...

...an insult to gamers of either gender

In games as anywhere else, a woman can succeed in a male-dominated field with one of two strategies: 1. Prove she's an equal or 2. Use her sex appeal. It's evident what Raven Alexis has chosen. That's an insult to gamers of either gender.

via sexyvideogameland.blogspot.com

Leigh Alexander discusses her reactions to Kotaku's recent guest post by porn star Raven Alexis. This is more or less the exact point I was trying to make with my Girl Gamer post a few years ago.

Yup.

Interrupting your focus on your own work, family, and friends in order to harvest anonymous compliments or deflect anonymous dumbassery does a disservice to everyone involved and is, in my opinion, an utterly depressing and unscalable way to slouch through life.

via www.kungfugrippe.com

Okay, I still hate you 17-year-old Michael, but I will not let you get in the way of my life. Dammit.

Looking for the love.

And then I took a hard look at the stats: the site was getting a million or so pageviews every month, but from a rather small number of unique IPs. As people reflexively refreshed their personal pages, sometimes thousands of times a day, I began to feel like the manager of a comedy club in which comedians crack a joke, then repeatedly run from table to table to stare each patron in the eye, looking for the love.

via www.zeldman.com

Dean Allen, as he elaborates on why he shut down his site Favrd.

I'm terrified of the kind of behavior he describes here, scared that this is all the Internet will boil down to in the end. The web, through all it's comments, favorites, likes, and pageviews can give us what seems like more attention and adoration then we ever thought we needed. But do a tally of retweets or a plethora of ♥'s really mean anything to a person's self-worth at the end of the day? And what happens when those are the kind of things you look forward to in the morning? Thinking about it all makes my tummy hurt.

On the Read-Over-Thanksgiving-Weekend list: Can D.I.Y. Supplant the First-Person Shooter?

What's on your list?
 

Constructive Criticism

There's nothing like getting feedback from people with passion and honesty, because they want you to succeed.

via twitter.com

My friend Stephane tweeted this yesterday, and it reminded me of the fact that constructive criticism is one of my most valued ways to figure out how to best improve myself or my work. Naturally, it's always nicer to get criticism from people who "...want you to succeed."

This was the best lesson I learned from majoring in Studio Art in college. Though the criticism on my works was often heartbreaking and cruel, it really pushed me focus on what I can do to make things better. And things can always be better. I apply this mentality to all forms of criticism I receive to this day, with the hope that it will only make me stronger.

Online Social Networking Explained

via thedw.us

More or less, this is a true, but if you're lucky those curly-cued lines are sometimes filled with wonder and magical online friendship that you would have never discovered otherwise. From my personal experiences, anyway.

"Do not be discouraged by this or any other momentary setback."

via www.kungfugrippe.com

"The road is long; the struggle must go on."

And, another rejection letter from Mr. Mann.

How do we get to there from here?

This isn’t simply a woman’s issue; it affects us all. It isn’t about blaming men, or about embracing feminism, which remains a toxic term for some women. Instead, it is up to all of us to help change the conversation.

How do we get to there from here?

First, we can begin by telling girls to have confidence in themselves, to not always feel the need to be the passive “good girl.” In my time as an editor, many, many men have come through my door asking for a raise or demanding a promotion. Guess how many women have ever asked me for a promotion?

I’ll tell you. Exactly ... zero.

Sure, it’s a risk to ask for a raise. But women need to take risks — and to realize that at some point they will fail. This is an incredibly hard thing to do, especially for women brought up in a culture that celebrates unrealistic perfection in every sphere, from beauty to housekeeping.

via www.alaina.org

Solid quote stolen from Alaina, originally from "The Mismeasure of Woman". Keeping this in my back pocket.

Promotion before content?

1). Content doesn’t matter. Promotion matters

Build it and they will come. Write it and they will flock. Um. Nope. ‘Fraid it doesn’t work like that. You’ll get tired of waiting for traffic to trickle through to your site with  that mentality. Growing a content site on the long tail is a slow and lonely process, and it’s no wonder there are so many newbie bloggers that quit in the first year after not seeing results. You have to get out there and pimp your best stuff to succeed.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?

If you have great content, and no one is reading it will it generate traffic?

via blog.webdistortion.com

I realize this entire post is focused on gaining traffic, popularity, and SEO as a means of becoming "successful" in the blogging world, but I can't support the idea "Content doesn't matter. Promotion matters" as a first step towards proper blogging. The statement just feels wrong.

I think it's wrong to position content as secondary to the essential act of slutting out your site. Sure it helps to have all the pieces in place to promote your work when it's ready, but people should be proud of and invested in the work they're creating. Everyone out there has the tools to share their posts on facebook, or post a link to their blog in a comment, but only you have a choice to make a difference with the message you deliver.

Why ZuDfunck Mass UnFollowed 21K on Twitter

via zudfunck.com

I came across ZuDfunck by way of randomly finding him on TypePad. I like this little audio post about why he unfollowed 21,000 users on Twitter.

He's right, Twitter is a lot more interesting when you follow a handful of people. I'm following a total of 269 folks now and even that is too much noise. I'd unfollow some, but I feel a little bit of follow pressure to continue following friends/family/colleagues that follow me.