hen, and would also deal with unfortunate implications concerning the village’s prejudice considering that the staff knew Satoko was going to be the culprit. Trimming an episode would also neatly solve the issue of where to get an additional episode for Watadamashi-hen from!) The good news is that the final confrontation is the best of the first cour arcs (it’s somewhat more realistic than the other two, actually not that far behind some of the more memetastic OG moments except for Teppei’s eyes, and not showing Ooishi’s rampage is forgivable given that they knew they would be actually showing it in Nekodamashi-hen), but that’s damning with faint praise.

Nekodamashi-hen: The best Gou arc. The episode 15 jump cut is the stuff of legends and the best scene in the show by a sizable margin (the one thing the director does well is black humor, it seems), while the rest of the arc isn’t as good, it’s far shorter on demerits than the rest of the show. The one really, really obvious demerit is that they really didn’t need to spend half an episode on the intestines-ripping scene (if Ryukishi07′s comments are to be believed, once again we’re pinning this on Passione), but effects on my stomach aside there are worse issues to have.

Satokowashi-hen: And here we have the other side of the coin; this is the worst Gou arc, and it’s the one spot where I’m pretty sure Ryukishi07 himself gets some of the blame. There’s a few issues here. First, the single most obvious dangling plot thread from Matsuribayashi-hen (Satoshi’s fate) is effectively dropped despite being directly relevant to the other dangling thread that was picked up (how Rika treats Satoko and vice versa); this includes missing an opportunity to show Satoko’s character arc through different responses to learning about Satoshi’s condition. Secondly and compounding, Shion is also dropped along with the Satoshi thread; AIUI this is kind of understandable given final Satoko/Shion interaction in the Matsuribayashi-hen VN (which IIRC never made it into the anime), but dropping her without explanation still leaves something that looks awfully like a plot hole since a single conversation with Shion is potentially enough to stop the events of this arc from ever happening. (”Character X had information that would have stopped the tragedy but never had an opportunity to tell anyone” is a classic tragedy trope, but you should really have a *reason* for that character never having the opportunity as opposed to just having them vanish without explanation.) Finally, there’s just the general issue that while the ending points for both Rika and Satoko are reasonable the path they take to get there just doesn’t quite add up. I can kind of get there via a combination of “blame the director” (the loops montage could and should have easily shown Satoko’s deteriorating mental condition as she watched - using interlaced cuts to her face with changes in facial expression is a classic method) and mind caulk (Rika was exaggerating for effect when she described her desire to go to St. Lucia’s as a long-time thing and it only really kicked in after Matsuribayashi-hen, Satoko originally only planned to suicide in Matsuribayashi-2 and only took Rika out with her as a crime of passion after feeling betrayed, hence the next few loops lacking her murdering Rika) but being mind-caulkable is not the same as actual good execution.

I mean, I’ve banged on this drum before, but... the basic concept works. Really well. Satoko’s abandonment issues and Rika’s treatment of Satoko are two of the major dangling plot threads from OG Higurashi (*eyes both Minagoroshi-hen and anime-only Yakusamashi-hen*). It makes perfectly good sense that the latter comes back to bite Rika, especially in a sequel literally titled “karma”. I already suspected Satoko was on the autism spectrum based on OG, her being ADHD in addition to or instead of that makes perfectly good sense given those conditions often overlap. Rika’s desire to escape the well morphing into a desire to escape Hinamizawa entirely? Sure, just present it as that. Satoko steadily losing her support network as her friends are torn away from her by changing life circumstances, then going to a boarding school that she hates, that strips the rest of her support structure for her and starts to take even her one remaining friend (her childhood friend, no less - and one that Satoko is at this point attracted to romantically in true osananajimi fashion) away from her, and then starting to snap with some prodding from a certain witch? That’s a compelling story idea! But as present it just doesn’t quite work, and that’s on the execution.

(Side note: I wonder if some of what went wrong with Gou was just the kind of production issues endemic to modern anime, amplified by the pandemic. I remember at least one comment/blog post somewhere in the wake of WEP’s issues noting some of the effects that production issues can have on an anime, and one of the things they noted was excessive slavishness to the source material as a time-saving measure; that sounds awfully similar to some of Ryukishi07′s comments about how he didn’t expect Passione to take his script quite so literally, and to my admittedly untrained eye it sure looked like there were a bunch more other animation studios than usual mentioned in Gou’s credits...)

Final score: depends on your exact rating system, but given the range I’m looking at I can’t see how I can give it any score other than 3.4/5 for obvious reasons. (Pending Sotsu, anyways. It’s possible that Sotsu will resolve some of these issues - in particular, Ryukishi07 always has struck me as the kind of author who would get a kick into baiting us into falling for the same twist twice; it’s not impossible that the apparent lack of unreliable narrators so far is a double bluff, and that could affect the “question arc” scores in particular. More on this in a forthcoming solution space post.)

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phoenixfell · 4 years

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Protecting Yourself & Creating a Good Experience

An unfortunate post necessitated by recent events. The unfortunate truth of reality is that we, as non-psychic human beings, are unable to determine with certainty the motives of other humans around us. If someone claims to have good intentions but are hurting you, are they simply presenting themselves poorly or are they lying entirely? This is a question you can never truly answer, but here I will guide you through some ways to protect yourself while being kind to yourself and others.

You may reblog this if you’d like.

Although this post was created specifically in response to the turmoil in the Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom, it’s not specific to this exact situation and the purpose is not to take a side. The purpose is to encourage everyone to do their part in ending hateful behavior and crafting a good community.

Contents:

0. Don’t send mean asks to people 1. Install an IP Tracker on your blog. 1.a (How to) Install an IP Blocker on your blog. 2. Curating your Experience 3. Making First Contact 4. Analyzing a Message 5. Fiction as Fiction VS Fiction as Reality 6. The Author’s Duty 7. Echo Chambers & Lateral Thinking 8. Accepting Differing Opinions 9. Good Intentions (Pave the Road to Hell) 10. Being Mean is Fun (so do it in non-harmful ways) 11. Morality (Personal, Community, and Legal)

0. Don’t send mean asks to people.

You know, I saw a post some time ago on the internet that basically said: Why do we see so many posts teaching people how to avoid being raped and virtually nothing telling people not to rape others? So, as obvious as this may sound, I’m going to give you a gentle reminder to not send mean asks to people.

Perhaps you are angry. Perhaps something else is bothering you. Perhaps you honestly feel like you are doing the right thing. These feelings are entirely valid and I understand. However, being mean to someone else on the internet is not going to solve anything. At best, it’s going to get you ignored and at worst, it’s going to actively escalate things.

If you feel down, depressed, or upset, consider this service: https://www.crisistextline.org/

US and Canada: text 741741 UK: text 85258 | Ireland: text 50808

It’s a confidential service that will help support you.

On the other hand, if you feel like you genuinely have a bone to pick with someone, take a step back. Get a cup of coffee, or tea; watch a YouTube video, and later on in this post we’ll discuss cooperative problem solving, the importance of word choice, and how to deescalate a situation.

1. Install an IP Tracker on your blog.

This is a very simple and completely legal process. The easiest way to do so is to sign up for Statcounter. This is a website for market and visitor analysis, but it does IP tracking for free, which is what we’re looking for. The site will even guide you through installing it. However--do not post it into the description. In my experiences, this does not work. Instead, click Edit HTML, search for <body>, and paste it directly underneath that.

For this to work most effectively, make sure that you have the Timestamps extension enabled within the inbox in XKit. If you do not have XKit installed, you can find directions on their Tumblr page, here: https://new-xkit-extension.tumblr.com/

1.a. (How to) Install an IP Blocker on your blog.

Although Tumblr claims to give you the ability to IP Block through the inbox by blocking anonymous asks, many people have expressed doubts that it actually works. Therefore, here’s an explanation showing you how to do it yourself. There are three steps to this, all taking place in the Edit HTML section we’ve left off in last section.

Directly below where the web analytics code above ends, paste this:

Directly below the previous command, paste this:

function ipBlock() { var ip = userip; //example: "0.0.0.0", "5.5.5.5", "3.3.3.3", var bannedips=[ "155.555.55.55" ]; var handleips=bannedips.join("|"); handleips=new RegExp(handleips, "i"); if (ip.search(handleips)!=-1){

window.location.replace("http://www.tumblr.com"); }

} </script>

You can customize this script in a few ways. First, bannedips needs to be the ip(s) you wish to block. You can add more by separating them by commas and enclosing them in quotes, as the example shows. Secondly, in the window.location.replace line, you can insert any valid address. Here are some suggestions I give people:

Tumblr homepage. Basic and effective.

A link to a Google search of something, e.g. How to not send mean asks on the internet

Your own tumblr blog, so they get stuck in a refresh loop

A similarly spelled but nonexistent blog, to give the illusion you deleted/moved

Finally, add onload=“ipBlock()” to your body tag:

That should be everything to get it working. If you want to test it, click the link in step two, copy and paste the IP address that is displayed into the bannedips, save, and visit your blog. If it’s working right, you should get thrown off.

If you don’t want your IP Block active, just remove step three and return your tag to <body>.

2. Curating Your Experience

Although Tumblr itself does not allow the functionality, there are ways to ensure that certain words do not appear on your dashboard. XKit has a blacklist feature which will hide posts containing certain words. Also of note is the wildcard feature, which is accessed by adding an asterisk after the word, ex.

nsfw -> Only blocks exactly that word and that tag nsfw* -> Will block any word or tag containing that phrase

However, I would like to gently notify you that there is significant research that actively avoiding content does more harm than good! Only you can know what is best for you, but there is a such thing as excessive avoidance.

3. Making First Contact

If there’s anything you take from this post, please let it be this one thing:

Always be kind. At first. Then tear them a new one if necessary.

The inevitable happens. As far as you can tell, you’re minding your own business on your blog. Your ask box lights up and you perk up, wondering which of your friends is reaching out to you.

Instead, the message is nasty, condemning you for your support of your favorite ship and the theme of your blog.

You’re upset, of course! And you have every right to be! You put a lot of time and effort into this blog and your ship, and to have someone so coldly butt in--you can feel the frustration mounting! Tears are glistening and your body trembles as you type up a strongly worded essay and--

Stop.

It’s okay.

Take a deep breath and step away from your emotions for a minute. Your emotions are valid-- but so are the sender’s.

Instead of starting a fight, be kind. It may hurt. You may not want to be, but I promise you it’s worth it. Here’s a template response:

Hi, anon. I’m really sorry that you feel this way about [thing] and will gladly take it into consideration in the future. Could you please tell me more about why you dislike [thing]? If you’d like to take some time to gather your thoughts, I’d be happy to discuss this issue with you.

Let me confess something. I don’t suggest this out of pure kindness. I suggest this because their response will tell you what you need to know. Remember how the intro talked about how people’s intentions are incredibly hard to figure out? This is a little trick I like to use to get them to play their cards.

There are three possible responses: They respond angrily, they respond kindly and respectfully, or they don’t respond at all.

In the first case, you may get something that resorts to expletives. They may call you names. They may tell you to delete your blog or any other amount of nasty things. It’s very likely that your very attempt at kindness will anger this person! This is a troll/bully whose sole interest is to get you upset and get themselves attention. At this point, you can safely delete and ignore the messages without any guilt.

In the second case, you have a person with a genuine grievance who just happened to address it poorly. Both of you have a duty to humanity to resolve the problem respectfully and politely. You’ve avoided escalating the conflict, you may learn something new and you may even make a new friend!

This also applies to reaching out to someone for the first time. You see someone doing something you don’t like. Oh, it just makes you blind with rage!

Again. I’m going to advise you to stop. Take a deep breath. No one responds well to name-calling and being condemned. There’s a few techniques you can use (see if you can spot them in the template message):

Listen to their opinions

Actively ask to hear their opinion

Ask for clarification

Validate the way they feel

Avoid casting blame

(These techniques work a lot in real life, too!)

Again, there are some genuinely scummy people in life! But, there are many, many more ignorant people. A gentle pointer goes much further than yelling and screaming.

4. Analyzing a Message

We’ve all been there. We’ve gotten a message and we’ve panicked--do they hate me now?! Is this a troll message or genuine criticism?!

Again. Relax. Push aside your emotions and focus on the logical words as they appear before you. Ask yourself if you are reading a tone that doesn’t exist. For example, not everyone puts active thought into choosing between “ok”, “Ok”, “okay”, “Okay”, “ok.” etc. Sometimes an ok is just that. An ok.

Break the message into parts. Find the logical structures and decipher them piece by piece. Someone who throws some very hurtful words into a message may indeed have a point, despite coming off as very crude. Accept that different parts of a message may mean different things. The world is very complicated and multifaceted. Try to avoid sticking labels to things.

5. Fiction as Fiction VS Fiction as Reality

I’ve seen a lot of arguments floating around recently that seem to think that these two ideas exist in a vacuum. It’s simply not true. The ideas are entwined intrinsically--Fiction is both fiction and reality. Fiction was created to mimic reality yet extend it far beyond what can happen in the confines of reality. What happens in reality impacts fiction and what happens in fiction impacts reality.

This is undeniable.

Both of these ideas exist, and as the author it is your duty to figure out what that means for you.

You cannot hide behind Fiction as Fiction to ignore your responsibilities as an author.

You cannot hide behind Fiction as Reality to promote censorship.

Both of these ideas are far too simple for the complicated world we live in. A complicated concept requires complicated solutions.

Every word you write has an impact on the people that reads it. This is the very definition of writing. We use writing as a tool to share emotions. Extend empathy. We use writing to make people cry, to make people laugh, to make people angry.

To deny that this impact exists is to deny what writing is.

But censorship is not an option. Censorship prevents these stories from being told, and quite frankly, no one should have the right to decide what story should and shouldn’t be told, regardless of what is in that story.

What is the solution then? There is no easy answer.

6. The Author’s Duty

When you put words before another human being, it becomes your responsibility as a moral individual to give your best effort into ensuring that those words have a positive impact on the individual.

This doesn’t mean not making them cry. Or not making them upset. It means ensuring that the morals you impart on them are sound and logical.

How one achieves this is up to you.

In general, tone makes all the difference. Writing murder in a positive light versus writing murder in a negative light can drastically alter how the audience perceives your scene.

Empathy, too, can help sway your audience. If your writing must involve racist police officers stopping a young black man, make sure you delve into how unfair this is, how terrifying it is, how this needs to change. Do not normalize it. Do not let it go by without a somber note indicating your awareness of the topic.

Sometimes, the solution is to simply avoid the issue. There are certain topics that only some individuals should write about, and that’s just how it is. This isn’t to say that you can’t write about it, but keep that writing private.

Most importantly, do your research, and ask for help and keep an open mind. It’s a grave responsibility and you may not do it right and that’s okay! Everyone is capable of learning. Everyone is capable of changing.

7. Echo Chambers & Lateral Thinking

An echo chamber is a phenomenon where an individual’s exposure to certain topics becomes self-enforcing because they don’t see, or actively avoid, differing opinions.

Echo chambers are also exactly what happens when a rift this massive opens in a small community.

When Orange blocks Green and starts posting about it, all of Orange’s friends decide whether they agree or not. The overwhelming majority, due to peer pressure, will agree. Many of them will then block Green and the users directly associated with them. In retaliation, Green will defend themselves. Because Orange’s group had already blocked Green, Green’s friends only seen Green’s point of view and will rise in response to the perceived slight.

What results are two heavily biased groups of users that refuse to communicate with one another and many individuals swept into the mess because they don’t wish to be isolated.

Even worse, it turns a complicated and multi-faceted issue into a binary issue. Either you agree with Orange or you agree with Green. The world is not this simple.

Instead, I would encourage everyone to practice lateral thinking of their own accord. I would encourage you to make your own decisions, rather than blindly supporting or condemning the people around you. Everyone has their own opinions about what is or isn’t okay, and that’s perfectly fine. Even your closest friends will have different opinions than you.

8. Accepting Differing Opinions

Once you’ve accepted these different opinions (good on you!) what do you do now? Simply put, the choice is on you! There’s a few options:

Quietly accept it

Respectfully debate it

Avoid it

Escalate it

The first two are pretty obvious, and the third one is where blocking people and the blacklist comes in.

The fourth one is extreme and only recommended for activities causing active, known, measurable harm to other people.

This involves actively seeking a legal entity to handle the issue.

Being mean to people on Tumblr is not a solution. Tumblr is not a place to pursue a justice agenda. There are bigger issues in the world, and I encourage you to find ways to make a difference that will actually be fruitful. Donate to charities. Extend yourself as support to victims. Contribute to research.

Changing the mind of strangers on the internet is not a good use of your time.

9. Good Intentions (Pave the Road To Hell)

This has been a phrase for a very long time.

What does it mean?

Well, I’ll offer my own interpretation.

It means that people often become absorbed with the idea that they are doing the right thing and forget to be mindful of the true consequences of their actions.

It doesn’t mean to not do good things. It means that good is relative and not everyone will find your actions good. It’s important to keep an open mind and realize that just because you think something is good, doesn’t mean everyone agrees.

10. Being Mean is Fun (so do it in non-harmful ways)

Yeah.

It’s okay. You can admit it.

Being mean is fun!

If it wasn’t fun, people wouldn’t do it! In fact, this very blog was created because I found that writing the character being mean was very enjoyable and cathartic!

So, if you find yourself tempted to be mean to people in your life, maybe find another way to get those emotions out. Hell, people on tumblr just might appreciate you taking up a nasty, villainous character that’ll tear their character up...

People love angst. You can take this bad thing and twist it into something good.

11. Morality (Personal, Community, and Legal)

Bringing this long post to a close, I would like you all to end by thinking about what morality really is. In particular, I’d like you to think about morality on three different scales: Your personal morality, the morality of the community you’re in, and morals as described by laws.

You’ll find that these morals don’t overlap.

Or, at least they shouldn’t. Please revisit section 7.

Being aware of morality in these three ways may help you determine how to proceed when going forward.

Do I personally agree with this? Does the community I’m in agree with this? Do the laws have anything to say about this?

None of these are right. Everything has different morals, and it’s up to you to find the exact opinions that fit you.

Don’t let people blindly tell you how you should and shouldn’t feel about a topic, and don’t let people bully you into changing your morals to fit into their perceived moral high ground.

But at the same time, be open. Extend yourself to new ideas. If enough people tell you that something is wrong, it just may be time to listen.

Be you.

Be unique.

Be safe.

And above all, be kind.

Have a nice night, everyone. I hope we can all work to a brighter future.

#{}.{{ OUT OF CHARACTER }}.{}#{}.{{ IMPORTANT }}.{}#ok to reblog. }}.{}

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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i love your s12 spn meta post, i love how you've analysed things and looked through different angles, but i have to admit. sometimes i feel that us fans of the show think more complexly about the characters and scenes than the writers themselves. they've shown continuity errors and character development mistakes time and time again, and the queerbaiting is frustrating as fuck. it doesn't make sense to me that these people are the same ones orchestrating such fantastic plotlines.

(i ran out of space for that previous ask) but again, i sincerely mean no disrespect to you or to the creators of the show. it was just my two cents. i'm sorry if you find it offensive in any way, i definitely did not mean for it to come off as rude! :(

Hi... I didn’t take it as rude, so you’re fine. :P

(I probably wouldn’t have posted it on anon, though, just because I don’t see the show as being fully of continuity errors and character development mistakes, and “queerbaiting” is in the eye of the beholder and seems a harsh statement to level against a writing staff that is comprised of several LGBT writers. Especially when they have been addressing queer characters and issues in serious ways, and absolutely not making them the punchline of a joke or dismissing them. It’s a word I would not throw around so casually.)

***On second thought, after typing ALL of this out, I feel like having spent the whole morning on it, it should be on my blog... I hope that’s okay.

Half the point of my rewatch (which, oops, I’m behind on because TNT showed a ten episode marathon the morning after a new episode aired, and the new episode had to take priority over the old) is to point out how consistent ALL of these things are.

There’s a post I like very much that I just saw again yesterday:

People should probably learn the difference between “plot holes” and “things I didn’t like” or “things the franchise plans to explain in the future” or “things film makers didn’t think they needed to explicitly explain because they thought you had critical thinking skills”

I didn’t reblog it because it’s already somewhere on my blog from ages ago, but especially relevant to s12, because of the way they’re telling the story.

99% of the time what looks on the surface like a “plot hole” is actually an expansion of canon, and yelling PLOT HOLE! or RETCON! just because something seems different means there’s a reason for the difference now.

Like the fact we’ve seen several shapshifters who don’t shed their skin like puddles of goo and can just *poof* into a new form. We’ve had shifters like this since s6 when we learned about the alphas. Truly powerful shifters don’t need to shed to change form.

(on a practical level, it makes the prop department’s job easier because they don’t have to create goo puddles, but also they’re able to use a shifter’s ability to change instantly as a plot point, and have done so several times very effectively. Like in 12.20 when Ketch was torturing “Mary” and punched her, so the shifter took on HIS form. They couldn’t have done that if they hadn’t introduced this more powerful strain of shifter before.)

Technically, everything that’s happened since 4.01 would fit the strictest definition of plot hole, because it had already been established that angels did not exist. And yet... here were angels.

Cas said in the past that angels were now walking the earth for the first time in two thousand years, so the fact he’d been down here in a vessel in 1901 must be a plot hole too... unless you assume that Cas’s previous statement was both specific and hyperbolic (which really isn’t a stretch, angels have always avoided certain truths in order to manipulate us). Angels as a whole hadn’t embarked on a unified mission to earth in the last 2000 years, but we know that Lily’s first encounter with Ishim in 1901 was because SHE SUMMONED HIM. She performed a magical spell that BROUGHT AN ANGEL TO EARTH. And the events of their relationship unfolded to the point she felt compelled to summon yet another angel (Akobel) to protect her from Ishim. Well, suddenly there’s a whole flight of angels coming to kill her, you know? It’s not the sort of story that any of the angels involved would be cheerfully chirping on about.

Point being, if Lily Sunder was capable of summoning an angel, there’s probably been OTHER people over the course of human history who’d tried it too. All of heaven may not have descended like they did in s4, but here and there, angels very well may have been watching over us.

It’s not a plot hole, it’s an expansion of canon. It refines our understanding and reminds us that we don’t know everything about the entire history of that universe.

I think there’s two kinds of people: Those who see something they think is a “mistake” in canon and scream PLOT HOLE! and get upset about it and think the writers are idiots, and then there are those who see that same thing and wonder how does that fit with the information I already have and then try to understand.

Sometimes a plot hole is just a plot hole (like the time travel nonsense in 12.13 that turns into a strange loop of infinitely decreasing returns), but most of the time it’s really really not.

As for characterization “errors”, most of the time they are incredibly purposeful. Like the whole scene at the beginning of 12.15. People are STILL shouting, “Out of character! Dean hates germs! He would NEVER do that!” and therefore MISSED THE ENTIRE POINT OF THAT SCENE.

Which was SAM standing there staring at Dean THINKING THE EXACT SAME THING.

Dean was putting on the performance FOR SAM. He KNEW Sam was lying to him about where the cases were coming from, and Dean’s not a moron. They visit the MoL, and suddenly a few days later Sam’s got a “magic phone app” that finds cases for him? Yeah, Dean wasn’t about to let Sam keep lying to him, and yet Sam was STILL lying to him even after two weeks of hunting, so he kept upping the Disgusting Quota trying to get Sam to break and confess. Because if he just comes out and asks Sam directly, he continues to lie and give him weak excuses. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basics right there...

The one characterization thing that actually bugs me was the scene in 9.04 where Sam and Dean are watching Game of Thrones with Charlie, and Jensen and Jared DECIDED TO SWAP LINES because they felt that Sam was the one who would read the books, and not Dean... (Robbie Thompson, who wrote the scene, is still grumpy about it, too). Because DEAN DOES READ. And in this scene HE was the one who was supposed to be mirrored to Charlie through their mutual love of this particular brand of nerdery. It sort of wrecks the entire characterization of the episode, in which Dean’s usual “performing Dean” persona was SUPPOSED to fall down in Charlie’s company, and he would casually and comfortably admit he enjoyed reading the epic fantasy series (which, really, we know Dean reads fantasy novels... he’s a huge effing nerd).

Why do you think in 11.04 (also by Robbie Thompson) he wrote the line about Dean knowing that the phrase “god helps those who helps themselves” was from Aesop and not the bible? Because Jensen COULDN’T JUST HAND THAT LINE TO JARED. He HAD to admit he read. Because Performing Dean is one thing, but when he’s not trying to project that facade, he’s brilliant.

So yeah, 99% of it is 100% intentional. It’s our job as viewers to think about why. You can absolutely watch the show as a passive casual viewer (and the most casual viewer wouldn’t even NOTICE the things that get called plot holes or characterization mistakes), or you can see those things that seem not to make sense on the surface and look for the reason they struck you as being slightly wrong. Because if you dig just a little bit deeper, it opens up an entire new level of understanding about the show.

The writing is NEVER going to hand you all of that deeper characterization on a plate. That would make for TERRIBLE writing. All they want is for the characters and the plots to stick with us, so that we DO turn these issues over in our heads, so we DO think critically about them, and hopefully come to some compelling and fascinating conclusions. Or at the very least we’re eager to tune in again the following week to see if our suspicions are confirmed.

This is a hook that writers have been using since writing was a thing. This is how stories are told. Not just in the words, but in the negative spaces. We’re not just supposed to consume stories, but in the very best way, the best stories also consume US. They make us into an active participant in the narrative, and force us to consider the world and characters on our screens as real people.

That’s how all of this works.

#spn meta meta #this is how stories work #caerulaen

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nightingveilxo · 7 years

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Redbeard/Yellowbeard, Vernet, & Time Travel: Various Ways HoB & T6T Are Connected

Gatiss: To be honest, I put [an explanation of Redbeard] into the first draft of episode two, and actually explained it – the reason that Sherlock was behaving like a child was because he’d once upon a time fallen for that story that your bunny rabbit has gone to live on a farm somewhere. And then we thought, ‘No, let’s hold it back because we can tease it a bit.’ And we genuinely thought, ‘We can keep this running for years.’ But then actually…

Moffat: It’s nice to have resolved it.

Gatiss: So the truth is that when he was little – and obviously Mycroft tormented him about it – is that his dog died, and he totally fell for the idea that Redbeard had gone to live in a happy valley somewhere. ( x )

Yes, we’re back to the rabbit idea…as in HoB and time travel…mentioned here. (Read that meta, because otherwise, the rest of this won’t make sense.)

Moriarty

Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it?

— Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear

This topic had been covered by *Newcomb about 20 years before, and it may have been him that inspired the character of Moriarty.

Mary reading Dynamics of Combustion, and 221B is blown up in TFP, but she also manages to jump in front of a bullet in T6T before Sherlock even really has time to react.

The book that Moriarty wrote involves chaos theory.

Remember in the meta about the blog entries being recycled in S3 and S4? It’s related to that, due to the butterfly effect

Simple actions and events can alter history, especially if your memory isn’t reliable.

“The butterfly effect is exhibited by very simple systems. For example, the randomness of the outcomes of throwing dice depends on this characteristic to amplify small differences in initial conditions—the precise direction, thrust, and orientation of the throw—into significantly different dice paths and outcomes, which makes it virtually impossible to throw dice exactly the same way twice.“

Butterfly and Dice…oh!

Well, here’s Mary reading the The Thyroid Gland, which is usually described as being butterfly-shaped. **Knowing about it is important too, if you’re involved in time travel.

They were in the video on John’s blog, that Moriarty did when he entered 221B back in 2012, and Mary had her own that showed side 4 when she was going across the map.

T6T

Mary: How? Every movement I made was entirely random, every new personality just on the roll of a dice!

Sherlock: Mary, no human action is ever truly random. An advanced grasp of the mathematics of probability, mapped onto a thorough apprehension of human psychology and the known disposition of any given individual,can reduce the number of variables considerably. I, myself, know of at least 58 techniques to refine a seemingly infinite array of randomly generated possibilities down to the smallest number of feasible variables.

Then, he admits he made part of that up…

By TLD, Sherlock is using some method to figure out where people need to be two weeks in advance. But…if not the one above, then time travel?

Two Major Results of Time Travel

-You die faster “The time machine can’t adjust your age backward–if it did, it would be altering your brain at the same time, wiping out the memories of what you experienced.” Hmm, wiping memories…It would be very beneficial to have a storage place for all of those…somewhere beyond a Mind Palace, which could be altered.

-Eating would be a problem, partially due to **bacterial infections gained from unfamiliar foods and their processing.

Redbeard/Yellowbeard The Space Pirates

TSoT

Mycroft: So, this is it, then. The big day. I suppose I’ll be seeing a lot more of you from now on.

Sherlock: What do you mean?

Mycroft: Just like old times.

Sherlock: No, I don’t understand.

Mycroft: Well, it’s the end of an era, isn’t it? John and Mary – domestic bliss.

Sherlock: No, no, no – I prefer to think of it as the beginning of a new chapter.

*Mycroft is silently smiling on the other end of the phone line*

Sherlock: What?

Mycroft: Nothing!

Fast forward through the mentions of not getting involved…

Mycroft: Oh, by the way, Sherlock – do you remember Redbeard? Sherlock: I’m not a child any more, Mycroft. *Sherlock’s jaw clenches*

Mycroft: No, of course you’re not. Enjoy not getting involved, Sherlock.

Mycroft telling Sherlock not to get involved, because history will repeat itself.

By HLV, we see Redbeard running toward Sherlock in the hallway, after Sherlock has been shot. It’s also the only time we see Mary with her wedding veil down over her face, as it would have been during the ceremony.

TAB

Redbeard = Nothing or 0

Watson: As your friend, as someone who…worries about you, what made you like this?

Holmes: Oh, Watson. Nothing made me. *we hear claws scratching, and a dog whimpering*

Holmes: I made me. *scrabbling and whimpering continues*

Holmes: Redbeard?

Now, we look at Mycroft’s notebook, and the binary matrix at the top with all the 0s. Combined with the equation underneath Scarlet Mo […??], it’s about working with space and time.

Not sure how? There are meta for that. ( x ) ( x )

In T6T, we have a visual for missing gaps in time, because of the clock that goes along with Sherlock’s fight with Ajay, but it’s not understandable as such until we’re in TFP. Meta by @darlingtonsubstitution

Alternately (or also), the sixteen by six, five by seven, nine by nineteen could be measurements. Due to the TLD & The Valley of Fear connections, however, I still prefer @darlingtonsubstitution ‘s explanation for the dimensions.

TFP

Redbeard is made into a code word for Victor Trevor, Sherlock’s childhood friend, who was taken from him by a female. Sherlock was Yellowbeard, and that’s who Mycroft dresses as in TFP.

Back to Baskerville, and this formula on the whiteboard.

**Vancomycin Hydrochloride

Vancomycin is an antibiotic. When taken by mouth it fights bacteria in the intestines.

The bactericidal action of vancomycin results primarily from inhibition of cell-wall biosynthesis. In addition, vancomycin alters bacterial-cell-membrane permeability and RNA synthesis. There is no cross-resistance between vancomycin and other antibiotics. Vancomycin is not active in vitro against gram-negative bacilli, mycobacteria, or fungi.

Nice to have if you’re concerned about eating while in another place in time and space, along with that knowledge of the butterfly-shaped thyroid Mary read up on HLV.

611174 - Hamamy Syndrome or Gene ID for Canine Lupus Familiarus

Hamamy syndrome is a genetic disorder which is marked by abnormal facial features and defects in the heart, bone, blood, and reproductive cells.

Hamamy Syndrome is something a person is born with, so it cannot be caught or developed. Unless you have the ability to manipulate genes, as they do at Baskerville.

Or, you can write it down to recall your family dog that died when you were children. The dog that wasn’t a rabbit, because the rabbit was being genetically manipulated.

Vernet

One, it's a reference that was used particularly in the Granada series, where more than once Holmes or Watson mentions that Vernet was Holmes's relative--his French grandmother's brother. We're also back to the Dr. Who references. Madame Vernet is in the episode The Pandorica Opens, the episode that talks about the butterfly effect without actually using those words. It’s also in the same story arc with Amy’s Choice, which is basically the plot, villain, and even villain actor as in TLD. I’ve actually seen several meta on that connection, but the one above is the shortest, and makes the point.

As for pure mathematics, a topic close to Moriarty’s heart…

TD: Time Dimension Logical Sequence Number

The key component of any successful OBIEE implementation is the metadata model known as the repository (RPD).

Doing it right is sometimes considered “black magic”, and small mistakes in the RPD can impact all the exposed Subject Areas, resulting in poor performances or, even worse, wrong results. ( x ) So, it’s rather like the mathematic data-manipulation remedy against the butterfly effect? T6T Mycroft: Back on terra firma. *while he’s talking about manipulating data*

Teradata: One of the leading metadata storage, management, and analytics companies in the world.

TD12 = teradata 12 - version which would have been in use during HoB. Or choose its leading competitor… Oracle:

Sequence numbers are enumerations of time dimensional members at a certain level. The enumeration must be dense (no gaps) and must correspond to a real time order. For example, months in a year can be enumerated from 1 to 12.

Oracle the data company, not as in someone that has premonitions.

Mycroft: Are you having a premonition, brother mine?

Sherlock: The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web.

If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics.

Mycroft: Appointment in Samarra.

Sherlock: I’m sorry?

Mycroft: The merchant who can’t outrun Death. You always hated that story as a child.

Less keen on predestination back then.

Sherlock: I’m not sure I like it now.

Mycroft: You wrote your own version, as I remember. Appointment in Sumatra. The merchant goes to a different city and is perfectly fine.

Sherlock: Goodnight, Mycroft.

Mycroft: Then he becomes a pirate, for some reason.

Sherlock: Keep me informed.

Mycroft: Of what?

Sherlock: Absolutely no idea.

If you’re going backward though, you still need logical sequence numbers, to avoid a casual loop. Those happened in Dr. Who episode involving Bootstrap Paradox, written about here by Jonathan Holmes

…and the 80′s film, Somewhere in Time, where a playwright uses self-hypnosis to assist him in traveling back in time to the woman he loves. A pocket watch results in the loop. This brings us back to Sherlock first telling John how he knows about his history, because in canon ACD, it wasn’t a phone–it was Watson’s pocket watch. It’s twin, is in TAB, with the photo of Irene Adler.

Tagging @may-shepard because of the HoB/T6T connection, and @swimmingfeelsinajohnlockianpool @princess-of-fireflies @sherlockians-get-bored @darlingtonsubstitution

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lindyhunt · 6 years

Text

The Ultimate Dictionary of Marketing Terms You Should Know

Here on the HubSpot blog, we’ve written glossary-themed posts that cover some of the core components of inbound marketing. We've covered social media terms, content marketing terms, smarketing terms, email marketing terms, website optimization terms ... heck, even marketing acronyms.

Well, we thought it was time to create a blog post that could serve as a holistic marketing glossary -- one that not only defines each term, but also offers some helpful resources in case you want to learn about them in more depth. We hope you can bookmark this post and come back to it whenever you need to.

Now, I'm no math whiz, but when you try to make a glossary based on a topic with sub-categories that could be their own glossaries, well -- that’s a lot of gloss. So instead of throwing hundreds of terms at you from all those other glossaries, I narrowed this one down to the top 99 terms that are imperative to anyone learning about marketing.

Marketing Terms to Know

A/B Testing

Analytics

Application Programming Interface (API)

B2B (Business-to-Business)

B2C (Business-to-Consumer)

Blogging

Business Blogging

1. A/B Testing

This is the process of comparing two variations of a single variable to determine which performs best in order to help improve marketing efforts. This is often done in email marketing (with variations in the subject line or copy), calls-to-action (variations in colors or verbiage), and landing pages (variations in content). Outside of marketing, you can use it to determine what tastes better on a peanut butter sandwich: jelly or fluff. (Learn how to run A/B tests here.)

2. Analytics

What I sometimes refer to as the “eyes” of inbound marketing, analytics is essentially the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data. When referred to in the context of marketing, it’s looking at the data of one’s initiatives (website visitor reports, social, PPC, etc.), analyzing the trends, and developing actionable insights to make better informed marketing decisions. (Want to learn marketing analytics? Here a list of nine great sources to get you started.)

3. Application Programming Interface (API)

APIs are a series of rules in computer programming, which allow an application to extract information from a service and use that information either in their own application or in data analyses. It's kind of like a phone for applications to have conversations -- an API literally "calls" one application and gets information to bring to you to use in your software. APIs facilitate the data needed to provide solutions to customer problems.

HubSpot has APIs that developers use to get information from our software into theirs. It’s important for marketers to understand what APIs can do to factor them in to their marketing strategies. Learn more about how marketers can use APIs here.

4. B2B (Business-to-Business)

An adjective used to describe companies that sell to other businesses. For example, Google and Oracle are primarily B2B companies.

5. B2C (Business-to-Consumer)

An adjective used to describe companies that sell directly to consumers. For example, Amazon, Apple, and Nike are primarily B2C companies.

6. Blogging

This is short for web log or weblog. An individual or group of people usually maintains a blog. A personal blog or business blog will traditionally include regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material, such as photos and video.

Blogging is a core component of inbound marketing, as it can accomplish several initiatives simultaneously -- like website traffic growth, thought leadership, and lead generation. It does not, however, do your taxes.

7. Business Blogging

Business blogging retains all the attributes of "regular" blogging, but adds a tasty layer of marketing strategy on top. It helps marketers drive traffic to their website, convert that traffic into leads, establish authority on certain topics, and drive long-term results. (Learn about these benefits in more detail here.)

When blogging for a business, marketers should create posts that are optimized with keywords that their target audience is searching for and provide helpful, educational material to these readers. Typically, these blog posts should be actionable (by providing an opt-in, downloadable offer), as to provide a metric for the effectiveness of the business blogging.

8. Bottom of the Funnel

Since we’re going alphabetically, the last part of the funnel process is first! So, “bottoms up,” I suppose. The bottom of the funnel refers to a stage of the buying process leads reach when they’re just about to close as new customers. They’ve identified a problem, have shopped around for possible solutions, and are very close to buying.

Typically, next steps for leads at this stage are a call from a sales rep, a demo, or a free consultation -- depending on what type of business is attempting to close the lead.

9. Bounce Rate

Website bounce rate: The percentage of people who land on a page on your website and then leave without clicking on anything else or navigating to any other pages on your site. A high bounce rate generally leads to poor conversion rates because no one is staying on your site long enough to read your content or convert on a landing page (or for any other conversion event).

Email bounce rate: The rate at which an email was unable to be delivered to a recipient's inbox. A high bounce rate generally means your lists are out-of-date or purchased, or they include many invalid email addresses. In email, not all bounces are bad, so it's important to distinguish between hard and soft bounces before taking an email address off your list. (Learn about hard and soft bounces here.)

10. Buyer Persona

A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. While it helps marketers like you define their target audience, it can also help sales reps qualify leads. (Learn more about developing buyer personas here.)

11. Call-to-Action

A call-to-action is a text link, button, image, or some type of web link that encourages a website visitor to visit a landing page and become of lead. Some examples of CTAs are “Subscribe Now” or “Download the Whitepaper Today.” These are important for marketers because they’re the “bait” that entices a website visitor to eventually become a lead. So, you can imagine that it’s important to convey a very enticing, valuable offer on a call-to-action to better foster visitor-to-lead conversion. (Download our free, introductory guide to effective calls-to-action here. Hey, that was a CTA!)

12. CAN-SPAM

CAN-SPAM stands for "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing." It's a U.S. law passed in 2003 that establishes the rules for commercial email and commercial messages, it gives recipients the right to have a business stop emailing them, and outlines the penalties incurred for those who violate the law. For example, CAN-SPAM is the reason businesses are required to have an "unsubscribe" option at the bottom of every email. (Learn more of the details here.)

13. CASL

CASL stands for "Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation." It's a Canadian law passed in 2013 that covers the sending of "commercial electronic messages" that may be accessed by a computer in Canada. CASL covers email, texts, instant messages, and automated cell phone messages sent to computers and phones in Canada. (Learn more of the details here.)

14. Churn Rate

A metric that measures how many customers you retain and at what value. To calculate churn rate, take the number of customers you lost during a certain time frame, and divide that by the total number of customers you had at the very beginning of that time frame. (Don't include any new sales from that time frame.)

For example, if a company had 500 customers at the beginning of October and only 450 customers at the end of October (discounting any customers that were closed in October), their customer churn rate would be: (500-450)/500 = 50/500 = 10%.

Churn rate is a significant metric primarily for recurring revenue companies. Regardless of your monthly revenue, if your average customer does not stick around long enough for you to at least break even on your customer acquisition costs, you’re in trouble.

15. Clickthrough Rate (CTR)

The percentage of your audience that advances (or clicks through) from one part of your website to the next step of your marketing campaign. As a mathematic equation, it’s the total number of clicks that your page or CTA receives divided by the number of opportunities that people had to click (ex: number of pageviews, emails sent, and so on).

16. Closed-Loop Marketing

The practice of closed-loop marketing is being able to execute, track and show how marketing efforts have impacted bottom-line business growth. An example would be tracking a website visitor as they become a lead to the very last touch point when they close as a customer.

When done correctly, you’d be able to see just how much of your marketing investment yielded new business growth. One of the biggest business benefits of implementing an inbound marketing strategy and utilizing inbound marketing software is the ability to execute closed-loop marketing.

17. Conversion Path

A conversion path is a series of website-based events that facilitate lead capture. In its most basic form, a conversion path will consist of a call-to-action (typically a button that describes an offer) that leads to a landing page with a lead capture form, which redirects to a thank you page where a content offer resides. In exchange for his or her contact information, a website visitor obtains a content offer to better help them through the buying process. If you’re still having difficulty grasping the topic based on this description, feel free to absorb it as a rabbit hunting analogy in comic form.

18. Content

In relation to inbound marketing, content is a piece of information that exists for the purpose of being digested (not literally), engaged with, and shared. Content typically comes in the form of a blog, video, social media post, photo, slideshow, or podcast, although there are plenty of over types out there. From website traffic to lead conversion to customer marketing, content plays an indispensable role in a successful inbound marketing strategy.

19. Content Management System (CMS)

A web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to create, edit, and manage a website. Helps users with content editing and more "behind-the-scenes" work like making content searchable and indexable, automatically generating navigation elements, keeping track of users and permissions, and more.

(At HubSpot, we think COS is better than CMS. Find out why.)

20. Content Optimization System (COS)

A COS is basically a CMS (Content Management System), but optimized to deliver customers the most personalized web experience possible. (Learn more about HubSpot's COS here.)

21. Context

If content is king, then context is queen. Serving up valuable content is important, but ensuring that it’s customized for the right audience is equally (if not more) important. As buyers become more in control of what information they digest (again, not literally), it’s important to deliver content that’s contextually relevant. If you own a restaurant, you wouldn’t want to send a coupon for a steak dinner to a vegetarian, right? Unless you’re anti-herbivore, of course …

22. Conversion Rate

The percentage of people who completed a desired action on a single web page, such as filling out a form. Pages with high conversion rates are performing well, while pages with low conversion rates are performing poorly.

23. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

The process of improving your site conversion using design techniques, key optimization principles, and testing. It involves creating an experience for your website visitors that will convert them into customers. CRO is most often applied to web page or landing page optimization, but it can also be applied to social media, CTAs, and other parts of your marketing. (Learn more here.)

24. Cost-per-Lead (CPL)

The amount it costs your marketing organization to acquire a lead. This factors heavily into CAC (customer acquisition cost), and is a metric marketers should keep a keen eye on.

25. Crowdsourced Content

Creating your own content can take more time than you have to lend to it -- which is where crowdsourcing comes into play. Allowing subject matter experts, customers, or freelancers to create your content for you is a prime way to get more quality content published in less time. Compile the content you get back into a really awesome offer and give credit to all the contributors -- a win-win for everyone involved. (Learn how to crowdsource a blog post using Google Docs here.)

26. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Your total Sales and Marketing cost. To calculate CAC, follow these steps for a given time period (month, quarter, or year):

Add up program or advertising spend + salaries + commissions + bonuses + overhead.

Divide by the number of new customers in that time period.

For example, if you spend $500,000 on Sales and Marketing in a given month and added 50 customers that same month, then your CAC was $10,000 that month. (Learn more here.)

27. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A set of software programs that let companies keep track of everything they do with their existing and potential customers.

At the simplest level, CRM software lets you keep track of all the contact information for these customers. But CRM systems can do lots of other things, too, like tracking email, phone calls, faxes, and deals; sending personalized emails; scheduling appointments; and logging every instance of customer service and support. Some systems also incorporate feeds from social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. (Learn more here.)

28. CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, and it's what gives your entire website its style, like colors, fonts, and background images. It affects the mood and tone of a web page, making it an incredibly powerful tool. It's also what allows websites to adapt to different screen sizes and device types. (Learn more about CSS, HTML, and JavaScript here.)

29. Dynamic Content

A way to display different messaging on your website based on the information you already know about the visitor. For example, you could use Smart CTAs so that first-time visitors will see a personalized CTA (perhaps with a top-of-the-funnel offer) and those already in your database see a different CTA (maybe for content that offers a little more information about your product or service). You can read this post to learn more about dynamic content.

30. Ebook

Ebooks are a common type of content that many marketers use, often to help generate leads. They are generally a more long-form content type than, say, blog posts, and go into in-depth detail on a subject. Here's an awesome ebook on how to write an ebook (so meta).

31. Editorial Calendar

It's like a road map for content creation, showing you what kind of content to create, what topics to cover, which personas to target, and how often to publish to best support your strategy. Maintaining an editorial calendar will keep you more organized and show you any gaps you may have in your content library. It also helps ensure you're doing the right things for your personas and not going way off-track with the topics you're covering. (Don't have a proper calendar of your own yet? Check out this free, pre-designed editorial calendar template.)

32. Email

In its most basic sense, email stands for “Electronic Mail.” It’s a core component of marketing because it’s a direct connection to a contact’s inbox. However, with great power comes great responsibility, meaning it’s important for marketers to not abuse the email relationship with a contact. It’s far too easy for a contact to click “unsubscribe” after gaining their hard earned trust in your communication. Don’t blow it.

33. Engagement Rate

A popular social media metric used to describe the amount of interaction -- Likes, shares, comments -- a piece of content receives. Interactions like these tell you that your messages are resonating with your fans and followers. (Click here for engagement rate benchmarks for a range of different industries.)

34. Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is content that continues to provide value to readers no matter when they stumble upon it. In other words, it can be referenced long after it was originally published, and even then, it's still valuable to the reader. This post on how to write blog posts serves as a prime example.

Typically, a piece of evergreen content is timeless, valuable, high quality, and canonical or definitive. These posts are typically a content marketer's best friend because of the tremendous SEO value they provide. (Learn more about evergreen content and why it's important here.)

35. Facebook

Facebook is a social network you're likely quite familiar with already -- but it has become so much more than just a platform to publish content and gain followers. You can now utilize the awesome targeting options available through Facebook advertising to find and attract brand new contacts to your website and get them to convert on your landing pages ... but remember, you still need awesome content to do it.

While it’s a core component of any marketing strategy, it shouldn’t be the only component. Focusing entirely on Facebook (or any other large social channel, for that matter) will only give you a small piece of the inbound marketing pie. And it’s still piping hot, so be careful. (Download our free guide to using Facebook for business here.)

36. Form

The place your page visitors will supply information in exchange for your offer. It’s also how those visitors can convert into precious sales leads. As a best practice, only ask for information you need from your leads in order to effectively follow up with and/or qualify them. (Read this post to learn what you should and shouldn't ask on your landing page forms.)

37. Friction

Any element of your website that is confusing, distracting, or causes stress for visitors, causing them to leave your page. Examples of friction-causing elements include dissonant colors, too much text, distracting website navigation menus, or landing page forms with too many fields. (Learn more about identifying and fixing friction here.)

38. Google+

Google+ (referred to as "Google Plus") is a social network that allows you to join and create circles in which you can mix and match family members, friends, colleagues, and fellow industry members. While you can use it much like other social networks -- to publish and share content, and generate new leads -- it also provides content marketers with tremendous SEO value due to the rising importance of social sharing in search engine algorithms. (It is owned by Google, after all.)

39. Hashtag

Hashtags are a way for you and your readers to interact with each other on social media and have conversations about a particular piece of content. They tie public conversations on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram together into a single stream, which users can find by searching for a hashtag, clicking on one, or using a third-party monitoring tool like HubSpot's Social Inbox.

The hashtags themselves are simply a keyword phrase, spelled out without spaces, with a pound sign (#) in front of it -- like #InboundChat and #ChocolateLovers. You can put these hashtags anywhere in your social media posts. (Learn more about how to use hashtags on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram here.)

40. HTML

This is short for HyperText Markup Language, a language used to write web pages. It's at the core of every web page, regardless the complexity of a site or number of technologies involved, and provides the basic structure of the site -- which is then enhanced and modified by other technologies like CSS and JavaScript. (Download our free guide to HTML here to learn some simple and useful HTML coding hacks.)

41. Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing refers to marketing activities that draw visitors in, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospects' attention. It's all about earning the attention of customers, making the company easy to find online, and drawing customers to the website by producing interesting, helpful content. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time. (Learn more about inbound marketing here.)

42. Inbound Link

An inbound link is a link coming from another site to your own website. "Inbound" is generally used by the person receiving the link. For example, here's an inbound link to our co-founder Dharmesh's blog. Dharmesh could say, "I received an inbound link from HubSpot."

Websites that receive many inbound links can be more likely to rank higher in search engines. They also help folks receive referral traffic from other websites. (Learn more about inbound links here.)

43. Infographic

A highly visual piece of content that is very popular among digital marketers as a way of relaying complex concepts in a simple and visual way. (Learn more about how to create a knockout infographic here.)

44. Instagram

Though initially a haven only for younger generations who wanted to post, edit, and share unique-looking photos, Instagram has grown into a premier social network that's a viable opportunity for content marketers. Many businesses are taking advantage of the site by posting industry related photos that their followers and customers would enjoy seeing. (Download our free guide on using Instagram for business here, or read this blog post for our favorite Instagram tips and tricks.)

45. JavaScript

Mix ¾ oz coffee liqueur with one shot espresso ... nah, just kidding. JavaScript is a programming language that lets web developers design interactive sites. Most of the dynamic behavior you'll see on a web page is thanks to JavaScript, which augments a browser's default controls and behaviors.

Uses for JavaScript include pop-ups, slide-in calls-to-action, security password creation, check forms, interactive games, and special effects. It's also used to build mobile apps and create server-based applications. (Learn more about JavaScript, HTML, and CSS here.)

46. Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

A type of performance measurement companies use to evaluate an employee's or an activity's success. Marketers look at KPIs to track progress toward marketing goals, and successful marketers constantly evaluate their performance against industry standard metrics. Examples of KPIs include CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), blog traffic sources, and homepage views. Choose KPIs that represent how your marketing and business are performing. (Here are some tips for choosing the right KPIs for your business.)

47. Keyword

Sometimes referred to as "keyword phrases," keywords are the topics that webpages get indexed for in search results by engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Picking keywords that you’ll optimize a webpage for is a two-part effort. First, you’ll want to ensure the keyword has significant search volume and is not too difficult to rank for. Then, you’ll want to ensure it aligns with your target audience

After deciding the appropriate keywords you want to rank for, you’ll then need to optimize the appropriate pages on your website using both on-page and off-page tactics. What are those, you ask? Skip to “O” to find out -- but don’t tell “L”, “M”, or “N”! (Learn how to do keyword research for SEO here.)

48. Landing Page

A landing page is a website page containing a form that is used for lead generation. This page revolves around a marketing offer, such as an ebook or a webinar, and serves to capture visitor information in exchange for the valuable offer. Landing pages are the gatekeepers of the conversion path and are what separates a website visitor from becoming a lead.

A smart inbound marketer will create landing pages that appeal to different personae (plural for persona) at various stages of the buying process. A hefty endeavor no doubt, but one that pays off in spades. (Download this ebook to learn more about landing pages and how to optimize them.)

49. Lead

A person or company who's shown interest in a product or service in some way, shape, or form. Perhaps they filled out a form, subscribed to a blog, or shared their contact information in exchange for a coupon.

Generating leads is a critical part of a prospect's journey to becoming a customer, and it falls in between the second and third stages of the larger inbound marketing methodology, which you can see below.

Landing pages, forms, offers, and calls-to-action are just a few tools to help companies generate leads. (Learn more about lead generation here.)

50. Lead Nurturing

Sometimes referred to as “drip marketing,” lead nurturing is the practice of developing a series of communications (emails, social media messages, etc.) that seek to qualify a lead, keep it engaged, and gradually push it down the sales funnel. Inbound marketing is all about delivering valuable content to the right audience -- and lead nurturing helps foster this by providing contextually relevant information to a lead during different stages of the buying lifecycle.

51. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. Launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. Nowadays, with more than 414 million registered members, LinkedIn is the most popular social network for professionals and one of the top social networks overall. Getting on the platform, developing a completed profile, and networking has helped many a jobseeker find work. (Click here to learn about using LinkedIn for professional networking, business, and marketing.)

52. Lifecycle Stages

These divisions serve as a way to describe the relationship you have with your audience, and can generally be broken down into three stages: awareness, evaluation, and purchase.

What's important to understand about each of these stages is that not every piece of content you create is appropriate, depending on what stage your audience might fall in at that moment. That's why dynamic content is so great -- you can serve up content that's appropriate for whatever stage that particular visitor is in. (Learn more about how to map content to lifecycle stages here.)

53. Lifetime Value (LTV)

A prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer. To calculate LTV, follow these steps for a given time period:

Take the revenue the customer paid you in that time period.

Subtract from that number the gross margin.

Divide by the estimated churn rate (aka cancellation rate) for that customer.

For example, if a customer pays you $100,000 per year where your gross margin on the revenue is 70%, and that customer type is predicted to cancel at 16% per year, then the customer's LTV is $437,500. (Learn more here.)

54. Long-Tail Keyword

A long-tail keyword is a very targeted search phrase that contains three or more words. It often contains a head term, which is a more generic search term, plus one or two additional words that refine the search term. For example:

Head term: unicorn

Long-tail keywords: unicorn games online, unicorn costumes for kids, unicorn videos on YouTube

Long-tail keywords are more specific, which means visitors that land on your website from a long-tail search term are more qualified, and consequently, more likely to convert.

55. LTV:CAC

The ratio of lifetime value (LTV) to customer acquisition cost (CAC). Once you have the LTV and the CAC, compute the ratio of the two. If it costs you $100,000 to acquire a customer with an LTV of $437,500, then your LTV:CAC is 4.4 to 1.

56. Marketing Automation

While there’s some overlap with the term “lead nurturing,” marketing automation is a bit different. Think of marketing automation as the platform with associated tools and analytics to develop a lead nurturing strategy. If you’ll let me run with an “art” analogy, marketing automation is the paintbrush, watercolors, and blank canvas. Lead nurturing is the artist that makes it all come together. Like Bob Ross! You can’t paint a happy little nurturing campaign without both.

Bonus: Want to get super-savvy with your marketing automation terminology? Take it to the next level with behavior-based marketing automation. Behavior-based marketing automation refers to a system that triggers emails and other communication based on user activity on and off your site. It enables marketers to nurture leads and send them information only when it is most relevant to their stage in the buying cycle.

57. Microsite

A cross between a landing page and a “regular” website. ElfYourself.com is a great example. Microsites are used when marketers want to create a different online experience for their audience separate from their main website. These sites often have their own domain names and distinct visual branding. (Here's a list of 11 of the best microsite examples out there.)

58. Middle of the Funnel

This refers to the stage that a lead enters after identifying a problem. Now they’re looking to conduct further research to find a solution to the problem. Typical middle of the funnel offers include case studies or product brochures -- essentially anything that brings your business into the equation as a solution to the problem the lead is looking to solve. Also, if you want to be cool, you can refer to this stage as “MOFU” for short.

59. Mobile Marketing

With mobile search queries officially surpassing desktop queries, now is probably the time to explore mobile marketing. What is it? Well, mobile marketing refers to the practice of optimizing marketing for mobile devices to provide visitors with time- and location- sensitive, personalized information for promoting goods, services, and ideas.

60. Mobile Optimization

Mobile optimization means designing and formatting your website so that it’s easy to read and navigate from a mobile device. This can be done by either creating a separate mobile website or incorporating responsive design in initial site layout. Google's algorithm now rewards mobile-friendly websites, so if your site isn't fully optimized for mobile devices, you will likely see a hit to your ranking on mobile searches. (Learn how to make your website mobile-friendly here.)

61. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

The amount of revenue a subscription-based business receives per month. Includes MRR gained by new accounts (net new), MRR gained from upsells (net positive), MRR lost from downsells (net negative), and MRR lost from cancellations (net loss).

62. Native Advertising

A type of online advertising that takes on the form and function of the platform it appears on. Its purpose is to make ads feel less like ads, and more like part of the conversation. That means it's usually a piece of sponsored content that's relative to the consumer experience, isn't interruptive, and looks and feels similar to its editorial environment.

Native advertising can come in many forms, whether it's radio announcers talking favorably about a product sponsoring the show, or an article about a product or company showing up in your news source. Here are examples of some of the best native advertising out there.

63. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

A customer satisfaction metric that measures, on a scale of 0-10, the degree to which people would recommend your company to others. The NPS is derived from a simple survey designed to help you determine how loyal your customers are to your business.

To calculate NPS, subtract the percentage of customers who would not recommend you (detractors, or 0-6) from the percent of customers who would (promoters, or 9-10).

Regularly determining your company’s NPS allows you to identify ways to improve your products and services so you can increase the loyalty of your customers. Learn more about how to use NPS surveys for marketing here.

64. News Feed

A news feed is an online feed full of news sources. On Facebook, the News Feed is the homepage of users' accounts where they can see all the latest updates from their friends. (Learn all about Facebook's News Feed here.) The news feed on Twitter is called Timeline.

65. No-Follow Link

A no-follow link is used when a website does not want to pass search engine authority to another webpage. It tells search engine crawlers not to follow or pass credit to linked websites as a way to avoid association with spammy content or inadvertently violating webmaster guidelines. To varying degrees, the no-follow attribute is recognized by all major search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Not all links (and linking domains) are created equal, and a no-follow attribute helps avoid any foul play.

66. Offer

Offers are content assets that live behind a form on a landing page. Their primary purpose is to help marketers generate leads for your business. There are many different types of offers you could create, including ebooks, checklists, cheat sheets, webinars, demos, templates, and tools. (If you need help putting together some high-quality offers your buyer personas will love, take some time to read over this post.)

67. On-Page Optimization

This type of SEO is based solely on a webpage and the various elements within the HTML (see “H” if you skipped here directly). Ensuring that key pieces of the specific page (content, title tag, URL, and image tags) include the desired keyword will help a page rank for that particular phrase.

68. Off-Page Optimization

This is the free-spirited cousin of on-page optimization. Off-page SEO refers to incoming links and other outside factors that impact how a webpage is indexed in search results. Factors like linking domains and even social media play a role in off-page optimization. The good news is that it’s powerful; the not so good news is that it’s mostly out of an inbound marketer’s control. The solution? Create useful, remarkable content and chances are people will share and link to it.

69. Page View

A request to load a single web page on the internet. Marketers use them to analyze their website and to see if any change on the webpage results in more or fewer page views.

70. Pay-per-Click (PPC)

The amount of money spent to get a digital advertisement clicked. Also an internet advertising model where advertisers pay a publisher (usually a search engine, social media site, or website owner) a certain amount of money every time their ad is clicked. For search engines, PPC ads display an advertisement when someone searches for a keyword that matches the advertiser's keyword list, which they submit to the search engine ahead of time.

PPC ads are used to direct traffic to the advertiser's website, and PPC is used to assess the cost effectiveness and profitability of your paid advertising campaigns.

There are two ways to pay for PPC ads:

Flat rate: where the advertiser and publisher agree on a fixed amount that will be paid for each click. Typically this happens when publishers have a fixed rate for PPC in different areas on their website.

Bid-based: where the advertiser competes against other advertisers in an advertising network. In this case, each advertiser sets a maximum spend to pay for a given ad spot, so the ad will stop appearing on a given website once that amount of money is spent. It also means that the more people that click on your ad, the lower PPC you'll pay and vice versa.

(Learn more about getting started with PPC here.)

71. Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual social network typically used by ecommerce marketers, but not without its fair share of top-notch B2B and B2C content marketers. Businesses and consumers alike use the website to post images and photos they like so fellow users can repin (share) that content.

Not every company has taken advantage of this site yet. If you're one of them, we advise you check out this free guide to Pinterest for business.)

72. PPC

PPC, (or Pay-Per-Click) is an advertising technique in which an advertiser puts an ad in an advertising venue (like Google AdWords or Facebook), and pays that venue each time a visitor clicks on the ad. I couldn’t think of anything witty to place at the end of this definition, so let’s move on to “Q.”

73. Qualified Lead

A contact that opted in to receive communication from your company, became educated about your product or service, and is interested in learning more. Marketing and Sales often have two different versions of qualified leads (MQLs for Marketing, and SQLs for Sales), so be sure to have conversations with your sales team to set expectations for the types of leads you plan to hand over.

74. QR Code

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) that is readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera telephones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded may be text, URL, or other data. It also starts with “Q,” which is a rarity with marketing-related terms. (Learn how to create a QR Code here.)

75. Responsive Design

This is the practice of developing a website that adapts accordingly to how someone is viewing it. Instead of building a separate, distinct website for each specific device it could be viewed on, the site recognizes the device that your visitor is using and automatically generates a page that is responsive to the device the content is being viewed on -- making websites always appear optimized for screens of any dimension. (Learn how responsive design works here.)

76. Return on Investment (ROI)

A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency and profitability of an investment, or to compare the efficiency and profitability of multiple investments. The formula for ROI is: (Gain from Investment minus Cost of Investment), all divided by (Cost of Investment). The result is expressed as a percentage or ratio. If ROI is negative, then that initiative is losing the company money. The calculation can vary depending on what you input for gains and costs.

Today, marketers want to measure the ROI on every tactic and channel they use. Many facets of marketing have pretty straightforward ROI calculations (like PPC), but others are more difficult (like content marketing).

77. Retweet

A re-posting of a tweet posted by another user on Twitter. Retweets look like normal tweets except for the retweet icon. They can be done in three ways:

1) You can retweet an entire tweet by clicking the retweet button, indicated below.

2) You can post a new tweet that includes your own commentary. In a new tweet, which also features the original tweet. It means you've pressed the rotating arrow icon to retweet a post, and then added a comment in the text box provided. We prefer this method of retweeting because it allows you to add your own thoughts. (Note: The retweet takes up 24 characters, leaving you with 116 characters for the comment.)

3) You can post a new tweet that includes your own commentary in addition to the information you're retweeting. The formula is this: Your own commentary + RT + the original tweeter's Twitter handle + colon + the exact text from their original tweet. This method of retweeting allows you to add your own thoughts, but with a very limited character count.

When you see "Please RT" in someone's tweet, it means they are requesting that their followers retweet that tweet to spread awareness. (Learn more about retweets here.)

78. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The practice of enhancing where a webpage appears in search results. By adjusting a webpage's on-page SEO elements and influencing off-page SEO factors, an inbound marketer can improve where a webpage appears in search engine results.

There are a ton of components to improving the SEO of your site pages. Search engines look for elements including title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure, and inbound links -- and that's just to name a few. Search engines also look at site structure and design, visitor behavior, and other external, off-site factors to determine how highly ranked your site should be in the search engine results pages. (Learn more about SEO here.)

79. Sender Score

An email marketing term that refers to a reputation rating from 0-100 for every outgoing mail server IP address. Mail servers will check your Sender Score before deciding what to do with your emails. A score of over 90 is good. (Learn more about sender score and email deliverability here.)

80. Service Level Agreement (SLA)

For marketers, an SLA is an agreement between a company's sales and marketing teams that defines the expectations Sales has for Marketing and vice versa. The Marketing SLA defines expectations Sales has for Marketing with regards to lead quantity and lead quality, while the Sales SLA defines the expectations Marketing has for Sales on how deeply and frequently Sales will pursue each qualified lead.

SLAs exist to align sales and marketing. If the two departments are managed as separate silos, the system fails. For companies to achieve growth and become leaders in their industries, it is critical that these two groups be properly integrated. Learn how to create an SLA here.

81. Small-to-Medium Business (SMB)

Usually defined as companies that have between 10 and 500 employees.

82. Smarketing

A fun phrase used to refer to the practice of aligning Sales and Marketing efforts. In a perfect world, marketing would pass off tons of fully qualified leads to the sales team, who would then subsequently work every one of those leads enough times to close them 100% of the time. But since this isn't always how the cookie crumbles, it’s important for Marketing and Sales to align efforts to impact the bottom line the best they can through coordinated communication. (Download our free guide to unifying your sales and marketing efforts here.)

83. Snapchat

A social app that allows users to send and receive time-sensitive photos and videos known as "snaps," which are hidden from the recipients once the time limit expires. (Note: Images and videos still remain on the Snapchat server). Users can add text and drawings to their snaps and control the list of recipients in which they send them to.

A Snapchat story is a string of Snapchats that lasts for 24 hours. Users can create stories to be shared with all Snapchatters or just a customized group of recipients. (Learn more about how businesses are using Snapchat here.)

84. Social Media

Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+ are examples of social media networks that one can join for personal or business use. Social Media is a core component of Inbound, as it provides marketers with additional channels to spread reach, increase growth, and reach business goals.

85. Social Proof

Social proof refers to a psychological phenomenon in which people seek direction from those around them to determine how they are supposed to act or think in a given situation. It's like when you see a really long line outside a nightclub and assume that club is really good because it's in such high demand. In social media, social proof can be identified by the number of interactions a piece of content receives or the number of followers you have. The idea is that if others are sharing something or following someone, it must be good. (Learn some tips for adding social proof to your landing pages here.)

86. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Any software that is hosted by another company, which stores your information in the cloud. Examples: HubSpot, Salesforce, IM clients, and project management applications. (Here are some examples of SaaS companies with exceptional marketing.)

87. Top of the Funnel

Sometimes called “TOFU”, top of the funnel refers to the very first stage of the buying process. Leads at this stage are just identifying a problem that they have and are looking for more information. As such, an inbound marketer will want to create helpful content that aids leads in identifying this problem and providing next steps toward a solution. TOFU is also very tasty in certain Thai dishes.

88. Twitter

For the sake of creativity, I’ll define Twitter in 140 characters or less: "Twitter is a platform that allows users to share 140-character long messages publicly. User can follow one another and be followed back." There you have it -- a tweetable definition of Twitter.

89. Unique Visitor

A person who visits a website more than once within a period of time. Marketers use this term in contrast with overall site visits to track the amount of traffic on their website. If only one person visits a webpage 30 times, then that web page has one UV and 30 total site visits.

90. URL

This is short for Uniform Resource Locator. I honestly didn’t know that before writing this definition. Basically, this is the address of a piece of information that can be found on the web such as a page, image, or document (ex. http://www.huspot.com). URLs are important for on-page SEO, as search engines scour the included text when mining for keywords. If a keyword you’re looking to get indexed for is in the URL, you’ll get brownie points from search engines (but no real brownies, unfortunately).

91. User Experience (UX)

The overall experience a customer has with a particular business, from their discovery and awareness of the brand all the way through their interaction, purchase, use, and even advocacy of that brand. To deliver an excellent customer experience, you have to think like a customer, or better, think about being the customer. Learn more here.

92. User Interface (UI)

A type of interface that allows users to control a software application or hardware device. A good user interface provides a user-friendly experience by allowing the user to interact with the software or hardware in an intuitive way. It includes a menu bar, toolbar, windows, buttons, and so on. Learn how to create a user-friendly website registration process here.

93. Viral Content

This term is used to describe a piece of content that has become wildly popular across the web through sharing. Oftentimes, folks don’t know a piece they’re creating will be viral until it actually does, which is usually unfortunate if it’s particularly embarrassing.

94. Website

A website is a set of interconnected webpages, usually including a homepage, generally located on the same server, and prepared and maintained as a collection of information by a person, group, or organization. An inbound marketer should structure a website like a dynamic, multi-dimensional entity that can be used to attract relevant website visitors, convert those visitors into leads, and close those leads into customers. Otherwise, it’s just a brochure -- and let’s be honest -- could you really use another brochure?

95. Word-of-Mouth (WOM)

The passing of information from person to person. Technically, the term refers to oral communication, but today it refers to online communication, as well. WOM marketing is inexpensive, but it takes work and involves leveraging many components of inbound marketing like product marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing. (Learn more about creating a powerful WOM marketing strategy here.)

96. Workflow

A workflow is another way to describe a lead nurturing campaign. It’s a set of triggers and events that move a lead through the nurturing process. A workflow can also serve other purposes, such as adjust contact properties on a lead record based on certain conditions, or adding a contact record to a certain list. Regardless of how you use it, workflows can be a very powerful asset in an inbound marketing strategy.

97. XML Sitemap

We couldn’t leave “X” out of the party! An XML sitemap is a file of code that lives on your web server and lists all of the relevant URLs that are in the structure of your website. It's kind of like a "floor plan" for the site, which especially comes in handy whenever the site gets changed. It also helps search engine web crawlers determine the structure of the site so they can crawl it more intelligently.

Sitemaps don't guarantee all links will be crawled, and being crawled does not guarantee indexing. However, a sitemap is still the best insurance for getting a search engine to learn about your entire site. It’s sort of like saying “Hey, Google -- check out this fine website.” (Learn more about XML sitemaps and how to create one here.)

98. YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google. YouTube is the largest video-sharing site in the world and you’re probably on it now instead of finishing up this post.

99. Zilch

We couldn’t think of anything for "Z." So I ask you dear readers: What inbound marketing related topic should we define that begins with the letter "Z"?

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