Category: Uncategorized

Celebrity crackdown in China

This policy limiting celebrity compensation is very far from the worst idea I have ever heard, particularly in an increasingly post-scarcity environment.

Chinese broadcasters and online entertainment sites should curb the amount of screen time given to celebrities, the country’s television regulator announced.

The new directive aims to crack down on celebrity hype, fake audience and click-through rates for a healthy growth of the industry, according to a statement issued by the National Radio and Television Administration on Friday. The statement by the radio and television watchdog also restated a commitment made by television and film companies that the salaries of all performers must not exceed 40 per cent of the total production cost while leading actors will have their pay capped at 70 per cent of total wages for the entire cast.

One of the reasons the shadowy evils of Hollywood are so powerful is their ability to gatekeep the money and fame they dole out to the desperate. Measures such as these being enacted by China will not eliminate the problem, but it will reduce some of its effects. And they’re pretty tame considering that a headline star can still be paid more than a quarter of the total budget.

It’s going to be interesting to see how China’s growing influence in the film industry modifies its practices.

RIP Stan Lee

Stan Lee (1922-2018)

We’re told an ambulance rushed to Lee’s Hollywood Hills home early Monday morning and he was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. We’re told that’s where he died.

Who cares?

I’m just wondering, why on Earth should anyone give a fragment of a quantum of a damn for the fact that the poor moderate media whores are now being treated in public the way that many of us have been treated online for the last five years?

Kat Timpf@KatTimpf
 I was just ran out of an establishment because of where I work. Chewed out, abused. But I guess that’s the norm now.

And let’s be honest, Kat Timpf is really pretty moderate in the grand scheme of things so to attack her of all people at Fox? That’s just someone who doesn’t really pay attention. At this point, we are not sure where Kat was but we’re hoping she’ll post it soon so we can share …

Because those who are really pretty moderate don’t deserve to be attacked, unlike those awful right-wing extremists, right? These people now looking for our sympathy and support are the very people who didn’t lift a finger when hundreds of people, up to and including Alex Jones, were driven off Facebook, Twitter, GoDaddy, IndieGoGo, Paypal, and other platforms for their badthink, who didn’t bother to denounce the culprits, let alone stop utilizing their services.

Now they’re being driven out of restaurants. So my response is, sowhat? Especially given the fact that the likes of Kat Timpf are still far too moderate to so much as name the place where they were victimized, for fear that someone will actually do something besides cringe and cower.

So much for those lofty principles

It took just over one year for Andrew Torba to climb down from his untenable high horse of “free speech uber alles”:

Andrew Torba @a
This is unacceptable and we have taken action against this account. Targeting individuals with threatening language and behavior behind an anonymous account is cowardly and foolish. Users that do this will face accountability from Gab. 

Whatever happened to “suck it up, crybaby?” What a hypocritical moron. This is why Gab is doomed to failure. You simply can’t expect an organization to succeed, let alone a startup, when it is run by someone as immature, hot-headed, and totally unable to anticipate the obvious as Torba.

Andrew Torba @a
I don’t want to hear it from the people who want to play semantic games about what is actually a threat and what isn’t. The intent here is very clear and aimed at a specific individual user. It’s malicious and designed to terrorize someone into silence. The person who recieved these (and many more,) did feel threatened and did contact us about it.

Of course he doesn’t want to hear from everyone who is capable of remembering his oft-expressed previous position from all of six months ago. Gab is a train wreck in a dumpster fire and it will never be capable of becoming a genuine alternative to Twitter. My only regret is that I didn’t continue to ignore Torba when he was lobbying Spacebunny to get me to pay attention to his emails.

Thanks to Oneway’s brilliant ongoing developments, Infogalactic will soon be offering a Twitter alternative that will actually work in the not-very-distant future. And no, we will not be promising free speech to social rejects and retards, to the contrary, we promise to clamp down relentlessly and remorselessly on all social media jackassery, trollery, and bantz because we are more than happy to leave that time-wasting, mind-numbing gamma nonsense to Gab and whatever other sites wish to cater to the unpleasant and the unproductive.

This is why you just ignore them

I don’t bother arguing with women and gammas anymore, mostly because I have noticed that the participation of a second party is really not required for them to engage in a lengthy debate. All that is necessary is for them to notice something that triggers their emotions. This is the hilarious, but very informative response of one woman to the recent Voxiversity video.

FSP: I’m at the 12:54 mark and I have to kind of laugh (I mean I don’t mean to be mean & all) but YOU (I think you’re a man) but you’re talking about what a woman wants?  (oh, this is rich… I’m going to keep watching).  “Write her poems”?  Did you just say that?   It’s not that a man hasn’t written me a poem, but that’s what… this would take too long to explain to you. LOL

Now… would an “Omga” also produce a podcast (like this one)?  I’M JUST ASKING…  Now, you also said “do not put an attractive woman with an Alpha man” as of course, she can’t control herself she’s just gonna have to jump his bones!?   HA HA HA HA… shhhh okay I’ll be quiet & listen some more.  

You have put men in only 5 social standings.  They don’t grow or change, life situations don’t kind of play a part in changes in his life?  So, to you, a man that has 2 or more of these qualities is… either non-existent or what… an oddball?

Do you want my take on this?  You really don’t know people very deeply do you?  And, you don’t like people very much do you?  Just guessing.

VD:  “Do you want my take on this?” Not even a little bit.

DAVE: Ha-ha-ha, Vox so cruel. But I think this is a woman, right? Only another woman knows what a woman wants, right? Shouldn’t we ask for pics to verify her familiarity with Alpha men? I’m not really seeing any other evidence that leads me to believe she has any experience here.

FSP: Dear Dave, you think Voxster is “cruel”?  “Are you serious?  His response comes nowhere NEAR “cruel”.   It was a matter of fact for him (and totally predictable).  As for my experience with your so-called “Alpha” men.  You want a resume?  I think it would blow you away.  Pretty gets me in the door, but (as my sister calls me) tenaciousness can bring you to your knees.

No, I don’t use it much unless I have to.  Which is very seldom.  An “alpha” man as you like to believe in needs a good spanking from time to time.  AND those are the ones I do not like.  You see this guy Vox?  He’d LOVE a good spanking.  That’s how much of an “alpha” he is LOL, but you’d have to know men, as well as I do to understand that at all.  They talk a good game but honey… well, let’s just say their bark is worse than their bite.

My husband and my son are true “Alphas” however, they know when to use it and when it is very unwise to use it, especially in business and dealing with others.  Oh, and my daughter, well let’s just say she’s as sweet as pie until she’s not.  Yes, dear, we taught them early.

FSP: Of COURSE, you don’t want anyone’s “take” on anything. You’re terrified of any actual input that would correct your obvious errors.  I could be so cruel here, I feel like being cruel actually because I detest bullies and philistines such as yourself.

Your smug arrogance gave you away long ago.  Only lowbrow people of suspect character act the way you do.  Your “holier than thou” attitude smacks of lack of true character or empathy for your fellow man.  Your distaste for women is palpable, only overdone by your thinly veiled euphemisms towards men.

I bet children and puppies recoil at any wayward glance you would dully turn their way.  You want so desperately to be respected as some kind of know it all.  Instead, you are an aging bald man sitting in an old chair recovered in the cheapest of red velvet, surrounded by books you either haven’t read or God forbid speak of the darker side of mankind.

So, you would ask me (I’m so sure of your limited thought process)… why then do you bother to write or listen?  Reason 1: I like to listen to people I disagree with because we can learn from them.  Reason 2: Because sometimes people just have to tell an ass hat, when they ARE an ass hat.  You, sir, are an ass hat.

and no, I won’t be listening anymore you’re what is commonly called a total waste of time.

What I found chiefly noteworthy was the way the woman’s response is eerily similar to the way that an angry gamma responds when triggered, right down to the false avowal of disengagement. Whoever described the gamma as a female mindset in a male body definitely had it right.

I do wonder, however, what it was that happened to trigger her so.

Cruel fate, coincidence, or conspiracy?

Well, what ARE the odds?

In a cruel twist of fate, dozens of people who survived the Las Vegas shooting were inside the Borderline bar when Long opened fire.

‘It’s the second time in about a year and a month that this has happened,’ Nick Champion told OnSceneTV. ‘I was in the Las Vegas Route 91 mass shooting, as well as probably 50 or 60 others who were in the building at the same time as me tonight.’

Champion and his friends were inside country music bar Borderline Bar and Grill for student night Wednesday, when ex-marine Ian Long, 29, stormed in, shooting dead 11 before turning the gun on himself. He and other Las Vegas survivors considered Borderline a ‘place of healing’ and gathered at the same bar for a memorial on a student night earlier this year.

It could just be a coincidence. Of course, both Q and Fox Mulder have repeatedly informed us that there are no coincidences. Perhaps this is a matter for the Winchester brothers and there is a country-music hating demon haunting the music venues of the West.

2VS is lying. Again.

So Ethan van Sciver is now swearing up and down that he’s totally not at all connected to me or to ComicsGate, in any way, as he is desperately attempting to convince the SJWs at IndieGoGo not to shut down his account there.

Which, you will note, they already claim the right to do at any time, for any reason, no matter what, in their terms of use. They don’t even need a justification. So, what they should probably know is that old Two-Face is blatantly lying to them as well. By way of example, here is one of his invitations to me, which I had assumed was going to be a debate between us.

Vox:

No, no, it’s just a conversation.  Google Hang Outs.  And it’s going to focus entirely on comic books and your relationship with them.  So I’ll ask you about when you discovered comics, maybe as a boy, if they were important to you and why, how superheroes influenced you to be who you are, maybe.  And then we’ll go into your current plans and ideas.  Talk about upcoming projects.

My audience will want you to prove to them that you respect and love comics.  That’s what they want to hear.  You can, of course, say anything you want and take the conversation wherever you’d like.  But I’ll be there with the goal of getting you to come off great to the crowd, and help you sell comic books to them.

After that there will be a Q and A from the viewers.

EVS

He was even a fan of the Darkstreams.

You’re bang on in your YouTube stuff.  I’m enjoying your Peterson insight.

Hope you’re well

E

Not only that, but Ethan occasionally forwarded me emails from his enemies in the industry, such as Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool, and not at my request either. Ironically, for all that he obviously disagrees with me and dislikes me, Rich Johnston has treated me more politely and considerably more honestly than Ethan has, which is why I will respect his confidence here.

Vox, here’s Bleeding Cool’s hit piece.  They sent me it in advance.  Probably hit tomorrow. What say you?

Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded message:

From: Rich Johnston REDACTED

Date: February 1, 2018 at 11:47:23 AM EST

To: ComicArtistPro Secrets REDACTED

Subject: Re: Draft of Bleeding Cool article.

And lest you don’t believe me when I told you that it was Ethan’s idea that we should work together:

I’ll tell him but he likely won’t.  At this moment I do believe we should combine forces and resources/talents, tho.

Sent from my iPad

> On May 12, 2018, at 6:23 AM, Vox wrote:
>
> Hey Ethan,
>
> Tell Richard to get in touch if he needs a publisher. 

So, as you can plainly see, all of 2VS’s current posturing and repositioning and public disavowing is simply more two-faced false talk meant to spin his self-serving and increasingly unconvincing narrative. And he is STILL actively lying about me.

“He thinks he owns ComicsGate.”
– Ethan van Sciver, November 9, 2018

No, I don’t and I never have. This should more than suffice to make it clear who has been lying all along and who has not. As for the claim that I con people, about comics or anything else, that is nothing but textbook emotional projection on Ethan’s part.

Civilization as cargo cult

They are not “reclaiming” America, they are replacing it with Not-America:

The idea is to recast Norman Rockwell paintings with Diversity. It’s a pathetically lame idea, but who cares about artistic taste anymore? What matters now is Representation. We need more pictures of the Good People and fewer pictures of the Bad People.

Even the idiot civic nationalists should be able to figure out by now that the end result of this ongoing transformation of the United States is not going to be something that has anything in common with the America that Norman Rockwell depicted; in the end they probably won’t even keep the name.

Portrait of a leader

2VS abandons ComicsGate and leaves it to fend for itself:

I think that at this point I no longer can call myself ComicsGate. I think that has just struck me like a lightning bolt; that’s not who I am, you know? I’m All-Caps Comics. I’m Ethan Van Sciver. I am somebody who promotes and sells comic books. I’m somebody who listens, who listens to the audience. I’m somebody who finds out what a need is and I fill that need.

It is not my place, and it never really has been my place, to criticize what other people are doing. That is not what I want to do, that’s not my purpose, it’s not my purpose to yell at other professionals, it’s not my purpose to yell at anyone. Really, it’s not my purpose to just say hey what Marvel’s doing, what DC is doing here, and there isn’t right, you know, it indicates that there’s a conspiracy, a leftist conspiracy. I believe in all that and I think that that is true but that’s not what I’m about, that’s not what I’m doing, and I think that’s where the conflict comes in, and I think that’s where the confusion comes in.

I’m not ComicsGate. I am simply Ethan Van Sciver from Comic Artist Pro Secrets and now All-Caps Comics. That is my comic book company, that is the label that I’m going to publish under. And what does this mean? This means that I am done with ComicsGate. I’m no longer considering myself a part of ComicsGate.

Let me see if I can translate this from 2VSpeak: “IndieGoGo was going to kick me off their platform if I didn’t do something drastic to sever my connection to ComicsGate, so I’m quitting in order to try to preserve my access.” 

I told them he was going to stab them in the back. But it happened even sooner than I thought it would. And yes, I am amused.

How totally surprising

Democrats are going to run on gun control in 2020. Can you spell TRUMPSLIDE?

Newly ascendant Democrats are promising congressional action on gun control amid a rash of mass shootings, including a late-night assault at a California bar that killed 12 people. Measures including expanded background checks and a ban on assault-style weapons are likely to reach the House floor when Democrats retake control after eight years of Republican rule.

“The American people deserve real action to end the daily epidemic of gun violence that is stealing the lives of our children on campuses, in places of worship and on our streets,” said Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader who is running for a second stint as House speaker.

Pelosi vowed to push for a range of actions to stem gun violence, including restrictions on high-capacity magazines and a measure allowing temporary removal of guns from people deemed an imminent risk to themselves or others.

They never, ever, learn. They never will learn. Because NPCs lack the capability.