Ddubz

Yup. Ours had some really expensive hobby items in addition to the books and book accessories. They had a rock tumbler kit one year I remember wanting really bad. My grandparents ended up getting me one for Christmas. I recall a telescope one year as well.

One of the more mischievous kids in my third grade class was the son of the high school chem teacher. He purchased a chemistry set at the book fair that year. He and another kid took it into the bathroom by the cafeteria and drank a few "experiments" from the kit in the box. They both got violently sick and an ambulance came. I'm really glad I stuck with my Box Car Children collection and Calvin and Hobbes book mark that year.

Indeed. It has a lot to do with that and about a dozen other things. Degree. Job field. Connections. Experience. Personality.

I have a general comms degree and an MA in digital media. These degrees and my job field are extremely broad, so I have experience in loads of different things. As such, I can apply for any job from digital marketing to public relations to a press officer and have a shot of at least getting an interview. I've never had a shortage of knowing people in my industry who would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation or give me a referral where they work. I've gotten one of my colleagues hired at two separate places that I have been a manager.

But to add on to that, I interview well and have a very relaxed and jovial personality. I work well with others and make friends easily. I can't count how many times there have been interoffice issues where an independent consultant had to come in and mediate or get to the bottom of an HR problem and it would turn out that I'm one of the only people in a division that not a single person had a conflict with.

I don't think this article is really "pro reddit" tbh. The headline says Reddit won, but the copy adds context to that. Reddit was always going to outlast the protests. I can't imagine anyone was delusional enough to think otherwise. But like the article says, Huffman lost most of the other gambles in terms of post quality, public opinion, and there's still 1800+ subs of varying sizes dark.

Short term ad traffic is the win he needs on paper, but the press hasn't been favorable overall and user engagement is high if you consider edgy teenagers making the front page with nonsense because all the decent mods have quit as consistent engagement.

Same. And I don't like to admit it, but I was a "power user". When Bacon Reader went dark, I never went back. Like others have pointed out, Reddit was always going to "win" the protest, even with over 1800 subs still out. But the platform's frontpage quality is in the tank. Google doesn't want to list Reddit at the top of search results anymore. The corporate failure to retain money making accounts made national news. Huffman completely missed the investment boat, and although the site itself is still generating traffic, the raised interest rates and lack of ROI for the unpopular changes spells out nothing but a slow death rattle.

And, lmao, anyone that publicly announces they're following the "Musk Model" for social media platform leadership is clearly a fucking dipshit doomed to drive their site into the ground.

Dumping Twitter, to start. We've been able to finally get our client to try some new things using IG reels and YT shorts. We've also been able to grab their ear about Reddit, Lemmy, and Mastodon. While they're not fully onboard yet with federated platforms, they're interested, which is a huge step. We've also been pitching more proactive content and getting more support on strategy shifts to have a more conversational back-and-forth with the client's audience. They used to prefer to get people off open comments and into private DMs. We have been pushing them to be more transparent and human with their direct engagement.

I'd argue the opposite. People have been fed up with the mainstream platforms for a long time now. Now that we know how social media grew grassroots terrorism and that the platforms allowed it for ad clicks, I'd say it's a good time to pivot away from the traditional models of the last 15-20 years, move away from the Facebooks and Twitters, and try something new.

Professionally, I lead a team of digital artists and oversee digital marketing efforts for a government client. The chaos and burning out of Twitter and Reddit has been a great time for my team as we've finally been given the latitude to do new work and build new strategies instead of just doing the same bullshit over and over. I've started enjoying work again and my team has been energized because everyday there's something new to overcome. And because the social media ecosystem is so turbulent, it's actually removing the pressure from us because our client understands that we are operating in new territory. Essentially, we are being allowed to fail in the pursuit of innovation.

I'm pumped to be a part of this evolving shift. There's so much potential. Also, I'm selfishly enjoying watching these fucking assholes like Musk flail and burn through billions of dollars as a result of their hubris.

Not to derail your point, but I am 100% positive that the meme isn't saying Barbie is a bad movie at all. This meme isn't near as deep as you're giving it credit for.

It's making the observation that Hollywood has eroded its creative foundation to the point that there have only been two movies that anyone is talking about this year. Whereas in years past there would be dozens.

I have certainly noticed that over the last few years I care less and less about yet another Marvel movie or remake of an awesome 80s or 90s movie. It's extremely obvious why masterful productions like Barbie and Oppenheimer stand out above everything else this year. These would have been great movies in the 90s too, but they would have actually been competing against substantially more films that are worth talking about.

Talentless hack Jason Aldean released a song titled "Try That in a Small Town" with an accompanying music video. It's loaded with racist dog whistles with nods to lynching; which is what got the video pulled off CMT.

It's basically just a poorly arranged tirade insinuating that small, white, christian towns are safe while black, lefty, cities are dangerous. The imagery in the video strongly suggests that all of the riots, dissent, protests, and problems in the US are everyone else's fault except God-fearing white people. Typical fascist shit, blame LGBTQ people, black people, migrants, atheists, literally anyone else in order to avoid responsibility and justify killing/jailing - LYNCHING - those they seem to be causing all their woes.

Now, I am originally from a one red light town in the South and can personally vouch for the fact that these "small towns" are pits of rape and misogyny fueled by the same old Catholic concept of illiterate congregation lead by an evil fuckface telling them what they should believe and do. Just because many of these ignorant dipshits are Baptists or some other pointless protestant denomination doesn't change that the playbook is always the same. I mean this, I graduated high school in 2008 with people who literally couldn't read, if you needed any reassurance that the plummetting literacy rate in the US was accurate.

I'll finish off my soapbox here with this. I love country music. But like all other genres, there's what's on the radio, and there's everything else. I'm not gonna sit here on a pedestal and say that I never get a pop-country tune stuck in my head. A lot of them are fine; pandering and rehashed same old lyrics and chords, but they're catchy for a reason. This Jason Aldean song isn't even that. It's poorly written and the music is objectively not good. It's just loud. That's it. It's just talentless noise. One thing that has made me happy as a country music fan, is that the country community has largely come out against the song and it's message. If you happen to read more about this, you'll see plenty of country artists slamming it for being garbage. You'll also see that most of the "celebrities and influencers" standing up for Aldean are MAGA republican politicians and washed up performers who can't get work anywhere because of their shit ass opinions.

/Rant

"Regular" shower, boss. I'm not talking about extracurricular showers. The other commenters were amazed that anyone ever takes a less than 15 shower. Which is ridiculous that their bar for a normal shower is that long.

Seriously! A regular shower for me takes around five minutes. With a face shave, it's still less than ten. Wtf else is there to do? Standing there staring at the wall?

Considering many cousinfucker school districts all across the US are trying to abolish social and cultural learning and all access to political science. I'd say a governor taking a stand and making it clear anti-education curriculums won't be tolerated, is a pretty big deal.