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x-enter · 5 years

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How Kanye West and Kim Kardashian use their public love of chains like McDonald's and Chick-fil-A to get rich off of low-brow culture

Kanye West's Chick-fil-A-inspired song "Closed on Sunday" is just the latest in his and Kim Kardashian West's long relationship with fast-food chains like McDonald's and In-N-Out.

Kim Kardashian West used partnerships with fast-food chains like McDonald's and Carl's Jr. to become a household name, with Carl's Jr.'s then-CEO saying that Kris Jenner begged him to put Kim in an ad.

Kanye has long been obsessed with fast food from a branding perspective, once tweeting, "McDonald's is my favorite brand."

Today, Kim charges brands up to $500,000 for a single Instagram post. But, she continues to highlight her love for fast food on social media and in paparazzi photos.

Fast food is one of the few connections that Kanye has with the average American in 2019, as the millionaire rapper faces controversy after controversy.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

I have listened to the fourth track on Kanye West's new album, "Jesus Is King," at least a dozen times since it was released on Friday.

"Closed on Sunday," West raps, "You my Chick-fil-A."

The song continues with its semi-dreary, semi-desperate rhythm, rising and falling, then ending abruptly when West yelps — there is no other word but "yelp" — "Chick-fil-A!"

As someone who reports on fast food, I pay close attention to chains like Chick-fil-A and McDonald's. Over the years, I have come to realize that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West do, too. Understanding fast food is key to understanding the Kardashian Wests — and how they're making millions of dollars a year.

Kim Kardashian is a longtime fast-food fanatic

Kim Kardashian's ties to McDonald's span more than a decade. Back in 2008, she and Khloe attended McDonald's "Big Mac 40th Birthday Party at Project Beach House." It is an event I have thought about at least once a month since I discovered it while looking for McDonald's photos on Getty Images back in 2013.

At the time, Kim was far from the international celebrity she is today. Kim and her mother/manager Kris Jenner used fast-food partnerships to turn Kim — who was largely known for her leaked sex tape and for being Paris Hilton's reality show sidekick — into a household name.

Back in 2015, the then-CEO of CKE Restaurants, Andy Puzder, told me that Jenner called him to try and score Kim a coveted spot in a Carl's Jr. commercial, hoping to launch her daughter into mainstream fame.

"The Sports Illustrated swimsuit models that we use in our ads, like Hannah Ferguson and Samantha Hoopes … tell me that the girls actually talk about 'How can we get on a Carl's Jr. ad?'" Puzder said. "Kim Kardashian, her mother Kris called me, and said, 'Can we get Kim in an ad?'"

Puzder, whom President Donald Trump would later nominate as labor secretary, said that starring in a Carl's Jr. ad was seen as a massive career boost for young models or actresses. Fast-food brands have greater reach than almost any other industry, with customers developing strong connections with and opinions about the brands.

The McDonald's arches are the most recognizable symbol in the world. Kris and Kim were gunning for the Kardashians to be the most recognizable family in the world. As their social media follower counts grew and Kardashian coverage ballooned, fast-food name drops on social media and in interviews continued — a symbiotic relationship where both Kardashians and fast-food giants benefited from the press.

Kanye West has his own fast-food obsession

It should come as little surprise that Kanye West, a man obsessed with how he brands himself, had his own appreciation of fast food before ever meeting his future wife.

Kanye has songs that name-check chains — "Says she want diamonds, I took her to Ruby Tuesdays, If we up in Fridays, I still have it my way." Others talk about working in restaurants — "This week he moppin' floors, next week it's the fries." In 2008, West bought the rights to open 10 Fatburger locations in Chicago.

His 2014 marriage into the Kardashian family brought a new level of scrutiny, even as he attempted to avoid appearances in "Keeping Up With the Kardashians." Kanye reportedly bought Kim the rights to open 10 Burger King franchises located throughout Europe as a wedding present, though no locations were ultimately opened in the Kardashian West name.

The name drops continued. "Beggars can't be chooser, b----, this ain't Chipotle," Kanye rapped in 2016. He penned a poem in 2016 called "The McDonald's Man" in a magazine written to accompany Frank Ocean's sophomore album,"Blonde."

Kanye portrays fast food as both a symbol and as sustenance. In 2016, the rapper tweeted: "McDonalds is my favorite brand." In 2018, he tweeted: "McDonald's is my favorite restaurant."

The division between high-brow and low-brow is dead

Around the time they were getting together, Kimye was a brand comparable to many fast-food giants. Many people described "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" as a "guilty pleasure." Kanye was still recovering from becoming public enemy No. 1 after the Taylor Swift incident. Both Kanye and Kim were wildly popular, even if they weren't always respected.

But, Kim and Kanye didn't just want the fast-food kind of fame, the fame of being something most people like, but feel ashamed about liking. They wanted fine-dining, New York Times' Food section-reviewed, high-brow approval. They wanted to be Vogue cover stars — and, despite plenty of backlash, they got it.

Pink Polo Kanye and trashy-chic Kim needed to disappear. So, they put out fashion lines, attended the Met Gala, and schmoozed with tech executives. Anna Wintour reportedly signed off on their decision to name their first born North West. Kim is going to be a lawyer! Both of them have met with the president!

Like celebrities desperate to appear relateable by scarfing down In-N-Out after the Oscars, Kim and Kanye continue to keep their public love of fast food alive.

Kim's fast-food consumption feels both deeply performative and — because of her decade-long dedication to the game — surprisingly genuine. Chains like McDonald's and In-N-Out somewhat frequently turn up in Kim's interviews, Instagram posts, and Snapchat. Paparazzi shots of her leaving McDonald's with a $1 ice cream cone are viewed by millions, providing Kim with a press cycle about how low-key and relatable she is and the fast-food chain with significant free advertising.

Kim Kardashian's approval is worth millions of dollars

It's clear the chains appreciate the love Kim gives. Back in 2016, McDonald's sent Kim a Givenchy wallet filled with gift cards to the fast-food chain. After all, Kim typically charges $300,000 to $500,000 for a single Instagram post.

"Because a significant portion of my business involves the licensing of my name, trademarks, and images, I work very hard to ensure that my brand means something to my fans and to the public, who view the use of my name as the stamp of approval by me," she said in a 2019 lawsuit.

Kim wouldn't be spotted with a brand if there wasn't something in it for her. Today, Kim's reputation is more precious than anything money can buy.

Again and again, Kim Kardashian gives fast food the stamp of approval. Fast food helped make her a household name. Now, it keeps her semi-relatable as she travels the world and racks in millions of dollars a year.

Why Kanye is drawn to Chick-fil-A

Kim's approach to fame has been to try to have it all, aiming to dominate the high-brow and the low-brow until there is no divide between the two. Kanye's has been darker.

The rapper has publicly discussed his mental health issues, and he faced backlash for his controversial statements and support for Trump.

In that way, it makes sense that Kanye's newest fast-food obsession would be Chick-fil-A. In an industry where most chains aim for widespread acceptance, Chick-fil-A remains polarizing. Its first location in the UK sparked massive backlash due to its anti-LGBTQ reputation. But, it is also incredibly beloved — teens and basically everyone else in America consider it their favorite chain.

In "Closed on Sunday," Kanye advises against the sins of modern fame, pushing a religious message. But, even at his most pious, Kanye doesn't only turn to God. He turns to a fast-food brand.

Chick-fil-A is a symbol for Kanye. If McDonald's was Old Kanye — a classic American brand — the New Kanye brand is more similar to how Kanye and other Chick-fil-A supporters interpret Chick-fil-A's identity: controversial but driven by conviction.

"Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A," Kanye raps. "You're my number one, with the lemonade. Raise our sons, train them in the faith. Through temptations, make sure they're wide awake."

Kim has been cashing in on fast food as a sponsored-content icon since before the rise of the influencer. Kanye, on the other hand, attempts to use brands to connect with people.

As Kanye continues to lead a life that's increasingly divergent from the average American, Chick-fil-A represents a common touchstone that everyone has a take on. We may not be making $150 million a year, living in $60 million mansions and hosting invitation-only spiritual gatherings.

But, the feeling of craving a chicken sandwich, then realizing it is Sunday and Chick-fil-A is closed — that is something people can still relate to.

SEE ALSO: Backlash didn't actually kill Chick-fil-A's UK expansion, with a location quietly opening in Scotland and more likely on the way

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A pair of Air Jordans can resell for up to $2,000. Here's why these iconic Nike sneakers are so expensive.

source https://www.businessinsider.com/kanye-west-kim-kardashian-use-chick-fil-a-mcdonalds-2019-10

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

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New story in Politics from Time: Balloon Drops? Out. Roaring Crowds? Gone. But, Says NBC’s Lester Holt, There’s Still A Convention to Cover

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

We’re only a few hours away from the first virtual political convention from gaveling into session and it’s already clear things are going to be very, very different.

For one, the journalists who normally crowd the convention hall for the big moments are going to be dialed in from their kitchen counters and living room couches like other Americans still stuck at home in the middle of the pandemic. There won’t be rogue delegates to interview or random chants from the floor to cause embarrassing, off-brand moments. There may still be surprises, but they’re likely to be the kind that have been scripted and executed by the conventions’ producers.

For veterans of past conventions, the all-remote set-up is just the latest hiccup in this year’s election season as the world grapples with coronavirus. Both parties have almost entirely switched to streaming schedules and cut way back on the hours of floor programming. The Democrats’ convention starts tonight, followed by Republicans’ show this time next week. News organizations will still treat the evenings as the political ground zero that they are, but there’s just a lot less sizzle in the offing as the very campaign trail has turned into a very long Facetime. There may be some upside to cutting back on the hours and hours of speeches: a quicker and less inefficient night of political preening.

Ahead of the conventions’ start, I caught up with NBC News’ Lester Holt, the first Black man to be a U.S. network newscast’s solo anchor. He will be leading the network’s coverage of the conventions during 10 p.m. hour. With ratings up for flagship news broadcasts across the networks, we talked about how he’s been framing the colliding stories of a pandemic, racial justice, and a presidential campaign that politicizes everything, including masks. For the next two weeks, Holt will be reporting from NBC’s Midtown Manhattan studios — a spot he’s only seen a handful of times since March. Our conversation has been edited for concision and clarity.

You’re about to anchor a global event while not there. What is that like?

Well, it’s particularly strange for me, because one of the hallmarks at Nightly News is that I like to take viewers to the story. I want to talk to people. I want to bring a personal connection to the story. And, of course, we have lost that ability on a lot of the things we cover. Part of conventions are the conversations in the hallway, it’s the people you run into. You pick up little nuggets along the way. This is going to be very different watching in a studio people who may be giving speeches from their living rooms or their kitchens.

This is kind of terrible on a personal level, isn’t it?

Oh, sure. It is. It’s just one thing that we took for granted that’s been taken from us. From a personal level, I had a lot of expectations this summer. I was going to be covering the Olympics. I was going to be covering these two conventions, traveling to wherever the debates are. None of those things are happening, but the process of electing a President goes on. Like so many Americans and so many businesses, we’re figuring it out as we go along.

This year has been a rough one for our business. You mentioned the Olympics, which is an NBC institution. That’s off the table for the moment. We’ve got no conventions, no campaign road warriors. How do we as an industry make it through this while also continuing to do exceptional journalism?

The candidates simply aren’t traveling. I mean, the President has been traveling some and within the White House bubble. We’ve had some access in Delaware to Joe Biden, but you’re right. We’re not able to cover things the way we used to. Thank God for Zoom and some of the other technologies we’ve been able to employ. But I’m not going to lie: It’s hard to replace that one-on-one contact, that ability to cultivate sources and just listen to people and voters and decision-makers about what’s happening.

Your audience is used to a visual medium. We’re going from balloon drops and pandemonium to what is basically a Zoom happy hour. How do you get your audience ready for that?

The speeches will be the speeches. But at least with the Democrats, you’re not going to hear a crowd roaring its approval or reacting in any way. I guess in this aspect, we’re going to be really focused on the words themselves, because the performance art that is part of conventions, that part is going to be missing. The imagery is so different. You mentioned a hall with balloons dropping. We’re going to see somebody’s toaster in the background.

Might we actually be getting to a point where we’re looking at the ideas instead of pageantry?

I think so. Look at the four years ago. “Lock her up” became a mantra for some of candidate Trump’s supporters of that time. Those moments, we probably won’t see. And so we’re going to be forced to focus on the messages, the timing, the words as opposed to how the crowd reacts or those surprise moments in the crowd or the demonstrations. I would argue that we’re not going to have as many distractions that we might otherwise have.

If this whole thing is scripted from the start, why bother with it?

They bother because they know that they’re going to get the television coverage. You and I are old enough to remember the days when it was wall-to-wall convention coverage on the networks. That’s not happening anymore. But it’s still valuable real estate on network television. So I can’t imagine either candidate even considering for a moment not doing a televised convention. It’s still part of the process.

Where will you be physically sitting during this?

I’ll be in Studio 1A, The Today Show studio, with Savannah Guthrie. Of course, we’ll be physically distanced. Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd will be in a studio in Washington, D.C., so four of us will navigate through the evenings.

On the personal side, being able to go to the studio, and sit next to Savannah is a huge upgrade. I’ve been sitting in a spare bedroom for the last several months doing Nightly News by myself every night. It’s been a lonely existence. I’m not complaining. Obviously, there are a lot of people going through tough times. But the ability to come back to 30 Rock and sit in the studio is something that I’m personally excited about.

Have you embraced what the rest of us have during this: a suit, tie and athleisure below the desk?

I’ll be honest. I’m usually wearing jeans, but I gladly put on that jacket and shirt and tie. Now, having said that, I have gone out to do interviews for Nightly News pieces and Dateline. So I’m not inside all the time. But in terms of anchoring, it’s primarily been from a home.

We’re in the middle of three major stories converging at once, and the story on race has been one where you’ve been pretty frank. Do you have a platform that perhaps Norah O’Donnell and David Muir don’t?

People look at me. They expect me to have an opinion or to be affected by these things. That doesn’t necessarily show a bias but it’s a recognition of who I am as a person. People come to this broadcast presumably because they trust me and they respect me. If I didn’t say anything, I think it would be disappointing. Now, I choose my words carefully. But I don’t think it’s a bias to want this country to live up to its ideals, that it’s a bias for this country to be fair, that it’s a bias for people to want their police to function in service of people.

This might be the biggest story of our career. The whole mantra is journalism is a first draft of history. You have a say in what goes in the history book. What makes the cut?

I wrote the intro to the broadcast last night. We’d just come off another weekend of huge crowds of people, openly defying local and the state regulations. This didn’t air, but it was something to the effect that when the history is written of why this country failed in dealing with this pandemic, volumes will be spent on our inability to do the simple things like wearing a mask and socially distancing. That’s a paraphrase, but it’s pretty close. I think it’s appropriate sometimes to call it like it is.

This is an important time for journalism. This is an important story. And when it landed at our doorstep, I thought, ‘Alright, you know, we’ve taken three and a half years of a beating, of people trying to discredit us, but this is a story that everyone has to pay attention to, that people will recognize the importance of a free press.’ That happened, but then the politics creeped back into it. I guess I was a little naïve. I didn’t expect that.

I thought that this could be seen for what it was: a health threat that we all shared. Instead, suddenly it became seen through the lens of blue and red again. That was crushingly disappointing. It worries me about our future that even something like this has been marred by politics.

Can we purge the politics from it, or is it too late?

I think it’s too late. Most people get what it takes to fight this disease. They understand masks and social distancing. This has become almost the new global warming. The planet is getting warmer. That’s not a political statement, but it is for some people. COVID is spreading because too many people are crowding together. It’s not a political statement, but some people will see it as such.

How dare you embrace science and fact?

The thing is as journalists, we obviously have to report the body of science on this, which is huge in the direction of social distancing and get that mask wearing. We don’t want to be caught up in a political debate. I don’t want people to think I’m being political when I say we should all be wearing masks. Unfortunately, that’s what the environment has kind of led us down the road to.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

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cutsliceddiced · 4 years

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New top story from Time: Balloon Drops? Out. Roaring Crowds? Gone. But, Says NBC’s Lester Holt, There’s Still A Convention to Cover

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

We’re only a few hours away from the first virtual political convention from gaveling into session and it’s already clear things are going to be very, very different.

You’re about to anchor a global event while not there. What is that like?

This is kind of terrible on a personal level, isn’t it?

Your audience is used to a visual medium. We’re going from balloon drops and pandemonium to what is basically a Zoom happy hour. How do you get your audience ready for that?

Might we actually be getting to a point where we’re looking at the ideas instead of pageantry?

If this whole thing is scripted from the start, why bother with it?

Where will you be physically sitting during this?

On the personal side, being able to go to the studio, and sit next to Savannah is a huge upgrade. I’ve been sitting in a spare bedroom for the last several months doing Nightly News by myself every night. It��s been a lonely existence. I’m not complaining. Obviously, there are a lot of people going through tough times. But the ability to come back to 30 Rock and sit in the studio is something that I’m personally excited about.

Have you embraced what the rest of us have during this: a suit, tie and athleisure below the desk?

This might be the biggest story of our career. The whole mantra is journalism is a first draft of history. You have a say in what goes in the history book. What makes the cut?

Can we purge the politics from it, or is it too late?

How dare you embrace science and fact?

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

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How I Learned to Make Friends With My Anxiety

https://fashion-trendin.com/how-i-learned-to-make-friends-with-my-anxiety/

How I Learned to Make Friends With My Anxiety

he first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is check my email. I sleep with my phone under my pillow, and every morning, I hold my breath and scroll for anything important. It’s almost always your standard deluge of morning messages, but sometimes there are emails about exciting project opportunities like writing jobs or speaking gigs — the kinds of things I should be thrilled about given they’re how I earn an income. But in reality, they’re yet another entry on the list of things that make me anxious.

When you’re an anxious person, even something good can fill you with dread and panic: How will I deal with this important thing?

I work for myself, which means I’m in a perpetual state of semi-panic. My mind is filled with constant nagging worries that any self-employed person will easily recognize: What if my tax bill is huge? What if I fall and break my arm on the Metro? Should I have never quit my 9 to 5? Throw my anxiety into the mix, and most of my days are spent with a low-level fear that something bad will happen and that once I go through the internal whodunit in my mind, I’ll realize that I was to blame the entire time. The call was coming from inside the house; I am ruining my own life with my own behavior.

As a full-time creative professional who writes, hosts a podcast and designs social media content, a lot of my daily work involves staying on top of the kinds of tasks that get more difficult to deal with the longer I put them off. And they’re the kinds of tasks that feel so good to put off: answering that email, tracking down those forms, scheduling that appointment, booking that flight. I tell myself I deserve to put them off for a day, so I do. And then I do it again and again and again. Then it becomes habit. But in my line of work, putting off an email could mean missing out on a big gig or a deadline and rent money.

I was recently offered a dream opportunity: to produce a live episode of my podcast at South by Southwest in front of a sizeable audience. It was the perfect launchpad for a budding creative like myself, but it was also a perfect storm of things that make me anxious.

As soon as the opportunity landed in my inbox, a familiar a chorus line of anxiety was set in motion. Would I overthink the confirmation email reply and never send it? Would I be too nervous to cold email people? Would I stress about booking the last-minute flight and put it off until it was financially prohibitive? How would I ruin this golden opportunity? How much would I hate myself for it if I did?

While I voiced all these anxieties aloud to a close friend, I realized I sounded like a pessimistic broken record and that I wasn’t even giving myself the chance to imagine it would be a success; I had already decided the outcome would be a negative one. It was a moment of clarity.

Wendy Wood, a social psychologist who studies the neurology of habits and how to break them, writes that a key component of breaking habitual behavior is giving yourself space to do things differently. “First you must derail existing habits and create a window of opportunity to act on new intentions,” she says. The way someone who’s trying to quit soda might have to train themselves to stop wandering down the soda aisle when grocery shopping, Wood says that disrupting your old cues is one of the keys to breaking bad habits. In other words, if anxiety has me feeling like a broken record, I need to actually do something — anything! — to break the repetition. Stop sleeping with my phone under my phone under my pillow. Delete the Instagram app. Have a friend change my Facebook password. Work from anywhere other than my apartment and vow to not return until I’ve finished. (If you already have a great tactic, add it in the comments.)

Wendy Wood’s words really spoke to me. I don’t have to play this the way I always do, I thought to myself. I may have anxiety, but that doesn’t mean anxiety has me.

Bolstered by the notion that I could break the pattern, that I was in control, I took a deep breath and began. I listed out the steps I needed to take in descending order and gave myself an hour to complete them. I emailed the important people. I booked the guests. I bought the last-minute flights. Instead of dwelling on the dread these kinds of tasks often elicit in me, I rolled up my sleeves and did them before I had the chance to procrastinate. And you know what? My last-minute flight to Austin didn’t bankrupt me or crash into the ocean. The important guests confirmed their attendance and then showed up. People came and enjoyed themselves. The live show went mostly as planned, and I was elated. And even though there were some tiny snags (like when a guest showed up so close to showtime I could only assume I’d given her the wrong address), it was okay. Nobody got fired. Nobody died. Nobody got screamed at. Even if things don’t go 100 percent smoothly, they went, which is better than not going at all.

This whole experience showed me is that I am not my anxiety and that I can break out of the cycle of feeling unable to tackle things that I’ve deemed “hard.” If any of this sounds familiar to you and your creative process, here are some tactics I’ve found helpful while tackling the biggest anxious hitch in my own.

Spend Some Time Thinking About Why Things That “Should Be Exciting” Feel Stressful to You

In an interview with the Creative Independent, sociologist Eve Ewing explains how she handles that all-too familiar feeling of really, really not wanting to do something.

She says: “I’m a big believer that when you don’t want to do something, there’s a deeper reason. When I find myself dragging or having a hard time, I step back and ask, ‘Why aren’t you doing this? Is it ‘cause the project isn’t important? Why’d you do it then? Is it just for money? Like you agreed to do this just for money or you said yes because the person seemed important?’ And I’m like, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t do that again.’”

I first read that when I was in a tailspin of writer’s-block-induced self-loathing, and it sparked another moment of clarity. If I don’t actually want to do something I agreed to do, acknowledging my reluctance can help me decide next steps.

I know it’s easy to ignore those feelings and struggle through the associated tasks instead, but next time you find yourself filled with dread and anxiety about a project, ask yourself: Is it early enough in the project that you can responsibly pull the plug? If you can’t bow out, who can you ask for help? Can you ask for a deadline extension? Even if none of that is possible, spend a little time ruminating on the why of this anxiety and remember its source; this can give you clarity when faced with a similar decision next time. It will give you a lot of insight into how you work.

Be Like Nike and Just Do It

According to a Lifehacker piece about procrastination, we start feeling anxious about tasks the moment they plop onto our plates (no sh*t), and that anxiety worsens the longer we put tasks off. If you’re not actually making progress, then nothing happens during this phase other than the accumulation of bad feelings. So, if you want to save yourself weeks of feeling like an unproductive piece of crap, the only logical thing to do is just start.

Easier said than done, I know. Here are some tips I use: Try setting a timer and writing nonstop for five minutes. Or break your project down into small, easier-to-manage tasks. If writing and sending a two-minute email will get the ball rolling on a project, start there and use the momentum it creates to fuel your next steps.

At Harvard Business Review, economist and executive coach Caroline Webb writes that zeroing in on the smallest step is a good way to dive into a daunting project. You know how procrastinating feels so good? That’s because research shows your brain is pretty much always biased toward feeling good now over feeling good later. To combat that, Webb says you should identify that easy-to-accomplish first step, “something that’s so easy that even your present-biased brain can see that the benefits outweigh the costs of effort.”

Make an Accountability Pact

I’m lucky to have friends in my life who hold me accountable; they recognize my patterns (when I go MIA, it means I’m stressing) and they help get me back on track. Having an easier time staying on track when friends are involved isn’t unusual: A study from the Institute of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Aberdeen asked a group of participants to find a new “gym buddy” while a different group worked out solo. In the end, the group who leaned on supportive workout pals worked out more.

Asking a friend or roommate to keep you on track requires vulnerability and clear communication. This can feel scary, so offer to make it a two-way street. Maybe your friend helps you beat procrastination while you help her get to the gym more. Maybe you both text one another when you want to stray from your paths. This way, you’re both sharing in the vulnerability while offering mutual support.

Treat Yourself

Once you’ve completed the project that caused you anxiety, reward yourself! Getting a handle on anxiety isn’t easy. Celebrate small victories. You train a puppy by giving her a treat when she exhibits behavior you want her to repeat, right? Think of yourself as a more complex version of a puppy and reward yourself for completing tasks.

When I finally tackle a handful of things I’ve been putting off, I celebrate by watching “bad TV.” And while I’m still in the middle of the work, knowing that I get to watch whatever I want (for as long as I want) once I finish keeps me going. It’s a literal light at the end of the tunnel.

Webb says treating yourself is effective because it helps take the edge off having to do things we don’t want to do. “We can make the cost of effort feel even smaller if we link that small step to something we’re actually looking forward to doing. In other words, tie the task that we’re avoiding to something that we’re not avoiding,” she writes.

For me, anxiety is like that mean girl from junior high who was always there to point out my flaws, only she lives inside my head. While I may never fully silence the inner monologue that drives me to obsess on the scary “what ifs” of any given situation, I’ve learned that I don’t have to let it stop me from doing the things I want to do in life — starting with my to-do list.

Bridget Todd is writer and digital strategist who lives out of a suitcase. She is the cohost of the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You. Her Twitter is @BridgetMarie and her IG is @BridgetMarieinDC

lllustrations by Gabrielle Lamontagne.

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medproish · 6 years

Link

Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular messaging apps, with 1.2 billion users.

That huge audience makes it extremely useful — your friends and family probably use it — but it also means that Messenger doesn’t need to fight for your trust.

It’s time to change that.

There’s no shortage of ways to text your friends and family for free. You can choose from WhatsApp, Skype, Google Hangouts, Signal, Telegram, Apple’s iMessage, or literally scores of other options.

But the messaging app you’re probably using is the worst choice.

Facebook Messenger is a juggernaut, with more than 1.2 billion users. Chances are your family and friends have it installed on their phones. That makes it incredibly useful — after all, the value of any messaging app is directly tied to how many of your contacts also use it.

And that’s exactly the problem with Messenger. The app takes its massive user base for granted. As revelations over the past weeks and months have made clear, Facebook has its own set of rules for your Messenger inbox. Whether or not you like those rules is irrelevant.

For Messenger, users are essentially a captive audience rather than customers that it feels the need to satisfy and fight for.

Messenger needs to earn your trust

In many ways, your private messages sent through Facebook are property of Facebook. Menlo Park can scan the photos and links you send, hand them over to the cops, and even delete some messages from inside your inbox without your permission.

Naturally, while it’s scanning your messages, Messenger is also collecting loads of data on you, including your call and text history from outside of Messenger. It stopped doing this in March after it was widely publicized. Facebook’s on-the-record defense? You gave it permission.

It’s time to take that permission away.

Given there are so many other messenger services, there simply is no reason to continue to use Messenger. Delete it from your phone, turn it off, and choose a different free app that’s not going to violate your trust.

“Full compliance”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Getty

To hear Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talk about scanning people’s messages, you’d get the impression that he’s running some kind of terrorism police that’s making the world better — starting with a sectarian conflict in Myanmar.

“I remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call and we detected that people were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook Messenger in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the Muslims, ‘Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place.’ And then the same thing on the other side,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Vox this week.

“Now, in that case, our systems detect that that’s going on. We stop those messages from going through,” he continued. (Myanmar NGOs say that Facebook didn’t detect the messages, and that the warning Zuckerberg received was actually from civil society groups.)

While preventing ethnic violence across the world may be a valid reason to scan Messenger emails, a more recent news story underscores that Facebook executives and officials have increased “god mode” access to their services, and use that power to do shady things that normal users have no idea about.

Several people who have chatted with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg say that when they checked their conversations later, all of Zuckerberg’s messages had been deleted, according to TechCrunch.

So when these people looked at their conversations with Facebook, only their messages remained. It looked like they were talking to themselves.

This isn’t a feature in Messenger — it’s exclusively available to Facebook executives and officials — but after it was caught Facebook said it was in “full compliance with our legal obligations” and said it would add an unsend feature for everyone at some point.

It’s a breach of trust in the social network. So, two items:

Facebook executives have special powers, including (but not limited to) deleting messages that its powerful executives previously sent.

Facebook has the ability to scan or read the content of your messages if it likes.

Given the way the company has been acting, is it really a fair actor that you want handling your messages, in which you discuss romantic relationships, or legal troubles, or your family, or your business?

Not a backdoor — there is no door at all

It’s not exactly appropriate to say that Messenger has a “backdoor” with which it can read your messages. The truth is, there is no door at all.

Messenger sends and receives unencrypted messages. That means on Facebook servers, they’re stored in text you or I could read. That makes it significantly easier for Facebook to scan them.

In fact, Facebook even has a mode if you don’t want it to read your messages — it’s called “secret conversation.” Facebook scans your messages by default. You have to specifically turn on encryption to tell it to not scan your messages.

Not encrypting its messages by default is a conscious decision by Facebook. WhatsApp, which Facebook owns, has encrypted its messages. Apple has too, with iMessage. Apple even says it doesn’t want have the content of your communications at all.

But Facebook clearly does — otherwise, “secret conversation” would be the default conversation.

Message encryption used to be a challenging technical problem, and it’s still not easy. But groups like the Signal Foundation have created open source software that would allow anyone building a messenger app to avoid starting from scratch.

Not all messaging apps are encrypted. Usually, the company running the service you’re using can look at the messages and legally must provide them to the cops when presented with the appropriate legal documents. Neither Twitter nor Snapchat are encrypted, either. Google looks at your email to serve ads. But only Facebook’s CEO has recently bragged about the “systems” he uses to scan them.

Dark patterns

iTunes

This would be easier if Facebook Messenger didn’t have one thing making it a great product: Your friends and family. “I really want to stop using FB Messenger, but a lot of my family members use it,” one colleague lamented on Friday.

But nearly everything else in the FB Messenger product makes it a difficult app to love. For example, it won’t let you turn read receipts off, unlike iMessage and basically every other messaging services.

This product decision, which people complained was “creepy and invasive” as long as five years ago can be dangerous for some people. Imagine if a former partner was stalking you. You might want to read what he’s sending you, but you don’t want him to know you read it. That’s not an option on Facebook.

That’s just one product decision that’s been made to maximize use and growth on Messenger, rather than the experience. Another example: Sometimes the app sends notifications when one of your Facebook friends installs it. That’s not for your benefit — sure, you may want to talk to the guy, but probably not — but it does help keep Messenger’s daily active user count up.

Why I hate notifications:

Me: (driving down the freeway)

Phone: HEY!! PAY ATTENTION!!! I HAVE SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT TO TELL YOU!!!!

Me: Umm, I’m trying to focus on driving. What is it?

Phone: Someone you might vaguely remember from college installed @Facebook@Messenger.

— Brenton (@appsforartists) April 1, 2018

This company-wide prioritization of growth over experience was revealed in a stunning 2016 post written by one of Zuckerberg’s inner circle, Facebook VP Andrew Bosworth.

In it, he says that any decisions that Facebook may make in order to continue growing is “de facto good.”

“That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day,” he wrote. Basically — by taking your contact book, he knows he’s locking you into Messenger.

Facebook’s leaders aren’t stupid. They know what they’re doing when they use what are called “dark patterns” to get you to upload your friends information, or get you to reply to messages immediately, for example.

How Instagram tricks you into syncing ALL of your contacts when picking a username is the most sinister interface trick I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/BQqgYHNOs5

— Owen (@ow) April 6, 2018

On a social network, that’s perhaps justifiable. But on a private messaging service to communicate with other people, it shows that what you want is not the same thing that Zuckerberg wants.

What to switch to

The point of this column is not to get you to switch to another specific messenger. There are lots of good options. WhatsApp is an obvious choice, and it’s encrypted — although it’s owned by Facebook, and even one of its cofounders now says to delete Facebook.

Signal is the preferred messenger for the security-focused, iMessage is fast and reliable but limited to pricey Apple devices. There are lots of considerations — the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good roundup of them here.

Your friends and family may have other preferences, too. But what’s important is that you shouldn’t use Facebook Messenger just because it’s the easiest. If your contacts are worth messaging, it’s worth it to talk to them on a service you can trust.

If you have information about Facebook Messenger to share, contact the author at [email protected]. He uses the secure messaging services mentioned in this story, too.

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ramialkarmi · 6 years

Text

You should stop using Facebook Messenger until it proves it's worthy of your trust (FB)

Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular messaging apps, with 1.2 billion users.

That huge audience makes it extremely useful — your friends and family probably use it — but it also means that Messenger doesn't need to fight for your trust.

It's time to change that.

There's no shortage of ways to text your friends and family for free. You can choose from WhatsApp, Skype, Google Hangouts, Signal, Telegram, Skype, Apple's iMessage, or literally scores of other options.

But the messaging app you're probably using is the worst choice.

And that's exactly the problem with Messenger. The app takes its massive user (based in large part on its legacy as Facebook's built-in messaging tool) for granted. As revelations over the past weeks and months have made clear, Facebook has its own set of rules for your Messenger inbox. Whether or not you like those rules is irrelevant.

For Messenger, users are essentially a captive audience rather than customers that it feels the need to satisfy and fight for.

Messenger needs to earn your trust

Naturally, while it's scanning your messages, Messenger is also collecting loads of data on you, including your call and text history from outside of Messenger. It stopped doing this in March after it was widely publicized. Facebook's on-the-record defense? You gave it permission.

It's time to take that permission away.

Downloaded my facebook data as a ZIP file Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner's mum pic.twitter.com/CIRUguf4vD

— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 21, 2018

Lack of trust

To hear Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talk about scanning people's messages, you'd get the impression that he's running some kind of terrorism police that's making the world better — starting with a sectarian conflict in Myanmar.

"I remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call and we detected that people were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook Messenger in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the Muslims, 'Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place.' And then the same thing on the other side," Zuckerberg said in an interview with Vox this week.

"Now, in that case, our systems detect that that’s going on. We stop those messages from going through," he continued. (Myanmar NGOs say that Facebook didn't detect the messages, and that the warning Zuckerberg received was actually from civil society groups.)

While preventing ethnic violence across the world may be a valid reason to scan Messenger emails, a more recent news story underscores that Facebook executives and officials have increased "god mode" access to their services, and use that power to do shady things that normal users have no idea about.

Several people who have chatted with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg say that when they checked their conversations later, all of Zuckerberg's messages had been deleted, according to TechCrunch.

So when these people looked at their conversations with Facebook, only their messages remained. It looked like they were talking to themselves.

This isn't a feature in Messenger — it's exclusively available to Facebook executives and officials — but after it was caught Facebook said it was in "full compliance with our legal obligations" and said it would add an unsend feature for everyone at some point.

It's a breach of trust in the social network. So, two items:

Facebook executives have special powers, including (but not limited to) deleting messages that its powerful executives previously sent.

Facebook has the ability to scan or read the content of your messages if it likes.

Not a backdoor — there is no door at all

It's not exactly appropriate to say that Messenger has a "backdoor" with which it can read your messages. The truth is, there is no door at all.

Messenger sends and receives unencrypted messages. That means on Facebook servers, they're stored in text you or I could read. That makes it significantly easier for Facebook to scan them.

In fact, Facebook even has a mode if you don't want it to read your messages — it's called "secret conversation." Facebook scans your messages by default. You have to specifically turn on encryption to tell it to not scan your messages.

Not encrypting its messages by default is a conscious decision by Facebook. WhatsApp, which Facebook owns, has encrypted its messages. Apple has too, with iMessage. Apple even says it doesn't want have the content of your communications at all.

But Facebook clearly does — otherwise, "secret conversation" would be the default conversation.

Message encryption used to be a challenging technical problem, and it's still not easy. But groups like the Signal Foundation have created open source software that would allow anyone building a messenger app to avoid starting from scratch.

Not all messaging apps are encrypted. Usually, the company running the service you're using can look at the messages and legally must provide them to the cops when presented with the appropriate legal documents. Neither Twitter nor Snapchat are encrypted, either. Google looks at your email to serve ads. But only Facebook's CEO has recently bragged about the "systems" he uses to scan them.

Dark patterns

This would be easier if Facebook Messenger didn't have one thing making it a great product: Your friends and family. "I really want to stop using FB Messenger, but a lot of my family members use it," one colleague lamented on Friday.

But nearly everything else in the FB Messenger product makes it a difficult app to love. For example, it won't let you turn read receipts off, unlike iMessage and basically every other messaging services.

This product decision, which people complained was "creepy and invasive" as long as five years ago can be dangerous for some people. Imagine if a former partner was stalking you. You might want to read what he's sending you, but you don't want him to know you read it. That's not an option on Facebook.

That's just one product decision that's been made to maximize use and growth on Messenger, rather than the experience. Another example: Sometimes the app sends notifications when one of your Facebook friends installs it. That's not for your benefit — sure, you may want to talk to the guy, but probably not — but it does help keep Messenger's daily active user count up.

Why I hate notifications: Me: (driving down the freeway) Phone: HEY!! PAY ATTENTION!!! I HAVE SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT TO TELL YOU!!!! Me: Umm, I'm trying to focus on driving. What is it? Phone: Someone you might vaguely remember from college installed @Facebook @Messenger.

— Brenton (@appsforartists) April 1, 2018

This company-wide prioritization of growth over experience was revealed in a stunning 2016 post written by one of Zuckerberg's inner circle, Facebook VP Andrew Bosworth.

In it, he says that any decisions that Facebook may make in order to continue growing is "de facto good."

"That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day," he wrote. Basically — by taking your contact book, he knows he's locking you into Messenger.

Facebook's leaders aren't stupid. They know what they're doing when they use what are called "dark patterns" to get you to upload your friends information, or get you to reply to messages immediately, for example.

How Instagram tricks you into syncing ALL of your contacts when picking a username is the most sinister interface trick I've ever seen pic.twitter.com/BQqgYHNOs5

— ⚡️ Owen (@ow) April 6, 2018

On a social network, that's perhaps justifiable. But on a private messaging service to communicate with other people, it shows that what you want is not the same thing that Zuckerberg wants.

What to switch to

The point of this column is not to get you to switch to another specific messenger. There are lots of good options. WhatsApp is an obvious choice, and it's encrypted — although it's owned by Facebook, and even one of its cofounders now says to delete Facebook.

It is time. #deletefacebook

— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018

Your friends and family may have other preferences, too. But what's important is that you shouldn't use Facebook Messenger just because it's the easiest. If your contacts are worth messaging, it's worth it to talk to them on a service you can trust.

If you have information about Facebook Messenger to share, contact the author at [email protected]. He uses the secure messaging services mentioned in this story, too.

SEE ALSO: Your Facebook data has probably already been scraped, Mark Zuckerberg says

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Facebook can still track you even if you delete your account — here's how to stop it

#Tech Insider #Arab #Entrepreneurship #sillicon alley insider

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garynsmith · 7 years

Text

How to perfect your email inbox system in real estate

http://ift.tt/2brxTpg

We know why to go paperless, we’ve taken the first steps, and we’ve honed our use of a note-taking app. Let’s look at our key system: inboxes.

Inboxes

“Clutter is just deferred decisions” — that used to be my email inbox, where anything that didn’t merit or couldn’t be given immediate attention went to die.

I had things in my inbox going back months and in some cases years (sound familiar?). If I might need it someday, or read it someday, or have to act on it someday, I couldn’t delete it. But so much of it isn’t needed or can’t be used right this second.

Your key tool is the note-taking app, and your key system will be your inboxes. Here is where you begin to generate action without generating paper.

I use two inboxes in conjunction with one another: my email inbox and my “inbox” notebook in Evernote (you might also have an “inbox” element in your to-do app).

To function effectively, the whole idea with your inboxes will be to keep things moving through them and clear them out; they should be temporary way-stations, not permanent storage for anything. Here’s one way to make that work.

5 email actions

When you receive an email, you can do one of the following:

Read and delete it

Act on it immediately in some fashion

Add something to your to-do list for later action

Add an event to your calendar

Save the email for later reading or action.

And that’s it. This is where saving emails to Evernote comes in.

If an email arrives and there’s action needed, if it takes a few moments, I’ll do it now and delete the email. Poof. If it merits follow-up action of some kind, I’ll add an item to my to-do list and delete the email. Poof.

If an email compels an addition to my calendar, I’ll make the calendar entry and delete the email. Poof.

If an email hits my inbox and I’m either unable to deal with it now or priorities dictate that I don’t deal with it now, I’ll save it to my Evernote inbox, and if needed, add an item to my to-do list and delete it from my email inbox. Poof.

(To save an email to Evernote, right click on it, and look for the “Save to Evernote” option, which will allow you to pick a notebook to put it in, and to rename it if needed.)

Of course, you’ll also sometimes just save an email to another folder in your email app — this is usually when it doesn’t demand any action at all but needs stored with other related emails.

If I get an email that has content or links to content that I want to read later or will need to access later, I’ll save the email either to my Evernote inbox or another more appropriate Evernote notebook and delete the email. Poof.

The only emails that live in my inbox for any extended period are continuing conversations.

What about Evernote?

So, what about that Evernote inbox with all the stuff getting saved to it?

The all-important key here is to view the Evernote inbox as a supplemental to-do list, not as long-term storage: Any email or note that lands there should either be deleted (because it’s been executed) or moved to another notebook for storage within a few days at most.

Lots of times, even when an item can be turned into a to-do, you may need to save the relevant email so you have it when the time comes to execute the to-do.

Those are the kinds of emails you should see when you look in your Evernote inbox, not random stuff you’re not sure what to do with. We already know random things you’re not sure what to do with don’t exist because every email will fall in one of the five action categories listed above, right?

Remember you can save regular Evernote notes to your Evernote inbox, too.

You’ll find plenty of times where you’ll write something that doesn’t in its current state belong on a to-do list, but is nevertheless an action item of one kind or another.

Put it in your inbox, where it’s now part of that supplemental to-do list. This is one of the subtle ways you really become paperless.

Remember last time we talked about random paper generation? Well, if we can stop making it quite so random, it’ll become easier to stop doing it on paper. And if everything has a “notebook” (including action items that don’t really fit a normal to-do list), it’s no longer random.

Can you see how paperlessness and efficiency go hand-in-hand? Use your inboxes systematically, and your whole work life will become much more efficient — and your business will become more profitable.

If you’ve been following the steps outlined so far, you’re certainly producing much less paper, and in fact, you will find that if you’re committed to it, you could be getting close to not using paper at all.

We just have a few more things to tidy up in our day-to-day work, and we still have all our old paper materials to deal with (files, notes, phone rosters, etc.). We’ll get into Dropbox in the next installment and try to finish with paper for good!

Brian Walker manages a top-producing Indianapolis branch office for Indiana’s largest independent real estate firm, the F. C. Tucker Company. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Email Brian Walker

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

Link

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

We’re only a few hours away from the first virtual political convention from gaveling into session and it’s already clear things are going to be very, very different.

You’re about to anchor a global event while not there. What is that like?

This is kind of terrible on a personal level, isn’t it?

Your audience is used to a visual medium. We’re going from balloon drops and pandemonium to what is basically a Zoom happy hour. How do you get your audience ready for that?

Might we actually be getting to a point where we’re looking at the ideas instead of pageantry?

If this whole thing is scripted from the start, why bother with it?

Where will you be physically sitting during this?

Have you embraced what the rest of us have during this: a suit, tie and athleisure below the desk?

This might be the biggest story of our career. The whole mantra is journalism is a first draft of history. You have a say in what goes in the history book. What makes the cut?

Can we purge the politics from it, or is it too late?

How dare you embrace science and fact?

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

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