🌈✨lumi, the qúêęr fæ wîtçh✨🌈

Day 2 - Girl Gang Girlfriends feat Pharmercy

The title says it all really. So if nothing else, please share and reblog this post to raise awareness for those that might be caught out - both artists and followers. For a TL:DR, please look at the bottom of the post

What is happening?

Right now, there is at least one person actively impersonating multiple artists across tumblr in an effort to scam their followers into paying for fake ‘cheap commissions’. The scammer will clone a tumblr, usually using a slight change to the url/account name to look like the real deal. They will then message people directly through Tumblr with messages along the lines of “Hey, i’m doing cheap commissions right now. DM me to get one”. Naturally, this is ends up just being a way to take their money without giving anything back in return.

Who does this affect?

Everyone. Simple as that. As long as the scammer in question works unopposed, they are free to spread their influence and continue to scam more people. Even if you haven’t been targeted yet, it does not mean you are safe or immune. Several artists have already fallen victim to this scammer, and I encourage any artists that have to reblog this post with the details of their affected account(s) and the ones the scammer has set up.

How can we stop this?

Tumblr, like many other social media platforms, seems to care very little about ‘minor’ occurences like this one, and despite reaching out directly to them over a week ago through multiple avenues of contact - they have refused to comment on the situation, provide a recommended response for users, or take action on behalf of those already affected. Despite this, there are still tools at our disposal that we can use to make this scam more difficult, and to increase its visibility to those within Tumblr staff that are required by policy to take action. Tumblr has the following to say on the topic of impersonation: Confusion or Impersonation. Don’t do things that would cause confusion between you or your blog and a person or company, like registering a deliberately confusing URL. Don’t impersonate anyone. While you’re free to ridicule, parody, or marvel at the alien beauty of Benedict Cumberbatch, you can’t pretend to actually be Benedict Cumberbatch. They then provide a link to this online form that you can fill out if you suspect someone’s identity is being confused. Unfortunately, this can only be filled out if you are the victim of impersonation. In other words, only the artists can fill this out legitimately. So, what about the followers and users of tumblr whom aren’t being impersonated? Our most valuable tool in this online platform is the platform itself. It enables us to spread our word near-virally across all the many sub-communities on Tumblr with remarkable efficiency for a user-driven system. We can take advantage of that effect to increase awareness of the situation. Even if you - the one reading this right now - aren’t an artist or don’t know an artist, the act of reblogging this post or sharing it directly with friends improves it’s ‘ranking’ in popularity increasing its chances to be seen by more people. We don’t need everyone on Tumblr to see the post for it to be effective, just like we don’t need the entirety of the human population of the world to be immune to a disease for that disease to be rendered ineffective or eradicated. If enough people are aware, the likelihood of pulling off a successful scam increases dramatically reducing efficiency to a point that it no longer becomes profitable to continue.

Why should I care?

It disheartens me to say this, but of the many artists I contacted directly over the past week to warn about this issue many of them refused to listen or dodged the responsibility with lines like;

“I’m not being impersonated, so it doesn’t affect me”

“I’m just one person. I can’t make an impact”

“I need to take care of my community. Other people can look after theirs”

This is honestly disappointing that so many artists or art-rebloggers care so little as to intentionally wave the responsibility of keeping their followers and fellow artists safe from this, that they cannot spare 10 seconds of their time to share an informative post. I’m not here to bash artists, but it is time that everyone takes responsibility for their own communities, and of those around them. Artists: You have a responsibility to ensure that your followers and fans aren’t being abused by someone who may impersonate you. If they succeed, your reputation will be damaged, and your followers will resent you. Your followers are also almost guaranteed to be following other artists meaning your efforts can spread beyond your own circle of influence, so don’t be naive when you think you have little effect. Followers: You have just as much responsibility to be aware of those that might try to scam you or your fellow followers. Don’t just sit in silence when you see something wrong: Ignoring the issue only makes it more resilient to our efforts to stop it. You are the vocal majority if you just use your voices to be heard!

TL:DR

Let’s start with the most ridiculously conservative version of where Jeff Bezos keeps his money. (Also let’s lose a quick $5b and say he has $100b rather than $105b, for simplicity.) Now, let’s say he keeps $100b in a savings account that earns 1% interest, compounded annually. 

(Let me make it clear that both the rate and the percentage are ridiculously low and nobody would do this ever, especially with one hundred billion dollars. This is for educational purposes only.)

So, that means, at the end of the year, he’ll have “earned” a billion dollars just for having this much money in this particular savings account. 

I put quote marks around “earned” because he didn’t work for it. He got money for having money. HE GOT A BILLION DOLLARS FOR HAVING A HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. (And again I remind you that this is the absolutely ridiculous lowest version for explanation’s sake.)

So in this example, if he spends $10m a day for a year, that’s $3b650m he spends in one year. BUT HE “EARNS” BACK A BILLION DOLLARS JUST FOR HAVING MONEY. So he actually only spent $2b650m. (Again, these are not the real numbers; I’m simplifying.) So your span of time has to be much, much longer than 27 years. It’s not that straightforward.

BUT! Jeff Bezos doesn’t keep his $105b in a 1%/yr savings account. He has a diverse portfolio, high-yield interest investments, most likely offshore accounts (I can’t remember if he was in the Panama Papers or not), etc. So if the lowest possible example has him “earning” a billion dollars a year just because he has money, imagine what he’s “earning” just because he has money in a diversified portfolio where he’s getting way, way more than 1% back annually. 

He could spend, as the above comment says, ten million dollars every single day, and literally make it all back plus a whole lot more. He would never run out of money.

Try to understand the evils of capitalism here.

A person with $100 billion could spend $10 million a day, every day, for his whole life, and that person would die with more money than they had when they began spending $10 million a day.

In the same New York Times interview that alleged Harvery Weinstein had a history of assaulting her, Uma Thurman also spoke out against the dehumanizing experience of shooting the Kill Bill films. Specifically, Thurman claims she was pressured by director Quentin Tarantino into shooting the popular convertible scene — or, the moment when she starts driving to kill Bill — by herself and with no stunt driver, despite Thurman expressing multiple times that she wasn’t comfortable operating the vehicle in its shoddy condition. “Quentin came in my trailer and didn’t like to hear no, like any director,” she said. “He was furious because I’d cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: ‘I promise you the car is fine. It’s a straight piece of road. Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair won’t blow the right way and I’ll make you do it again.’ But that was a deathbox that I was in. The seat wasn’t screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.”

The subsequent moments confirmed Thurman’s worst fears: While wrestling with the car, it veered off the road and hit a tree at a high speed. (The video can be watched here.) She was badly injured, and needed time to recover. “The steering wheel was at my belly and my legs were jammed under me,” she recalled. “I felt this searing pain and thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m never going to walk again. When I came back from the hospital in a neck brace with my knees damaged and a large massive egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car and I was very upset. Quentin and I had an enormous fight, and I accused him of trying to kill me. And he was very angry at that, I guess understandably, because he didn’t feel he had tried to kill me.”

Three reasons why Quentin Tarantino is an asshole:

1. Women told him that Harvey Weinstein sexually attacked and harassed them and he did nothing (Uma Thurman and Darryl Hannah).

2. He insisted Uma Thurman do a dangerous stunt that she repeatedly asked not to do which left her with a concussion, permanent neck injuries and knee pain.  Then he hid the footage for 15 years so that Uma couldn’t sue Miramax for injury.

Owls confirmed to be the creepiest birds ever. LOOK AT THE FUCKING THINGS. If you fail to notice the one on the left fucking SWALLOWING a rat, then you have the dude singing some satanic chant or something next to him, and then you have those two other fucking psychos synchronized to make you feel creeped the fuck out with their soulless dance of FUCKING DOOM.