Latest Posts by jackoquako - Page 4

my favourite genre of images right now

pros to finishing a show:

Now able to start a new show

more free time

no more matinees

cons to finishing a show

No more show..

being on the aro-ace spectrum is so strange because you can go years without so much as a crush and then you get to know just the right person under just the right circumstances and suddenly your heart is fluttering at the notification of their texts. God I’m in over my head.

I don’t want to ruin what’s just begun and I don’t know what this feeling is

but I want to hold you close forever and ever and just listen to your voice as you talk about schedules or performances or whatever

And I get jealous when you hug someone else or talk to your ex

I don’t even know you that well.

I don’t want to get to know you under the guise of friendship only to spring this on you. I don’t want to hurt you when you’re already down from a breakup. I love you. I want to love you. But I don’t want to complicate things.

I found my phone and I’m definitely writing down my passwords so I don’t get locked out of literally everything again

phone inaccessible I feel like I'm losing it

phone inaccessible I feel like I'm losing it

I know that a lot of people use fanfiction and fandom as an escape mechanism for the heavy things but please remember that those of us who can do that can only do it because we’re safe.

cod fandom attention pls to save a Palestinian teenager

Please either donate or engage with the post in some way so more people see it, either way it genuinely does help in a meaningful way even if it doesn't feel like a lot

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Evacuate My Family from Gaza to Safety, organized by momen alostaz

.Hi everyone, I am momen.j.m.alostaz , 24years old, from G… momen alostaz needs your support for Help Evacuate My Family f

Please help alleviate human trauma in Gaza through the link in my bio🙏🍉

Holy shit. The Israeli whistleblower story CNN just broke is insane. I cannot believe what I’m reading

I think they’re the same height tbh

Sara's Response

I thought I was done, but I'm not I guess.

I couldn't figure out why her response rubbed me the wrong way, and then it hit me.

"People should be paid fairly."

She's talking to us. She's talking to the fans as if we're the greedy corporate boss who won't give her husband the $1 raise at the end of the year.

It's like they forgot THEY are the company. THEY are the CEOs. We're not. If people aren't being paid fairly, that's a company problem. Not a fan problem.

And like, them apologizing doesn't change the stuff about Steven belonging to a homophobic church and using Watcher to promote it, and it doesn't change the employees and spouses going on Personal Attacks towarda upset fans on other platforms, it doesn't change the comments of "We love when people tell us we got them through hard times " in the same video as making it so people going through hard times jo longer have access to them as a respite. Removing the paywall doesn't change them, subconsciously or consciously, thinking of poor fans as Worthless and Lesser, and unless they actively work at dismantling these notions in their minds They'll Do It Again. They showed, very clearly, that Fans Are Numbers And Not People to them. That Fans are this abstract concept of Praise and Adoration and Money that exist just to serve their endeavors. That's not something you can change your mentality around in 3 days- that's something that needs Active And Purposeful Dismantling Within The Deeper Psyche. And to be quite frank I don't believe they'll be willing to do such work, because it's not Profitable to remember that Your Audience Is Real People, Not Numbers.

Watcher's Expenses

I didn't major in accounting: I took three classes and it grinded my brain to a fine powder. However, after graduating with a business admin degree, being a former eager fan of their videos, and from a cursory glance over their socials, there's a lot to consider in their spending behavior that really could start racking up costs. Some of these things we've already noticed, but there are other things I'd like to highlight, and I'll try to break it down into the different categories of accounting expenses (if I get something wrong, let me know. I was more concentrated in marketing 🤷‍♀️). I'm not going to hypothesize numbers either, as that would take out more time than I'm willing to afford-- you can assume how much everything costs. Anyways, here's my attempt at being a layman forensic accountant:

Note: All of this is assuming they're operating above board and not engaging in any illegal practices such as money laundering, tax evasion, not paying rent, etc.

Operating Expenses

Payroll: 25+ staff salaries and insurance

Overhead Expenses

CEO/founder salaries

Office space leasing or rent (In L.A, one of the most expensive cities in the US)

Utilities (water, electricity, heating, sanitation, etc.)

Insurance

Advertising Costs

Telephone & Internet service

Cloud Storage or mainframe

Office equipment (furniture, computers, printers, etc.)

Office supplies (paper, pens, printer ink, etc.)

Marketing costs (Social media marketing on Instagram, Youtube, SEO for search engines, Twitter, etc. Designing merchandise and posters, art, etc. )

Human Resources (not sure how equipped they are)

Accounting fees

Property taxes

Legal fees

Licensing fees

Website maintenance (For Watchertv.com, Watcherstuff.com, & Watcherentertainment.com)

Expenses regarding merchandising (whoever they contract or outsource for that)

Inventory costs

Potentially maintenance of company vehicles

Subsequent gas mileage for road trips

Depreciation (pertains to tangible assets like buildings and equipment)

Amortization (intangible assets such as patents and trademarks)

Overhead Travel and Entertainment Costs (I think one of the biggest culprits, evident in their videos and posts)

The travel expenses (flights, train trips, rental cars, etc. For main team and scouts)

Hotel expenses for 7-8 people at least, or potentially more

Breakfasts, lunches and dinners with the crew (whether that's fully on their dime or not, I don't know; Ryan stated they like to cover that for the most part)

Recreational activities (vacation destinations, amusement parks, sporting activities etc.)

The location fees

Extraneous Overhead costs (not sure exactly where these fall under, but another culprit, evident in videos and posts)

Paying for guest appearances

Expensive filming & recording equipment (Cameras, sound equipment, editing software subscriptions, etc.)

The overelaborate sets for Ghost files, Mystery Files, Puppet History, Podcasts etc. (Set dressing: Vintage memorabilia, antiquated tech, vintage furniture, props, etc.)

Kitchen & Cooking supplies/equipment

Office food supply; expensive food and drink purchases for videos

Novelty items or miscellaneous purchases (ex. Ghost hunting equipment, outfits, toys, etc.)

Non-Operating Expenses

These are those expenses that cannot be linked back to operating revenue. One of the most common examples of non-operating expenses is interest expense. This is because while interest is the cost of borrowing money from a creditor or a bank, they are not generating any operating income. This makes interest payments a part of non-operating expenses.

Financial Expenses

Potential loan payments, borrowing from creditors or lenders, bank loans, etc.

Variable Expenses

Hiring a large amount of freelancers, overtime expenditure, commissions, etc.

PR consultations (Not sure if they had this before the scandal)

Extraordinary Expenses

Expenses incurred outside your company’s regular business activities and during a large one-time event or transactions. For example, selling land, disposal of a significant asset, laying off of your employees, unexpected machine repairing or replacement, etc.

Accrued Expenses

When your business has incurred an expense but not yet paid for it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(If there's anything else I'm missing, please feel free to add or correct things)

To a novice or a young entrepreneur, this can be very intimidating if you don't have the education or the support to manage it properly. I know it intimidates the hell out of me and I'm still having to fill in the gaps (again, if I've mislabeled or gotten anything wrong here, please let me know). For the artistic or creative entrepreneur, it can be even harder to reconcile the extent of your creative passions with your ability to operate and scale your business at a sustainable rate. That can lead to irresponsible, selfish, and impulsive decisions that could irreparably harm your brand, which is a whole other beast of its own.

My guess at this point is that their overhead and operation expenses are woefully mismanaged; they've made way too many extraneous purchases, and that they had too much confidence in their audience of formerly 2.93 million to make up for the expenses they failed to cover.

It almost seems as if their internal logic was, "If we make more money, we can keep living the expensive lifestyle that we want and make whatever we want without anyone telling us we can't, and we want to do it NOW, sooner rather than later because we don't want wait and compromise our vision." But as you can see, the reality of fulfilling those ambitions is already compromised by the responsibility of running a business.

And I wrote this in another post here, but I'll state it again: Running a business means you need to be educated on how a business can successfully and efficiently operate. Accounting, marketing, social media marketing, public relations, production, etc; these resources and internet of things is available and at your disposal. If they had invested more time in educating themselves on those aspects and not made this decision based on artistic passion (and/or greed), they would have not gotten the response they got.

Being a graphic designer, I know the creative/passionate side of things but I also got a degree/got educated in business because I wanted to understand how to start a company and run it successfully. If they’re having trouble handling the responsibility of doing that, managing production costs, managing overhead expenses, and especially with compensating their 25+ employees, then they should hire professionals that are sympathetic to their creative interests, but have the education and experience to reign in bad decisions like these.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TedTalk. What a shitshow this has been.

“And I hope you NASTY, VILE, BULLIES who BROKE those poor men by *checks notes* 1.) pointing out that a bad business decision was bad and 2.) recognising that a CEO is, in fact, in charge of a company ROT IN HELL for your irredeemable crimes against our parasocial blorbos!!!! 😡🤬”

i was gonna stop posting about the watcher fiasco but i saw some really confusing???? takes on my dash so I'm throwing in my unsolicited thoughts even though it's not the most eloquent

1) people who were criticising watcher's decision after the initial announcement are NOT bullies. The boys made a bad decision and had to deal with the consequences. Just because you like them doesn't mean that people expressing their (understandable and quite just) disappointment are bullies

2) people who aren't won over by the apology aren't just "haters" and "internet trolls". While the apology seems to be a step in the right direction, we have NO WAY to know if they are sincere about it yet. They might show growth in the future but only time will tell. And even if they do show growth, fans whose feelings about watcher have been tainted because of this fiasco do not owe them their loyalty when said loyalty has already been disrespected once

Guys, the more I think about it, the more I fear that they simply won't care about our input. Like shane and ryan, both went to school for filmography, and they've always wanted to make TV quality content. Every pod, they talk about some movie or other piece of film media. They love it. The yellow and blue text has always been enough for us, yes, but I worry that it will never be enough for them. Our devotion is irrelevant. It just really sucks that their values and goals don't seem to align with ours.

also i’ve seen some people say they’re gonna kill themselves or swear off watcher because of something they announced TWO HOURS ago and i just

please i say this with the upmost sincerity, PLEASE reevaluate some things in your life and please seek mental health help or take a step back to think things through because a company should not have this kind of impact on your life

seeing a lot of comparisons between Dropout TV and Watcher TV. they did not execute their streaming services in the same way. Dropout has a YouTube membership for every series on Dropout TV, meaning you can access their new and exclusive content through YouTube still. this is not the plan with Watcher TV. Dropout's success may have been inspiration like some people are speculating, but saying that Dropout's success equals the success for Watcher TV is wild. Dropout has a Massive cast and connections in improv and comedy scenes due to their years in the scene as College Humor. Dropout specialises in comedy, has a variety of shows that use rotating casts such as Game Changer and Dirty Laundry and more, meaning they create opportunities for other creatives that aren't already a part of Dropout plus are able to create more shows. Watcher's main thing is the duo Ryan and Shane, although they have other notable figures. justifying creating a streaming service means expanding into creating new content and I just don't think that works when you have that small of a cast of people. I love Watcher, I do, but this was not well executed.

not to mention that it’s 6 USD. People tend to forget that the conversion rate for other currencies into usd is high. And people forget that other countries do watch things on YouTube, even the companies forget that.

saying 5.99 is a dispensable monthly amount for any and everybody is just such a wild statement on its own

Also say it with me now: Ryan and Shane are not rich. Before the 2000'z, the average middle class US american would be able to afford a home, two cars, and a 1 or 2 vacations trips. Almost no body in america can reach that nowadays. You're either hitting the bar (barely grazing), trying to hit it but never getting to, or you were born above the bar. Ryan lived with two room mates until a year go where he now lives in an apartment with his wife and dog in LA. He's in his early thirties. Shane Madej is nearing forty and lives in an apartment in LA with his wife, owns one self proclaimed shitty car. These men aren't fucking Jeff Bezos. You're closer to them in income than they are to Taylor Swift. Which in other words, closer than not. We are not being taken advantage of. Capitalism just sucks. Piracy still exists. And you're a bad ass bitch okay? So lets all chill

I don't think the "pay artists website is upset about having to pay artists" argument for Watcher is a very good. argument. They had a Patreon, people were literally already paying the artists. Adding another subscription service into an already saturated market full of overpriced subscription services is just. A bad business move. It's career suicide.

Everyone is struggling right now and I understand that that includes everyone at Watcher, but there had to have been a better idea than "lets start our own subscription service"

I seriously wish Ryan, Shane, and Steven the best but this is seriously gonna come back and bite them in the ass.

I think what the biggest kick in the teeth is with the watcher announcement- at least for me- is knowing that they are NOT Netflix OR Hulu. they do not have enough content to hold an entire streaming service on their back. I get why they’re doing it and that just worries me more. They’re trying to make more money to support their growing company but they just aren’t Dropout, Netflix, or Hulu. With the big buck streaming services, they have enough content beyond their original series to keep people watching (ignoring the fact that most big boy services have needed to switch gears in their monetization to keep going) but watcher does not have that. in order for this change to work even remotely on their end, they’d need to kick into high gear and make more content. Like fast. Someone else pointed out that they’ve got a “two episode per month” schedule and that absolutely will not work for a streaming service. and of course everything I’ve mentioned is on their end, not even taking into consideration how many people are very visibly angry by this. What happens when they don’t have enough people sign up? 

what a kick in the pants.

Friendly reminders to cis fanfic writers that afab≠woman

Afab means assigned female at birth so this includes/can include cis women, trans men, transmasc people, nonbinary people, and intersex people.

If you’re making a fic where the reader is a woman, uses she/her, wears feminine clothing, etc. tag it as fem reader instead.

I’ve been smacked in the face as a trans man by reading fics tagged afab thinking it will be gender neutral, but the reader is actually a woman and I’m disappointed because I was ready for a fic I thought would apply to me.

Have fun writing and make sure you’re tagging your fics properly, ty <3

hi. go buy esims for gaza. go preorder a kufiya from hirbawi. buy insulin for palestinian diabetics who need that help. if you live in the states use this to email your reps (this takes maybe 5 seconds to do). check out this massive list of resources where you can educate yourself in a meaningful and actionable way even if you don't have the financial means right now. from the river to the sea palestine will be free. 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

every time the stickers on my phone start wearing down I feel guilty cause they’re not as the used to be but then I remember that one post about being well-loved and I don’t feel guilty

They are carpet bombing Rafah. The over 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah are being targeted at what is now 4 in the morning for them. They are posting their goodbyes.

People in Rafah are sharing videos of martyrs turned into ashes from the bombing. Let that sink in. Real people. Nothing left but ASHES.

1.4 MILLION people are seeking refuge in Rafah.

Israel is carpet bombing the most densely populated place IN THE WORLD right. now. They're purposely targeting mosques, the place people seek refuge in.

ARE YOU STILL GONNA LET THEM TALK ABOUT "CIVILIAN CASUALTIES"?

I wonder if birds know they look stupid when they run

I hope they do because pigeons should know that just running from place to place isn’t just a slap in the face to the fact that they have wings and we don’t but also horribly inefficient and makes them look dumber than before. They should know that evolution doesn’t smile upon them like it does with crabs and they should cherish the wings they have.

yeah

hobie: kill yourself

pavitr: WHAT THE HELL BRO WHAT DID I DO

original format from @ha-youwish in this post!