Heyo

THAT ONE LOOKS MORE PHOTOSHOPPED??

in retrospect, video rental stores *would* probably still exist today in some capacity had it not been for blockbuster. the nostalgia for the blockbuster browsing experience undermines the reality of how aggressively the chain snuffed out smaller video rental stores and would eventually become notorious for its abusive late fee collection policy once there were no significant competitors standing. the rise of streaming is often attributed to blockbusters demise, but what’s not often recognized is how netflix’ earliest (and most successful) marketing tactics were in fact advertising the absence of the aforementioned terrible late fees as opposed to the convenience of not having to go to the store. I was actually surprised to find out how much of blockbuster’s demise can be attributed to spiraling out of control as it attempted to manage viacom’s ever increasing debts than to the fact that people just naturally gravitated towards streaming (which is not to say that it wouldn’t have happened eventually, but).

see also: borders / barnes & noble with bookstores. amazon’s original pitch was probably more “look how convenient!” than it was “look, you can avoid the awful sterility of the inside of a barnes & noble!” but it’s interesting that with its aggressive tracking and tailoring of recommendations amazon is having machines do (in an impersonal and invasive way) what the staff at a local, non-chain bookstore would do, which is match their selection to your preferences

Ohhh that last line.

i understand the whole “it’s offensive to ask a woman if she’s on her period just because she’s nervous” thing but i also think we should start saying more that yes, periods can in fact make you tired and nervous (and you’d be nervous too if you were going on about your daily activities while bleeding and battling with cramps) and maybe instead of making an unfunny joke about it you should try to be more sympathetic towards someone who’s clearly having a difficult day for reasons outside their control. like idk i think i should be able to say “yeah today i’m super tired because my period just started” the same way i’d say “yeah i’m super off today because i slept badly / have a headache / whatever” and have guys just go “okay fair” instead of acting either like i said the most icky and disgusting thing ever or like it’s okay to make an unfunny sexist joke about it

Most corporate social media accounts use memes to try and appear hip with the kids so they’ll buy their product but the Sparknotes twitter account is clearly just run by a literature geek who was told they could make memes about old books and is having the time of their life doing just that

The only rules of Uno are what you can convince the rest of the table the rules are.

Grad school shared housing rules were “winner gets to add a rule to the next round” and honestly things got violent.

FedEx: shits on my box, stomps on my box, kicks it, dumps gasoline on it, throws one of my chickens into the back of the van UPS: whispers at my front door “is anyone home” as quietly as possible before leaving a “we missed you!” note, tries to gaslight me into thinking my address doesn’t exist USPS: sets my package down gently where it’s not visible from the road, knocks on the door and kisses me directly on the mouth

Is this…shipping discourse?