There was a recent discussion on tumblr, which I didn’t reblog for obvious reasons, about how people with a large readership cope with a heavy interaction load – how the person would be anxious if they dealt with that volume of notes on each post, that amount of interaction and contact. I was tagged in it because of my habit of “lochnessing”, where I cause an activity spike on posts I reblog that looks like the loch ness monster.
It never occurs to me, because I’ve dealt with high-volume social media for so long – realistically about ten years, probably closer to fifteen – that it’s difficult for people to handle that, because they don’t have the systems in place that I do. I mean it does occur to me in the sense that I have become more cautious about what I reblog and its impact on the OP; there are things I’d like to share with you but don’t because I recognize it would be harmful to the person who wrote them. But it doesn’t occur to me that someone might struggle with a high volume of notes purely because it’s a volume that they don’t have a system in place to deal with the way I do.
So I said I’d do a writeup on the “entire ecosystems” I had in place for handling the high volume of interaction I receive online. I sit at a weird place where I’m not so well known that I can just ignore most of what comes at me with impunity because everyone acknowledges I can’t answer it all, like say a youtube star. But at the same time I do get too much attention to return it at the same level I receive it. I am one and you are sixteen thousand. So I had to make systems to return as much as I could and feel okay about not returning the rest.
Reading through this, of course it sounds like a weird humblebrag: “Here’s how I deal with my MASSIVE POPULARITY”. There’s no real way around that; I can’t talk about how I deal with comments without talking about how I get a disproportionately high number of them. The fact that I do is what leads me to do things like the Zero Comment Challenge, or Radio Free Monday, to try and balance shit out. So, as I mention occasionally below, you can think I’m an asshole for talking about how I am popular, but I can’t talk about how to deal with that popularity without acknowledging the reality of it, and someone somewhere’s gonna think I’m an asshole anyway, so whatever.
These are the systems I use to manage my life – work, play, the weird inbetween space that’s kind of both. Many of these are akin to the systems that I use in managing my depression, in that they involve a lot of small steps building up to a big result, but each small step on its own is manageable.
LOL yes — he was with Cap on the Lemurian Star, summoned him in the hospital, attacked him in the elevator, arrested him after Bucky kicked his ass, and fought Sam in the Triskelion.
Fellow got around, really.
He’s also the one that walked into the Triskelion launch room and did the fight to early launch the Helicarriers, which was the fight/showdown with Agent 13
I never watched horror films, which you could legit bill Snowpiercer as, until I was an adult, really until I was in grad school. Part of it was that I was worried the films would somehow irrevocably change me or traumatize me, so I totally get you. And the movie did mess up a part of my head for a few days, but it wore off. I’ve streamed it a lot, so I’ve seen it a lot, and at this point I can appreciate the complexity of it and the weird illogic of it without fearing the content.
I think it’s great to see it on the big screen but if you’re worried about it, wait till it leaves cinemas and I’ll stream it again, in a small format so that you can navigate away if you need to. You won’t miss a life-changing experience if you don’t see it on the big screen.
Here are the things I’ve told people:
Yes, there is violence. There is some visual gore. There is a bit of body horror, but nothing visually graphic. There is no sexual violence (there’s no sex at all). There is drug use, but it’s relatively brief. And all of this is overshadowed by both the essential dystopia and the literary content.
I don’t usually go for dystopias so Snowpiercer is a really strange exception, but in a way I don’t know that it is dystopian so much as it is a terrible, Brothers Grimm style fairy tale about oppression and revolution.
FYI, it came out on demand over the weekend. It’s on DirecTV, iTunes and (Amazon) among others – check your local provider if you need to control your video experience (like I often do).
If you can though, totally see it on the big screen. Show that VOD isn’t a theater killer as well as support the artist choices of the director and cast.
When looking at places feel free to bring a friend if you like. They’ll help keep the pressure off and ask questions that you may not think of. They’ll also keep you safe®.
If you’re that sort – snap a few pictures with your phone. It really helped me to have a visual later.
The apartment itself –
An easy way for me to tell if a building is maintained is to look at something like the window screens – they aren’t important per se but you can tell if the landlord cares about the little details if the screens are in great shape.
Run the sink and flush the toilet. Does the water pressure drop in the sink? Having low water pressure will probably affect the shower and that could be a problem if you are on a schedule with other folks in your building.
Enough outlets – in older buildings I’ve always ended up running extension cords. Not the end of the world but annoying. Keep an eye out for a single outlet in a room with a two prong plug. You might be popping circuit breakers, especially in the kitchen if they’ve never modernized the electricity.
Does it face west? I had a fantastic apartment – that turned into an oven in the afternoons and didn’t have a cross breeze. The only fix was to talk the landlord into a big screen that ran across the entire front of the apartment.
Sound – How sensitive are you to noise? Everyone has different standards for that. If there are hardwood floors throughout the building keep in mind that you’ll probably hear your upstairs neighbors/they’ll hear you.
Neighborhood –
If you’re getting close to a decision go at different times of day to check the place out. Mid day on the weekend is going to be very different from evening that’s different from a weekday.
Transit/parking – make sure it suits your needs. Close to the bus/train? Are you on a line that runs early/late enough for your needs? Have space for parking?
Google the address and see if there have been complaints about the landlord.
Evernote is actually pretty super-duper simple once you get the hang of it, but that can sometimes be a little complex…
Uh. So. People will tell you to download the app for your phone. Don’t do that unless you really like taking notes and surfing the web on your phone. Just fucking move on without the app, you don’t need it, YOU ARE A STRONG PERSON.
Go to www.evernote.com/evernote/ (because evernote the brand and evernote the website are two different things, evernote the brand has all this other shit, don’t go there yet, shh) and click “sign up” in the upper right corner. Sign the fuck up!
Then, wait for it, no, don’t do anything evernote tells you, go BACK TO www.evernote.com/evernote/ and click on “get the web clipper”. If you are on firefox, you need to install the little plugin thing and then go to View>Toolbars>Customize and add the elephant-head-looking-thing to one of your menu bars. If you’re on Chrome you shouldn’t have to add it, it will add itself, self-determining elephant heads a go-go. If you’re on Internet Explorer, you have my sympathy and there is no help or hope for you.
YOUR WEB CLIPPER IS NOW INSTALLED. Welcome to the future.
When you come across a fanfic or a webpage or a fanart or IDK, that really funny bit of Facebook where your dad posted a selfie of his thumb, click the little elephant head thing. On Firefox you generally get a drop-down where you can alter the text, choose what notebook the page will go into, add tags, and other stuff. On Chrome this shows up on the side and sometimes the tags are autofilled, but you can click on basically any part of the drop-sideways bar and edit shit.
IF evernote is highlighting the wrong part of the page to be saved, close the evernote drop-down/sideways and highlight the part you want saved, then click the elephant head thing again and select “clip selected”. It will clip only the part you highlight.
If you go to www.evernote.com and log in, you will be taken to your Evernote account where all this shit is stored. You can click on any item to view or edit it. You can make notebooks to store shit in, tag things, delete tags, rename tags, edit fanfics to remove that one really glaring grammar error or cut out any bit that’s not porny, whatever your heart desires.
It’s really pretty intuitive so you should get the hang of it quickly, but I’ll do some kind of live-action Evernote tutorial this weekend on livestream, if people so desire.
The links have changed slightly. http:evernote.com to get an account.
Tumblr Exodus 