The shakes I get from the reveal of the Disney channel reveal theme come not jsit from the shock but from all the people talking about the mind of the creator. Hearing all that praise, all that talk about how he probably made this fantastic thing in less than a day, probably less than an hour. It feels like climbing a mountain range looking for the last giant, only to see that the tallest peak you rest on is but only it’s finger, long turn to stone. It’s the intense awe. It’s the regret that I’ll never truly know this man. It’s the despair. It’s the wonder.

Recently got around to watching ROBLOX_OOF.MP3 and seeing people compare it to Defunctland's Disney channel video had me thinking many thoughts.

Happy Birthday, Alex Lasarenko. Thank you for many wonderful tunes that defined childhoods and bring back feelings of nostalgic glee.

With what Bob Iger said and SAG-AFTRA joining the WGA in the striking, I think it's the perfect time to bring back this Defunctland video

A underrated bit of Defunctland tonal whiplash is the episode about a PBS kid's puppet show that starts with "On April 29th, 1992, four LAPD officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King..."

For those who haven't seen it, it is germane bc the show was produced by the Rebuild L.A. organization set up after the riot, and making a national PBS kid's show with merch would heal L.A. because the experiment in race relations was "uniquely L.A"

fyi tumblr is fucking over people with custom domains

if you have a custom domain set, DO NOT UNTICK THE BUTTON on blog settings. you’re not allowed to add it back. (nope, that’s not mentioned anywhere on blog settings itself.) if you switch hosts and need to update nameservers, congrats! you’re fucked

custom domains were a feature that’s been available over a decade, but they’ve been unceremoniously removed. the idea of “legacy” domains is a joke

this is doubly egregious because they absolutely could be selling domains for people that don’t have one, while still allowing those of us that already had a domain to keep using ours. they also don’t even allow you to pay to use your own. so if someone bought a domain specifically to use on tumblr, if they accidentally untick the button then poof! they’re fucked because they can’t re-buy their own domain from tumblr 

it’s honestly pathetic how much of a transparent cash grab this is at worst, and how badly implemented this was at best. this is what happens when you accept incompetency as a modus operandi bc “lol quirky hellsite”

i highly, HIGHLY recommend not investing in this feature due to that incompetency and lack of transparency

Indian Black Narrowmouth Frog aka "Space Frog" (Melanobatrachus indicus), family Microhylidae, Munnar, Kerala, India

photograph by Hadlee Renjith 

Look, I think it is important that as many people as possible see these phenomenal photos of Melanobatrachus indicus, because they are damn rare, but truly spectacular.

If anyone wants to know my favourite frog, this is probably in the top five.

I’ve seen a couple deep fake AI animals where people make up a new species so I had to double check this guy but man, these are some epic frogs.

Indian Black Narrowmouth Frog aka "Space Frog" (Melanobatrachus indicus), family Microhylidae, Munnar, Kerala, India

photograph by Hadlee Renjith 

Look, I think it is important that as many people as possible see these phenomenal photos of Melanobatrachus indicus, because they are damn rare, but truly spectacular.

If anyone wants to know my favourite frog, this is probably in the top five.

hate it when lame dudes in movies use inhalers and then...don't by the end of the movie? like they've become not-lame and they have moved past the need for their inhaler. bro getting up the courage to kiss your girl best friend does not mean your asthma has been cured. wtf

Would y’all try this? Peanutbutter Ice cream with Ritz crackers mixed in.

hang on, that sounds kinda good.

be pro-aging but wear sun screen. sun protection is not beauty industry propaganda it will save you. wear it. or else.

ocd is not fucking destigmatized

"intrusive thought" gets thrown around by assholes talking about putting strainers on their heads or stepping on a leaf who in the next sentence will say "if your thoughts are about actually hurting people they should put you in a psych ward". compulsions and rituals get seen as proof you're "crazy". ocd insight CAN be delusional, even. pocd and sexual ocd is especially demonized, though even something as "harmless" (to others. not *us*) as contamination OCD is still mocked, belittled, and seen as a sign something is fundamentally wrong with you. I have seen people twice my age advocate for violence against anyone who thinks the way I've been forced by my mental illness to think since i was 6, maybe 7 years old.

OCD is not destigmatized.

We had one of Steff’s comedian friends staying with us on the weekend, lovely lad called Sam from Singapore. He had never been to Wales before, and he requested that we take him to a Welsh restaurant so he could try Welsh food

That’s surprisingly difficult, actually. Like a lot of Welsh culture, our culinary traditions have not exactly been applauded over the years, so you don’t really see them. But a lucky Google search revealed a brand new one has just opened in SA1 called the Welsh House, so great! Away we went.

Fuck me, they went all in.

It wasn’t just the menu (though fuck me, what a menu - one of their ‘for the table to share’ options was little mini leek and cheddar Welsh cakes with salted butter and they were paralysingly good). It wasn’t just that every alcohol was Welsh, even including the wine (surprisingly good btw, called 'Naturiol’.)

The table centerpieces were daffodils. All signs for the toilets were Welsh only. The walls had photos of Wales, modern and historical; the windows had the fleur de lis; the specials board (pork belly in Welsh cider and damson sauce with honey and wild garlic glazed carrots) had dragons on. I realise this is probably normal for country-themed restaurants, but I’ve never been to one for Wales before.

But the best bit, see, was the music

I clocked, when we walked in, that they were playing If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next by the Manic Street Preachers (you always clock the Manics). Ah, I thought. A Welsh song! In a Welsh restaurant! Ho ho ho.

As they seated us, it became What’s New Pussycat. Ah! I thought. Another Welsh song! Fu fu fu.

Then they played Monster by the Automatic and I was like my god are they only playing Welsh music?? That’s so cool! What an eclectic mix that’s going to be. We should suggest to them they should look into Welsh language music too, really mix it up.

And then they played Anrheoli by Yws Gwynedd and lads, Steff and I lost our shit. We lost our fucking shit. Sam’s sitting there, utterly bewildered. The staff are nervously edging away from us. We don’t care. It’s the first time I have ever heard a Welsh language song played outside of a Welsh language setting. We’re so excited.

“They’re playing Welsh music!!!” says Steff. “Holy shit!!!”

“Imagine if they played Sebona Fi!” I say, humorously.

“Nah,” says Steff. “You can’t in a restaurant. There’d be a riot, it’s faerie music.”

“…what?” says Sam

We explain the cultural phenomenon that is Sebona Fi. The song changes: Primadonna Girl, by Marina and the Diamonds.

“She’s Welsh??” says Sam.

“She’s from Abergavenny!” we beam.

“I don’t know what that means,” nods Sam, who is from Singapore.

Next: The Bartender and the Thief, by the Stereophonics. We’re in high spirits. The extraordinarily Welsh wine arrives, as does the rarebit on sourdough starter. Sam, a gay man, delightedly orders the faggots and peas.

They play Ben Rhys by Gwilym Bowen Rhys, and we lose our shit again. Sam is now used to this, because comedians are adaptable. “They even have daffodils!” I say, misty eyed. “Is that relevant?” Sam asks, fascinated.

They play Hiraeth, by PLU. Hard to explain that one. Very hard to explain the effect it has when it’s played in a restaurant, but Sam looks around the suddenly muted room and whispers “Are we in church?”

“It’s about Hiraeth,” whispers Steff. “So kind of.”

Next: the Masses Against the Classes, by the Manics. Utter tonal whiplash. This playlist is not remotely restaurant appropriate. It’s perfect.

“You’d think they’d pick like… a genre,” Sam says dreamily. “We just went from church to the barricades.”

The faggots arrive. “I forgot it would be a western sized portion,” Sam says morosely, of what to me is a normal sized plate of food. He tries one, and brightens.

They play Sebona Fi.

The place erupts.

OKAY LISTEN I'M STILL MAD SO I'M CHANNELING MY INNER EMILY TO SAY THIS:

Saying a female character is only three-dimensional if she has traditionally "masculine" characteristics without any "feminine" traits is just playing into the misogynistic idea that women are only "okay" if they're like men, and saying that fandom is stripping a female character of agency and reducing her to a love interest by portraying her with "soft" traits and giving her a romance(with a man) is just dumb, especially when no issue is made about fandom-izing a smart and strong male character into an incompetent "damsel/himbo/malewife."

Also the type of man they model these women after? Generally is a really unhealthy way for a man to be. Like a macho emotionless violent extreme that nobody should want to model themselves after. That’s not what it should mean to be a man anyway right? It hurts everyone and is fair to no one.

Does anyone remember what happened to Radio Shack?

They started out selling niche electronics supplies. Capacitors and transformers and shit. This was never the most popular thing, but they had an audience, one that they had a real lock on. No one else was doing that, so all the electronics geeks had to go to them, back in the days before online ordering. They branched out into other electronics too, but kept doing the electronic components.

Eventually they realize that they are making more money selling cell phones and remote control cars than they were with those electronic components. After all, everyone needs a cellphone and some electronic toys, but how many people need a multimeter and some resistors?

So they pivoted, and started only selling that stuff. All cellphones, all remote control cars, stop wasting store space on this niche shit.

And then Walmart and Target and Circuit City and Best Buy ate their lunch. Those companies were already running big stores that sold cellphones and remote control cars, and they had more leverage to get lower prices and selling more stuff meant they had more reasons to go in there, and they couldn't compete. Without the niche electronics stuff that had been their core brand, there was no reason to go to their stores. Everything they sold, you could get elsewhere, and almost always for cheaper, and probably you could buy 5 other things you needed while you were there, stuff Radio Shack didn't sell.

And Radio Shack is gone now. They had a small but loyal customer base that they were never going to lose, but they decided to switch to a bigger but more fickle customer base, one that would go somewhere else for convenience or a bargain. Rather than stick with what they were great at (and only they could do), they switched to something they were only okay at... putting them in a bigger pond with a lot of bigger fish who promptly out-competed them.

If Radio Shack had stayed with their core audience, who knows what would have happened? Maybe they wouldn't have made a billion dollars, but maybe they would still be around, still serving that community, still getting by. They may have had a small audience, but they had basically no competition for that audience. But yeah, we only know for sure what would happen if they decided to attempt to go more mainstream: They fail and die. We know for sure because that's what they did.

I don't know why I keep thinking about the story of what happened to Radio Shack. It just keeps feeling relevant for some reason.

It’s not that I don’t LIKE the Fandom Popular Pairings, it’s that I find the assumption that everyone ships them and the general all-consuming nature of said pairings to be kinda exhausting,

At first Netflix said, come write for us. We’ll save your cancelled shows and write about whatever niche story you want. Our algorithm says people will watch it!

Then a few years later they said, regardless of our promises or contract obligations we are cancelling shows after two seasons without telling anyone. Turns out no matter how loved a show is, we get less subscriptions after the second season.

How many subscriptions did we bring you? Netflix won’t say.

So writers started writing two season shows. Just give us two seasons, Netflix. Like you promised.

Then Netflix said, oops sorry! Turns out your show didn’t premiere at #1 and the views in the first day weren’t what we wanted so we’re cancelling your second season.

What were the numbers? How many people watched our show? Netflix doesn’t say.

Then, they did something extra special. They started taking shows and splitting their first season into two halves. Inside Job was not two seasons. It was one season split in half.

Oops! Sorry! The second half of your first season didn’t do as well as the first half, so now your show is cancelled!

Why? How many people? How much money? These companies are making cash hand over fist and they refuse to tell people the truth: people loved your show. Loved it. But some corpo exec wanted an infinite money making machine. Do you know how long shows are in production for before you watch them? Years. Like, 5+, even 10+ years. And Netflix gives it less than a week before they decide whether you’re getting cancelled.

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