self-indulgent

thank you Mario Santoro. oh lord.

I really really really enjoyed Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by @pangur-and-grim and I've been meaning to scan this page from my sketchbook for weeks now.

b) I found the paper they’re citing and it’s actually really sweet and a really cool study to read! not at all too dense

some highlights:

this is VERY sweet

(this paper came about bc they were having trouble identifying participants by ‘traditional’ recruitment methods like posting flyers and contacting LGBT networks/support groups, and also didn’t want to skew the data toward people who would frequent these)

they also tried making profiles on dating sites but….. 

anyway here’s a link

eat it up 🍔💫

but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.

and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.

if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."

whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,

it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.