staff

Fighting “Follow Spam”

staff

A quick update on one of our priorities right now: Getting rid of spammy followers.

We’ve recently made a lot of headway, including shutting down several large spam rings that were responsible for most of these spammy follows.

We’re always improving our algorithms to catch these annoying bots, but one of the best tools we have are your reports. If you ever catch someone spammy following you, you can use this icon to report them:

Not only will you stop that bot from bothering anyone else, you’ll help our team catch thousands of stupid bots just like it. (Easier reporting is coming soon to our mobile apps too.)

Thank you for your vigilance, Tumblr.

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wishful-thinkment

anyroads

The thing that gets me about the marketing around the Barbie movie is that the entire thing is such a blatant performance. Margot Robbie has been doing this press tour in recreated or inspired by Barbie outfits. Everyone is in on-brand wardrobe, including the interviewers.

All the interviews are either on the film's set or whatever talk show or news show they're on has changed their own set to be Barbie themed - even the hosts are in on-brand wardrobe.

The color palate of the film is maintained. Everything is constructed. The aesthetics are practically choreographed. There's a group conversation between Great Gerwig and the actors where Michael Cera is also present, whose character is an outsider in the film, and while everyone else wears beige and white (except Margot Robbie who wears another Barbie inspo outfit, link above), he wears dark blue and sits at the edge of the table while all the others are behind it.

These press tour interviews have been formulaically designed to feel candid for decades. Publicity teams put insane amounts of effort in to make the viewer think they're witnessing actors and directors being their unfiltered selves and constructing an image of them as an extension of their character in the project they're promoting. And Barbie said, why pretend this isn't another show we're putting on?

For years the press around films has said, you the audience are the observer in the panopticon and these actors are here for you to observe, project onto, and be entertained by. They've done this so the viewer feels connected and, ultimately, buys into the image they're being sold, very literally, while thinking it's reality. Barbie's press says, instead, actually it's not a panopticon, it's theatre, and you're the audience so have a seat, and if you're entertained, please come back.

It's brilliant. It's different. It's genius. And it's more honest in its contrived and carefully constructed state than any movie promo tour I've seen possibly ever.

wishful-thinkment

politijohn

Source

Long over-due

legitsnackeleanorshellstrop

shittymoviedetails

toonskribblez

legitsnackeleanorshellstrop

turtlesandfrogs

So I was scrolling and saw this image in an article about the European heat wave,

And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that's a lot of red.

And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don't know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it's normal there?

But nope, that's not the case:

‘Hot Continent’ Perception Downplays Africa's Heat Wave Dangers

Africa is struggling with heat waves and many countries on the continent lack the resources rich economies have to deal with rising temperat

Bloomberg.com

Some selections from the article:

"The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.

“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”

"The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off."

legitsnackeleanorshellstrop

lestatslestits

I see Hollywood is now very into the idea of buying something once and then owning it forever and being able to make infinite copies. Which. Isn’t quite the message they imparted upon me in my childhood. In the spirit of their own long-held stance: