*OMG, No! That is not what this missive is about, Clicky!*

*Yes! …/lights up and smokes… Hmm, I guess that could be an allegory to what’s occurring with the ‘vaccines’ and great reset…*

*Not if the instigators get their heads smashed in, no…* 

*Well, at least it would be mercifully quick… /flicks ash… Unlike what’s being perpetrated on the sleeping populace right now…*

Happy Friday, Dear Reader 😀

Although he hasn’t written us in a while, Cade Fon Apollyon has more than made up for the wait with a fantastic new missive about gambling. He’s going to Vegas…

*Dunno, I haven’t seen Cade’s poker face, Clicky. Now pipe down, I have a missive to format…*

Enjoy! ❤

*******

I am going to try and make a note here to never again eat any type of food that has blue food coloring in it. My busted and aging heart cannot stand the strain of that shock in the morning when you look down into the toilet or perhaps when you wipe your backside and suddenly find yourself thinking “OMG!!! I HAVE MOSS GROWING IN MY INTESTINES!!!”

Yep, yellow + blue = green. In this case, that weird “moss green” that is totally unearthly and almost certainly has some kind of supernatural or perhaps extraterrestrial origin. Maybe both. Supernatural aliens have invaded or polluted your body! Bilirubin/bile is/are yellow, which normally turns your feces brown, but the introduction of that blue food coloring into your diet is gonna foil your body’s Dung Shui plans for balance and harmony. Now you’re standing there in the haze of just waking, just had your morning movement and trying like hell to get off of the can ASAP so you can get rolling with your day, and your brain possibly cannot immediately connect the dots as to why you’ve suddenly been sentenced to death by some unknown ailment which is turning your poop swamp moss green. Whatever it is, better get to the doctor quick. Oh, and you might wanna take a stool sample whilst you have one handy. Or maybe just remember that you ate a fuckton of tortilla chips that were dyed blue with blue food coloring in honor of the July 4th holiday, and that is almost sure to be your “problem”. It’ll pass. Like, it’ll pass, go a…nevermind…

you'll figure it out

I realize that it is a huge part of YouTube culture to say “guys” as much as one possibly can in your videos, but, jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick…the gentleman in the video above must be going for some kind of YouTube metrics world record. I’m half-tempted to go back and re-watch the video just to count how many times he says “guys” during the course of the video but I know I’d never survive. Plus, it would just serve to pad his YouTube stats.

*You counted ’em? That’s 3.4 times a minute, Clicky, or roughly every 20 seconds… /drags… That is a lot of guise from a man in a mask…*

I wasn’t very far into the original watching when I found myself skipping through the video just to avoid hearing him say it, and I eventually just skipped to the end parts only to see how much he’d lost on each of the three machine types he was playing. The word “guys” has a binding quality because it is directed at no particular individual. It’s only specificity is, that it is to everyone in earshot. “Guys” has the same quality as “fire” or “run” or “help” or “get down” or “heads up” or “duck” or “all hands on deck” or “battle stations” or similar. If you can hear it, it is likely directed towards you. A very inclusive term. An “attention getter”. Someone is “calling you into the fold” of whatever is happening. Including you whether you want to be included or not. But the best thing about the term “guys” is that it doesn’t have the same negative connotations that my previous examples have. In fact, “guys” is kinda neutral until you yourself actually begin to understand the particulars of why someone is trying to include you in some event

“Guys! Come look at this sunset!”

“Guys! Come look at this light in the sky!”

“Guys! Come look at this dumpster fire!”

“Guys! Come check out the television!”

However, when you take “guys” out of such a specific contextual situation and use it generically, “Guys” when used alone has a very “come and see” type of vibe to it. Whomever is trying to get your attention only wants to get your attention and keep it until you yourself figure out what is going on. Or maybe even grab your attention and hopefully you’ll never catch on to what is going on nor why. Yep, I can see why “guys” has become such a popular parlance in the “influencer” and/or “content creator” realm(s). Very catchy, very inclusive, and it always works. Grabs attention, and has a propensity for keeping it for a spell.

It’s kinda like something a barker at a carnival might use to draw in the rubes for various purposes. Some rubes the barker will want to buy a ticket, get them in to see the show, then get them the hell out. Other rubes they may want in order to pick their pocket. Still others they’ll want to buy a ticket AND they’ll want to try and later lure them into spending even more money on the various schemes waiting for them inside. You cannot rob every single person of all they have, carnies will know this. The game is about numbers and the various dynamics within those numbers.

Today they are widely called “metrics”. 

Which individuals are plucked off of the assembly line, when, and for what purposes. Mainly you gotta endeavor to bury “the big scores” in the aggregate. Surround a loud noise with a bunch of smaller noises so as to have a dampening effect on that big noise. Isolate that big noise, and keep it isolated. When you have some lone individual screaming that “HEY! THEY RIPPED ME OFF!”, and the official powers get involved, you need to make that one person completely isolated and alone. If you rip off a bunch of people, this “isolated person” will have allies. Can’t have that. Now you’re facing a mob, and mobs are scary things. Gotta make this one sucker seem like an isolated event, and that gives you a leg up in putting the burden of proof on them. You, as a carnie, you’re operating a business, right? You cannot lower yourself to perform such unscrupulous activities because it would affect your entire business in a negative way. This person screaming about getting ripped off is a nutcase. They’re crazy. More likely that they are just pissed about losing their money, and looking for someone to pin it on. I mean, look at all these fine people here that we’ve treated fair and square. Hundreds upon hundreds of folks pour through these tent doors every day, and you don’t hear any of them complaining. They’ve all gotten their money’s worth, and that’s what we do here…give people their money’s worth.

Heh, genius. 

Playing the long odds, and winning, because the game is rigged long before the long-odds lightning ever struck.

What’s that? You don’t see the connection between unscrupulous carnival workers and legitimate business interests? No WAY that legitimate businesses use the same models as shady carnival operators to make money.

lolz

In denial much? Who is it, exactly, that is telling you “we are legitimate”, eh? Exactly…the same fuckers trying to sell you something. Not to mention, do you really think that some business person is gonna come right out and tell you “our goal is to fuck you out of every single penny we can get from you”? Math, is math. Numbers are numbers.

There's no way around that. 

Well, actually, there is, and there are ways around that. Question is, are you aware of these pathways? Spend a lot of time crunching numbers, do ya? Spend a lot of time in the shadows and on darker pathways trying to understand how these systems really work, do ya? Nah…not you…you only travel the legitimate pathways. You keep your nose clean. It’s the righteous pathways, and only the righteous pathways for you. It’s all you know, and you have not a clue how they really work. You see, only what you want to see. You listen, only to who you want to listen to. Has an effect of making you feel exactly how you want to feel.

Mmmmm...cozy.

Oh yes, you are on a carnival midway every single day of your life, and you have barkers screaming at you day and night to indulge yourself in whatever it is they are hawking, you likely just don’t see things that way. In fact, it’s possible you don’t see things that way because the noise of the carnival has lulled you into the very trance it wants you in.

Q: How many advertisements do you figure you see in the course of an average day in your life?

A: ???

Even with me not being much of a gambling man, I’m gonna be willing to bet that whatever number you came up with is extremely low – low, according to the experts anyway. I think it important to point out that the article I linked was from a little over 4 years ago, and a helluva lot can change in 4 years. Anyway, I’m gonna further wager that your numbers are so low because you don’t consider things like the McDonald’s sign up in the sky on a pole as advertising. Nor the Kroger’s sign atop a grocery store as advertising. I mean, they aren’t…trying…to…sell me something. Not like, in commercial commercials like on TV and on the radio or on the web. Yep, safe to say that you may have been lulled to sleep and not even know it. You have devised such clear-cut modalities as to what is and is not advertising and/or commericals, that you are getting carpet-bombed with ads the live-long day and don’t even realize it.

And hey, I’m not knocking commercial interests really either. When I’m on a road-trip in some unfamiliar place and I’m totally surrounded by unfamiliar things and feeling a bit lost even tho I know exactly where I’m going, my tummy is rumbling and I really need to get some food and a brief rest, and then I see that McDonald’s sign sticking way up above the horizon 3 or 4 miles down the road?

Ahhh...what a comfort. 

Something familiar. Something known. A haven of a more or less absolute known quantity is just ahead. I don’t have to chance dropping in to some unknown local greasy spoon, get shitty food at bad prices, then spend the rest of my journey stopping every hour because I’ve got the shits or maybe food poisoning. No…those old days of taking chances at local dives are gone. I can buy-in to the known quantity, and I’m almost sure to get a square deal. Of course, I’m fucking the local gentry that used to rely on travelers like me for them to have an income, but meh, that’s progress. I want the known thing, I don’t want to take chances nor assume risk that might fuck up my own position.

Digress.

I got a question for anyone who looked at that Forbes article which mentions that most people are exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 advertisements per day…

Q: How many advertisement were on that article?

A: ¿¿¿???¿¿¿???¿¿¿

15 for me. BUT!!!

Q: How many advertisements were in that article?

A: heh...you didn't think about that one, did you.

The most obvious and glaring ad you missed is gonna be from Forbes itself. Forbes is bringing you this content, hence, it is an advertisement for Forbes and also an advertisement for Forbes content.

2fer1. 

But there’s also an ad for “Forbes Agency Council” at the top of the page. There’s a sub-ad for “Council Posts”. There’s an ad for “Leadership”. Now we can get to the ad for the article author…Jon Simpson. That’ll bring us to the ad for Jon Simpson’s company, Criterion.B. You then have a picture from and an advertisement for Shutterstock. To the left of the first photo are ads for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. There then, in the body of the article itself, are ads for Apple, Android, Crate & Barrel, Unilever, Banana Republic, Lucky Brand jeans, another ad for Facebook, and ads for Instagram and Crest toothpaste. I should take a moment to point out here that Instagram is owned by Facebook, so Facebook has gotten three ads in this article so far, but only one of those is “quasi-official”.

What’s that? You don’t think that a writer would ever intentionally mention certain products because it is in their interests to do so? You don’t think a publisher would ever tell their writers to mention or NOT mention certain products because it is in their interests to do so/not do so? That’s fair. You’re probably right. Let’s us get back on the topic of how many ads you are seeing, and where they may be lurking and hitting your being without you even realizing it. Did you see those three bars at the very top left of the page? How about those “Subscribe”, “Sign In” and that little magnifying glass at the very top right of the page? Did you notice the date and time on the article? Did you look at the address bar and verify that the hyperlink agrees with the date and time on the article? This date and time stuff may not seem like it’s advertising, but it is. It’s a something that Forbes or the author can potentially leverage at some point and say “Hey look! We got here first! We’re smart! Invest in us!” It’s a vector. A dynamic. A metric. A hook.

 A selling point. 

Just trying to point out that you’re likely being sold via a lot of ways that you don’t really realize, and some of these ads may be downright insidious as to not only how they work, but the laws that do or do not govern them. Seriously, how many of these ads are recognizable as…ads. As advertisements and/or advertising of goods or services. And that’s part of the struggle – knowing when you’re being sold, who is selling you, and what you are being sold. It may just be down the river.

^Slot Machines – How to Win and How They Work^

These models work, and they are in every facet of human life. Keep the risk(s), low. Keep the reward(s), high. Going in, you know that you are going to have to deal with whistle-blowers, back-stabbers, traitors, wild cards, those who develop a guilty conscience and/or crusaders of all kinds as it’s just part of the game. So, you employ models. Ways. Means. Practices. Equations. Algorithms. Theories. Laws. Anything and everything to get you what you want, and do so with a minimum of damage to yourself. Question is, are you, yourself, being vigilant? Are you, ensuring that the laws of the game are being obeyed, or are you letting certain law(s) slide? Are you turning a blind eye because it suits your purposes to do so?

The law(s) mean fuckall if no one is enforcing them, and mean even less if the majority doesn’t care if the laws are enforced or not. In fact, “the majority” may feel that it is in their own best interest(s) if certain laws are not enforced or if certain details are overlooked. Might be some unforeseen opportunity has arisen, and it behooves you in the moment to forget about certain laws or even pesky principles that might stand in your way. Fuck the minority, this may be my one and only opportunity to get what I want. BTW, if you’re thinking that I’m hinting around at all of the lawlessness that it taking place surrounding this COVID-19/SARS-CoV2 business, you just might be right. If that thought had not occurred to you prior to me mentioning it, well, I’ll be mindful to lay it on a little bit thicker for you next time, seeing as how you’re all Snow White pure and unworldly and all.

From that video above on Baccarat…

“The dealer will decide, based on a predetermined list of rules, when they draw a third card for the player or a third card for the banker. The dealer will take care of all of that for you. If you wanna see a list of the rules as to when a player or a banker draws a third card, speak to the supervisor and they’ll give you a chart to let you know, so you can follow along and see when you’re supposed to draw the extra cards.”

The dealer will take care of all of that for you.

Hrm. 

So, walk into a game, not knowing the rules, and perhaps not understanding the game at all, but trust us, we do. After all, your only interest, as a player, is winning. You are totally singular minded in this game. You, sit down at a gambling table, to win. Let us help you do that.

Heh, heh, heh. 

😉

I am so fucked. 

You may have notice that I’ve been watching some videos on slot machines, and have also been playing a video game that is supposedly very similar to the slot machines one would find in a Las Vegas casino, and yep, it is clear that I am totally fucked. Aliens could abduct me and take me to their home planet for a visit, and I think it safe to say that it would not be nearly as foreign nor mind-blowingly scary as my visiting a casino. Yet, that’s what I’m about to do, and after spending some time trying to understand how these slot machines work, safe to say I’m fucked.

The concept of “never take money to Las Vegas that you aren’t prepared to lose” is not a new one to me. Heard it most of my life in fact. I know that the small amount of money I’ve saved to take with me to Vegas in a few months is not coming home with me. But that’s really not the issue here as much as it is me trying to understand these various games and how they work. I guess I was under the impression that you drop some money into an individual machine, pull the handle or push a button, and if you get matching symbols in a line straight across, you win something…if not, you lose your money…

simple. 

But oh no, that’s not the way it works. Now you can bet on all kinds of crazy lines and combinations, and you can make all kinds of crazy bets on these weird line combinations, and the “BAR-BAR-BAR” or “Jackpot” concept is pushed way off into the background of some “bonus round” type of something that you have to earn the right to play by getting some faux-jackpot round qualifier something. Worse still, the criteria for what pays and what does not pay is so abstract and non-linear that I can only assume that this is because those in the gambling industry have so perfected the numbers that all slot machines are now basically reverse-ATM types of machines.

I’ve been playing these video slots on my computer, and they are so fast-paced and so intricate as to the particulars, and I am having trouble comprehending the numbers that the computers have to be crunching in order to calculate every single position of every single symbol. Worst of all tho, I admit that I’m not having much fun. And that’s the point, right? Have fun? You KNOW you are going to lose. The games are designed to keep your attention focused on winning long enough that the casino can take every penny you have from you, that’s a given. But even with that in mind, it is very difficult to have fun if you have no clue what is going on, if you do not understand the game. Now you’re saddled with knowing that not only are you aware you were going to lose, but also with the knowledge that you have no idea what transpired on that screen to make you lose, and what would have transpired to make you win.

Not bad at poker. 

I’ve been playing poker since I was probably 6 years old, I understand the game, and even when I lose, it’s still fun to me. There’s something about sitting around a poker table that is familiar to me, comfortable for me, and hella fun. Probably because I understand the dynamics of the game, and I have an understanding of the situations that can arise which can make myself or others a winner, or a loser.

Started out learning how to play at the family games that always came together at Thanksgiving, Christmas and sometimes other family functions, eventually started playing with friends, then co-workers, can follow the cards fairly well, can read people reasonably well, and I can usually hold my own against just about anyone I’ve ever played against. But I’ve never played poker in a casino. Hell, I’ve only been in a casino twice in my life, that was coming up on 7 years ago, and both of those times were only because whatshername drug me up to this casino under duress. I didn’t gamble, had no desire to gamble and didn’t even want to be there. Just walked around and watched her do…

whatever it was she was doing. 

Anyway, I’m now faced with the dilemma of, do I stick to the slot machines whilst in Vegas, or do I actually sit down at a poker table and see what the experience is like. I guess my fear is that I’ll wind up sitting at the table with a bunch of sharks, I’ll get the big-head, they’ll suck me in, and crush me. Which, wouldn’t be so bad were I not in the position that I currently find myself in. I guess more than anything what I’m wondering is, how will I, considering my circumstance, handle the concept of winning if it were to happen to me on this trip out there. If I win a $2,000 jackpot on some slot machine, am I gonna squirrel that money away in the casino’s house safe and bring that back? If I were to start winning at some poker table, how do I know when to walk away from the table so that I can bring some money home? Should these even be goals for me? Do I leave everything there?

This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip afterall. 

I’ve never been to Las Vegas. This will likely be my only trip to Las Vegas. This trip has been on the schedule for 10 months now, and it’s burned a hole in my brain for the entirety of that time. It’s now right around the corner, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that I am completely ill-prepared for whatever in the fuck awaits me. Which, me being me, that’s fucking perfect. Historically, the more ill-prepared I am for a something, the better I tend to fare.

What’s concerning me, is this weird desire nagging at me to prepare. I’m much better at freeballing/walking in blind, so…is it because that I’m in such a shitty position and in such dire need of money that it has awakened some something inside of me which has a desire to go out there and behave like a man on a mission, to break Las Vegas as if the Universe has some big something waiting for me out there and I come home with sacks of cash then go off and live the remainder of my life in some measure of comfort?

Can't be. 

If that were the case, I’d be playing the lottery every fucking time there is a drawing, but I don’t. Wonder what could be eating at me so much that is making me so nervous about this trip.

These folks are burning through hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars in very short periods of time. $25 per spin? $50 per spin? Sometimes much more? These are many times $0.01 cents per individual bet or $0.10 per individual bet, yet they’re playing so many “multipliers” or “lines” or whatever that the actual wager per spin is winding up being $25 a pop or more? It also appears that the amount you bet somehow changes the entire dynamic of the game itself. Like, better $1.00 per spin puts the machine in one mode, and betting $75 per spin puts the machine in some other kind of mode. Um, this is very disconcerting considering that all of this is happening within and from a single machine. Maybe this is why I’m having such a tough time following the numbers. What you bet can pretty much turn one machine/one game into a completely different machine/game.

Hrm.

The other odd thing that stands out to me is these mishmash kind of nomenclature as to “credits” and “dollars” as they pertain to “winnings”. Seems like someone is trying to at least partially obfuscate the various buckets and what they contain. Your “480 Credit” bet is, I guess, $48.00 dollars. 480 x $0.10 is, $48.00. And when you “win”, you are paid in “credits” which you have to extrapolate into dollars. If you win 1200 Credits on your $0.10 denomination bet, you have to figure that you just won $120.00. Yeah, the machine will eventually do that calc for you once the winnings are finally tallied, but I myself am trying to figure out if these conversions are done to help the player, or to help the casino.

 lolz, we already know the answer to that one, eh? 

For me what I’m trying to figure out how I can maybe actually play some games without burning through all of my money in 10 minutes. Which, it would appear that most of these folks are burning through thousands in much less time than that, and I ain’t gonna be taking thousands to Las Vegas and I’m gonna be there for four full days. FUCK! I have no idea what in the hell I’m gonna do for those four days. Sure as shit won’t be gambling it looks like.

Kinda odd that my journey in this particular writing mostly started off with me chasing down the reason that some people use the term “guys” so much in their online content. Not long after I watched that YouTube video where the dude won’t stop saying “guys”, someone I know made me aware of a coupla other YouTube personalities.

Amberlynn Reid

Foodie Beauty

I’ve not chewed on what I’ve seen for very long so I’ve decided to save most of my thoughts for my own blog because I’ve been WAY too wordy here already. But I will mention that what I see on these particular YouTube channels ain’t really any different than the stuff that I see on other YouTube channels. People being edgy and controversial so they can run their hustles…nothing more. Promotion. This is nothing new. Doesn’t matter if you don an expensive suit, sit behind a desk and give financial advice, or maybe put on a chef hat and go into a kitchen and start cooking some stuff, or perhaps slip into a thong and start shaking your goods, or put on a flame retardant suit covered in gasoline, set yourself on fire, mount a motorcycle and then jump over a house and land in a river…doesn’t matter what you are doing, it’s all promotion. Promotion, to make a living.

Your niche. 

Now…all that being said…there’s one player in this game/these games that you are likely paying no mind or perhaps even missing completely…the camera. Always and forever, and without fail, there is a camera. The presence of a camera, will always, alter behavior. A camera provides an audience. This camera will ultimately be a window into what could potentially be a much larger audience, but from the onset, the camera is the audience. That’ll bring us to the other unseen and unacknowledged participant…you. The viewer. I mean, you don’t think these people are doing this shit for fun, do you? They aren’t idiots either. No matter how much of a bumbling dunce they may appear on the video screen, the truth is that you are likely the dunce.

Lemme elaborate…have you given any thought at all as to how much preparation the people who are making these videos have put into making them? Because I assure you, it’s almost assuredly a lot. TONS of preparation. Loads of thought goes into how to capture your attention, and keep it. Question is, how much thought are you really giving to what you are seeing? Lemme stick a video in here real quick that may seem to be WAY off target as to what I’m talking about here, but I’d request that you watch the following video, give some thought to what you are seeing, then we can catch up on the other side.

One of the down sides of enjoying what you do or even appearing to enjoy what you do, is that the final product is that this is likely to instill a great deal of jealousy and contempt in those who see it. For example, in that video above, the artist gives the impression of having a really great time. Getting to some cool places, see some cool things, all while listening to a cool tune. But the reality is that a lot of planning went into making what is effectively, a lie. I mean, running around to a bunch of different places/locations just to capture a few seconds of video at each place? Hell, the logistics of that alone is enough to drive most people batty.

But then you have to consider the lighting, time of day, potentially waiting for hours on end for the sun to get in just the right place so you can shoot a few seconds of video. Making sure you can actually shoot where you want to shoot without yourself getting shot. And after you go to all those places and get all those shots, now you gotta go back home, dig through all the footage, pray that all of it turned out OK, edit it all together, do all your clean up, all praying that your original vision is coming together as you planned it, and you did all that for a 2 minute and 12 second video.

Yeah, I think it safe to say that someone who is in the habit of streaming live on the Internet for several hours at a time and potentially consuming huge amounts of food has likely put some thought into what they are doing and why. They may have even put a great deal of thought into what they are doing and why, and when, and how, etc.. They’re really only showing you the parts they want you to see. And that’s what you’re here for, right? To see what you want to see? Consume massive amounts of the stuff you are craving?

Q: Who is the “feeder” in this situation?

A: You? Or them.

Could be you are feeding each other. Like some fucked up marriage where both of you are on some endless loop of cutting the cake and jamming it into each other’s pie holes.

One last thing that I’ll toss in here is that people using their bodies to make money is nothing new.

It's really all we have. 

The only way to may money is to use our bodies in some way, shape or form. Which parts of our bodies we use and how? Well, that’s kinda subjective. It’s okay to use your hands until you’ve got carpal tunnel so bad that that your hands no longer work, or okay to use your back until it breaks, or okay to use your mind so much that you go insane, or okay to use your feet and/or legs until you can no longer even walk, or okay to work in some shithole where you breathe in so many dangerous chemicals or pollutants that your lungs give out…

but ohhhh no. 

You can’t use your mouth to consume massive amounts of food. Can’t use your multiple chins nor your giant gut to make cash. Can’t use your breasts or vagina to make money. Nope. Using your body to make money in those ways, is wrong. Truth is, you’d be hard pressed to find a single industry or trade that does not have some kind of risk(s) associated with it. Loads of industries and trades are also gonna have stigmas of all kinds. The bottom line tho is that the intent is always the same…making money. Making a living. Providing for yourself and likely others. It may just be that we ourselves are sometimes unhappy that someone has found an unconventional way to make their own way in the world. We didn’t think of it. Or maybe we did think of it, but we for whatever reason(s) didn’t take the plunge. Maybe we’re jealous. Maybe not. Maybe we’re too conservative when we need to be taking risks, and maybe we’re taking risks when we should be conservative, and we just … can’t … seem to fucking find that “in” we need, when we need it. Or maybe we’re just too dense to realize what we’re holding when we’re actually holding it.

/shrug 

Just thinking aloud. Food for thought.

🙂

Gonna add an addendum here. I’ve already sent this to Roob, she’s edited and formatted it, but she had a question about something I said in the previous section, and it got me to thinking that maybe what I was trying to say in the previous section could actually use a bit of expansion.

In life, virtually everything that one does is likely to be considered, private. We humans have a propensity to share very few aspects of our own lives with others, moreover, the number of people we tend to share aspects of our lives with is gonna be very small. We’re like pies that almost no one ever even gets a crumb of, let alone gets an entire slice of. To actually give some kudos to some governments, at least governments tend to recognize that this dynamic exists, and many either have laws or precedents within law which both recognize and protect these aspects of human life.

And what difference is that? 

Welp, the difference between public, private, and who gets to decide which is which, where, when, according to whom, and why. Most of these thoughts are going to swirl around the ideas of defamation/slander/libel, which means that, yep, “the press” or “the media” is typically hip deep in these goings on. The concepts/primary distinctions that I personally was introduced to back in high school via my extraordinarily phenomenal government teacher was the ideas of whom is thrust into the public eye, and who thrusts themselves into the public eye. Which, what in the hell is “the public eye” anyway, and who are these people who are being thrust into it and/or thrusting themselves into it?

Center Of Attention

Attention

Drill Commands

Challenge-Response Authentications

Limelight

Limelight

Exposure

Damages

The Public Eye

Public Eye

Private Eye

Public Person

Private Person

Public Figure

Individual

Public

Private

Private

Public Figures and Officials

Public Figures vs. Private Figures: Which one are you?

Defamation

Defamation

Hustle

Hustler

Hustler (Disambiguation)

Side Hustle

Side Hustle

We currently live in a world and in times where privacy is being raked over the coals, and in most instances being flat out trampled. Your privacy is a valuable commodity, and just about anyone and everyone who is involved in commerce of any kind wants a piece of your own personal privacy. They want to know you. They want to know everything about you that they can. But I’m getting off track a bit and that’s really not what I was getting at in the previous section.

What I was getting at in the previous section was that, in order to survive in this world, you are sometimes gonna have to reveal some parts of yourself that are private. You’re parents, family, guardians or whomever are going to want to know things about you that you may or may not want to reveal. When you go to school you’re gonna have to open up and reveal how smart or dumb you are in certain regards. When you make friends, you’re gonna make those friends, and ultimately keep those friends, by revealing things about yourself. When you engage in social activities, when you go shopping, when you apply for jobs, when you interview for jobs, when you engage potential partners, when you encounter strangers, when you travel, when you apply for credit, on and on…just about any and all interactions in life are going to require you to either show or hide certain aspects about your own self. And it’s with that where my thoughts in the previous section lay.

When you, as an individual, are deciding what to do and when, you are usually taking personal considerations into account, and maybe doing so without even realizing you’re doing it. But I don’t think “not realizing it” is the case when it comes to thing like YouTube content creators or influencers or whatever. Typically, these folks are allowing you glimpses into their own lives that you almost certainly would never see, and the short of it is that it takes a fuckton of balls to do that. They’ve taken the plunge, and as a result they’ve opened themselves up to what is potentially an endless reservoir of criticism with very long odds of a worthwhile return. They’ve seen an opportunity and taken it instead of remaining in the “private” realms.

I guess with my mind being on gambling and how I personally am going to handle this upcoming Las Vegas trip, I’m thinking in terms of the foolish and wise decisions that one can make when sitting at a poker table, or sitting at a slot machine or whatever. You’ve taken one step in deciding to go. You’re taking another step when you walk into the casino. Another when you actually engage a particular game. Yet another when you begin to participate/play, and this is where things can get really wonky, because from here on in you are going to either be kicking yourself or praising yourself for every decision you’ve made and every action that you’ve taken. You’re gonna keep doing this until you walk away from the game, and even then you’re gonna be scrutinizing both the decisions you’ve made as well as the decisions you continue to make. Moreover, all of this is likely happening within full view of the public. Others in the game or perhaps just bystanders are going to be watching you, and they too are going to have opinions about your own style of play, the decisions you make and when, your mannerisms, your attitudes, how you handle victory, how you handle defeat…it’s a very similar concept to these same public/private types of thoughts attached to the previous section’s ideas of who takes what plunges in life and when. Who is actually in the game, who is not in the game, why they are where they are, what their intentions are, and ultimately it’s like some big public and private opinions circle jerk that is only happening because a few select people decided to sit down and play a game.

Now, because this example takes place in a casino, pretty good chance that most people will keep their opinions to themselves at the table. I think it’s quite frowned upon on a casino floor for players to make unsolicited comments or give unsolicited critiques to other players, and I think that goes double for any observers who are not actually in or a part of the game. And it is with that which I’d point your thinking back towards our Youtubers and maybe give some thought to whether you are a player (fellow content creator/public person) or an observer (user/private person). May also give some thought to your own station in life. Give some thought to your own intentions. Primarily, are you happy being a private person in wandering through the casino known as The Internet, or would you rather be sitting at a table or playing one of the games? Do you wanna be supportive of winners when they’re up as well as losers when they’re down? Do you only want to be supportive of winners? Do you wanna criticize and dog the losers? Is that “your” game? And do you play this game publicly? Privately? Both, but are choosy about which one you do, when and where/with whom? And if you do ultimately decide to actually play in one of the available games, what are your intentions with respect to how you want others to treat you, and when?

I don’t know if there is a “bottom line” that exists within the framework of these thoughts. But if we were to ever find ourselves near some kind of “bottom line” type concept, and were we able to recognize it as such, it would probably tell us something like…”Hey kid, you’re just gonna have to make a decision, and regardless of what happens as a result of your making this decision, you’re just gonna have to take whatever comes up, good, bad, or indifferent.”

Jmo…it’s highly possible I’m wrong about every aspect of every thought I’ve expressed here. But, I keep plunging headlong into what is potentially oblivion. If only I could see where I was going.

😉

cYa | cFa

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*Oh, now I get you, Clicky, the lotus flowers are like the booster shots… /stubs butt… although I’m not sure guaranteed longevity forms part of the plan…*

Have a Song, Dear Reader…