[Streetwear] The brick that broke the speculator's back: How a single gag accessory may have permanently altered all perception of New York's premier street fashion brand.
Friends, the story I bring to you today is not a fallout, but a crescendo. How years of grassroots promotion and online influencer endorsements led to a once underground fashion brand's rise to power and entry into the hallowed halls of internet ridicule. Or, the time Supreme sold a brick for thirty dollars. (this post contains a lot of context for what Supreme is and how it works, so if you only wanna know how and why they sold a brick, skip to the brick section) What is Supreme? Supreme is a skateboard and lifestyle brand founded by British-American fashion mogul James Jebbia. In an era where skate fashion was known for its eccentricity and garish presentation, Supreme stood out. It's iconic logo is made with stock typeface over a red box, which pushed the brand to the 2-billion dollar empire it is today. While the Box Logo (or the Bogo, as it's known among fans) has seen its share of ridicule (a lawsuit involving the logo could be its own entry) the brand's diehard fanbase, as well as myself, would argue the stripped-back, downright esoteric nature of Supremes' branding is exactly what pushed it to its heights. But it's taken a long time getting here. Unless you lived in New York, you probably only heard of Supreme in the last couple of years. All in all, there are four stores in the continental United States, two on each coast. Two releases happen per year, spring/summer and fall/winter. Rather than release all merchandise at once, Supreme releases (Drops) happen one week at a time, slowly working through its seasonal inventory. This release model not only maintains interest in new releases all throughout it's season, it perpetuates interest in what will drop next, since not everything coming out is revealed at once, either. It's common to hear about cross-brand and artist collaborations mere days before they release. All in all, everything Supreme does as a brand is on a need-to-know basis, meaning they've effectively mastered the art of FOMO. This means a diehard fanbase of skaters and fashion collectors. Half the reason a piece of Supreme clothing so cool to own is because only you and a couple hundred people (maybe a couple thousand, Supreme doesn't disclose inventory metrics either) have one. Naturally, a fandom would form. How Supreme makes a fan. On drop day, items generally cost what any other brand would charge, maybe a little more. Pieces are only available in store or online, both opening at 11am EST. What follows is a mad dash only Nike can claim to share. The online store operates on a first-come, first-serve basis, and the physical stores do the same, ala lining up for a game console. On a good day, you have maybe three minutes to cart your item and check out. The site does not save your cart so if you take too long, the piece you just added to your shopping cart might already be sold out by the time your payment is processed. If you've spent the past three months trying to buy a PS5, welcome to our world. We do this forty weeks a year. You lose a lot (take an L). Seventy-percent of the things you want you will fail to get. But when you do finally check out and get your purchase at your door (take a W, a dub, recklessly spend money) the feeling is euphoric. You are now a part of a secret club because, guess what, that was the initiation process. Some people buy one item and never try again. They're few and far between. The majority of Supreme customers have been buying (copping) for years, amassing massive collections. Sooner or later, Supreme would release an item specifically for fans and nobody else. The problem is when they did. Okay, that's cool, but why the **** did Supreme sell a thirty-dollar brick. Good question. The best part is that there's several answers. Along with clothing and skateboard decks, Supreme sells a wide, constantly-circulating pools of accessories. These have been a mini bike, a Super Soaker, a pinball machine, a crowbar that at least one guy really wanted, and coming soon, apparently, a bob...sled? Supremes' accessory choice is as baffling as everything else they do. A common riff on the brand is that they could "put their logo on literally anything and it would sell out." These people are not wrong, but I'd argue their accessory choice is more nuanced than this. Their logo alone could sell all kinds of things, but its the things they do sell that begin to send a message. For example, a Supreme baseball bat is nothing profound, but next to a Supreme ski mask, a Supreme crowbar, a Supreme money gun, and a Supreme... brick, the street-smart, underground roots of the brand begin to take root. There's always been an underlying, illicit message to Supremes' aesthetics, coated in a minimalist exterior. This subtext what splits the speculators and the mega-fans. Those mega-fans bring to life a second answer for why, in Fall 2016, supreme released a thirty-dollar clay brick with their logo etched in: one piece of Hypebeast lingo I've omitted until now is when an item Bricks. This is when any particular item either in-store or online sits in stock, with nobody buying it. No true-blue Supreme diehard would ever wear something anyone else could feasibly get for retail price or, god willing, below retail price. Bricks are poison to many an avid fan, which is why the brand might have thought it funny to sell to them an actual, literal brick. For thirty dollars. You get one brick. it sold out in seconds. But where's the drama? At the exact same time the brick was released to fans, two separate parties were growing aware of this once niche fashion label. Online influencers, and everyone else. Supreme was a mainstay among outsider artists, mainly underground New York hip-hop. The start of the 2010s saw the rise of Odd Future, whose alumni such as Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, The Creator were outspoken fans of the brand. While endorsements like these got the word out somewhat, the boom began in late 2016. Online influencers, mainly YouTubers and Instagram stars whose follower counts ballooned as lifestyle vlogs took over online content, were growing quite interested in this exclusive and expensive brand so deeply tied to underground Hip-hop, skateboarding, and having something expensive that everyone else will be totally jealous of. Notably, YouTuber RiceGum, a man with a tendency to flaunt his spending, took an acute interest to the brand around this time, making videos between 2016-2018 where he went on massive Hypebeast spending sprees. Such content includes buying a Supreme hoodie that just dropped and wearing it while walking past people currently in line to buy their own, buying mystery boxes online that just happened to have Supreme in them every time, and giving bootleg Supreme merchandise to his friends. You'll have to forgive the lack of hyperlinks here. I do not have the stomach to watch his videos. This behavior of course spawned similar in his contemporaries. This is why you started hearing the word Flex in regards to flaunting clothes and accessories around second-graders. Influencers from all spheres, who happened to all start taking off in late 2016, were wearing Supreme. this in turn led hundreds of thousands to trying their luck at the raffle. what followed was season upon season of the online stores crashing on drop day and lines outside the store snaking for miles taking an entire day to clear (this led to a new in-store ticketing system where you pre-register and are given a random slot in line, to mixed results). Who was mad here? Speculators who couldn't get in on the clothes their favorite LA influencer-person wears, longtime fans who now had to grapple with this unmanageable influx of new customers, and the people who had no interest in these expensive hoodies and shirts or whatever who were free to clown on this stupid, stupid brand. ThEy SolD a BrICk??? Once the unimpressed got wind of this stupid hype brand selling their customers a thirty-dollar brick, there was no going back. The image of a fashion titan so confident in their ability to sell their mindless followers a clay slab with no utility or value was irreversible for some. One Reddit user calculated the cost of building an entire house out of these bricks, othersmadememes, and while a lot of these were tongue-and-cheek jokes among fans, the derision online and in-person was inescapable. The image of a Supreme wearer being an in-the-know fashion trailblazer became one of a bandwagon-following consumerist idiot. After all, they bought a brick. Suckers, right? So what's it like now? Well, the site still sucks. Crashes are common, especially on days a bogo drops. Lines in-person are still a sweaty, multi-hour nightmare (though, morbidly, Covid restrictions made lines this season a little more manageable) and wearing Supreme isn't impressive to anyone anymore. Maybe a sign you'd spend two-hundred dollars on a hoodie, but nothing interesting to talk about. On my first day of college, my first roommate saw my Supreme tee and the first words he spoke to me were "did you buy the f\**ing brick?"* Is the brick solely responsible for the attitude shift towards Supreme as a brand? Well, more of a framer for a larger shift in the zeitgeist. Is it a major symptom? Major might be a strong word. Is it funny? It's hilarious. Even the fandom of today laughs about the episode in hindsight. They may be crazy, they may thoughtlessly spend thousands of dollars a month on clothes, they may consider their own worth adjacent to the net worth of their closet, but they are the ones who bought a brick for thirty dollars. This sort of power is something to be commended. Ridiculed, scorned, and commended.
I am in my early 30s, make $75k a year ($120k joint), live in the South, work as a Development Director, and hate capitalism but love a little luxury!
Edited to remove the tables because when I obsessively checked this post on my phone I couldn't read them?? Also I tried to, but was prevented from, editing the title. I know it looks sanctimonious but that's just one small part of my personality I swear. D: ❤️ Section 1: Assets and Debt Total Net Worth: $30,875 - all equity. Retirement Balance: $0 for me; $20,500 for my husband in the state pension program for teachers. (My partner, L, has been paying into the state teachers' pension system for 5 years. For most of my 20s, I either worked at very low-paying jobs, or supported myself and others on a teacher’s salary, so no retirement for me. My current job does not have a retirement program, but one of my goals for this year is to either start a Roth IRA or get a new job with a 401k match… or maybe both?) Savings Account Balance: $23,733 We’re moving this summer to a city closer to our families, and are saving all we can for a down payment on a dreamy spot. After we move, some amount of what’s left over will go into a retirement fund, and the rest will stay in this HYSA as our emergency fund. For us, three months of expenses, including childcare, is about $18,000. Checking Account Balance: $455 Credit Card Debt: n/a, pay off each month Student Loan Debt: $80,000 for L’s undergrad and MAT. $18,000 for my undergrad and (unfinished) MAT. (My undergrad degrees were mostly covered by the Pell Grant, scholarships, and a $10,000 529 from my parents. L was a nontraditional student - didn’t start undergrad until he was 24 - so none of his was covered. Most of my debt is for a MAT program I dropped out of after one year. I was trying to find any way out of teaching at the time (it is demanding, all-consuming, and carceral at once) and thought a PhD would be my only route. When I got my current job I promptly left the program and any dreams of a PhD behind.) Equity: $83,875 (This number is from an online equity calculator, and is for our house in a very popular neighborhood in a very popular city. Our outstanding debt on the house is $295,000. We put our whole savings down in 2019, which was $9,000 at the time.) ❤️ Section 2: Income Monthly Take Home: My base pay is $65,000, and L’s is $45,000. I worked a side gig last year that totaled about $10k in additional compensation; all of it went to savings so we don't budget for it. My take home is $4096/month for my full time job, and my current side gig income (grant writing) is variable, between $300 and $600 a month. L’s take home is $2262/month. My health insurance is paid in full by work. L’s insurance and B’s come out of L’s paycheck, as does L’s retirement contribution. Income Progression: I’ve been working since I was 15 years old, moved out for college at 18, and paid my own bills starting that year. I won’t include that money here though (it was like $12,000 a year as a college student, for reference). Income below starts when I graduated with two BAs that had nothing to do with teaching. Year 1: $15,600 (part time ABA therapist, full time baby anarchist) Year 2: $32,000 (year 1 teacher salary: I accepted a spot in Teach for America for this giant salary even though I thought it was an obnoxious neoliberal org. Yes, I was also obnoxious at the time.) Year 3: $33,000 (teacher, step increase) Year 4: $34,000 (teacher, step increase) Year 5: $35,000 (teacher, step increase) Year 6: $15,000 (community organizer; at the time this felt like a dream job) Year 7: $20,000 (community organizer & cafe worker) Year 8: $40,000 (back to teaching, felt rich; this includes a side hustle writing grants on the side for $50 an hour) Year 9: $45,000 (left teaching for my current job, quit the grants side hustle) Year 10: $55,000 (got a raise, got pregnant) Year 11: $65,000 (got a raise and promotion, had a baby) Year 12: $75,000 (was promoted again in January but waiting on the pay increase to hit, hopefully with backdating. This money diary doesn’t reflect this salary as it hasn’t been reflected in my check yet) ❤️ Section 3: Expenses Mortgage/PMI/Insurance: $2,110 Retirement Contribution: n/a (L’s retirement is pulled out of his check before he receives it: it’s $169 a month. Right now, I don’t have a retirement contribution) Savings Contribution: $1000 to main savings, $400 to sinking fund (This is a super aggressive goal for us and is only possible because our childcare costs are covered by work) Debt Payments: n/a right now (We have student loans to the tune of $100k but haven’t been paying a dime since they were paused due to COVID. But then the other day I checked and saw they've gained interest? Should we be paying them then? WWJD? I legit don’t know.) Electric: $130 Internet: $100 Cellphone: $65 (For L & I both. We are on a bigass family plan with 40 gajillion other people.) Subscriptions: $45 ($10 Spotify; $10 Youtube music; $2.99 Apple data (Why?!); $22 NYT (for newspaper and cooking app); also have a split subscription to the New Yorker with bestie F but we paid for a yearly deal.) Car Payment and Insurance: $150 for a car payment; $202 for insurance (Insurance covers both of our used cars and my dad’s used handicap van. Our car payment is for our used Honda. We only owe $6,850 on the car and I’m back and forth on whether to pay it off with savings) Medical/Therapy: $0 (My therapist is $140 a session, and I just started seeing her again once a month, but this is reimbursed by work. I also get an inhaler at least twice a month - that’s reimbursed too, costs $60 total.) Misfits Market: $120 (For a weekly box, which really helps us cut down on overall grocery cost) Gym membership: $30 (For my intense local yoga studio’s app which is so great in the winter. We also run and bike a lot, as long as it’s warm enough) Donations: $100 (We give monthly to our local Democratic Socialists of America; the Working Families Party; and a small, local org. I’m also on an organizing committee for that org. We’ll give them one big gift of at least $250 this year, probably in May. I support a couple organizations with grant writing and grant-finding support as much as I can, which usually amounts to a few hours a month.) Childcare: $0 B goes to a very precious Montessori preschool, and we can walk him there. It’s pricey af ($1300/month). The other $200 is to account for some babysitting from my little sister when L or I have to work weird hours. For now, work reimburses this full amount as a COVID perk; if that changes, we will have to cut costs significantly. House cleaner: $160 (They come twice a month and charge $80 each time.) ❤️ Section 4: Money Diary NOTE: We are masked and afraid everywhere we go. ✨DAY 1: THURSDAY✨ 4:20 am: Good morning world! I shuffle into the kitchen in my panties and my slippers to fill up the gooseneck kettle. I recently got into pour over coffee even though it’s quite a commitment. With a toddler, a full-time job, and a Libra sun, I don’t really have time for meditative morning routines. This lengthy, half-naked coffee regimen is my closest attempt. As soon as I get the coffee brewing, our 18 month old, B, starts making noise. I open the door and see he’s got his pacifier in his mouth and his pillow in his arms. He wants to lay with Dada. I help him get in the bed with my husband, L, as quietly as possible. Last week L was super sick and we thought for sure he had picked up COVID. Blessedly all of our tests came back negative, but on the heels of that, he started having major tooth pain and had to have an emergency tooth extraction, AND he got an ear infection as he was coming down from whatever virus he had. I hate it :( I get dressed and do some chores while they snooze to ease L's morning. I start the diaper laundry (usually his job - we use cloth), put away the dishes, start the Eufy vacuum, and get B and L’s breakfasts together: sunbutter and a little bit of syrup on some banana pancakes I prepped earlier this week. 6:30 am: B and L are up! The hour before we take B to preschool is kind of a marathon. L eats with B (and supervises his syrup consumption) as I clean out some more dirty diapers, brush my teeth, make another cup of coffee, strip our sheets, spray my hair with water to refresh the curl, return a few group texts, and wash some breakfast dishes. Somewhere in here I also eat two boiled eggs with Everything But the Bagel seasoning, and a bunch of grapes. I help L get B loaded up in the car, and just as they pull off, my parents Facetime me. They’re calling to see B but are polite enough to talk to me for a few minutes. They live a few hours away, and are divorced, but cohabitating. The full story is long and spiritual for me so I’ll spare you. Anyway, my mom and I talk for a while about this couch she thinks I should buy from one of her friends, but it’s two hours away and we’d have to rent a U-Haul, so I think we’ll pass. I do hate our current couch though. Please drop comfy toddler- and dog-friendly recommendations in the comments! 8:15 am: I set out to walk the dog and listen to the Daily’s recent update on the coronavirus. Donald G. McNeill, Jr., says we’re in this through the summer, which is a bummer on the personal and global front, but I suppose it could be worse??? Maybe?? As soon as they finish talking I switch over to You’re Wrong About. I’m deep in the Jessica Simpson series and highly recommend this pod for any other nerdy, lefty, kinda burnt out millennials, especially those of you that are queer or queer-adjacent. Once home, I take my whole operation onto the front porch to work, since the cleaner will be here soon and I don’t want to crowd her in this time of COVID. I LOVE a clean house and I love paying someone else to do the big stuff, which is a recent luxury for us. 11:00 am: I’ve been working steadily in my email and google docs for a couple hours now, and it’s COLD out here. The cleaner leaves and I am grateful to go back into the heat. I Venmo her $80 for the cleaning (included in monthly expenses). I take a break from work and check out the job boards. My current job is the best, and highest-paying, gig I’ve ever had, but I’m planning to leave some time this year for several reasons. The premier reason: I recently learned that I’m qualified for several positions that pay over $100k at similar organizations. With that kind of money we could pay off our student loans, help our families out more, make sizable donations, and L could explore a career outside of teaching without freaking about a slight cut in his pay for a few years as he finds his niche. Or - maybe he’ll get into Edtech somehow and we’ll join Resource Generation. Who knows. 12:30 pm: I have a quick break and pull together lunch: half a cheese quesadilla, a big bowl of Smitten Kitchen’s roasted tomato soup, and a LimonCello LaCroix. L is on his planning period and asks me to edit his most recent job application, and I oblige. Since we’re both job hunting, I ask him if I can buy a resume template and guide on Etsy. I have sworn off online shopping for the year to curb my impulse spending, but he says we’ll just count this one as his purchase. Great news because I hate the formatting of my resume from 2016 and don’t want to fix it myself! $9.95 3:30 pm: My Zooms are over, my inbox is at 0, and I put up my out of office message because I’m taking the day off tomorrow to work on my resume and do some things to prep our house for sale. My high-functioning anxiety created an ambitious backwards timeline for this process back in December, and that timeline currently runs my life. I work for a few more minutes to tie up loose ends, and then walk O to a nearby shop to buy my favorite candle, curbside-style. When I get there the owner gives me some percentage off because it’s slightly discolored from the sun. Huzzah! $27.25, marked down from $40 4:45 pm: My angel of a baby sister, J, who lives just a few blocks away and is in a pod with us, comes to hang out with B for an hour so L can rest. I head to my good friend D’s place for my investment overalls appointment. She's going to alter their awkward wide leg into more of a tapered, mom jean shape. I have a capsule wardrobe which means I’ll wear these babies at least once a week, and plus I get to pay my friend, so I’m fine with the extra expense. When I arrive, she and her partner have the fire pit going, and we drink a couple glasses of wine together, yet more than 6 feet apart. I learn they are planning to move to the same new city as us in the next couple of years and legit cry happy tears. Afterwards, I head out to pick up dinner for tonight. We are getting burgers from L’s favorite place as a treat. On my way, the WOLF MOON appears over the water and my stomach does triple flips. Then I pick up our dinner: a veggie burger with eggplant jam and kale for me; a real-meat burger with mushrooms, bacon, swiss, carmelized onion, and horseradish mayo for L; and an appetizer plate with pretzels, pimento cheese, onion jam, pickles, and chips for B. Delicious and unhealthy. The total is $34.54. 6:30: Home and eating dinner. B loves his meal, especially the “chokes.” He calls pretzels “chokes” because when L first started feeding them to him, I worried aloud that he would choke every time. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how a pretzel almost took out George W. Bush. Turns out our toddler is better at chewing than George W. Bush. After dinner, L gives B a bubble bath while I do my own, very minimal, bedtime routine. Then L and I lay down with B to put him to sleep. He has a floor bed, which is a Montessori thing I learned about on mom blogs. L is a very hot and talented woodworker, so he took my floor bed dream to the next level by building a lovely house-shaped frame. The top beam is wrapped in twinkle lights and fake ivy. It’s a nice place to sleep, and we pass out here all the time. 10:30 pm: L wakes me up and we wander to our own bed. 🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 71.74 ✨ DAY 2: FRIDAY✨ 4:15 am: Wake up and go look at the clock. Decide this is a silly time to get up on a day off, drink some water, and go lay back down. But once in bed all I can think about is how much I want to read the news, organize my resume, and update this money diary. This is the problem with falling asleep at toddler time. So I get up again at 4:45, make my coffee, read a New Yorker article about Biden’s pandemic response on my phone, and sit down to work on this diary. 6:00 am: L wakes up! He works on breakfast for himself and B and I start meal planning for the month. This is one of my best and most recent life hacks. I found that if I chart out our cooking, weekly takeout, and leftovers at the start of the month, we save lots of money and are so much less stressed about the labor that goes into feeding ourselves. I pull out Smitten Kitchen Every Day and use it to inspire the month’s meals. So quaint to cook from an actual BOOK. 6:45 am: B walks out of our room and announces that he drank my water off the side table. He’s so proud! And so ready to eat. While he eats breakfast, I snack on some grapes and, at B’s request, blast 7 Days A Week by They Might Be Giants. This is the consummate children’s song for any household that dreams of a self-determined world. Over the next hour I take B to school; make myself a real breakfast (a soy chorizo and egg taco); and browse TikTok. Eventually I find a series about this Gamestop situation by a smart Irish woman and L and I watch it together. When it’s over we feel like shrewd stock brokers ready to win money, and L gets to work teaching virtually. I spend the morning painting our front door and our kitchen wall to prep our house to sell, and talking to my (other) little sister on the phone. She’s an HR person with a job that’s taken her far away from our family, and we don’t talk that often. It is so good to catch up on her life. After that I have a fun, day-off Zoom call with longtime bestie and coworker K. We drink coffee and talk about The Future. 12:30 pm: I make lunch (tomato soup with goat cheese on top, and a savory scone on the side) and get a text from another bestie, M, who offers me a little grant writing contract work this week. Yay! I love them and love working with them. Next, I order our groceries for the week. I get baking powder, eggs, cremini mushrooms, vegan sausage patties, oat milk, ginger root, shredded cheddar cheese, plantains, black beans, doggy bags, broccoli, vegan chicken strips, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, capers, ciabatta bread, grits, bananas, avocados, greek yogurt, and on impulse, a pineapple on sale (?!). Maybe B will love it. The total comes to $94.08. 1:15 pm: I do a brief power vinyasa class in B’s room and take a shower. It takes me approximately two Drake songs to shower and dry off, as I don’t have to wash my hair today and I never shave. I work on my resume until L and I leave to pick up B. On the way home we stop at the park to play, and then we all get in the car to pick up groceries. 6:30 pm: We get home later than planned and eat together: leftover tofu ramen for us and veggie lasagna for B, who is so sleepy that he hardly touches his lasagna. L gets him in the bath around 7:15 and I run through my evening routine. There’s a lot going on in the house - preschool lunch and clothes to put up, a mountain of laundry in our room, all of the groceries for the week waiting to be put away, and dinner dishes are languishing in the sink. L starts on chores while I get B dressed. As I’m dressing B, my mom Facetimes and B shows her several of his board books. While we’re talking my dad texts me a heart emoji - he overheard B and my mom talking from his room. He lives with a disability and a painful illness, so he goes to bed very early. We hang up with my mom and record a video of B making “P” sounds and saying “I love you” to my dad, and send it over. This is the first time B’s ever said “I love you!” Huge news. We read books and fall asleep next to B. 9 pm: I wake up and nudge L but he wants to keep sleeping. I go clean the dinner dishes, put away the food and reorganize the cabinets and fridge, and mop the kitchen floor while I listen to The Daily’s latest reporting on QAnon believers who are at once totally bananagrams and also remind me very much of my aunt. L wakes up at 9:30 because he and Y, my sister’s boyfriend, are gonna game. Cute! He finishes the laundry and I fold a few diapers to help out. Then we lay in bed together until game time, when I fall asleep. 🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 94.08 ✨DAY 3: SATURDAY✨ 5:40 am: Wake up at a ~*~weekend hour~*~!! Start my kettle, clean and moisturize my face, pull out the ingredients for waffles, and pick up around the house while I wait for it to boil. I try to read some, but get bored a few pages in. I’m currently readingHow to Do Nothing and it’s good enough, but I think I need to chill on the nonfiction and read, like, saucy romance novels with hot bisexual leads. Send me your recs please! Waffle time! This recipe is my go-to. I recommend whipping the egg whites first. B wakes up around 7:15 and helps me cook which is cute and very messy. He eats his waffle with honey, peanut butter, and grapes. L wakes up after him - he had a late night gaming! 8 am: I open yesterday’s mail and find an anti-abortion DVD from L’s grandma. It’s Abby Johnson’s “memoir.” Abby Johnson is an opportunistic right winger and documented liar who once moonlighted as a Planned Parenthood clinic manager. L is a preacher’s kid, so we’re not surprised to receive this from his grandma. For example: 10 years ago, when L and I were a couple years into our relationship, her Christmas gift to me was a book about how one can recover from being a slut by getting married and finding Jesus. This particular package really sends me over the edge, though. I decide to write them a short note later that states my own experience with abortion and sets a clear boundary on this kind of propaganda, and includes an article about Abby Johnson’s bullshit life. It’s unlikely this will change their minds - they are septuagenarian Southern Baptists, after all - but at least I’ll be in my integrity. In the meantime, I group text L’s siblings, and they commiserate with us. His one sibling who is transitioning shares that grandma recently sent them a book about how to tell your gay friends they’re sinning. We agree that’s hilariously dense (and fucking rude) of her, and talk about how everyone under forty is a gay slut living their best life, so really it’s grandma’s loss. During this time I clean the kitchen, finish the waffles, and freeze them for B’s weekday breakfasts. 9:30 am: B asks to use the potty and does a great job peeing on his own! He’s geeked about it and is especially excited to have my parents on Facetime cheering him on. After that we head out on our morning walk. L takes B to the playground and I take O to the dog park nearby. She gets tired pretty quick and we all head to the thrift store. We need chairs for our hand-me-down kitchen table. The ones that came with it are awkwardly wide. L spots two sturdy ones that are just $5 each. Score! $10 11:30 am: B and L are both wiped out once we get home. They eat lunch and go to sleep. I clean up the kitchen, repot one of my plants, water our porch plants, and eat some leftover ramen for lunch. The Marie Antoinette episode of You’re Wrong About keeps me company all the while. 10/10 would recommend. 2 pm: B wakes up and eats some lunch. We watercolor together for a while (he on his big paper, I in my bullet journal), then walk down the street to the local high school while L preps potatoes for our fondue. The high school grounds are open on the weekends, and there’s an amphitheatre on site. B loves the echo in there. 4:30 pm: L joins us in the amphitheatre and together we drag B two blocks back home. I prep the fondue: brie, gouda, and more gouda with white wine. It ends up being a little clumpy but so delicious. My sister, J, and her boyfriend, Y arrive while I’m cooking. Y brings yummy baguettes from his bakery job for the dipping and we prep broccoli, green beans, and tempeh too. We sit down in our new chairs to eat and for the zillionth time I am so thankful we’ve been able to make a pod together this year. Fondue would be a terrifying proposition with anyone else, really. While we eat, Y tells us he put in his two weeks at the bakery because their COVID protocols aren’t so tight and his coworkers are continuing to go to bars and out to eat. His plan for now is to get back on unemployment and find a virtual job sometime soon. Both he and my sister have worked food service their whole adult lives so the pandemic has been tough on them. Besides the fact that they’re delightful and perfect, this is one key reason we’re planning to move with them to our new city this summer: L and I will be able to easily afford the majority of the rent, deposits, and utilities on a pretty big, and centrally located, house. Living together will allow us to grow our savings and take our time looking for a Forever Home, and will allow J and Y to pay really low rent as my sister goes back to school full time and Y looks for a full-time job. I’m really looking forward to living with them and know it’ll be good for B, too. They leave around 7 pm and we put B to bed, this time without falling asleep ourselves! 8:30 pm: Turn on How I Met Your Mother in bed and the episodes are baaaaad bad. One entire episode casts sex workers as a punch line. Ick. L and I agree to find a new show, and fall asleep around 10. 11 pm - 2 am: B is up and between our two beds. Wahhhh. 🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 10 ✨DAY 4: SUNDAY✨ 6 am: Up and at ‘em! Discover I’m out of my fancy coffee and don’t want to emphasize the flavor of our grocery store beans with a slow pour, so make a french press instead. B wakes up too early so we watch toddlers together on TikTok while I drink my coffee, then read books while L makes us all eggs for breakfast. We head out for our morning walk around 9 am and stop at a coffee shop a few blocks away. I pick up Counter Culture’s Iridescent beans, buy an espresso brownie on a whim, and tip the cashier because she’s so sweet and tipping is good. The total is 23.03. L takes B to the playground and I drop my purchases and O back at the house before I head out for a run. 9:45 am: It’s 65 degrees and my run is glorious. I run to the water and pause Lil Yachty for a minute to take it all in. Once home I shower and put on a black LA Apparel catsuit and a marled black and white cocoon sweater from AA of the past (I like what I like!). We feed B lunch and then L puts him down while I clean up. Around 11:30, J comes over after to watch B while we remove the storm windows from our whole house and clean the windows underneath as part of our work to prep the house for sale. We’re a solid team: L removes the storm windows and caulks all the gaps in the wood while I follow behind him and wash the windows inside and out. Our sweet neighbor catches us cleaning and offers to let us use her power washer for free next weekend to clean up the front of the house. I resolve to bake them some cookies. 2:30 pm: We are done with the window operation and it’s time for me to water all 57 plants in the house. Along the way, discover that I overwatered B’s hoya last week and it’s rotting. Noooo! I unpot it on the porch to dry the roots, but it’s raining so this might not work. There’s only one surefire solution: buy a replacement plant! I try to convince L we should go to the nursery, but he’s not so into it. I walk around dejectedly with a towel to clean up all the water I spilled, and Zelle J $70 for babysitting even though she insists she would do it for free. Next B, L, and I share a snack: crackers with goat cheese and harissa. Mmm. B skips the harissa but loves the goat cheese. Meanwhile I begin to stress about making dinner. We’d planned goddess bowls but L and I just aren’t feeling it after our marathon of house work. L requests Chinese and is suddenly more amenable to visiting the nursery, which is near our favorite Chinese takeout spot. Score! 5:00 pm: We leave the plant shop with a heartleaf philodendron for B’s room and a giant, lovely, perfect monstera deliciosa just because. The total comes to $53.24. Then we pick up our food: $33.08 including the tip. L ordered a large veggie lo mein to share with B and General Tso’s chicken, and I got family style tofu and vegetables. We start B’s bedtime routine at 6:30 and he’s out by 7:00 - early for him! After he’s down, L preps his breakfast sandwiches for the week and I do some dishes. Then we take mutual advantage of the extra hour we have together. Even after 12 years it’s always so good with L. I fall asleep around 10 pm feeling blessed. 🌿 Daily total: 179.32 ✨DAY 5: MONDAY✨ 5 am: I make my pour over and get started on work first thing. I have a couple of deadlines this week and the side gig to balance so I’m already feeling pressed for time! I wrap up an entire grant report before 6 am and feel very accomplished. Then I pause work to start our breakfast, which is all pre-prepped, hallelujah. While L and B eat breakfast, I get dressed in a black turtleneck minidress, busted old tights, black ankle socks, and my Doc Martens. I help L load up the car with B and all his gear, and tell L to be careful. Today is L’s first day back teaching in person since December, and we’re both nervous since COVID is still running wild in our red state. On the way to work he fills up his car for $18.33. 2:30 pm: After another grant report, seventy gajillion emails, forty Slack messages, and several hours of Zoom calls, I’m ready for a break. I finish eating the quinoa salad I prepped during Zoom call #2 and then eat a pear too. I see our Misfits box has been delivered. It’s $30 a week, and is included in our monthly expenses. I unpack it, clean the counters, wipe down the bathroom sinks, take O for a walk, and sit down to work on my side gig grant report, which is due Wednesday. I set a 30 minute timer because I don’t want to be too late picking up B. 4:25 pm: Worked longer than I meant to! Pack some snacks and pick up B. On the way home we get a giant bag of potting soil so I can repot those plants. It’s $18.52. Come home and engage in B’s favorite winter activity: pressing all the buttons in the turned-off car. Meanwhile, in another car across town, L picks up a big bag of Purina One, butter, maple syrup, and applesauce. That total is $28.64. 5:30 pm: The whole family is home and we kick it inside until it starts to get dark. L and I gather all the things and take the creatures out for a walk even though there’s a light, but very cold, rain happening. B is cranky and so are we, so the walk is quick. We eat leftover Chinese food around 7 and start B’s bedtime routine. B falls asleep at 8 and I update this diary for a while, then go watch Ted Lasso in bed with L til about 9:30. It’s much better than How I Met Your Mother, for the record. 🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 65.51 ✨Day 6: TUESDAY✨ 3 am: B wakes up and needs a diaper change. I have the hardest time falling back asleep after: I can’t stop thinking about how I left B’s hoya out in the cold with its roots exposed most of the day yesterday and into tonight. But it’s too cold for me to get up again and pull it inside! So instead I toss and turn and hope it’s not dead yet. 6 am: L’s alarm wakes me up! No early morning reading and writing time for me. I get right up, make a giant pour over, and get breakfast together while L wakes up B. Then I actually sit down with them to eat: B and I both eat boiled eggs with everything but the bagel seasoning and some coconut milk yogurt, and L sips his coffee while his breakfast sandwich heats in the oven. I get dressed in my workout gear and walk the dog while L gets B ready for school. They leave, and I finally bring the hoya in, and start work, around 7:30. L buys coffee and snacks from the gas station on his way to work: $6.88. 9:30 am: I grab some crackers and peanut butter from the kitchen and notice a DMV bill on the fridge I’ve been meaning to pay, but don’t totally understand. I call them up and respond to emails while I sit on hold. Turns out I owe the DMV $10 for paying my Dad’s van insurance late. With the “processing fee” it comes to $11.17. 1:30 pm: Been on Zoom calls all morning, and decide to switch over to the side gig work for a bit. Meanwhile I eat that quinoa salad I prepped yesterday. At 2 pm, my longtime bestie and neighbor F comes over and we take O for a walk in the park together and have such a good conversation. While the context is (very) different, I’m reminded of the Toni Morrison quote when I think of F: “She’s a friend of my mind.” Such a gem, and such a smartie. At 3:30 I start a HIIT yoga class and it kicks my butt even though it’s only 20 minutes long. Afterwards, I shower and pick up B. 5:00 pm: L arrives home while B and I are playing, and we get in the car once more to check out a cute couch L scoped out on Facebook marketplace. It’s a sweet vintage brown velvet actually-for-real midcentury situation. Unfortunately we discover it’s also small and very uncomfortable. $200 not spent. Once home, my family goes for a walk and I make dinner - this grits and beans recipe from NYT cooking. It’s blessedly quick to pull together. Meanwhile D texts me and says my overalls are ready! YAY! She’s gonna drop them off in a couple of days. She says the total is $30. I include a tip and Venmo her $40. 7:00 pm: At bedtime, B cannot get enough of his books and we read All The World several times. He finally falls asleep around 8:20 and L and I eat dinner on the couch, with Ted Lasso. I drink a glass of red wine, which is a mistake: my anxiety spikes right after, my stomach hurts, and I can’t sleep. This is very upsetting as I want very much to be a wine mom. Does this happen to anyone else? 🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 58.05 ✨DAY 7: WEDNESDAY✨ 5:45 am: Wake up with B cuddled into my back - L moved him to our bed in the middle of the night after his second wake up. Get my coffee and breakfast together and sit down at my computer to work on the side gig grant while everyone's asleep. Then L and I manage the morning rush together. I eat sourdough toast, two scrambled eggs, and some pineapple along the way. 7:30 am: Take O out for a walk and on a whim decide to listen to one of my favorite easy-listening pods: A Beautiful Mess. Normally the two sisters and co-hosts, Elsie and Emma, chat about things like home decor or craft making or how to balance kids and work. This episode is about the host’s evangelical upbringing, though, and is a real raw and honest tear jerker. Pair it with this, one of my top reads of 2020: “What Does the White Evangelical Want?” It gets me thinking about L’s upbringing in the church. He and all his siblings are all agnostic now. Finally sit down at my desk and debate taking Adderall. I used it regularly in college and for a few years after in order to Do All The Things. I try to stay away from it now - I’m not trying to live an impossible life any more - but I also really want to pick B up earlier than normal today, and that means I need to meet all my deadlines and make it through two Zoom calls with my direct reports by 3 pm. I decide to take 4 mg. Right after I take it, three different friends text me at once and then, suddenly, I’ve spent an hour catching up via text. Get to work for real around 9 am. 3:00 pm: Wrapped all my calls, answered all my emails, washed all the dishes, ate some lunch, and finished the side gig work! OK Adderall, you beautiful bitch. Spend a few more minutes tying up loose ends and then gather my things to pick B up from school. The plan today is to go “play basketball” in the park near his school because he is OBSESSED with balls, and I’m trying to do more magical things every day with him. It’s cold but I’m ready to brave it on his precious, curly-headed behalf. At 4 pm J calls and asks to go pick him up with me. Hooray, things just got even more magical! We head to a different-than-usual park together and run around until B sits in, and then drinks from, a puddle. We panic and J googles “What happens if my baby drinks from a puddle?” The search returns lots of stories of babies eating muddy rocks and surviving, so we decide it’s ok. 5:00 pm Head home and L is back from work! We take the smols on a walk and I tell L that I think nighttime screentime is making me anxious. I’m a sensitive creature and I really don’t want to blame the wine. He’s very perfect so he helps me think through an alternate plan for this evening: hot tea and book reading in bed, and maybe sex, too! Fun. Next, I head home with O to pot the plants we bought the other day, and L takes B to the playground. They get back around 6:30 and I am very excited to reveal my new plant placements. Everyone feigns interest except O. Then we eat leftovers together and B gets in bed around 7:30. L and I promptly fall asleep next to him and don’t wake up again til 11 pm. Guess our new nighttime routine will have to wait til tomorrow! 🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 0 ❤️ Section 5: TOTALS Total Expenses:$478.71 Food & Drink: $220.25 Fun & Entertainment: $0 Home & Health: $109.01 Clothes & Beauty: $40 Transport: $29.50 Other: $79.95 ❤️ Section 6: REFLECTION This week reflects a new normal for us, I think! We just set the goal of saving up for another down payment in December, and that’s when I swore off online shopping both to save money and to stop lining the pockets of evil billionaires like Bezos (no shade to anyone who uses Amazon, this is purely a personal goal & I’m not sure I can meet it). This self-imposed rule is helping me reign in my discretionary spending overall. L and I have only been living a two-income, middle class life for a few years, and my lifestyle creep was a little out of control in 2020. That said, I can and do still regularly justify spending money on things that make life more luxurious and beautiful - like a $40 candle or a totally unnecessary but very lovely plant. There are a couple of things not reflected in this diary that we regularly spend on: gifts (my achilles heel - for example, we spent three! thousand! dollars! on Christmas gifts in December), and medical bills. Both B and I had to visit the emergency room in 2020 and we are still getting random bills in the mail as our insurance company and the hospital duke it out. As I was editing this diary on Thursday, I received one for $787. Wahhhh. I think I’m gonna get on a payment plan, but even so that it will be over $200 a month. Last thought: this process got me thinking in some detail about the contradiction of organizing for the fall of capitalism (and the rise of a more gentle and just economic system), yet believing everyone - including ourselves and our own families - deserve to live full and abundant lives. This means I compromise my own anti-capitalist values and beliefs every day, in big and small ways. Discuss?
[Kpop] How fans uncovered the biggest rigging scandal in kpop
Hey, this is my first post here, i hope you enjoy it since i think it's pretty interesting, before i begin i want to give you a glossary of words that i am going to be using that you might not be familiar with. Glossary:
Mnet: Korean music channel
Trainee: Girls/boys aspiring to become kpop idols that have not debuted in a group yet.
Debut: Period in which a group puts out music and promotes it for the first time
Nations girl group: honorary title given to a girl group by kpop fans to a group that is very successful and well liked in Korea, formerly hold by "Girls Generation" and currently hold by "Twice"
Music show wins: It's a win on one of the weekly music shows that groups promote on for 2–4 weeks after a release. (The Show, Show Champion, M! Countdown, Music Bank, Music Core, and Inkigayo.)
Daesang: or Artist of the Year, is awarded to the best artist among up to 12 artists by calculating album and digital sales with online vote and a final judgement by the judges of the award ceremony.
Bonsang: is awarded to up to 12 artists by calculating album and digital sales with online vote and a final judgement by the judges of the award ceremony.
Triple crown: Winning first place on Mcountdown for 3 weeks in a row.
All kill: Title given to a song that reaches #1 in all music charts.
Now with that out of the way let's get into the drama What is Produce 101? Produce 101 is a reality talent competition franchise created by CJ E&M and aired on Mnet, the shows format consisted in having 101 trainees from different entertainment companies compete for a spot to debut in a temporary group that would have 11 members, the twist of the show is that it didn't have a panel of judges, which meant that the fans had the power to decide who was eliminated and who debuted base on popularity. While the show didn't have judges it did have trainers, these would be in charge of the singing, dancing and rapping training that the trainees would receive. In the first two episode after the trainees performed for the first time in front of the trainers they were given a rank from A to F, this was done so that they would be grouped according to their skill level and trained accordingly. This was the only decision not made by the show's fans. The show had 4 season based in korea:
Produce 101
Produce 101 season 2
Produce 48
Produce X 101
4 seasons based in China and 2 seasons based in Japan, for this post we will focus in the Korean version. Before we deep dive into all of the drama i want to talk a little bit about the groups that came out of the show and their success. Produce 101 In the first season of the show 101 female trainees from 46 companies competed for a spot in an 11 member girl group that would promote for 1 year together. The show aired from January 22nd until April 1st and it had 11 episodes. In the final episode the winners were announced and the group consisted of: Somi , Sejeong, Yoojung, Chungha, Sohye, Jieqiong, Chaeyeon, Doyeon, Mina, Nayoung and Yeonjung IOI debuted on May 4th 2016 and officially disbanded on January 17th 2017, during their run together as a group the put out 2 EP’s and 2 single albums, a total of 4 title tracks and 10 music show wins. The group had 4 reality tv shows, were nominated for 24 awards and won 6 of them including, rookie of the year and best new artist, sold 237.233 physical copies, one subunit and at one point the group was so popular that some people referred to them as the nation’s girl group. Produce 101 season 2 This time is for the boys, 101 male trainees from 53 different companies were going to compete for a spot in the 11 member boy group "Wanna One". The season aired from April 7th 2017 to June 16th 2017. In the last episode the final line up was announced and the winner were. Daniel, Jihoon, Daewhi, Jaewhan, Seongwu, Woojin, Kuanlin, Jisung, Minhyun, Jinyoung and Sungwoon. Wanna One debuted on July 28th 2017 and officially disbanded on December 31st 2018 but their activities as a group ended on January 27th 2019. With their debut album the became the kpop debut with the highest number of pre release sales (600.00) and the third kpop group to sale one million copies on their debut, the first one to do so since 1992. Their second EP sold 700.000 copies on the pre release period breaking the record set by themselves. All 4 of their EP´s were in the top 10 highest first week sellers of 2018, the group sold over 2 million physical copies, won a total of 49 music show wins, got 4 triple crowns, the group won over 30 awards including: Best rookie, Album of the year (2), song of the year (3), Bosang (5) and best male group (3). Produce 48 This seasons main difference in relation to the previous two seasons was that 36 of the contestant would be trainees of the japanese group AKB48 and this time the group would have 12 members. The show aired from June 15th 2018 until August 31st 2018. By the end 9 of the members were Korean and 3 were Japanese, the winners were. Eunbi, Sakura, Hyewon, Yena, Chaeyeon, Chaewon, Minju, Nako, Hitomi, Yuri, Yujin and Wonyoung. Izone debuted on October 29th 2018 and its set to disband on April 2021. Their debut sold 34.000 copies in the first 24h setting a new record for the highest selling album for a female kpop group in 24h. Their second album sold 132.109 copies in the first week creating a new record for female groups. As of January 2021 the group Izone is the third best selling kpop girl group, with over 1 million physical albums sold, 26 music show wins and they have won 23 awards including: Rookie of the year (6), Bosang (2) and best female group (2). Produce X101 The fourth and last season of the show created the boy group X1, the show aired from May 3rd to July 19th 2019 and had a total of 12 episodes. The winners were. Yohan, Wooseok, Seungwoo, Hyeongjun, Seungyoun, Dongpyo, Hangyul, Dohyon, Junho, Minhee and Eunsang. X1 debuted on August 27th 2019 with the EP " Emergency: QUANTUM LEAP", the group broke the record for highest selling album in the first week with over 500.000 copies and the title track won them 11 music show wins including a triple crown. The beginning of the end During the live broadcast of the final episode of Produce X 101 on July 19, 2019, several viewers suspected that Mnet had tampered with the total votes. It started with the third column of this table, the number of vote difference between each vote count with the one just above in ranking. Some fans noticed unusually high repeating patterns in numbers. This led to some K-nets to look more closely into the numbers and soon discovered many irregularities. This finally led to the discovery of every contestant's final vote count is a multiple of 7494.442. In a voting as large as Produce X 101, each contestant's final vote count should be mathematically independent from one another. So, having all 20 vote count results to have a common denominator of 7494.442 is so improbable to the point of impossibility. (an exception of Koo Jungmo's vote number of 704,748 is possibly a clerical error from writing down 704,478.) As it turned out, the number 7494.442 was the average individual final vote count divided by 100. In other words, 7494.442 X 2,000 equaled the total number of votes. This implied that Mnet first converted every individual contestant's vote count into a vote percentage ratio, and converted them once again from 100 base points to 2,000 base points, and then multiplied them by 7494.442. This whole process makes no sense because each step not only is unnecessary but also complicates the calculation since simple calculations of vote numbers, even with the weighted ones, should be more than sufficient to get the job done. This leads to the conclusion that the procedure has a different purpose, namely extracting a large number like 2,000 that can quickly match to the final total vote counts by multiplying a constant, no matter how 2,000 points are distributed across. This is the only logical and plausible explanation, and it also explains the second step of the process, converting from 100 point base to 2,000 point base. Distributing 100 points among 20 contestants are limiting whereas distributing 2,000 points makes much easier to fine-tune the distribution. Only natural conclusion from this is that the purpose of 2,000 points is for the distribution and the fine-tuning of the votes. In other words, vote manipulation. Once the potential vote manipulation methods by Mnet were established, some of the fans also looked into the vote results of Produce 48. And sure enough, they discovered exactly same pattern emerging with the only difference coming from using 10,000 point base instead of 2,000 base points. And there is no transcribing error, unlike in the case of Koo Jungmo, as every final vote count being a multiple of 445.2178. (source) Mnet admitted that there were errors in calculation, but also maintained that the final rankings were correct and that there was no intention of changing X1's member line-up. Fourteen representatives from the entertainment agencies of the 20 finalists held a meeting on July 29, 2019, and agreed to support *Produce X 101'*s outcome and X1's debut. On August 1, 2019, 272 viewers filed a lawsuit against Mnet for electoral fraud, as their on-site text voting service charged ₩100 per vote. Level discrimination Remember earlier when i told you that trainees were given a ranking from A to F so that they would be grouped and trained according to their skill level? well it turns out that that is not the only thing the levels were used for. It was revealed that during the second season of the show the lower ranking trainees were discriminated against. A label said:
The bathroom is allowed for usage starting from the 'A' group, so the trainees in the lower group have incidents where they can't take care of their basic biological needs. We understand that it's necessary to group the trainees because there are so many of them, but it's unfair for the grades to affect everything
The food also became a problem, the boys would eat in order of level which resulted in the higher level trainees eating most of the food leaving the lower ranking trainees eating only white rice. Another label said:
They're all growing boys, but they're eating just rice without any side dishes. They're not given enough food and they're forced to fight over it. The boys in the lower tier level have to eat and get strength, but they're getting weaker. We're worried this is just making young boys feel defeated
The boys are also allowed out of the dorms only in order. Because there are so many boys and the lower grades can only leave after everyone in the upper level has left, the lower tier boys wait over 6 hours just to be able to go home. A third label said:
"The label can only follow the staff's orders because if we complain, it could be bad for our trainee. Trainees are working so hard just to get their faces out. We're sad that their effort is being twisted."
The investigation begins On July 26th 2019 Mnet announced through a statement that they will be partnering up with a “reliable investigation team” to get to the truth.
First, we would like to apologize for causing controversy regarding the live final votes from .After the controversy arose, Mnet looked into the issue but we judged that there were limitations to finding out the truth, so we decided to ask an investigative agency with public opinion to look into the matter.Mnet will actively cooperate with the investigation to reveal the truth, and we will take responsibility for whatever we need to.We sincerely apologize once again for causing a disturbance.
News reports soon discovered that the “investigative agency” Mnet was referring to was the police. They had submitted a request for investigation to the police on the same day as their latest announcement. Mnet reportedly filed an investigation into Ahn Joon Young PD, who created PRODUCE X 101. It’s noted that it’s rare for a broadcasting company to file an investigation on their own producers.
After grasping the situation, we requested the producers to explain exactly what happened and we investigated it on our own. However, we felt that our investigation was lacking. We also felt that we needed to look into this on a whole broadcast level.
On August 20, 2019, a search warrant was issued on CJ E&M offices and a text voting company by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency During their first search, the police uncovered voice recordings of the staff members discussing vote manipulation on the previous seasons of the show, resulting in them extending their investigation to all four seasons of the Produce 101 series, Idol School, Show Me the Money, and Superstar K. On October 1, 2019, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency confirmed that votes from eliminated trainees were added to the total votes of the members who debuted in X1, a process that affected 2-3 trainees who were originally in the top 11. The police issued a search and seizure warrant on the offices of Starship Entertainment, Woollim Entertainment, and MBK Entertainment. The police also investigated several agencies involved in Produce 48. Reportedly, per contract signed with CJ E&M, the entertainment agencies were paid ₩100,000 for every episode their talent appeared in. An anonymous trainee alleged only ₩1 million was given to their talent agencies for participating in a song, while each participant would only get a small percentage, and CJ E&M would keep additional profits if the song performed well. Some entertainment agencies who disagreed would request their talents to be eliminated at the last minute to withdraw them. Idol School Idol school was another reality talent competition show that had as a goal the creation of a girl group. A former contestant of the show, Lee Hae In revealed that the entire show was rigged. In the first episode of the show we are shown 3.000 girls auditioning for a chance in the show, however Lee revealed that it was all for show and that the girls that made it into the show had already been picked including her.
The producers first told me not to attend the audition stadium where the 3,000 trainees gathered. So I thought I didn’t have to go and didn’t prepare.But the day before the audition filming, they told me to go because I had some popularity fromProduce 101If you grab any one of the Idol School contestants and ask where they went for the first auditions with 3,000 trainees, you won’t get an answer because none of them auditioned.
In an interview with MBC, a trainee alleged that, throughout their six-month training period, the contestants were only given clothes appropriate for the summer and had to wear them in cold weather. In addition to that, they were cut off from outside communication, were only allowed to buy daily necessities once a month, and were not given enough food to eat During the October 15 broadcast of PD Note, several trainees anonymously claimed that their living quarters had poor ventilation and some girls developed rashes from dust. The trainees also claimed that they were so malnourished that some of them did not menstruate or had periods lasting for two months. Bribery investigation, arrest and indictments On October 16, 2019, the police began investigating whether the producers had accepted money for manipulating the votes. On November 5, 2019, after approval from the Seoul National District Court, the police issued arrest warrants and travel bans for director Ahn Joon-young, chief producer Kim Yong-bum, a producer with the surname Lee, and Starship Entertainment's vice president Kim Kang-hyo, after they had attempted to destroy evidence. By evening, Ahn and Kim Yong-bum were arrested. During questioning, Ahn initially admitted to having manipulated the rankings for Produce 48 and Produce X 101 only, but he later also admitted to partially manipulating the rankings for the first two seasons as well. On November 7, 2019, the police revealed that the final rankings of the top 20 trainees during Produce 48 and Produce X 101 had already been predetermined by the producers before the final performances were recorded and broadcast. A total of 10 people, including the previously reported four individuals, were arrested on November 12, 2019. One of the other six people arrested was Shin Hyung-kwan, the vice president of CJ E&M. On December 3, 2019, Ahn, Kim Yong-bum, and Lee were indicted for obstruction of business and fraud; executives Kim Shi-dae and Kim from Starship Entertainment, former Woollim Entertainment employee Lee, former 8D Creative employee Ryu, and Around Us Entertainment employee Kim were indicted for bribery and violating the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act. The indictment revealed that Ahn and Kim Yong-bum had met with one other professional two days before the live finale of Produce X 101 to determine the final 11 members of X1 based on pre-finale online votes and had wanted to exclude contestants they did not prefer, particularly those who had already debuted in other groups. Ahn and Kim Yong-bum held a similar meeting in August 2018 before the live finale of Produce 48 to choose Iz*One's final 12 members. Ahn swapped rankings for one trainee who was supposed to debut in Wanna One. A later report mentioned that the indictment also revealed rankings for one trainee who was supposed to debut in I.O.I were swapped. In addition to this, Ahn had also swapped rankings for other contestants in the earlier evaluations. One trainee from Produce X 101 had originally passed the first elimination had been swapped for another, while the same method was used for the third elimination. He also swapped rankings for two trainees from Produce 101 and one trainee from Produce 101 Season 2, all of whom had originally passed the first elimination. Ahn and Kim Yong-bum stated in the indictment that they had predetermined the line-up for Iz*One and X1 because they were pressured by Wanna One's success. CJ E&M had earned ₩124.65 million from the paid text messaging votes from Produce 48 and Produce X 101 Police previously found that Ahn had been using services from adult entertainment establishments in Gangnam paid for by various talent agencies approximately 40 times beginning from the second half of 2018, estimating to ₩100 million. The indictment, however, clarified that, from January 2018 to July 2019, Ahn received services 47 times, estimating ₩46.83 million, that were paid for by the five talent agency representatives in exchange for giving their trainees favorable screen time. In response to this report, 8D Creative stated that Ryu was no longer working for their agency and was being indicted for bribery on Produce X 101 through his own agency, Enfant Terrible. Around Us Entertainment stated that their employee Kim purchased alcohol for Ahn but they were not involved in bribery. On February 14, 2020, the Seoul Metropolitan Police issued arrest warrants for two people who were on the production staff of Idol School. Trial The first trial was held on December 20, 2019. During the trial, the defendants admitted to the charges while also requesting a closed trial to avoid disclosing the names of the trainees whose rankings were changed. A second trial was held on January 14, 2020 and attended by the legal representatives of the defendants and the prosecution. Ahn and Kim, through their legal team, maintained that while they manipulated the rankings, their actions were not illegal. Han Dong-chul, the chief producer of the first season of Produce 101, and a staff member with the surname Park appeared at the hearing as witnesses; both had been suspected of manipulating the rankings for the first season of the show. The prosecution requested Lee Hae-in and another Produce 101 season 1 contestant as witnesses, but Lee's summoning was delayed and her lawyer stated that she would appear at the next hearing. Han and Park were also scheduled to be interrogated at the next hearing. On February 7, 2020, all eight defendants were present. Ahn and Kim's lawyer stated that the votes were rigged in favor of the trainees from the first two seasons wanting to leave the program. In addition, Ahn claimed that while he violated the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, he only drank with entertainment agency representatives without accepting bribes, a statement that was supported by the other defendants. The third hearing took place on March 6, 2020. The trainees that were rigged out On November 18, 2020, the trial of appeals for the case of Produce 101 series was held, the court revealed the list of contestants who were eliminated due to manipulation
Although compensation is important for the victims who were unfairly eliminated, we believed that disclosing the list of affected trainees would be the start of their healing efforts, restoration of fairness, and the best way to reveal the truth.The trainees who benefit from the manipulation will not be revealed, as they were unaware of the manipulation and can also be seen as victims.The list of trainees eliminated by Ahn Joon Young PD and Kim Yong Bum CP, along with when their results were manipulated, is as follows
Produce 101 season 1: Kim Suhyun (1st elimination round)
Produce 101 season 1: Seo Hyelin (1st elimination round)
Produce 101 season 2: Seong Hyunwoo (1st elimination round)
Produce 101 season 2: Kang Dongho (Final)
Produce 48: Lee Gaeun (Final)
Produce 48: Han Chowon (Final)
Produce X101: Timothée Anzardi (1st elimination round)
Produce X101: Kim Kookheon (3rd elimination round)
Produce X101: Lee Jinwoo (3rd elimination round)
Produce X101: Koo Jungmo (Final)
Produce X101: Lee Jinhyuk (Final)
Produce X101: Keum Donghyun (Final)
Consequences Final arguments were heard on 12 May 2020 with the prosecution requesting prison sentences of three years each for producing director (PD) Ahn Joon-young and chief producer (CP) Kim Yong-bum; two years for assistant PD Lee Mi-kyung; and one year for each of the five agency representatives charged with collusion. The sentencing hearing took place on 29 May at Seoul District Court; all eight defendants heard guilty verdicts. PD Ahn Joon-young was fined ₩37 million and sentenced to two years; CP Kim Yong-beom was sentenced to 20 months; and assistant PD Lee Mi-kyung was fined ₩10 million. Agency representatives identified only as "Kim", "Lee", and "Ryu" were fined ₩7 million apiece, while two additional representatives both identified as "Kim" were each fined ₩5 million. After the lawsuit was filed in August 2019, several brands cancelled their endorsement deals with X1 or put them on hold. The agencies of several of the members refused to sign contracts with CJ E&M until the allegations were cleared up. In spite of this, X1's debut proceeded as planned. After their appearance at the 2019 V Live Awards V Heartbeat was cancelled, Mnet announced that there were currently no plans for the group to promote. Iz*One's first studio album, Bloom\Iz, was originally scheduled for release on November 11, 2019 with the lead single "Fiesta". Both the album and song were postponed after Ahn Joon-young's questioning on November 6. In addition, Iz\One's showcases, promotions, and several guest appearances were cancelled or put on hold, as well as their concert film, Eyes on Me: The Movie. On November 28, 2019, Iz*One's Japanese promotions were also suspended, including Sakura Miyawaki and Hitomi Honda's individual radio shows. On December 4, 2019, Iz*One's official Japanese fan club suspended activity, closing registrations for new members and refunding current members. On December 30, 2019, Mnet and CJ E&M announced that both Iz*One and X1 will begin discussing future plans for the groups, and that the eliminated trainees will be fairly compensated. Both Iz*One and X1 were dropped from the nominations for the 34th Golden Disc Awards. On January 6, 2020, X1 disbanded after the members' agencies failed to reach an agreement on the group's future, while the agencies of Iz*One's members agreed to continue promoting. To conclude Mnet created a reality tv show called Produce, during the last episode of the last season fans noticed irregularities in the voting and sued the network, the police investigation revealed that there have been rigging in all of the seasons including a different Mnet show "Idol School". The last group created by the show disbanded after a couple of months while the producers of the show and others involved with the rigging got jail sentences and fines.
My family started in a trailer in a poor part of my city. First my parents had my sister, and then me a year later. My parents never married, but they tried to make it work for me and my sister's sake. They made it into an apartment, and then eventually worked their way into beginning to pay on the house my mom still lives in today. Up until I was about 10 years old, my father and mom stayed together in this house, and it was the definition of hell. Screaming/fights almost every day. Sometimes my dad would start it, sometimes my mom would, sometimes me or my sister. My dad has thrown me across the room, slapped and punched my mom multiple times, (my mom is 5'2', my dad is 6'3'). He has issues, some from his own father dying while he was young, some from using/selling coke and weed and drinking. My mom told me when I was young (maybe 7-8 years old) she was raped by two men in her home state of Oklahoma, and I don't think I really processed it well as a kid. Her dad also died while she was young, he fell to his death on a construction site. Me and my sister both have mental health issues nowadays, but she did make it through four years of college, which is more than either of my parents or me did. I personally have really bad anger issues and anxiety, PTSD from close range shoot outs and robberies. I struggle daily with depression and suicidal thoughts almost every day. I sold weed at a pretty decent level for a long time, 6-7 years. I started around 16 when I realized my parents didn't really have the money they were giving me for my weed/drug habit. 20 or so dollars every day was adding up and they would tell me. My mom was a manager at a Texas roadhouse around when I was 8-9-ish years old, and she ended up getting in between two drunk guys that were in a bar fight and she got punched in her neck. She ended up getting a $50,000ish settlement, but had to have multiple surgeries and will pretty much always be in pain and will always have metal in her neck to the point where she can feel it when its raining outside. My mom has never been great with finances, so that money after bills went by very fast. She did use probably 20-30 grand of it on a new truck. An brand new F-150. Remember she's 5'2" lol. That was definitely a mistake, and I think she knows it, but I've never been good with money either. My father has always been broke, to the point where he would ask my mother for money for his own weed and bills. I'm not sure where my dad lives now, last I heard it was in the mountains in North Carolina. He left the house when I was around 10 like I mentioned earlier. He went to his moms house for a while and then moved out. His mom took care of us a lot of nights that they couldn't because of work or other things. She's the sweetest most Christian grandmother you could imagine. She had four kids, and then as I mentioned her husband (my dads dad) died of a heart attack while they were all still young. I can't imagine the pain, I'm sure it messed my dad up pretty bad. I think these things are important to understand though, because they help me see why they were always so mad and upset always. So in comes when it started getting hard. I had almost no friends in elementary school, I remember getting a "red card" in maybe second grade for punching a kid in the back, yes the back, lol. Because he was literally just talking to a girl I had a crush on. I never really talked to girls then, I would just decide I had a crush on them. In second grade. Lol. He didn't even hit me back, he was kind of just like "What the fuck?" And then I just walked away until a teacher came up to me that's all I remember. I've always been a kind of small and skinny dude, and I especially was back then. In middle school I started making some friends but I was always annoying them because I was always asking to hang out and to come over to their houses. I remember my bus route used to go through the nicest neighborhoods on my side of the city, I'm talking retired NFL player nice. they make my moms house look like a shack, and I don't know if I realized it back then, but it was making me jealous. The friends I ended up making in middle school were not very healthy friends, we were always the loud and obnoxious ones. I got into a lot of trouble starting around this time, 7th grade. I spent almost half of my 7th grade year in In School Suspension, just staring at wall while "doing" class work. It was also this year toward the end of the year that I got into my first real fight. I was always outspoken, and so was this other guy, but he lived in a super nice house and was from a rich ass family. We had a social studies class together, and one day, I'm not even sure how it started, he started making jokes about my mother working at chick fil a. She got that job after her neck was healed up just enough to get a job. She had to get a job, as she was my house's income. She loved and still loves that job, she's a manager now. But back then and how he made fun of her in front of my whole class while my teacher just didn't do anything about it, I was just so mad. So I told him I was going to beat his ass and after class (and more trolling me) we met next to the side of the school and a huge crowd gathered to watch. A lot of people, not the whole school, but most of my grade, because we all exited the same door if you rode on the bus. I threw the first punch, missed, he grabbed my neck and slammed my head into the brick wall, I tried to throw another punch, missed, and I just yelled "stop making fun of my mom" grabbed my backpack and got on the bus, Just cried the whole way home, my sister on the bus was just wondering what happened. I've never been good at explaining my thoughts or feelings to people, so most people think I'm even more dumb than I actually am. I didn't tell my family about that fight for years, even though my sister did. I just will never forget it. I even tried to tell people that I didn't lose that fight even though everyone heard about it. I just couldn't come to terms with it. 8th grade I don't have many memories of. I was a goofball, and my grades were really slipping now, even worse than the year before. Most people just saw me as that weird kid who got his ass beat. I think around this time I started to get very, very cynical with my worldview and my attitude. I was always on the internet when I could be, playing shitty games on our homes only computer; a dell desktop, and reading stupid conspiracy theories. Later I would start gaming pretty hard, and I loved watching streams all the way back to the justin.tv days. My dad had a PlayStation 1, and I loved watching him play Call of Duty. It might be my only good memory with my dad, honestly, and he never got to play a lot. The internet and my cynical world view pushed me away from religion, even though my family was heavily Christian. Even before this though, I hated going to church. From a young kid onward every single Sunday was a screaming match between me and my mom about not wanting to go to church. Sometimes she would end up getting me to go, but that was less and less, and before even middle school I just stopped going completely. So in between middle and high-school I started smoking weed, it made me some new friends and got me into hanging out at a park near my moms house. This park would end up being where I spent most of my next 6-7 or so years. Most people knew it was a druggie park, would call us all "park rats" and make fun of us for wasting our time and money doing drugs. But I gained more memories here than I could ever write down, I probably could make a book out of those memories. There were all ages of people there, some young as me, some mid 30s-40s, a lot of weed smoking teens, a lot of acid tripping hippies, some Xanax/oxy fiends, and even some meth and heroine people. Most days it was just normal people getting fucked up to enjoy their time, but there was always plenty of drama. This park was known not just on my side of town but through the whole city. its kind of tucked away in woods, sits on a lake, and has a small disc-golf course, so you'd even have a bunch of random (probably) sober people show up to play some days, but they usually stayed on their course and away from us, minus a few of them. I started selling weed when my mom started telling me no to my almost daily asks of 20 dollars. I look back and realize she just didn't have the money to support my habits, and I understand now. But once I started selling weed, I realized I could start eating when I was hungry, I realized I could get and smoke weed almost whenever I wanted to. Being at the park always made it easier to sell it too, because people knew to come there to find some weed. I met a LOT of people selling, and I mean a LOT. I started moving up to QP's (quarter pounds) on the front (pay back later) and always found myself 100-200 short on my re-ups, usually just from smoking too much and cutting too many people deals, Like I said never been good with money. Then the serious shit started happening. I was maybe 17-18 when I was at my weed guy's small apartment downtown one day. I always liked going over there, not only because I knew we'd be smoking a lot, but because me and my plug were close, I looked up to him, and we had a decently similar shitty upbringing. One day, I get a call to come chill downtown at his apartment, even had two of our friends come pick me up from the park and bring me there. Took fat dabs on the way (THC oil/wax) and when I got there he surprised us with sheets of Gel-Tabbed Acid. Strong shit. I took my usual 2 doses, I was known for tripping a lot back then, haven't tripped since this day. It was going to be a "No Traffic" day, meaning no sales in his apartment so we could just smoke and enjoy our time. His girlfriend at the time had arranged a deal between him and 3 people he did not know. A young (17 at the time) girl, a mid twenties white dude, and a mid twenties black dude. What we didn't know until after this, was they had set this up, and once inside (mind you we were tripping pretty hard at this point), the white dude and the black dude pulled a gun on my plug and my plug instantly pulled his and fired back and 20-30 shell casings later everyone ran to get out. This was a very small apartment. I mean very very small, 7 or so people all feet away from each other. I was literally sitting on the floor because there weren't enough chairs for everyone, even before the 3 robbers came in. I ducked behind the chair I was sitting next to. One of the people that drove me there got shot twice, once in the thigh and one through the side of his asscheek, no joke. The white guy who was robbing us took at least one to the chest, and was also crushed underneath us all as we all ran out and flooded the small staircase down, I could not describe to you how twisted and contorted his body was, and I had no doubt he was dead. I ran to find my plug, I'm not sure why, but I saw somehow he had made it all the way to the other side of the street already, and was on the ground. I ran up to him, not wanting to touch him, and told him an ambulance is coming and not to worry, he was laying there bleeding out of his mouth and chest with what I later found out were SEVEN BULLETS IN HIS CHEST. I watched him die, or so I thought. I yelled for someone to call an ambulance and when I saw some random student walking past was doing that I ran away and back to the two friends who had drove me there. They were freaking out, it was a dude and a girl, they were a couple at the time. The dude had just gotten shot two times. His girlfriend needed me to go back in and grab her purse and phone that were left in the chaos, I said no at first, but she begged me so I ran back to the staircase and over the white guy on the stairs who had robbed us, I definitely thought he was dead the way his body looked. I went back up the stairs and into the apartment and grabbed the phone and purse and all I could see was blood and holes everywhere, it was disgusting, and it makes me tear up while I type this. I got back into the car and they drove to the nearby hospital (The guy that got hit twice actually drove, believe it or not) and I got out of the car right before they pulled into the hospital. I'm 23, and besides these last two years, I have been on probation/in legal trouble my whole life. When I was a juvenile, I was on Show-Cap probation, where a cop would most nights come check and make sure I was at home. A cop would wake my whole household up at anywhere from 10PM - 2AM just to make me show him a card I had and then would leave, almost every night. During the shooting I was talking about, I was on Show-Cap probation. That's why I got out of the car at the hospital. I wasn't supposed to be around certain people or things like guns, legally. I got out of my friends car and walked (still tripping balls) to a McDonalds a few blocks away, sat down, and called a friend, crying the whole time, and I just remember seeing black around the edges of my vision, like I was either dying or falling into a like dark area of some kind, definitely losing it to the drugs at this point. I got picked up and drove back to my moms house, I told the car full of people I was with what had happened and they couldn't offer much aside from positive words but I will never forget at least they came and got my ass quick. That was some real friend shit. I cried and cried the whole way back to my moms, got dropped off, and like clockwork a few minutes later my mom got home. I told her something had happened (but not the whole story yet) and I felt like I was going to be in a lot of trouble. About 30 minutes later, maybe in total 1-2 hours after the shooting, a black SUV pulled up to my moms house. I had to go downtown, I will say my mom even made me one of the Sur-gel drinks I had been using to pass drug tests to drink during the car ride there. They weren't even trying to drug test me, I didn't ask her to, she was just that cool I guess. I rode an elevator up a huge building and they sat me down with two cops who were pretty convinced this was my doing in some way. They kept asking me why I had been talking to my plug that day and when I said I hadn't, they pulled up my phone logs and texts. So they not only knew about my outstanding legal issues, they also knew I was lying. I really was just lying because I thought just being there was going to violate my probation. They had me on camera every single step from leaving the car at the hospital to walking into the McDonalds. They really wanted to blame me, they even told me my friend (my plug) was dead and it made me cry and cry and cry and cry. In the end, they couldn't hold me there. They forced me to point at a picture line up of people but I told them over and over I didn't know what they looked like and that you shouldn't use what I say because I just didn't know. Whole time during all of this 3-4 hour interrogation, they yelled and screamed at me and at one point left me in the room for maybe 2 hours while I just cried and cried. They were probably just watching what I would do when alone. I was still tripping acid, hard, and just felt like death was all around me. All I could do was cry. Like I said, they released me to my mother. They obviously had no evidence against me, but one thing that they asked me during the investigation was why was my plugs girlfriend outside talking to the 3 robbers (juvenile girl, white guy, black guy, the juvenile girl ended up getting some lesser felonies but she didn't have a gun or shoot anyone, she just tried to block the exit at first). That was enough for me to put together that she was behind this, set him up to have him robbed. She probably just expected my plug to just give up his shit without a fight, but no, no he would never just do that. Obviously this whole situation fucked me up pretty bad mentally. For weeks I thought my plug was dead. Until one day he literally just called me out of the blue. Told me to come see him at his moms house. I'm telling you, this was my brother. Got in my car and went to go see him. When I got there I tried to hug him but he said he couldn't hug anyone, he lifted up his shirt and it was like a Frankenstein stitching all across his whole chest. If I recall it was 8 bullets that hit him in total. He had to use crutches and a wheelchair to move around the little bit he could. He only has one lung now, and will never move the same. It was a miracle, but no one died during that shooting, not even the white guy robber, who was shot in the chest and trampled over on the staircase. The white guy (I keep saying white guy and black guy just because I'm not trying to give out names, I hate all people equally) ended up pleading guilty and sentenced to 30 something years in jail. The black-guy robber took it to trial and WON. No fingerprints on his taped up shitty little .22 caliber pistol. Jury found him not guilty, and he is a free man to this day. Plug's girlfriend that set it up was never even charged as an accessory, but she did violate her adult probation by being there. As if that's all she deserved. This is a true story, google Fort Sanders shooting, It'll come up. The only reason my name wasn't in the articles was because I was 17 years old at the time. Not even an adult yet. They subpoena'd me after the shooting to make sure I'd show up to court or to trial. It wasn't until 4-5 years later the black-guy robber had his trial. By this time I had moved up a lot in the selling game, my plug (same plug) had moved out to the west coast to step up his game as well. Had my own house I was renting in my hometown, Knoxville, TN. Nice car, shitty (but real) diamond ring, bunch of shoes and clothes, 2 shitty cars. Tons of memories, good times and bad, important memories in between then and the trial. I've had a lot of friends die that I went to school/smoked with, especially when Fentanyl started coming around. From what I've heard that's a problem a lot of people share, fuck Fentanyl. I have done most drugs, but luckily I was just smart enough to stay away from shit like heroine and meth. (not to say Knoxville powder wasn't dirty, because it was) I just really liked weed, it has always calmed down my bad emotions from my childhood and from the events I've been through, I don't get to smoke a lot anymore, mostly because I am poor again now. Its still Illegal as fuck in my state too, but that's another story. I declined to testify at the trial of the black guy robber, and they never asked me to testify at the white guys trial because he didn't have one, he plead guilty. I decided not to testify because of multiple reasons, one- I hate cops, and law enforcement. I understand some are actually decent people. But go through a day in jail without food, because they CO thinks you're lying about not getting a tray, and ask me how you feel about cops after. Go through getting kicked out of your high school during your SENIOR YEAR because someone told some teacher you had weed in your car. I got pulled out of class by cops and arrested, and my car wasn't even on school grounds. Cops used to roll through the park I grew up in and would get out and do pat downs on whoever couldn't run away in time. These things and many more have made me hate cops, and yes, I still to this day hate cops. Is me not testifying the reason one of the robbers walked free? Maybe. But I certainly had no new information to tell the jury they didn't already know. Especially if the no fingerprints on the weapon they recovered was the reason they acquitted him. Who knows, maybe me going in there and crying like a bitch or something would've made it the jury see the truth. Either way it does weigh heavy on my heart but even my plug didn't blame me for not testifying. During and before and after the trial, me and my plug were still at work. This is when I had moved into my house I rented, after living in a shitty apartment. I fully furnished it and everything. Washer, dryer, Ps4, Xbox 1, queen sized bed, the works. Even the little shower floor mat, I loved that home. Fast forward to early covid 2020, my plug was starting to get annoyed with me. I was always asking him about the next pack coming in, always wanting as much of it as he could get to me, and I was always on him about the quality of it, even though it was always above average and most of the time it was top shelf. He ran into some legal trouble driving through Texas, that and along with a few other things happening in his personal life, work for me started slowing down. I never was good at saving money, I knew I should, I'd always beat myself up for not having money when I needed it, but I just never could change my spending habits. I'm still not sold on the whole "trying to be something you're not" argument because I've never had to fake anything. Most of the people I was around have heard from others what I've been through. At one point people were driving 2-3 hours just to pick up from me. I've been robbed plenty of times and I've robbed others. One things for sure, if karma is real, then I've definitely paid my dues. I haven't been selling now or have been in any legal trouble for the longest stretch of time since I started it all almost 8 years ago. And yes, I am proud of that. Almost all of the friends I've ever had have either robbed me or wronged me in some way, or I've cut contact for my own issues or reasons. As of today, I have one friend that lives in Ireland, and he's a great friend, but he's got his own life to live. I got evicted for giving a bad check to my landlord, 3 weeks before they did the eviction halting for covid, which is still active today. Unlucky for sure, but my fault nonetheless. Finding somewhere to live has always been a challenge for me because of my lack of provable income. Today I have decent credit, a credit card, and a few thousand dollars I have invested in my Robinhood account that I seem to keep losing and gaining back. I stream on Twitch, but my last stream I just sat and cried for like 2 and a half hours, its still the latest stream on my channel. No one wants to follow me or give me a chance, which I understand, I probably could make it work if I grinded harder and harder at it, its just depressing as fuck to sit there and talk to yourself for hours at the beginning. Todays' (1/28/2021) events in the stock market made me write this. Me and my mom keep fighting and its BEEN PAST the time I move back out again. No one will lease to me. She wont even stay here until I leave, as of this last week. I'm waiting on my new debit card to get here in the mail, and whether I have somewhere to go or not, I told her I'd leave when it got here, I have been homeless a few times, lived in my car, extended stay hotels, other peoples' couches. Its hard, but I know that I can make it fine. Today I woke up and had $20,000 in my investments, up from $1,100 I started with at the beginning of January 2021. I finally felt a little bit positive about my future at least a little bit, after a very depressing Christmas and January. Then Robinhood and other brokers today cut off buying GME, AMC, and others. I was heavy into GME, having gotten in @ $69 (lol) dollars a share. It was $450+ per share this morning, after a week of mainstream media attention from every social media website, major TV news stations, and billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, that Chamath guy (who seems awesome) and many more. Robinhood and a couple other brokers actually turned off the ability to buy the stock. Literally. All the stocks that were heavy volume "meme stocks" they cut off. I was in GME and AMC, but even Blackberry, Nokia, and others were cut off too. Needless to say, after the whole week of manufactured panic from all of these different sources, this straw broke the camels back. GME at this moment is trading @ 225, and I sold mine when I opened my app and saw it at 155, which was the lowest dip of the day. I came out in the green, I came out making a $1,500 or so dollars. But my portfolio by the time I cut AMC losses went from $20,000 this morning, down to $5,000 as I type this. I have never wanted to kill myself more than I do right now, mostly because this week it felt like I really earned this. I stayed diamond hands (held through the media pressure) through this whole week, only to give up at the end. It will hurt even more if GME recovers from this dip, but It's not because other people are making money without me, its because I could've used that money to move out, get some food to eat, get a new car that doesn't leak through the roof in case I'm living in it here in a couple days. And more importantly, I earned that money. I noticed the momentum before it even touched 40 a share. I've watch DFV's (roaring kitty on YouTube) 5-6 hour livestreams where he was going over the financials and spreadsheets of GameStop back in fucking 2019. I believed in this play and threw the money I had at it, and it should have worked out at least better than it did, I was planning to exit or at least hedge my earnings tomorrow, when shorts have to cover. But when I stepped away to eat lunch and take a shower because of how stressful this morning this morning was, I came back, opened my phone, and I was $15,000 down. So yes, my diamond hands failed. I sold. And while I still had a gain, its not at all what it should rightfully be. I can't even bitch and moan in the Wallstreetbets subreddit because apparently me being a lurker for a year isn't enough because of all of the newbies in there from all of the media attention. So to finally wrap this up, I feel like I tried my best in this life. I haven't always been a good person, but not once have I thought to myself that I was evil. I'm too nice sometimes, and its gotten me fucked over, and I'd still go back and front friends weed or give them money/weed for free because I'm just not having fun unless people around me are too. Everyone's struggling in their own ways. I do not want to live on this earth any longer. I wrote this to at least explain to everyone what happened to me. And while I left out some very important parts in my life, this should give you a summary of what was going through my mind today. I really have been a good human being these last 2 years. Maybe I'm greedy for not selling earlier today. I was just so caught up in finally "sticking it to the man" and making the best play I've ever made I didn't want to feel like they would win by making us sell. I didn't even come out in the red, but goddamn it feels like I lost everything. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, just learn from my mistakes and take care of yourselves. You have to be stronger emotionally than I was. Move out of the U.S. if you can, its just greed and money that rule here. Maybe nowadays that's just everywhere. Thank you to anyone that for some reason read all of this. To my dead friends Tad, Pmoney, Cierra, Raegan, Tina, I miss you guys and you better have a blunt for me when I see you all soon, I could really fucking use one about now. Much Love, - Bleezy
Playboy is going public, and CEO says potential ‘is endless’
Playboy is returning to the stock market Thursday after 10 years as a privately held company, but the iconic brand looks far different than it did when it left in 2011. Founder Hugh Hefner died in 2017, the company stopped printing its famous men’s magazine last year and current CEO Ben Kohn has repositioned the firm as a consumer-products company rather than a publishing business. “We’re not trying to be a magazine company. That doesn’t make sense to me,” Kohn, who will be one of the firm’s largest shareholders, told Seeking Alpha in an exclusive interview. “What makes sense to me is being the lifestyle platform that this business originally was.” Playboy recently agreed to merge with special purpose acquisition company Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp. (MCAC) in a SPAC deal that values the company at about $381 million. The stock will begin trading Thursday on the Nasdaq under the ticker “PLBY.” MCAC raised some $50M through an initial public offering in June, and its shares rose more than 30% since the IPO to close Wednesday at $13.34 (see chart below). As for Playboy, the firm still offers articles, adult pictorials and videos via Playboy.com, but Kohn said consumers also buy $3 billion a year of Playboy-branded products that the firm sells on its own or through licensees. He said that even in Playboy’s heyday as a men’s magazine, the company owned or licensed consumer businesses that ran the gamut from casinos to cufflinks that featured its iconic rabbit logo. Kohn, who helped that Playboy private in 2011, said that when he first met the company’s legendary founder, “Hef said to me: ‘I might not be the best editor or the best publisher, but I am goddamn the best marketer.’ I think that’s what we’ve brought back to the company, which is really [to be] an aspirational lifestyle business.” Despite the print magazine’s demise, 68-year-old Playboy remains one of the world’s best-known brands, with 97% of people around the globe recognizing the rabbit logo. Some 90% of customers are under 40, and women make up more than 40% of e-commerce sales. Playboy-branded products sold online range from underwear to calendars to sex toys. Offline, a Chinese company operates more than 2,500 brick-and-mortar Playboy clothing stores in the Asian nation, while a partnership with Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ:CZR) runs the Playboy Club London casino. The revamped Playboy operates in four verticals: Sexual Wellness. This includes products like Playboy condoms and sex aids. The company also recently signed a $25M deal to buy Lovers, a chain of 41 U.S. brick-and-mortar “sexual-wellness” shops. Style and Apparel. The Playboy name is one of China’s top men’s fashion brands, sold through brick-and-mortar stores and more than 1,000 e-commerce sites. Gaming/Lifestyle. Beyond its London casino, Playboy has partnerships with online-gambling software companies Microgaming and Scientific Games Corp. (NASDAQ:SGMS). The company is also working on online sports gambling, while in the lifestyles arena, Playboy sells furniture via Wayfair (NYSE:W). Beauty and Grooming. Kohn said Playboy “has been an arbiter of beauty for 68 years,” and currently sells or is developing perfumes, skincare products and cosmetics. The CEO said that simply by tapping into the growing direct-to-consumer trend, the company can get a bigger share of the existing $3B revenue pie for Playboy-branded products while growing sales organically. “We can drive the lifetime value of our consumers up because we can offer them multiple different products, whereas a licensee can only offer them one product,” he said. Playboy recently released earnings for 2020’s third quarter and first nine months that showed big year-over-year gains. For instance, the company reported that net revenues rose 86% year on year in the third quarter to $35M, allowing the Playboy to turn a $1.3M profit vs. a $3.4M loss during the same 2019 period. And for 2021, the company is guiding to more than $160M in revenues and $40M of EBITDA. Kohn said that when you add in more than $100M in working capital from the SPAC transaction and $180M of prior years’ carried-forward losses that will cut taxes, he sees big opportunities for growth ahead. “The runway that’s in front of us is really endless,” he said. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3661149-playboy-stock-is-going-public-and-ceo-ben-kohn-says-potential-is-endless
Intro: So this is a series I've been meaning to do for a while and I've finally got off my butt to start it. Basically the plan is to give a bunch of general tips and advice to help out the other small brands here. A little bit of background on me. I've run Steady Hands for the past 4 years (started December 2016) and grown it from working solo out of my bedroom at home, to having a 2000sqft warehouse, 2 employees, and 31k legit followers on Instagram(never bought or botted). I'm by no means an expert on everything I say, but I've been doing this as my full time job for about 3 years now and have been rather successful in doing so. Like I said, not an expert but I'm pretty confident in what I'm talking about. Topic: So basically something I see a lot is people saying their drops are exclusive, they never restock, once it's gone it's gone. All basically amounting to once they release an item once it'll never re-release. I personally think that's extremely short sighted and limits your brand's growth in multiple ways. Let's work with an example, you have a new design. You spend maybe 10 hours designing it from concept to finalizing the tech pack. You send it to a manufacturer, you pay $75 for a sample, you wait 2 weeks for the sample, spend a few hours making any changes to the sample, then get the final batch, spend another 4 hours photographing/editing the item, then run your instagram/tiktok/newsletter campaign to promote the item before dropping it. Then let's say the item is a hit and sells out the first week. That's great, all the work you've done has culminated in you selling your 45 sweaters and you've definitely made a profit. If you don't restock it all stops there though. All the time, and money you put into getting the product made perfectly definitely paid off, you sold out, but that's all it got. But if there's still a demand for the product you can double, the profit with a restock of the same amount. The $1000 you made from selling out once can double to $2000, while skipping the majority of the work you put into the piece in the first place. You don't have to spend 10 hours on the design, or 4 hours taking/editing the pic. All the money you spend to set up a design for the first time is saved too. You don't have to drop $75 on a sample since it's already made. You don't have to book a photography studio or pay your friend who has a DSLR to shoot the product again because you already have good pictures for your site/instagram. You basically get to increase the amount of money you make on a piece of clothing while only having to do a fraction of the work the second/third/fourth time around. If you decide to stop the item after the first time with it you'll get a profit, but then you'll have to start the process all over to get the same profit with a new piece. If you restock you can get the profit from the original piece and still have the time to dedicate to the new piece. To give a first hand example here's an item I released in fall 2019. When I first stocked it there were 35 pieces available and they sold out the first weekend they were up. Which was dope, but if I stopped there I would've made only $1750 (revenue) from this piece. Instead I opened preorders (which I'll explain the importance of in a future Brand Tips) and restocked it a bunch of times since and have now done this with the product. The other main way it limits your brand is that you're capping your reach and word of mouth marketing a bunch. I'll elaborate more on this topic in a future Brand Tips as well, but basically one of the best methods of marketing for a new small brand is the people wearing it. If you limit your items to the original 45 pieces you released in that example then you only have 45 people walking around their towns both showing off your brand, vouching for the quality/design, and getting new people to cop. Every restock increases the amount of people you have doing that. Would you rather have 45 walking billboards or 450? Lastly I'll briefly discuss the cons. Aside from the cons of space and the cost of inventory (which are common in stocking any item) the main con I see people talking about is how it ruins the exclusivity of an item. People like exclusivity sure, but is that exclusivity enough to justify missing all the benefits discussed above? I think not. Not to mention your brands still likely 100x more exclusive than any mainstream brand out there. Yeah Supreme sells out in seconds and never restocks, but they're still releasing 10,000 of their hoodie out into the world. You doubling up to 90 hoodies instead of 45 isn't gonna really make your clothes oversaturated. Another bonus of exclusivity is that it drives demand. Which sure, it definitely does. But again that's when you have to weigh the benefits of both. Is the demand driven by exclusivity enough to outweigh the extra money (for a smaller time investment) and the demand given by the free advertising you get from people wearing your stuff? I don't think so. I'd write more, but I feel like this has been longwinded enough and most people probably won't read the whole thing anyway, so I think that about sums it up. TLDR : Restocks allow you to get more profit off a design with a lot less work than a completely new design requires. They also allow more people to wear your brand allowing for a greater reach and potential for growth thanks to a higher population of fans doing free word of mouth marketing for you.
Hi! I've lurked on this forum for years now. Reading tons of advice and seeing other people's experiences - since then I decided to give 'Dropshipping' a good go. I've had experience with about 4 failed stores, 1 semi-successful store and 1 (my current) 'successful' store, which is on course to turn over around $300k this year. I've only recently made an account, and wanted to make this thread to hopefully give people advice that I wish I'd had 18 months ago, when I opened my first shoddy store! I'm still learning e-v-e-r-y day, but I've learnt a lot in these 18 months, and would like to pay it back. I've made a comment on a similar post, so some of the info will be repeated - but this should be in more depth, and broken down a bit better. Few notes before reading: I've only been dropshipping for 18months+, I'm in the clothing niche, I only have experience in China -> US/EU fulfilment, not POD services or US suppliers. Store Design: Your storefront is your open door for customers to look through and decide if they want to give you their hard earned money. If you are low on start-up cash, the free themes *can* be sufficient for your first few months of sales. The only problem with the free themes (particularly Shopify), is that they are so recognisable at this point. Many have become synonamous with low-quality AliExpress dropshipping stores, and may make customers wary right off the bat. There are some marketplaces that sell 100s of Shopify themes, from $40-$500. Filter by reviews, and if possible invest on the lower end of that budget, in a solid and more importantly *CLEAN* theme. The design of the theme will obviously depend on your niche, but anyone with computer knowledge can make a clean, minimalist logo on Photoshop or other free alternatives. Investing in a theme will make you look more like a start up - rather than a copycat. In today's market, simple primarily white background and blue/black text still works well. Stay away from 'dark' themes with black/red backgrounds - ones where it is difficult to blend your product images in. If you are interested in this buyer psychology, I'd recommend reading up on Amazon's approach to their platform design, plenty of free articles are available. Sourcing Products/Suppliers: So you have your site, it looks clean, you've had good feedback from family and friends. What do you put in it? Ultimately, this is something you have to decide based on your passions, the market you know, niches and buyers climate. People may try to advise you on this, but this is something that you have to decide. You don't have to love the product, but ideally you need to recognise a demand for it. if you are really struggling, just look at the ads you are being targeted with. Is it a small store? Keep an eye on their progress, see how they do things. For the record, I am in the clothing niche, I worked for a novelty t-shirt company in sales for 2-3 years, so it was something I knew a little bit about. You can begin with AliExpress, I started with clothing on AliExpress - but in my opinion it's a short term intro plan - and isn't sustainable or conducive to building a long-term brand. Often the product quality is quite low, your 'suppliers' are actually middlemen, and in my experience there is very little desire to communicate and collaborate with you when issues arise, shipping, returns etc. In hindsight, I wish I'd gone straight to my own supplier. I don't want to spend long on AE, and I'm not discrediting it is as an option *it absolutely can work, and can be super lucrative!*, but in my opinion - it's not for long term stores. I guess AE's greatest strength is that it can be effective in the testing phase, as soon as you know your product is in demand, try and find your own supplier. Where? There are a variety of marketplaces you can get in touch with Chinese suppliers, the #1 that springs to mind is AliBaba, where I found mine. I had no luck or interest from AliExpress suppliers, and found other sites hard to navigate. You will absolutely want to test different samples, some will try to sell you up the river on shipping costs for samples - if it's a product you believe in, sometimes you've just got to bite the bullet on this one. If you haggle early on, most will think you aren't a serious buyer. The time for negotiating will come when they *need* you. This is the time to ask every question under the sun, also - sizing, material, quality, different shipping rates, different shipping lines, processing time, PayPal/Wire transfer fees. Always check, check and check for extra fees, make sure you ask for landed cost to each country. The worst thing is when you have calculated your margins, got orders and there is a sudden 'COVID surcharge' or whatever else pops up. You may find the suppliers are overly eager to secure you even though you have a small amount of orders, trying every charm and trick in the book. They are salesmen/women - that's what they do. Be polite, but quick with them, you want to come across as serious, and not a walkover. Otherwise they will absolutely try to mark the product up and get the best possible price. Negotiation is encouraged, but they are unlikely to budge (in my experience) until you are ordering daily/weekly from them. Remember, your supplier is going to be absolutely key to your business. When you have many orders rolling in a day, you cannot afford for them to go AWOL. As long as you are supplying them with orders, they should want to help you out. My supplier will still try the odd trick, even after however many orders with them and speaking to them daily. Marketing: I'm not getting into specifics, and will just outline my early experiences. I've advertised with Youtube influencers, and on the Facebook/IG platform through their ad system. I've had success with both, but now run about 20% YT, 80% FB/IG. Personally I find it easier to scale FB/IG for beginners. There are so many resources out there, DO NOT EXCHANGE MONEY for anything! They may have some value, but in my opinion aren't necessary. 99% of the info I've found has been totally free. Youtube is absolutely your friend. Aside from cold audiences, remarketing/email lists/loyalty rewards all have their own benefits, you'll have to find the right mix for your product/audience. Again, ads are their own subject - I'm in no way an expert, and probably know about 1% of what there is to know, this is just my experience using ads daily to reach my customers. Keep them sweet: It's going great, you've got a beautiful store, awesome branded product and your ads are converting. Surely you can just sit back and relax now? This is where the real work begins, if you are doing more than, I'd say 30 orders a day, you are going to start being busy with enquiries. To minimise enquiries - make sure your shipping times/policy is super clear, have a FAQs page with key info, have that info on the product page - and once more at checkout. You do not want to be hoodwinking people into thinking your product will be there *next day*, when it's shipping from China with DHL and will be 5-7 biz days. Try to have tracking and orders synced up, too. Make sure you reply quickly and as politely as possible to all customer enquiries, customers will already be wary buying from you, particularly if you were found on IG, and their product hasn't turned up after a week. Summary: There is plenty more 'sections' you could go into depth with, like I say - you could probably write a book on each section alone, but this is just some of the key things I've learnt on my road so far. Thanks to everyone who has helped me over the years with their threads and not even knowing it. If you've found any value, any Qs you can leave them here - and no, you can't have my store URL, haha. Got to keep some of the secret sauce a secret!
RoyalRoad First Previous Next I ended up splitting off some of 8 into 9 based on feedback. The story I've thought of will end on 10, and then it's back to the drawing board for me. I'm not sure if I would continue with this universe or come back with another idea, let me know if you have an opinion either way. I'll start posting these onto a site I found called RoyalRoad in addition to reddit. I won't take donations, but it does seem like it has nice utilities to manage all the stories even if the audience is smaller. Any advice on this welcome too. And as always, I'm still a new writer trying to improve. Feedback about the story or my writing are all very welcome, and I read every one of them. Galactic Credits weren't technically a currency yet. They had a lot of GCs in the bank, but as the aliens would say, that's just numbers on a screen. You couldn't pay rent and taxes with GCs, not yet. As some human traders switched to exclusively buying goods from the market, they paid hard earned Dollars in exchange for virtual GC, and that became the revenue stream. This revenue balanced out almost perfectly with sellers who were instantly cashing out. For every Dollar that someone paid GC to convert to credits, only about 95 cents would be asked to be paid out by a seller trying to withdraw their GCs for cash. The transaction fees that GC made on every transaction can be visualized as credits disappearing into an untouched locked account. This was effectively a profit for GC, because it meant less credits that had to be exchanged for $. That 5% margin was a steady Dollar revenue stream that they could safely cash out. But because all the humans needed to pay bills and taxes, they would withdraw their money almost immediately, which meant that they would always be stuck around that 5% margin. Unlike a regular bank, they couldn't make a lot of investments. That's when the universe decided to give them a break. Or rather, their interests had aligned with the self interest of some very rich people who had just started paying attention. At first, the financial systems on Earth did not care much about GCs. They were used in spaceports all around Earth, and space was very exciting, but it was inaccessible to most people and the actual trade volume was a small percentage of total businesses done on Earth. The aliens directly made a few people very, very rich, mostly traders and GC. But what were of more interest to financial institutions were the reverse engineered alien technology products that they predicted were coming shortly. At the same time Sarah and her friends were trying to fix a famine, the human economy was booming. Like GC, banks were in the business of selling gold prospecting equipment, not looking for gold themselves. Naturally, banks started allowing deposits and withdrawal of GC. This wasn't unusual. Banks have no issues holding onto cryptocurrency and non-USD currencies for customers' savings accounts. That was their business, after all. There were some costs, but it was generally a good business: fat transaction fees led to fat profit margins. In the case of GC, banks needed to charge their customers a high transaction fee because GC itself charged a high transaction fee. This was bad for business. Not many people kept their credits in other banks because GC itself was a bank and they kept their money in there just fine without having to pay an even higher transaction fee. They were understandably unhappy about several of their wealthier customers keeping a lot of money in another bank, but not enough to want to choke out GC's business. That would be killing their golden goose that is the booming alien knockoff economy. So when GC decided to raise liquidity, as they would need to do to continue to bankroll a multi-planetary relief mission indefinitely, the banks saw an opportunity. Or rather, VISA did. It was an incredibly generous offer: VISA would treat Galactic Credits like Dollars and allow full convertibility on their own network, in exchange for GC waiving their entire transaction fee for bank transfers. Their lawyers didn't want GC to go ahead and print money without limits, so they put a contingency that allowed them to cut off GC whenever they wanted and clauses that allowed for regular auditing. Sarah and her friends thought about it, but not for very long. Galactic Credit became no longer the only bank that could deal in credits. Credits were now freely transferable between banks. Now, you could pay taxes in credits converted to USD. Which meant people stopped withdrawing their Dollars from GC immediately, and GC could "borrow" that money to pay for supplies, equipment, and then use some to invest in companies on Earth. It was like a limited run of fractional reserve banking. The aid operation to Gak continued. "Isn't this technically a blatant violation of minimum wage laws?" Asked Sarah over the FTL video comms, the crisp and quick quality of which was a testament of how much human infrastructure had been shipped into Gakrek orbit, "doing some quick maths with the average fuel and maintenance costs here… it looks like we're basically paying the space traders only about $10 for every hour of shipping they do for us." Kathleen Bryce, GC's head counsel shifted uncomfortably in a conference room chair 50 light years away, though her immediate reply indicated she had indeed thought the problem through, "Not if anyone asks." She continued, "the short story is nobody has tested the courts to see if aliens working for us in space are subject to California employment and labor regulations, or federal minimum wage laws, or perhaps, even no laws." "What's the long story?" Jen asked, slightly interested. "We're pretty sure they're at most contractors, definitely not employees. Cali Prop 22 took care of that. The spaceport is probably considered international territory, or else the traders would be considered 'illegal aliens' every time they landed," Kathleen did a little chuckle at that most unoriginal pun around the GC legal team watercooler, "In which case, the lower federal minimum wage applies. Or maybe it's not even international territory, maybe it's some new thing. Too many edge cases to descri-" "Ok," Sarah said after a moment, "it'll probably look bad though." "What will?" Jen countered, rolling her eyes, "that they're being asked to voluntarily work just above cost to help save a billion hungry aliens, a problem that, let's not forget, most people in the galaxy think they helped create in the first place? Give me a break. There's fifty thousand Red Cross workers working for free on Gakrek and you're telling me we-" "Ok, ok, we'll save this discussion for later, interesting as the implications are," Stearns interrupted, "until the labor board starts sniffing around, we'll let Legal deal with it. The other item I wanted to get to today is what we're going to do for Gak in the medium and long term." "Right, the immediate crisis is over, but the moment we pull our people out and stop sending food constantly, the Gaks are back to square one in two months," Sarah returned to her presentation, "over the past two weeks, our models keep having to be revised down on the future of Gakrek farming. Their climate system has been dramatically spiraling downwards for decades now. With this disaster: the out of control burning and flooding, the trashed ecosystems, and the Gaks literally selling off their farming tools to squeeze out some more fruits from traders, they added up to one conclusion: traditional subsistence agriculture is no longer viable on Gakrek." Here she put up a chart on screen. There were two lines. There's a straight horizontal line, marking the average calories that healthy Gaks needed, and then there's a quickly plummeting line denoting the drastic decrease of Gak agricultural productivity over time. They crossed about ten years ago. The meaning was clear. "It's increasingly obvious that all Gak food will need to be shipped in from offworld sources until we completely overhaul their agricultural economy," Sarah continued. "What kind of overhaul are we even talking about?" Benny chimed in. He owned a good portion of the company, but rarely came to these executive meetings. Today, he was making an exception for his son Benny Jr, who was on the view screen with the rest of the offworld team on Gakrek. Stearns replied, "in a word: industrialization." "The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race," wrote Ted Kaczynski, known more famously as his press nickname, the Unabomber. When this was published in the Washington Post in 1995 in response to a threat, a number of people thought he was making a lot of sense. It made all the headlines, inspired countless hours of political debate, and gave a major boost to anarcho-primitive ideas in the academic sphere. But as many historians knew, his ideas were not wildly original. Industrialization, like every major economic change, created winners and losers. Sometimes there were more of one, and sometimes the other. In human society, previously skilled workers, usually guild craftsmen who made up the upper-middle class of late feudal Europe, became the biggest losers of industrialization as their labor was replaced by machines that could do what they did at hundreds if not thousands of times faster. Without skill, without rest, and without emotion. Some of them were so angry, they even went out and smashed the machines, but mechanization continued anyway. The biggest winners of the Industrial Revolution were the subsistence farmers who made up the vast majority of lower class workers in feudal Europe. They went into cities, to work mind-numbingly boring jobs, doing the same thing day after day, on risky and dangerous assembly lines for excruciatingly long hours. Many got injured. Some died. A few were even children. And yet mostly, they did so willingly. That's not because they were all tricked, under some grand illusion that factory work was comfortable, safe, and enriching. It was because subsistence farming on its worst day was a hecking nightmare. The Gaks were living it. "Why can't we just build a tractor factory there then?" Sarah demanded. In her mind, tractors were synonymous with food. She'd been on a road trip through the American Midwest once, on the way to the Yellowstone. There, she'd seen rows of gigantic tractors plowing fields, endless food from horizon to horizon. To Sarah, the massive scale of the corn fields of America was just how industrialization was done. "Because tractor factories depend on a thousand different parts. Who's gonna make the tires? Who's gonna make the motors? Who's gonna make the onboard computer?" Stearns explained, "and who's gonna bring them gasoline to keep running? And each of those components have a thousand factories to make them, and each have dependencies on thousands of other factories! It would literally be easier to move Los Angeles onto Gak than it would be to help them mass manufacture tractors." Sarah made a facepalming gesture, but Stearns cut her off before she launched into despair, "there actually is a much easier solution to this problem." "On Earth, most economists agree that the most efficient way to send foreign aid to areas that consistently couldn't produce enough food is not to send them food; it's to send them money so they can buy food, or if they have good soil, they can buy some tools to grow their own," said Stearns, leading Sarah to the obvious conclusion. "But they don't use money here, we can't just send them money!" "Exactly. So let's talk about that." Gordorker's family had finally cleaned up his house from the dust storm. The broken roof was re-tiled as best as he could. His children had helped on some of the menial tasks, but that's what children were for. It was nice to have purpose again. The humans had said that their mission would be here for months, maybe years, but Gordorker was not so naive to believe that he wouldn't have to work for food again. He was certainly not so stupid to take this to mean he should be lounging around all day. Winters on Gakrek were not bad in terms of freezing people to death, but the dry winds would not allow crop planting until spring again. Next time, he would have 21 mouths to feed, not including his, and he'd have to get the fields plowed without poor Grunger. He was lucky he had so many children. Traders Only New Thread: Bohor spaceports have just banned bartering! Body: If your friends want to do any business at Bohor, they better get themselves a GC Terminal fast! The Bohor are banning barter at their main port. You will only be able to conduct trades by credits starting in a few days! Comment: Whaaaaat? Are you crazy??? Only two of my friends have Terminals. How is everyone else supposed to make a living?! Comment: Get a Terminal lol Comment: We told you guys last week this was gonna happen if you assholes keep holding up the line with your obnoxious rare fruit peddling. Newsflash, we don't care about how exotic your stuff is on Bohor. Just unload it. We weigh it, read the price list for food items, do the math, you get your credits, and you're out of there in minutes. You want air filters? We've got air filters for 2,800 GCs, no haggling, no bartering. If you don't like it, someone else will take it. Don't waste our time! -- Bohor Spaceport Management Team Comment: Hey Bohor, have you considered maybe getting a Terminal yourself so that everyone else don't all need to get one just to get some fuel? Comment: I'm selling air filters for 3,000 GCs in orbit above Bohor for traders who don't have Terminals. "Our plan for the leasing model for the Terminals is not going to work," Sarah observed. "Yup, the famine crisis on Gakrek is forcing our hand," admitted Stearns, "and we'd expected a much slower rollout to bring the aliens on board over the course of years, not weeks. In hindsight, it was obvious how this was different to how humans popularized credit and debit cards in the 1970s. We were replacing cash, which was just slightly inferior to a card, but with the aliens, we're replacing their entire dumpster fire of an economy. We earned a lot of goodwill with our relief effort and the galaxy is buying in." "So what, we just abandon the original timeline and move to phase two immediately?" Asked Sarah. "Exactly right. When the iron is hot, you gotta strike it," replied Stearns, "we'll give the merchants already with Terminals an option to opt out of their lease and switch to the new devices, but I doubt most will. Our internal data shows that they've universally been getting their money's worth out of those." "Are our manufacturers even ready to handle the inevitable barrage of orders?" Asked Jen, eager to move onto the logistics and technology discussion. They were not. Version two of the offworld trading terminals were actually a downgrade to the original Terminals. The originals were prototypes, modified out of consumer tablets that cost hundreds of dollars to produce. The new ones, branded Mini Terminals, were basic card readers with pin pads and a tiny OLED display, attached to a now mass produced FTL antenna you could get at RadioShack for $3.99. There wasn't even a thermal printer for receipts. The whole device costs no more than $20 to make on a mass production line in Vietnam. GC was going to sell it at cost in credits. Galactic Credit had prepared supply lines to ramp up production, ready to start rolling them out in a couple years. They've made a test batch of tens of thousands of units sitting in storage, but did not expect to need to start actually selling them for a while. Carefully made plans were abandoned, schedules were expedited, employees in SE Asia worked overtime, and the company took on extra cost to push the schedule up. It still wasn't enough. On day one, all reserve units sold out. Some of the well connected human traders, unburdened with a strong conscience or ethics, bought them by the truckload as they were leaving their warehouses. They sold them at a large markup at the spaceport. That was not very cash money of them. GC sent a representative to the spaceport to let traders know that they were out of stock, but more would be made available shortly. Customers should just wait a week for the prices to come down. The scalpers instantly sold out anyway. The alien traders lucky enough to be on the non-relief landing pads filled their cargo with the Mini Terminals. Then, those traders sold them at a markup at other ports. And so on. By the time the Mini Terminals reached average spaceport merchants on the other side of the galaxy, they were being sold for almost half the price of the original tablet Terminals. By the end of the week, the craze died down. These electronics really were cheap and easy for human factories to make, and many of the production lines just needed time to start the machines. Prices returned to normal, and the average merchant could afford them with a bit of honest work and savings. The Gakrek Spacelift was slowing down. The turnaround time had been increased to a leisurely 10 minutes, and the Livermore space traffic controller was occasionally allowing non-relief traders to land at open pads, which Zikzik was doing now. Zikzik needed to refuel, but apparently that was still only allowed for the landing pads that had been designated for relief. He called up the Livermore port manager, pointed to his number one position on the relief pilot leaderboard, but she just shrugged her shoulders and said apologetically, "rules are rules". Oh well, he could always refuel at Olgix on the way. As he landed in Olgix, he realized this was the first time he landed at a non human or Gak port for at least a week. He greeted the Olg who was running a reactor fuel line to his ship with a nod, and asked, "how much fruit to full?" The Olg took one look at the sign on his booth, and said, "you know we also take credits on Olgix now, right?" A little surprised, Zikzik took out his card and terminal and allowed the Olg to swipe his. He'd used his Terminal when doing exchanges with other traders, but this was the first time he'd been to a non-Earth port where goods and services could be paid for using his credits. "That's 295.50 GCs, pleasure doing business with you." Grob was one of the wealthier Gaks in the world. The famine had affected everyone, but he and his wife did not have to go hungry because the spaceport management made sure to keep feeding the people that kept the mobs at bay. Everything else stopped working though. He used to pad his income by making sure that the vendors at the spaceport knew exactly who was protecting their livelihoods. Only very rarely did new ones not cooperate. Grob really wasn't a bad Gak, but he did what everyone else in his position also did. This was just how business was done on Gakrek. You didn't get to survive to become a security guard family if you didn't do that. Another Gak would come along, take your place, and do what you didn't want to do anyway. When the humans arrived, things changed. They started peddling these credits business, which he'd seen some of the traders used. Of course, he didn't think much of it. Instead of getting goods, you just get a card, and use the card to trade for food and items? Seems unnecessarily complicated. He'd heard that they charged a cut just for you to use the card, a concept that he was intimately familiar with and in no hurry to be subjected to. The humans had insisted on giving one to him and setting it up. Which he had to do because they were in charge now, but that was fine by him. Just because he had a card didn't mean he had to use it right? A few days later, when he was on a patrol route at the spaceport, checking off the vendor stands, one of the luxury item vendors asked him if she could pay her next cycle's fee with her card because she had traded away all her wares. "You gotta make sure to save wares for me next time," he'd told her, "but I'll take it this time." He ruffled through his backpack to find the card, handed it to her, and she inserted it into her machine, typed in her code, and showed him that it had deposited 18 GC into his account. Hoping that she didn't stiff him, he went on with his route. "Let me say this again," Zarko said at the edge of his patience limit, "you can trade these credits for food on Earth. Lots of food, shiploads of food. So much food, everywhere." "But I don't have a ship," whined the spare parts vendor at the spaceport, "why don't you just bring food with you next time you want my parts?" "You can exchange credits for food from some of the other traders that come down here too! Some of them have the new Terminals now, look, that guy over there, he takes GC," Zarko was almost shouting while pointing at a fellow Zeepil food merchant who had a I ❤️ GC sign on his booth across the spaceport. This was frustrating. Every time he came across one of these less traveled planets he had to explain himself to these yokels all over again. The vendor looked over skeptically and said, "how do I know that you two aren't working some scam together?" That was it for Zarko. It had been a long day, this guy wasn't making it any shorter, and he had just been accused of being a dishonest trader. It was probably because of his species. Just because he was a Zeepil didn't mean he was a scammer! He internally cursed the unjustified stereotype of his people and blew up at the racist: "Listen to me very carefully. You're going to give me the secondary fuel modulator. You're going to walk over to the food merchant over there. Then you're going to swipe this card over here, on his machine. He's going to give you at least a month's worth of food. And if you don't, I'm going to leave a one star review on your spaceport on Traders Only, and nobody is going to come back here to trade anything with you ever again, got it?" The vendor whined some more under his breath, but eventually relented. The threat had sounded real. He got plenty of food. Whatever scam these Zeepils were running, they didn't rip him off this time at least. Whatever. Zarko was fuming as he took off. Didn't these ignorant primitives know that a liquid currency to facilitate free and fair exchange of goods and services was obviously the bedrock upon which a modern economy needed to be built? When Grob got home from work, he handed his wife the credits card saying, "hey darling, one of the luxury traders gave me her protection share using the card. I trusted her because she normally always pays on time. Did I get scammed?" His wife was a teacher at a nearby school. Ever the practical one, she asked, "oh, how much did she put on it?" "It said 18." She did some math in her head and replied, "yeah that sounds about right," and to his surprise, she pulled out a card and said, "I got one from the humans at the school too, and I used it to buy a new pair of shoes for you!" He tried them on. They weren't very fitting shoes, but neither were his previous pair so he couldn't complain. They did seem very well made even though the little holes in them seemed to be a design choice. Pretty soon, he noticed that the other guards at the spaceport started extracting their share of protection fees using cards too. Oh well, if everyone else was taking fees with a card, he supposed it couldn't hurt if he did it too. It somewhat lightened his load on patrols, which he didn't mind at all. Besides, his blue shoes were really pretty. He was not sure why there was a big check mark on its side though. "They're doing what?!" Sarah asked, her temper threatening to go off. "It's a protection racket. A practice as old as time. The security guards have basically been taking a percentage of the vendors' wares, and recently switched onto using cards to take payment. It's been going on forever and it's probably just how they do things there. Using cards is pretty innovative of them, I'll give them that," Jen said, "but it made it pretty easy for us to track down all of them. Should we revert the transactions?" "No, probably not," Sarah said, calming down and seeing a slight head shake from her head counsel Bryce, "but we need to make it clear to them that they can't be allowed to do that anymore." Grob wasn't sure how to feel about the cards anymore. The humans had found the practice of protection fees distasteful, and they'd warned that anyone caught doing it again would face severe consequences. They made their point pretty clear when one of the other guards was made an example of: her card stopped working. She had to get a new one that didn't have any of her credits in it! On the other hand, the humans also made the spaceport authorities start paying them with credits, which was good because now they were being paid on time and Grob knew he didn't have to worry about not being paid as long as the humans were there. His wife had been buying them new clothes with credits she was getting paid as a teacher too. One of his human friends had giggled when she saw his shirt, which apparently said "2016 NBA Champions Golden State Warriors". He wasn't sure what was so funny about that, but it was a very comfortable shirt. Maybe this whole credits thing wasn't as ridiculous as he thought at first. By the universal inheritance path known as "dibs", Gordorker inherited his neighbors Gyuotin and Gyuovin's farmable land and possessions. They didn't have much. Trinkets, gadgets, and a bunch of junk. It was mostly items that couldn't be traded for food during the worst periods of the shortage. With his immediate food needs taken care of by the relative abundance of food items the humans have brought, Gordorker thought perhaps he should go buy a stasis box with the trinkets he got from his deceased neighbors. When he arrived at the offworld market, he saw a high end luxury merchant proudly displaying some fresh new wares from offworld, including a number of stasis boxes. These were apparently new ones made by humans. These were slightly bigger than the ones he'd have before, but he'd brought his neighbors' life possessions, so he thought maybe he'd be able to trade for one of those with some haggling. Gordorker started laying out his items on the table, but the trader cut him off, hastily saying the weirdest thing he'd ever heard from a trader in his life, "no barter, credits only." The merchant then pointed him towards a human tent. A human volunteer, his nametag said Marco, asked his name and gave him a shiny card, then told him to memorize 6 numbers. "As the head of your household, you have also been given a small stimulus by the GC corporation," he said. Then Marco took him to a junk trader stall, where he gave the trader all his items. Marco showed an increasingly confused Gordorker how to insert his card into a small machine slot to "receive payment". Marco guided him back to the merchant selling stasis boxes. Gordorker was instructed on how to insert his card and enter his pin code, which he mastered with no difficulty. Marco then took him to a farm tools stall, where Gordorker repeated the same process with a steel plow, a small box of "semi-dwarf wheat seeds", a long garden hose, and a hand pump, all loaded onto a brand new wooden wheelbarrow. "BAL: 12.50," the small screen had read. Gordorker was not sure what unnatural ritual he had taken part in, but he was in possession of the most farm tools he had ever been in his life and he had the stasis box he was looking for. "Alright, that should be enough. Make sure to keep the card safe and remember your 6 digit code. Ask a volunteer if you need to know what the tools do.." Gordorker put his card in his stasis box. Then, being the prudent Gak he was, he wrote down his pin code and put it in the box as well. Whatever else it did, he was sure one of his descendants could probably find a use for it in an emergency one day. In hindsight, there were obvious economic side effects for Earth becoming a mass producer of everything from food to cheap consumer electronics, the reverse engineering of millions of years of alien tech, and ripping down the barriers that the barter based economies of the galaxy had erected. A young forward thinking economist wrote a whole journal article about it with a typical economic study title: "Development Osmosis: Capital Outflow, Argentina, and Extreme Poverty in Offworld Economies". Three other economists read the pre-print as part of the peer review, who all sent him an email saying something along the lines of "wow, this gave me a lot to think about. Somebody important should read this!" Nobody else did, for a while. It didn't make the news. The reference to high yield semi-dwarf wheat seeds in the story refers to the research of Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Norman Borlaug. Borlaug noticed that stalks of wheat that are too high yield would bend and then break their stalks, so he solved that problem by breeding these plants with dwarfed plants. Shorter stalk, supports more wheat. His work in improving food security in developing nations is credited with saving the lives of over a billion humans. A real life HFY. The next chapter's working title is: Rising Tide RoyalRoad First Previous Next
Tradesy. This site takes the hassle out of selling your clothes. Just snap a photo, share it on Tradesy, and it’s up for the world to see. Select from a Tradesy USPS priority label, a full Best Websites to Sell Used Clothes Online for Cash. Here is the list of best websites to sell your pre-owned clothes online that too at a reasonable price. Get cash for clothes from these websites. The Mercari app allows sellers to sell clothing by uploading pictures and listing their clothes, shoes and accessories at whatever price they like. Whatever sells is subject to a flat 10% fee. Check out Your Money Geek’s handy guide to the best places to sell clothes online and pick out the best selling app for you. Not every app is going to be right for you — some limit the brands you can sell, some require you to do a lot of hands-on shipping and handling, and others are restrictive on the types of items you can sell. 5. Craigslist – a worldwide site that is free to list and sell clothing to people in your area. Related: 100+ Legitimate Home-Based Business Ideas. Apps to Sell Clothes. 6. Instagram is a great place to sell old clothes. All it takes is uploading a picture and putting the brand, color, size and price in the caption. Which site should you choose to sell clothes online? Choosing the right platform to sell clothes online is one of the many decisions you need to make. You will need to consider the type of clothes you are selling, your listing volume, your customer type and more to decide which marketplace suits your business the best. Diversification is great too. eBay. Best for: It’s pretty good if you want to sell clothes online across any category, but as eBay doesn’t have an authentication team, it’s safer to stick to high street brands here, and 2. eBay. eBay features a single-stream checkout, creating a pleasant experience for buyers. No. 2 on my list of best websites to sell designer clothes is eBay. The main advantage to selling on eBay is the scale of its online presence. eBay has a community of more than 160 million active buyers. There are a number of benefits to using eBay, like: Poshmark is an online marketplace to buy and sell gently used items, mostly geared to designer clothes and name brand clothing. Buying and selling are mainly done through the app, although you can also do this from the desktop version of the website. They take a flat fee of $2.95 for all items sold for under $15. Tradesy is an online peer-to-peer resale marketplace where people buy and sell women’s luxury and designer contemporary fashion. You can sell clothing, handbags, shoes, and accessories from big name brands like Zara, Michael Kors, and Louis Vuitton. You can even sell your wedding dress on Tradesy.
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