Holy schmack is it a hot summer here in Taiwan. Regular days of 35°C.

(In American, that’s the rough equivalent of tying 95 rat tails together in a classic Rat King formation and measuring the temperature at the center point—just FYI.)

The humidity flows from around 60% mid-day all the way to 90%+ at night.

I like to walk a lot and I’m on the angrier end of the scale the last few years — it makes for a fun sweaty time.

It’s a regular site; this big white lao wai roaming the streets of Taiwan covered in a personal raincloud listening to podcasts and getting angry at traffic.

But with the heat, out comes my natural proclivities — turtling indoors with the AC cranked.

And what should a turtle who hasn’t written anything fun in a few months do while enjoying the cool comforts of modern humanity?

Start reading again, of course!

Blame my millennialism, my laziness, or my phone addiction, whatever it is, reading in my adult life is a habit made, no longer a passion. But on that note, it’s been a successful summer.

In early July I cruised around Singapore meeting some old friends then hopped over to a resort in the Philippines to remote-work for a couple weeks.

First time I’ve done that since before COVID.

Oops.

I honestly forgot how a person can be super productive while having a few daily brews and swims and Asianized western food. I guess that’s just good ol’ YOLO, as the kids might say.

A nice part of this little break from reality; I dragged out the ol’ Kindle and went to town.

I burned through the first Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, what fantastical writing! I finished it in two days, had fantasies of writing my own take on it, and then found out there were 4 more to burn through on another day.

A "trilogy of five books" as it mentioned somewhere in the book.

I miss that kind of humor. It just rattles my ruckles the right way.

But hot damn, that is one ugly book cover. Then again, it sold 250,000 copies in the first three months. Perhaps modern authors have lost their way.

In that spirit, I chose a deliciously ugly purple and yellow for my recent book:

I did not sell 250,000 copies.

Next up in the books was Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy of the Ogilvy advertising agency. He’s known as the “Father of Advertising” and was quite fond of his last name.

One of my main clients for the last year is this awesome little language app startup for kids where I’ve moved into a bit of a mixed role somewhere between marketing lead, SEO-er, and copywriter.

It suits me. I like tackling 1,000 projects at once. Really wrackles the ruckles.

It had been a while since I tackled marketing for an actual company though, so why not freshen up on some related material?

Ogilvy on Advertising was a pretty decent read. It came out in 1983 when the author was 62, so the language is a bit spicy at times, but I found the substance to be quite useful.

And as — largely thanks to him — advertising is kind of a greasy scope into the human soul, it was fascinating to see what fundamental truths of ‘how to sell things’ stayed true even today.

If you find yourself in any form of advertising or selling today, highly recommended to at least see his rules.

Then came a long overdue booklist item - Stephen King’s On Writing.

To be honest, I can’t recall reading many of his books. Perhaps I burned through a few in high school but I’ve almost exclusively read non-fiction as an adult.

That said, he’s obviously one of the modern greats.

What I didn’t find too great was slugging through the first half of his book until reaching any actual writing advice.

Never skip setting the scene, I suppose. It was only later I paid closer attention to the full title:

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Oops.

Anyway, halfway through the book the big hitters started flying out, interspersed with stories and opinions and examples to learn from. Nothing was too shocking. He mainly kept emphasizing a point that makes complete sense:

As someone who’s been pretty slacking on both of those things this past year, well, you might be able to tell my linguisticky skills are a bit too stuck together for the moment.

It was also a bit surprising to hear him talk about how he doesn’t really outline his entire books before creating them. Rather, he believes storytelling should be an organic process instead of a rigid, pre-planned structure, allowing a story to naturally play out based more on the characters themselves rather than a plotline.

I like that.

It’s right up the alley of where these essays come from.

A nugget, a thought scribbled down, a few days (or weeks or months) to ponder over it, then an outburst of wordage on a screen and hopefully, for your sake, reader, a nice hour of editing another day before sending it out.

He also had a bunch of other good advice, but these ones kind of stuck out to me:

• Make a daily writing routine — old advice but probably one of the biggest ROIs

• Second draft = First draft - 10% — right up there with ‘kill your darlings’, hard to do but its the difference between a cardboard sandwich and a Big Mac. They both still taste the same, but we like eating one of them (for some reason).

• Write what you know (about) — He advocates to not get too bogged down in research (haha — good luck, fellow nonfictioners) and to just write in place what you’d like to appear there then do more research later during revision, if needed.

• Use the active voice — again, old advice (maybe it came from him?), but one I struggle with a lot. Or used to anyway. Passive voice was just so much easier…things just happened to me, you know?

There’s lots more of good stuff in the book and I’d recommend reading it if you write these little characters on your screen. Feel free to skip the first half though, and damn, he wrote not one but two epilogues! If you’re in it for the advice, those are more memoir than anything else at that point.

Oh, and he called Ayn Rand’s writing overly didactic and that it was more of a vehicle for Rand's philosophy than a compelling narrative.

As I’m listening to Atlas Shrugged — slowly, ever so slowly — I can’t agree more. I set out to consume the neo-liberal economics bible just to see what all the fuss is about.

And I still have no idea wtf people found interesting about it.

Anyway, I’ll be sure to report back on that whenever I can finish the 561,996 words of fictional dictionary-like conservative extremist wet dream dialogue.

If I can manage to stay awake for 36 more hours, that is.

Written by a finally-writing-something-again JJ Pryor.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

As I write this, my sliding doors are whistling and shaking harder than a Greased up John Travolta. The building, around 25 floors, occasionally rumbles. The constant patter of rain intensifies and wanes alongside the wind — clocking in at around “≥50 kt wind” towards the eye.

I try to find more information on it.

For some reason, the American-based New York Times is one of the top links with potentially life-saving information.

It’s behind a paywall.

I decide $0.25 a week is not worth saving my life.

I look again.

Though this hurricane is heading straight over Taiwan, Google chooses to use the Japan Meteorological Agency as a source for other pertinent information.

At least its accurate and free.

I’m still stuck on that “kt wind.”

Apparently, kt = knot, and 1 knot can be tied every 1.852 km within an hour. Or something like that. Not sure. I’m a land lubber. Arrr.

I first heard of it a few days ago and then was reconfirmed yesterday. I’m not really on most social media platforms, so I was a bit lucky a friend posted it to a group chat.

It was a nearby county’s warning dressed up like a poster you might find at a kindergarten. Perfect.

Not a peep from my other groups, though.

It makes me miss the good ol’ days of mandatory emergency broadcast tests. Most people had a tv and all the channels were forced to help keep the soviet alarm in tip-top shape.

Nowadays, most people have moved onto the internet. Yet, I don’t find my googles interrupted with pertinent news unless searched for.

Taiwan prefers using a built-in feature on all the phones.

Whenever a planned air raid drill launches, the phone let’s you know like a pregnant cat screaming in the night with instructions in English and Chinese.

If not for the phones, the deployed M16-toting police will let you know in other, more yelly, kind of ways.

Astute observers might notice the time frame here.

If one didn’t learn of said planned air raid beforehand, and one had some time off in the middle of a hot sunny afternoon to walk one’s laundry down to a lovely little robotic laundromat, one might make an air-raid deployed M16-toting police officer quite angry in one’s refusal to stand in the middle of a residential street under an awning for one hour.

And one might pretend to be confused after seeing the M16 wiggle and shake like a Greased up John Travolta.

But one brings us back to this morning.

After waking up at the ridiculous early hour of 9 am from noisy wind bangs, I went for a morning coffee on my balcony.

The knotty kt winds had knocked over an entire bag of laundry detergent from the top-shelf all over everything, so I set it against the wall on the ground and returned to my disturbed bed.

An hour of wasted internet browsing later, I returned, only to find the knotty winds had somehow reached over my railing, lurched down and swatted my detergent bag all over everything else.

But at least my balcony is now clean.

My clothes are not.

A check of the work chat brings puzzled amusement. A notice to the local-based workers says something along the lines of:

Please stay home to stay safe. 

According to the rules, since we all work from home, the typhoon does not impact your safety and today is considered a normal workday for us. If you wish to take today off, please use your annual leave. Otherwise, it will be regarded as absenteeism.

I’m not sure which is my favorite part.

The fact that typhoons can’t hurt me because I work from home is certainly a bit of a relief. It’s also nice to note these mystical forces of nature have enough sense to follow the rules imposed by government bureaucracy. 

Knotty wind. Obedient typhoon.

It does suck having to work on a day when most people get off, though.

Then again, I’m a contractor, so I’d be working anyway.

It’s a good thing I enjoy my work.

Just enough to almost not set-aside an hour and share my morning nonsense with you.

Happy Typhoon day, ramble readers.

JJ Pryor

I strive to live by a few rules in my adulthood.

One of the most important ones:

“Never argue on the internet.”

I’m not always perfect at it — surprise, surprise, I’m only human — but 99% of the time, it serves me well.

The title above was innocuous enough. Someone posted a clickbait article striking fear into our hearts about whatever topic du jour the mass media wanted us to panic about to get more clicks and ad revenue.

Then a user on this particular social media leveraged that panic and added their own title to gain useless internet likes to feel more important.

The headline screamed something like:

“Sloths on average get laid 1000% more often than you! That’s 10 times more!”

Only slightly miffed, I wrote:

“Fun fact: 1000% more of something is 11 x something”

What followed was tens of thousands of strangers from all around the world taking precious time out of their day to craft some of the most creative insults imaginable.

• “So cute, it thinks it can do math.”

• “You’re the reason teachers need summer off.”

• “This guy’s a human version of a typo.”

And, of course, I broke my rule. I explained the logic (AKA truth) over and over again.

Poorly, apparently.

The ridicule piled on and on and on.

The interesting part? About 1/3 of the audience was backing my claims, but nary said a word of support.

Cowards, the lot of them!

There went an hour I’ll never get back. 

But that wasted hour just reinforced my rule.

I axed the thread, ditched the app for the non-logged-in browser version, and saved myself endless future arguments (and hours).

When debating on the internet, one must remember two things:

1. No one ever wins.

2. George Carlin.

In the end, I did manage to get through to one person after an extended back and forth of received ad hominems and projected source-backed explanations.

“Fine. Against my better judgment, I’ll be the better man and admit you’re right.”

Sigh.

Written by a currently non-argumentative J.J. Pryor.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Share

Ever tried fixing an old family treasure?

Years ago, in the shadowy corner of our basement stood a majestic armoire, a relic from last century. It was hand-crafted by a great-uncle, a man who turned simple wood into complex stories. This dusty wardrobe, with its rich mahogany scent was more than just furniture — it was an untold family chronicle in timber.

I’m not sure if that great-uncle planned on it being the perfect spot for hide-and-go-seek, but then again, he probably hadn’t read the wonderfully clever religious propaganda series, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, like I had.

I don’t know where that varnished mahogany cabinet ended up, but I know I wasn’t allowed to let anything bad happen to it as a kid.

No touching, no marking, and, I’m quite sure, no hiding from seekers.

If we had scuffed it up though, I have no doubt a professional would’ve been called in to fix it.

After all, even though the story behind the armoire was short and simple, somehow this object maintained an aura of respect akin to that for our ancestors.

It was made by a former family member, ergo it is precious.

Does your family cherish a similar heirloom?

Maybe it’s a delicate Christmas ornament passed down through generations, a crystal figurine that catches the light just so, or perhaps an old watch from WWII that no one’s allowed to ask Grandpa about until very recently in certain parts of the Southern United States.

Because…reasons.

These objects are more than their material worth; they are the silent witnesses to our families’ journey through time.

A Splash of Color on History’s Canvas

Just like our cherished family heirlooms, sometimes history itself gets an unexpected makeover.

Take a journey to the serene mountains of Sichuan province in China, where a group of ancient Buddhist statues recently found themselves at the center of a colorful controversy.

These statues, carved with the skill and devotion of artisans from the Northern Wei Period (386–534), have stood as silent witnesses to centuries of history. They’ve seen empires rise and fall, and they’ve watched the quiet comings and goings of generations.

Yet, they remained unchanged — until now.

In a well-intentioned but ill-fated effort to express gratitude, the local villagers, armed with bright paints and brushes, decided to give these ancient figures a new lease on life!

It’s a bit like your grandma deciding to knit-paint neon crocs on the feet of that old family portrait — heartwarming, but historically questionable. These villagers, mostly in their golden years, saw the statues not just as relics of the past, but as active participants in their present lives.

Their painting was an act of devotion, a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the deities for answered prayers.

Chinese officials, of course, had a different perspective.

“Those villagers are all in their 70s or 80s. They said they painted the figures because they wanted to thank Buddhist for answering their prayers. For now, we can do nothing about this matter except criticising and educating them.”

Ah, nothing like berating old villagers on the cultural expectancies of the modern world.

Perhaps they could lecture them on their incorrect use of emojis, next.

👨‍🏫👵📱😠➡️👮‍♂️🤜💥😂🚑👍📈

But Were They Wrong?

I love museums. I love history. Plop me in a new country for a few days and I’ll inevitably end up reading at least 50 Wikipedia articles about the region I’m residing in.

It makes life interesting to taste interesting old life.

Hell, I even touched Hitler’s car once at the Canadian War Museum because I was a dumb curious kid who didn’t know a super loud alarm was attached (please don’t tell).

At least I was a fast runner back then.

But the thing about trancing around different geographies when I’m lucky enough to do so is noticing the vast changes that have taken place.

Pull up centuries old maps of a local city and you’ll often see it looks nothing like the modern layout, let alone the advent of sewers, freeways, MRTs, and what have you.

Because history is often not static.

After all, it’s told by the victors, and what we see with our eyes is not always what was present in the past.

For years, we admired the beautiful marble craftmanship of the ancient Romans and Greeks. Yet, when confronted with evidence over time of their wonderful array of strange colorings, many historians balked at the idea.

“The whiter the body is, the more beautiful it is as well. Color contributes to beauty, but it is not beauty. Color should have a minor part in the consideration of beauty, because it is not (color) but structure that constitutes its essence” — Johann Joachim Winckelmann, “Father of art history”

It is hard to believe in what we cannot see for ourselves.

But to think of the ancients as not using any paint for their painstakingly crafted monuments and statues is unrealistic, to say the least.

Art and life imitate each other, and many of these deities, gods, and noble people who ended up eternalized through time were probably painted in the fashion of the time.

When the image of Cleopatra comes into mind, we think of elegance, beauty, silks, and eyeliner.

But pop the words “Cleopatra statue” into Google and we get a bunch of bland, albeit exquisite, monochrome figures.

Here’s what a reconstruction of what a Terracotta soldier would’ve looked like:

Not the earthy hues we’ve come to expect.

Just glance towards the Big Apple and you’ll see yet another, far more recent example.

After all, it’s not supposed to be green. The copper statue has just aged from oxygen and car-emitted sulfur.

What we, those still alive before the impending capitalism inspired demise of our environment, imagine in our minds when we hear the words Cleopatra, or terracotta soldiers, or The Statue of Liberty, is quite different from what our ancestors would conjure up.

What we, those still standing before the looming capitalism-inspired-demise of our environment, envision upon hearing the words Cleopatra, terracotta soldiers, or the Statue of Liberty, significantly diverges from the images our ancestors might have summoned.

And the same goes for those who survive the coming capocalypse well into the future.

Art and religion have no choice but to change with the times. It’s as natural as evolution.

Then again, perhaps that explains why this exists:

A “museum” that teaches children T. Rex lived alongside Adam…and was a vegetarian.

Sigh.

J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

Question: 

How do you spend three years and hundreds of hours trying to make fun of billionaires?

Answer: 

By painstakingly crafting a parody of Eric Carle’s classic children’s book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? down to every last excruciating detail.

And that’s how we ended up with my second book!

The best part? 

(Or worst, depending on the audience.)

Here it is in all of it’s mediocre glory!

But first, a fine selection of esteemed reviews:

“Perfect for anyone who’s ever aspired to create something painstakingly average.” — The New York Multiplies

“The literary equivalent of a participation trophy.” — Puffin Occasional Igloo

“So they spent years on this? Hope the day job’s going well.” — Badreads

“The illustrations: stunning. The humor: pending.” — One of the authors

“Breathtaking, if you’re asthmatic.” — Unknown

Billionaire, Billionaire, What Do You Steal?

Thanks for reading! 

If you’d like to see a ‘real’ version of the book, please check it out on Lina Khan’s favorite bookstore.

Another neat thing. I posted my first book in this fashion a few days ago and also made it free on Amazon kindle for a few days and just saw this today:

#8 in Satire is astounding, thanks for anyone that went on to check it out there!

J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Share

Leave a comment

Almost 4 years ago I teamed up with a friend to create a book based on one simple premise: What if Donald Trump could actually read, write, and wanted to teach little kids his view of the world?

Well, much to my shock, he’s back in the news again, and I figured why not share the pages from the book in all its horrifying humorous glory?

Plus, I just released another book, too (I’ll share that soon as well!).

Without further adieu, please enjoy!

(And for those that use Amazon Kindle, I also made it free for a few days starting on March 25th.)

ABC’s for MAGA Kids: The Alphabet According to Trump

J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

The idea was simple enough.

It just didn’t turn out that well.

Thus is life.

Fast forward 100+ hours and three years later and I’m waiting for my brand new shiny book to arrive from overseas (most of you are on the sending side of the aforementioned sea).

The first time around, we (myself and an astonishingly talented Taiwanese artist friend) created a mockery of a classic children’s concept; a simple ABC book.

I’ve always been a big news consumer — for better or worse — and despite all my wasted time reading article after article about the state of affairs of World Politics in 2020, no one ever answered a simple premise: could Donald Trump actually read and write?

From that thought, mixed in with a bit of snarky dark humor I love so much, came our masterpiece:

Silly concept.

Hilarious (if I do say so myself).

Brilliant drawings.

But — and there’s always a but — the days of advertising political products were drawing scorn from the powers at be. And the powers at be at my hateorite monopoly, Amazon, deemed this silly hilarious brilliantly drawn work of satire to be political.

And so did Facebook and possibly Google. I can’t quite remember.

Whatever the case, I couldn’t pay to advertise the book. And according to one of my ‘real’ writer friends (he writes more than 100 words in his published books, if you can believe it); advertising is sadly required to make any sort of decent sales when self-publishing.

Still, the journey was fun, a bit frustrating, and exhilarating to hold the final copy in my hands.

It even sold around 500 copies.

It was (and is!) even more enjoyable to watch friends and strangers browse through the pages and watch as they laugh or twist their faces trying to get the joke. It was also, as it turned out, a great way to see what a stranger’s political leanings were — before ever hearing a single word out of their mouth!

I was hooked.

I told my folks I wanted to make one funny book a year going forward.

3.25 years later, here we are.

The Return

The new idea was simple.

Let’s continue poking fun at the disgustingly rich.

But, this time, be allowed to advertise it.

After a lot of obsessive dilly-dallying (the Patented Pryor Process!), I settled on this train of thought:

1. Let’s be more parody parody this time.

2. Still imitate a famous children’s book, because the juxtaposition is just hysterical (if you also find yourself with a warped sense of humor).

3. Let’s stay apolitical this time.

4. Go after billionaires!

Lo and behold, I came across an old book I think I loved as a child.

For those unaware, Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle made a huge number of kid’s books over the years. Bill sold over 12 million copies and Eric over 170 million!

The book above is probably sitting around 10 million copies — and it was even banned in Texas, because, well, idiots do idiotic things.

Plus, just look at that art style.

Even a kid could draw it, right?!

Right?

So, off to the races we went.

“Not all who wander are lost, but some of us did end up at a llama farm instead of the beach.”

Before we move on, there’s a few things I need to point out:

1. My amazing artist friend moved across the world. (Sucks, but she’s doing awesome, and likely still has access to a plethora of tea, guvna.)

2. I joined forces with a fellow non-artist who at least knew how to sketch.

3. I vastly underestimated the amount of effort required to create what appears to be Eric Carle’s deceptively simple children’s books. (Perhaps that was kind of his point?)

The first plan of action was the easiest part — create the words.

After all, it’s a kids book, there’s only, like, five words in the entire thing, right?

2.5 years later, we had our final draft.

Turns out, meeting once or twice a month and trying to imitate the perfected poetry of one of the world’s most famous children’s book authors, was slightly more complicated than we envisioned.

Rhyming style.

Oh god, I hate rhymes.

So that much I love them.

There is a beat to Brown Bear, one I was completely unaware of.

As someone whose oft been described as tone-deaf when it comes to music, perhaps I still am.

Then you have the specific number of syllables.

And the fact that every single page of the very short book (there’s only 13 images, 13 questions, and 13 answers) followed nearly the exact same schema.

Hell, halfway through, we had used laptops, computers, tablets, and good ol’ pen and paper to try to make all this work.

Fitting a completely different subject — how the rungs of society now work — onto Bill and Eric’s simplistic masterpiece was just short of doing rocket science as a monkey.

But, with hard work, comes the lure of one of society’s most pervasive traps — the sunk cost fallacy.

We had simply come too far to turn back.

But in the end, we eventually finished the final draft.

We were satisfied.

A beautiful parody, here we come!

Next Step: Mission Impossible

For those keen readers still with me, you might find yourself asking something like, ‘How do two non-artists create a book of artwork?’.

Frustration, dear friends.

Lots and lots of beautiful frustration.

You see, it turned out the original books by Eric Carle weren’t drawings, per se.

Mistake #1.

Eric’s process, which we finally found some helpful Youtube videos to imitate, involved a few steps to create the bear on the cover you see above:

1. Very rudimentarily outline the drawing

2. Create a bunch of huge pallets from paint and glue and other fun craftworks

3. Cut each specific ‘body part’ with a knife on the drawing overlayed on the big pallets.

4. Paste them all together on another paper.

And so we drew up a plan. Then recreated the plan a dozen times. Sketched out the 13 images dozens of times over dozens of concepts and made sure they matched the meticulously rhymed parody satirization of society and got to work.

My favorite part?

Being a kid and painting these giant pallets with brushes and objects and hands and fingers!

Fun. Impractical. Hilarious.

And a good excuse to take a slow relaxing train ride up to the next town where my friend lives, grab some beers, and spend a couple afternoons finger painting.

The next step we had to improvise a bit.

Question: What didn’t Eric Carle have back in 1967 when his book came out?

Answer: High-definition scanners, that’s what!

In which case, he might’ve ended up with something far more practical than a warehouse full of giant painted papers, like this:

Textures for days! (As the kids might say.)

So now we had a bunch of textures and bunch of simple outlines on all on those fancy computers we all love so much.

And then we had to learn how to use Photoshop.

Sigh.

And by we, I really mean my co-author, as he put in far more work on this part of the journey (thanks!).

At some point in this journey, we had to use what I think proper designers call ‘layers’.

So many layers.

So, so many layers.

For example, when working on what turned out to be my favorite image, here it is about halfway through:

Note the zombie-ish color scheme?

That’s how we interpreted each ‘body part’ that needed to be cut out from the giant painted pallets. Each part was colored with auto-fill to give us a general idea of what we wanted the final look and feel to be.

But after, instead of physically cutting, we pasted zoomed-in segments of our own giant-but-scanned painted paper pallets.

Take the outline of the face for example. We took up the nice real-textured blue:

And then played around with the hue a bit:

And voila, a textured forehead and no more zombie eyes:

And voila-er, the final product:

The Book Has Arrived

I wrote most of this post a few weeks ago. Since then, the two rounds of ‘proof’ copies and later (after fixing some dumb overlooked mistakes), the final copies.

A) It’s a thing of beauty to finally hold something in your hands that took years to make.

B) There’s something not quite right with the new books.

We ordered a bunch of ‘author’ copies — owned books that Amazon let’s authors order at a reduced price — so we’d have a couple to keep and a couple to hang up in local bars we frequent.

We also bought extra copies of the ABCs book since it’s hard to order stuff from Amazon into Taiwan and somehow, somehow, a few people every month keep asking to buy a copy.

The weird part?

Both books have the same exact settings for printing on Amazon, and yet the new book clearly feels a bit, unpolished, in terms of quality.

Very disappointing, especially when you compare the two side by side.

Our best guess? The ABCs book has full color background on the pages, whereas the new Billionaire book is mostly white background.

Lesson learned.

Another thing we realized? The original Brown Bear book had all of its characters laid horizontally across both pages (think of a normal children’s book spread).

We didn’t think of this part, and nearly all of the meticulously crafted characters are standalone on a single page.

It still looks cool (at least to us), but they seem almost lonely standing there amongst so much white space.

Lastly, when we started showing the book to friends of various senses of humor and political affiliations (part of the joys of expat life), I’d say about 90% of people had a chuckle or two, but didn’t realize it was a parody.

The thing is, that’s (partly) why we wrote “Unauthorized Parody” right on the cover!

It took some thinking and pondering before we finally realized the problem.

Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See has sold over 10 million copies, and the chances some of our friends have read it or use it to teach their kids or students is quite high.

We even asked most of them after, and a good many finally remembered the book after some memory jostling.

We realized it wasn’t that the book wasn’t famous or read by many people, it was that they read it when they were 2 and just didn’t remember!

In humor, context is everything.

And in written humor, context is literally the world the jokes preside within.

No context, and it’s as if one is only seeing half the joke.

So, is the book good?

Maybe.

Perhaps we were too stuck inside the process of creating it to truly grasp what other people would think of it, if they’d get the humor, and most importantly — if they’d like it.

As one friend said unprompted and quite strangely (especially in a Newfie accent), “I’m not gonna invest in this one, boys.”

So, then again, maybe it just sucked.

But still.

Holding something you created.

Something you spent over 3 years on.

Even if it was only part-time, even if it was fool hardy and based on an incorrect supposition of context, even if the book only sells 15 copies (it’s at 12 so far, wink wink), even if people hate it — we still made a piece of art.

And crappy art is still art.

That’s the beauty of it. The realization that no matter how quirky, niche, or downright bizarre your project may seem, it’s the act of creation that truly counts.

We dove headfirst into a sea of papers, paint, and glue, armed with nothing but a questionable sense of humor and a steadfast refusal to consider the practicality of our ambitions.

In the end, we emerged not just with a book, but with a tangible testament to human creativity, stubbornness, and the improved ability to laugh at ourselves.

So here’s to the dreamers, the creators, and the laughers. Here’s to making art that matters (even if it only matters to us). And here’s to the next ridiculous project.

Because, let’s face it, life’s too short to take seriously.

If you feel so inclined (and want to put a smile on my face), please check out Billionaire, Billionaire, What Do You Steal?

Maybe you’ll like it? And we could sure use any reviews to help titillate the algorithms.

But if you don’t feel like spending any of your precious coins, don’t worry, I’ll send another post soon with all of the book’s pages on display.

Why, some might ask?

Because in the immortal words of Eric Carle:

“I believe that everything we do, everything we strive for, has a purpose. And that purpose is to bring joy to those around us.”

I couldn’t say it better myself.

Well, at least until the next parody of him.

J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Share

Leave a comment

Google turned 25 in September 2023. Its gift to the world? A giant middle finger to how the internet operates, neatly packaged as the ‘Helpful Content Update.’

Google pitched this update as a noble crusade for quality.

The idea was simple: help the 8 billion searches a day prioritize content created for people, not just for the sake of ranking high in search results. 

On paper, it sounded like a digital utopia — a place where the user’s quest for genuine, valuable content would always be satisfied. But beneath this Potemkin Village of user-centric improvement, the update harbored a more complex reality.

It was a response to an endless battle against the deluge of low-quality, search-engine-optimized (SEO) content that clogs the arteries of the internet.

Google was attempting to clean house and bring back a sense of authenticity and reliability to search results.

How did they change how articles appear in search?

1. User-first approach

2. An emphasis on authenticity and Expertise

3. Discouraging misleading and over-optimized content

4. The new approval of quality AI-generated content

Or in Google’s own words, “those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.”

People-first content — even if a machine produces it.

What This Change Really Meant

At first glance, this sounds fantastic! People far and wide have had a growing gripe with the general shittiness of search results and the websites that populate them.

I type a question.

I want a simple—and correct—answer.

Before Google's update, navigating the internet often felt like wading through a slimy swamp of ads, spam, and scams. Websites were greasy salespeople, pushing content crammed with ads and keywords, hoping to grab a spot on the first page of Google’s search results.

This ad-centric motivation turned websites into a jungle of clickbait and low-value content.

Think about the classic experience of searching for a simple recipe online.

What should be a quick look-up turns into a 2,000-word expedition through someone’s life story, complete with a detailed account of what led them to create today’s ever-so-exclusive peanut butter and tuna sandwich.

Why?

Because the longer the content, the better it ranked on Google (among other things), something they repeatedly denied but many people anecdotally proved. These lengthy narratives aren’t just annoying, they’re strategically designed to play Google's ranking game.

Or consider the frustration of finding trustworthy health advice.

What you often encountered was a maze of dubious sites offering miracle cures, littered with ads for products of questionable efficacy. This scenario made it challenging to distinguish between legitimate advice and dangerous misinformation.

How do you know if this website is run by Alex Jones, whose giant misinformation reach is a front to peddle millions of dollars worth of snake oil to non-critical thinkers?

You don’t.

At least not without spending hours researching all of the totally 100% legitimate sciencey references (but only the science his tribe would trust, of course).

These examples reflect a broader issue: the quality of information on the internet was compromised by a relentless pursuit of ad revenue and search engine rankings.

It’s a system built to incentivize quantity over quality, often leaving users overwhelmed and underinformed.

Google’s new update, with its emphasis on user-first content and the crackdown on SEO manipulation, promised to turn the tide.

After all, they labeled it a “helpful content update.”

But what did this shift really mean for the everyday internet user?

Did it signal the end of the ‘memoir recipe’ era, or was it just the beginning of a new chapter in the complicated relationship between search engines and content creators?

I’m Sure You Already Know the Answer

In September 2023, Google's Helpful Content Update introduced a pivotal change, placing more of a spotlight on a concept known as EEAT — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

This marked a significant shift in how content was evaluated and ranked.

Google's emphasis on EEAT wasn't entirely new, but its full implementation in the 2023 update brought it front and center. This was, in part, a response to the growing concern over the quality of information available online.

One of the key elements of this change was the weight given to personal experience.

For instance, if you bought the latest iDGAF gadget and shared your honest feedback online, your review might now rank higher than a comprehensive, researched article by a tech website, which may or may not have actually used the object in question.

It was a strike against the facade of false expertise, aiming to elevate genuine voices and experiences.

Finally, FINALLY, the internet could return to its more humble roots of real people giving real advice to real people.

Hell, why didn’t they just do this in the first place?

Because Google Doesn’t Give a Shit

But wait a second.

Google’s algorithms can’t really know if someone has experience with a topic, right?

Of course not.

What they can do is track all the mentions of someone across the vast web in relation to the subject at hand.

If I’m searching for information on childcare, I’d hope to find webpages full of information created and verified by a 50-year-old Harvard-educated pediatrist named something fancy like Dr. Gregory Wallace.

Google first translates the search ‘contextually’, where it tries to understand the true meaning of what a user asked for by expanding the words it could match up with.

Ex. ‘Childcare’ could become ‘healthy child’, ‘toddler well being’, or ‘care for children’.

Then it’ll tap into its massive database to find the most mentions for childcare across the web, using over 200 ranking factors, and zone in on those with the most references from other websites and authority sources where, contextually, ‘care for children’ was mentioned.

And then, oops, Epstein pops up.

The system can’t be perfect, by the very nature of its incentivized design.

If AI can write articles that rank on Google, isn’t that some twisted sort of logic if the rewards are supposed to be for people-first content?

Moreover, relying heavily on personal experience introduces a subjective element into what ranks higher on Google.

Just because someone had a unique experience with a product or a situation doesn't necessarily make their perspective the most helpful or accurate.

Does one person's experience outweigh a well-researched piece?

Those With Experience Are Now King

Since mid-September, Google’s been valuing companies with lots of experience and trust (as it deems). Those with the most history, a legitimate company, and mentions all across the internet are now given authority above most others.

And authority (or Domain Authority, DA, for short), in this game, is king.

In Google’s new almighty algorithm’s eyes, there are some new landlords in town (and being top in search results is indeed a form of real estate):

• Quora

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

• Medium

• Large news sites like Forbes, CNN, and New York Times

For those unaware, Quora serves as a knowledge-sharing (read: 30-second opinion) platform where questions meet answers. While Reddit's vast subreddit communities gather a wide collection of people to talk on virtually any topic. LinkedIn is now a cesspool of corporate speak and braggarts and Medium is a mostly left-leaning cornucopia of random thoughts on a million different subjects.

I’m not knocking these platforms, I’m present on most of them.

But you might note, dear discerning reader, that nowhere in those descriptions do you see a requirement for expertise or trust.

Yet, Google determines them to be exactly that.

That new emphasis on authority and experience greatly increased the value of a website if it has real live humans interacting and talking about a subject.

As in, forums.

It’s why if you ask a question on Google now, you’re far more likely to see a non-sensical answer from Quora at the top of the page.

It’s why when someone searches for “Is Hawaii in one or two timezones?” on Google, the first result is written by J Tang, who wrote an answer with no upvotes and has expertise listed as, “civic org volunteer” over six years ago.

It’s why when you ask what full stop punctuation means, instead of an authority on grammar or language, you get AustrianMadman whose bio is listed as “Austrian guy idk.”:

And it’s also why you find formerly respectable news organizations like Forbes answering non-business-related questions such as:

or

or

Are these examples just my anecdotes and not statistically valid? Sure, but they serve a point.

I found each of those articles by searching some of the most visited web pages on those companies with an SEO tool.

Hundreds of thousands of views every month for each article.

None posted from actual experts.

But in Google’s eyes, those sites have history, an incredible amount of content, huge Domain Authority, pay them millions in ad fees, and, most importantly, have real-life human experience.

All of these random factors combined, and praise be!

According to the SEMRush SEO tool, Quora’s traffic increased almost 300%, to the tune of 261 million more visitors per month from Google.

While Reddit’s traffic went up 100%, for an extra 200 million views per month too.

Medium more than doubled since last year right alongside LinkedIn. The various ‘news’ sites with their ever-expanding topic list have had minor gains, but more importantly, reversed the long-term trend of slowly shrinking views.

There are likely far more examples of this, but it’s not an easy subject to collect data for (especially as a generalist).

Why This Matters

For fans of Reddit, Medium, and LinkedIn, you might be pleased. For fans of Quora, you might not exist. For bloggers and those who have constructed their livelihoods on building niche sites, you should care — a lot.

Why?

For one thing, an extra 1 billion or so monthly views (which is likely far higher) going to these companies means they’re earning a tremendous amount of extra revenue from ads.

For Reddit, depending on which Google ‘expert’ you want to believe, in 2022 they earned roughly $500 million from ads.

Double the traffic, double the ad earnings.

Same goes for Quora and LinkedIn and all the news sites pilfering random articles to whoever will lap them up.

That’s at least good for those private companies and investors and users who want the platforms to continue.

But put it in another way.

Those views are coming from somewhere. For the most part, the real estate of Google search land isn’t so much ‘a rising tide that raises all ships’ as much as it is ‘if your boat sinks mine might float higher.’

As in, inside the Google search game, if one website gets the first hit from all searchers, the 2nd - 100th site might get none.

And who are those 2nd sites?

• Bloggers who spent thousands of hours crafting content around their favorite hobby.

• Small businesses who invested hard-earned money in building a reputable resource of articles around their specialty.

• Newish large businesses that spent hundreds of thousands of their marketing budget being promised a much higher ROI on their SEO investment rather than spending far more on ads every month.

And, of course, scammers, automated bloggers, and every other ‘blackhat SEO’ creator out there.

If that last group suffers — great! That’s what the public wants from the only real search engine in town.

But those first few groups…

Oh boy.

Just spend a few minutes scrolling the top posts in the SEO subreddit and you’ll be bombarded with first-hand stories of marketers’ and business owners’ traffic getting absolutely crushed.

Take this poor company for example.

For years, they provided a service of trying to help parents discern what products are suitable for their kids. They had a ranking metric, a distinct process in place, hundreds if not thousands of products reviewed at this point, and a general spirit of trying to help parents while making enough money for their small business to continue employing five to ten people.

And then September’s Helpful Content Update hit:

From 2 million a month to under 100,000 and no sign of the results turning back. I’d be surprised if those 5-10 people don’t become 0-0 any day now.

How many more small businesses out there were affected in the same way? This data is hard to track, so I doubt it’ll ever make the news.

If a company like Facebook lays off 10,000 people, it’s all over the press for a week. If 1,000 no-name companies quietly lay off 10,000 people, no one would know.

If a tree falls in the woods — updated for 2024.

Remember, not all sites on the internet are built to spam you.

• Many recipe blogs were started by honest-to-goodness chefs who wanted to share their recipes.

• Lots of hobbyists wrote hundreds of posts about their favorite crafts and creations.

• Tonnes of small to medium-sized businesses invested in getting their own products and expertise to show up on Google for their potential customers.

These are not bad people trying to get attention.

• Recipe blogs became bloated and ridiculous because of what worked on Google.

• Hobby sites had hundreds of only slightly related grade-school written articles because visitors to those might go onto their real content and products — because Google then valued their overall site as being better.

• SMB’s followed the same strategy, if only because it worked and they couldn’t afford to pay $10s of thousands to Google for the same traffic.

The internet is full of crap because Google incentivized it to be.

And It Only Gets Worse

Another consequence of all of these updates to the almighty algorithm is directly tied to the value of being one of Google’s ‘chosen ones’.

If you own a brand, and one that is a respectable well-established authority in Google’s eyes, this update was probably a godsend to you.

Because now when you search for help on a subject, especially if it’s related to a chosen brand, you have to scour through dozens of non-related-to-the-question-you-asked results to find anything meaningful to you.

For decades, people have built up websites around the idea of helping others in their specific field. Sometimes it was small developer forums or just people knowledgeable about a type of product or service.

In many cases, these niche websites are incredibly helpful.

Want to learn piano? Hundreds of small creator blogs can help you learn everything from beginning to advanced via text and video.

Need to know the ins and outs of using complex software like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Excel?

You don’t have a care in the world because hundreds of people who became experts in those software spent thousands of hours creating guides and asking the many, many questions that arise from using them.

Now if I search for a random question on Excel, guess who pops up first?

The owner of Excel; Microsoft.

Or if I want to digitally paint a pretty picture of a monkey dipping his half-eaten banana in Sundar Pichai’s morning cereal, who is there to try to help me?

Why, it’s Google’s new experts, of course!

Put a brand name in your query on how to navigate a brand’s often-time overly complex ins and outs and you’re now far more likely to get ‘an answer’ directly from them.

The problem is, if those brands were perfect at answering these questions those thousands of blogs showing people how to use their products wouldn’t exist in the first place!

Many large companies, not all, are plagued by ridiculously inadequate answers in their help section.

Let alone not answering enough questions, never giving enough specifics, or just plain ignoring a problem because it wouldn’t make business sense to admit to it. Businesses don’t like to write about problems with their products.

Or take, for example, The Points Guy, created by a random dude named Brian Kelly.

He started his blog part-time in 2010 posting deals he found while scouring the internet to save his friends and colleagues money on their trip planning.

He researched and found deals, discussed what he wanted to do when traveling, and helped people find ways to game frequent flyer miles and other incentive programs.

Eventually, the company expanded and he got rich from this endeavor.

Great story.

Except he couldn’t do the same thing again today without a marketing budget of tens of thousands of dollars or spending thousands of (extra) hours building even more content.

Google’s ‘people first’ approach simply wouldn’t deem Brian Kelly to be an authority on the subject, nor trustable, nor have had real-life experience to add.

Don’t get me wrong.

He could still get some traffic, some views, and some built-up domain authority if he started over today, but the journey to his ultra-success would be at least 10x harder.

Because in Google’s eyes today, Brian Kelly would be a nobody.

And nobody’s don’t get no traffic.

On the flip side, if Mr. Kelly were to take the same approach while creating the content on, say, MasterCard.com, his dream would fare a far higher chance of being successful.

But, of course, the millions he made would be in shareholders’ pockets and not his.

In Google’s eyes, Mastercard has expertise and authority.

The Canary in the Monopoly Mine

Perhaps the scariest part of all the many changes Google has been rolling out is something they call Search Generative Experience (SGE).

Google's now rolling out generative AI in their search to help users get straight to the point. Instead of just showing links, it sums up the info you're looking for into brief, easy-to-read answers. Theoretically, this means you spend less time digging through websites to find what you need.

As in, even less traffic for all those wannabe Brian Kellys out there.

If you thought ChatGPT would end up replacing search, so did Google! The stats aren’t really in yet, but a team at The Atlantic estimated up to a 75% decrease in reads on their articles from Google search once it’s fully in play.

Considering similar news sites get at least 40% of their traffic (or 80% for sites like Investopedia) from Google, their days could be numbered, at least for a good portion of them.

Millions of blogs out there will be affected too.

And the irony?

Google’s SGE is supplying summarized answers to the public from the very websites it’s now skipping.

Talk about cutting out the middleman!

As a holder of two fancy-but-useless papers called ‘business degrees,’ I’m normally all for that. But in this case, the middleman is now the dried old tuna meat in a sandwich of bread made of capitalistic monopoly wet dreams.

Not to mention, SGE apparently will summarize anything under the sun into easily digestible tidbits of information.

As if our society needed further impetus towards becoming increasingly hooked on quick dopamine fixes, Google now enables us to grasp the utterly complex essentials of physics in just a single paragraph!

So now we have Google giving far more credence to ‘expert’ domains and brands that have years of presence on the internet, whether or not the content inside is fundamentally good, useful, or trustworthy.

And those actual experts that don’t work for big-name companies writing all of the fundamentally good, useful, and trustworthy articles are getting their content scraped by Google, to be presented by Google, to the users of Google (which is 84% of the internet).

If you want your own content getting in front of users’ eyes before the SGE dumbs it down into oblivion?

Well, there’s a simple answer.

It’s No Coincidence Ads Are Getting Worse

In all of the scenarios above, Google wins.

Does the traffic go to Quora instead of a well-researched blog that may or may not have ads?

Google ads show on Quora — winning.

Does the user not even click on a website because the (correct/incorrect) answer was found on Google’s SGE?

Google ads show on searches — winning.

Do many small and medium-sized businesses now have to pay for more sponsored posts on search engines to get anywhere near the same traffic?

Google ads are sold to these very businesses — winning.

Too much of a stretch?

Here’s Google’s own financial statements comparing Q4 2022 to Q 2023:

Put together, that’s almost a 12% increase in revenue year over year for a product that hasn’t changed or increased in usage.

It’s almost like they’re doing this on purpose.

Oh wait, they legally admitted it.

Ever wonder why you’re seeing so many repeated often unskippable ads on Youtube now?

Well, almost a year ago, YouTube found itself in the ever-so-sad situation of lowering quarterly revenue for three straight quarterly periods in a row in 2021 and 2022. As in, they made slightly fewer billions of dollars than usual.

Jump forward a year and we get:

When money machine stop going brrr, one must increase the number of ads, the length of the ad, the cost of the ad, and pay the creators less money to show those ads!

Basic short-term stock price logic 101.

Hopefully, it’s beginning to become apparent the “Helpful Content Update” is only helpful to those able to pay for it.

And far more than they used to.

So, Is Blogging Dead?

Not yet, but in my view, the ROI has significantly dropped.

If you’re a blogger or writer or anyone who has an inkling to start a new site to publish content that will do well on Google, I could reword the company’s extensive list of generic and useless advice they showcase.

Or I could take a step out of Google’s new strategy and have an AI summarize for you, only from the perspective of a cat:

"Make content that purrs, not content that purrsuades." If your articles are more about clawing up the SEO ladder than sharing the cat's whiskers of wisdom, you're barking up the wrong tree. Aim for purrfection by offering something as satisfying as a sunbeam nap. Before you put paw to keyboard, ask yourself: "Is this something worthy of the top shelf, or am I just coughing up another hairball?"

Great attempt, CatGPT.

But even that advice isn’t so purrfect.

From everything I’ve gathered on this subject since September (and believe me, I’ve obsessed about this after my own results tanked), there are a few strong lessons learned.

#1. Brand is now king.

Bill Gates once foretold in 1996, “content is king.” That throne is now shared by brand presence. The bigger your brand presence around the internet, not just your website, the better it will perform.

What does this mean in general?

• Your brand’s authority should be established on not only your website, but many of the popular platforms that now reign Google search. Having even a slight presence on LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Medium, and YouTube referring to your company, products, and expertise can have a profound effect on your traffic.

• If you’re brand is already well known in Google’s eyes, creating long-tail content will have an easier time ranking now than before.

• If you’re creating a new brand in an existing industry, this step is more important than ever.

• Traditional SEO strategies can still work, but the overall website matters more now.

#2. People power.

Google has deemed active forums and comment sections to equal experience and authority. If your brand has no feedback from real live people that is easily accessible on the internet, you no longer matter to Google.

A few questions might help put this one in perspective:

• Does your website have comments enabled? Many don’t, but you can easily enable articles to have comment sections and screen the posts before making them live.

• Does your website have a help section with a forum for user-generated questions?

• Do people talk about your brand on Reddit or Quora?

• Do influencers post about your product on various social media platforms?

While all of these aren’t necessary, even a few simple additions to a company’s website can make a good difference.

#3. Text AND video.

Google is trying to compete with the rise of TikTok. They already own YouTube for that, ostensibly, but just look at why they introduced YouTube Shorts. It wasn’t for shits and giggles, it was to fight back:

“Almost 40% of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram for search instead of Google”

Perhaps you’ve noticed the top of Google results now shows videos half the time instead of just text or sponsored ads. This is why.

What can you do?

• Pick the most popular posts on your website (or the ones you want to be most popular) and have videos created on the same content — then pop the video at the top of the article.

• If you have a budget, make videos for as much content as you can, answering questions related to your product.

• If you’re even more keen, recraft the same videos for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram — but mainly YouTube because Google prefers that (because they own it, what a coincidence!)

#4. Boast about your expertise.

This one is difficult for some people. You have to brag. While most companies feature an "About" section on their websites, only a few dedicate space to discussing the individuals who make up the company.

• Does the About section talk about the company’s story, who was involved, and why they created this business?

• Do the articles on your website list an author?

• Does that author have a bio page? Does that author actually have related experience to your niche?

• Do the authors and owners of the company have mentions on external sites?

• Does the company have any awards, grants, or certifications? Are those linked to the award-granting websites where the company is mentioned?

Essentially for this point, any sort of authority your website can get from any legitimate source should be written and linked to if possible. Even better if those external sources link to your website.

These points are not easy to implement.

But that, in a sense, makes them far more valuable. How many of your competitors will be implementing these changes or already have? If they’re not, and you do, you can bet your monopoly money your site will start outranking them.

What About Bloggers?

SEO isn’t dead, but it sure as hell is a lot harder to do now. If you’re in the position of thinking about creating niche websites as a side hustle or new career to make money, you might want to pause for a moment.

I would strongly hesitate to create a new website from scratch unless you have a strong interest in the subject, are willing to completely ‘niche down’ and only write about one topic, and have a strong presence on the web with your name.

If you have no expertise in the area and it’s a topic in what Google calls YMYL — just don’t bother.

For example, our systems give even more weight to content that aligns with strong E-E-A-T for topics that could significantly impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people, or the welfare or well-being of society. We call these "Your Money or Your Life" topics, or YMYL for short.

If it’s in a less important niche, like a hobby site, for example, the old rules of SEO still apply — they’re just hindered.

For one thing, reviews were cracked down on hard this past year. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t include reviews, but if you look at the huge expectations for what Google now wants, it might make you think twice.

Reviews are now a lot of work (as perhaps they should be).

I also wouldn’t bother creating an anonymous blog at this point. If you search around, you’ll see this is all the rage in recent years, especially with “faceless” YouTube channels.

Sure, they might still be effective for now, but it’s just a matter of time until brands create the same content in both text and video form and render the faceless channels into faceless history.

On the other hand, if you do have a specialty or expertise, especially if it’s confirmed online in external sources (ie. Wikipedia or a university website), now might be the best time to create a branded niche website.

Of course, if it’s a new site and even with a proper SEO’d content plan, it will still take a long time to rank up. But the gains from a properly approached branded content plan will be able to outrank those without genuine authority or expertise any day of the week.

Except if it’s competing with Forbes or Facebook or the giant technopoly that quietly rules the internet.

The Unhelpful Content Update

This move by Google, while beneficial for users in certain respects, created huge new barriers for the ‘little guy’ seeking to carve out a space in the vast expanse of the web.

The internet was once celebrated as a level playing field where content quality and relevance, not the depth of one's pockets or the strength of one's brand, determined visibility and success.

But the implementation of updates like these marks a departure from that ideal, a shift towards a more corporatized, monopolized internet landscape.

In essence, what Google has termed an initiative for “helpful content” can be interpreted as corporate speak for "We've paved the way for billion-dollar companies to monopolize even more of the digital pie!"

This monopolization of visibility and authority not only stifles innovation and diversity but also consolidates the control of information and audience reach into the hands of a few, well-established entities.

For small businesses, independent bloggers, and niche content creators, the uphill battle for visibility has become steeper.

The nuances of EEAT, coupled with the algorithm's preference for content from established platforms, mean that competing on the internet requires resources and branding that many simply do not possess.

The irony here is palpable: in an effort to combat the deluge of low-quality content, Google's update inadvertently champions a digital ecosystem where only the most prominent players can thrive.

This is not just about SEO or content strategy; it's about the essence of the internet itself and what it means for the future of digital expression and entrepreneurship.

The "Helpful Content Update" is a poignant reminder of the shifting dynamics of the internet—a space that once offered unbridled freedom and opportunity, now gradually succumbing to the encroaching shadows of monopolism.

All this, stemming from decisions made by a select few, as Tristan Harris poignantly highlighted.

To finish all this off, here is, perhaps, the best example of the new Google algorithm I came across:

An anonymous high school essay about JFK.

J.J. Pryor

If you’re a blogger or business struggling to get noticed, please feel free to reach out.

Leave a comment

Share

If you remember the awesome movie Labyrinth by Jim Henson, you’ll probably remember three things from the movie:

1. A young Jennifer Connelly led the movie as a curious adventurer

2. David Bowie starred as a creepy crystal ball-holding madman

3. The weird double-headed guards with the life or death, truth or lie puzzle

It turns out, the simple but somehow complicated riddle that many children didn’t stop to think about for longer than 5 minutes was a variation of an old logic puzzle called Knights and Knaves.

The same puzzle has even been featured in fun mystery shows like Doctor Who and Samurai Jack, and the basic riddle has built up a bit of a fan base over the years.

Here’s how it goes.

Labyrinth’s Liar’s Paradoxical Riddle

The premise of the puzzle is somewhat basic. The young adventurer Sarah approaches a fork in the road of a labyrinth where there are two guards waiting in front of two doors.

1. One of the doors leads to her freedom and the other door leads to certain death.

2. One guard is red and the other is blue.

3. One can only tell lies and the other can only tell the truth.

4. Sarah is also only allowed to ask a yes or no question and to only one of the guards.

5. The lying guard kind of wants you to die (by taking the death door).

The problem?

What question should Sarah ask the guards to make sure she picks the safe door and doesn't end up locked in a deathtrap with Glam Rock David Bowie?

Take a moment to think about the problem and we’ll get to the answer shortly.

Now I’ll fill up some space so you don’t see the answer inadvertently.

Hmm, what to put here?

How about some fun trivia for the movie Labyrinth?

1. The owl in the opening credits was one of the first uses of CGI in a movie (it came out in 1986)

2. All the fun rolling around and juggling of the crystal ball by David Bowie’s character was actually a professional juggler crouched and hidden behind him

3. Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mick Jagger were also considered for the role of the Goblin King Jareth (David Bowie’s character)

Or what about a scary clown?

Anyway, now that you’ve thought of the answer, we can test your knowledge and see!

The Solution to Labyrinth’s Two Door Riddle

Essentially, there are two different scenarios.

Let’s say for the sake of argument you want to ask the red guard about which door to take.

Furthermore, let’s say he’s the one that can only ever tell the truth.

The problem is, of course, we have no idea if he’s the liar or the truther.

So, that leaves us with a clever answer and the one used in the movie, albeit with a bit different wording.

“Would the blue guard want me to take this door?”

If you pointed at the good door — the one where you’ll survive — the red truth-telling guard would say “No!” because the blue lying guard wouldn’t want you to go through that door.

If you pointed at the bad door — where you’d die — the red truth-telling guard would say “Yes!” because the blue lying guard wants you to venture off to a fiery death.

Let’s flip the equation now and talk to the blue lying guard.

“Would the red guard want me to take this door?”

If you pointed at the good door, the blue lying guard would say “No!” because he knows the red truthful guard would say “Yes!”, but he has to lie and say the opposite.

Similarly, if you pointed at the wrong door, the blue lying guard would say “Yes!”, because he knows the red truthful guard would say “No!”, and again, he has to say a lie.

Still sound a bit confusing?

Perhaps this last part can help tie it all together.

Since you phrase the question this way, both guards will give you the same answer!

If you point at the good door where you’ll live, both guards will say “No!” because of how the logic is phrased. If you point at the bad door where you’ll die, both guards would say “Yes!”.

And all you need to do is simply choose the opposite of what they say.

The double negative of manipulating the liar guard kind of cancels out, allowing Sarah to pass through the correct door and…well, I won’t spoil the rest of the movie.

Mostly because I can’t remember it right now.

But another way to think about it is like multiplying two negatives together, they cancel out.

And yet another way to grasp this is to remember the lying guard can only ever lie. By asking him what the truth-telling guard would say, you catch him in a form of liar’s paradox.

So, the next time you find yourself in an elaborate labyrinth meant to either kill you or reward you—perhaps something built ‘by’ Elon Musk in the near future—then you’ll know exactly how to survive.

Just remember to thank me later.

Unless you’re still confused and end up falling into a death trap — in which case you won’t be around to thank me later — so that cancels out too.

J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

A huge petroleum reservoir was discovered just over 100 years ago in Wichita County, Texas. Much like the Klondike Gold Rush way up north, people flooded the area, increasing the surrounding population by 20,000 seemingly overnight by 1918.

Oil men, riggers, and all sorts of would-be fortune finders headed straight to the reservoir to set up camp.

Nearby was the formerly quiet town of Wichita Falls, the seat of the spacious county. It was here the people decided would be the perfect place to set up the logistical hub to operate the oil boom.

Space was short.

Would-be oilmen filled the streets with tables, tents, and shanties to make any deal they could under the sun. And profiteering businessmen were lurking on the edges eager to find any one-up they could.

Enter J.D. McMahon, a petroleum land owner and engineer.

Building an addition

Near the main train depot of Wichita Falls was a building officially called the Newby–McMahon Building. One of its tenants, J.D. McMahon, saw the lack of office space and proposed an addition on the side of the building — an entire skyscraper!

He made his blueprints and courted several eager businessmen who had alighted upon the town to invest around $200,000 or $3.1 million in today’s equivalent to build it.

The contract and blueprint laid out plans for a building with the dimensions of ~480" tall, ~260" deep, and ~120" wide.

Given the rush to make money and the eagerness of everyone involved, the blueprints were quickly signed off on and the building was built in record time.

Why record time?

As I’m sure some of you noticed, the plans used inches (“) instead of feet (‘)!

Instead of a 44 floor building jutting out against the horizon, the newly completed building was only 40 feet tall — as the investors soon found out.

He Said, She Said

The investors promptly sued J.D. McMahon for defrauding them, but according to local hearsay, they mostly wasted their time. Why? Because J.D. never used the word “feet” in any of his communications or contracts.

By the time they discovered all this, it didn’t much matter, as J.D. had already fled town with the leftover money.

Hilariously, the building was still used.

It didn’t even have stairs built into the four-story building — they used ladders for a period of time until stairs were installed. Now they occupy a good 25% of the entire floor space.

Originally considered a huge embarrassment to the town, locals eventually grew a certain fondness for it, especially after its nickname of The World’s Littlest Skyscraper was adopted.

Since then, the building has been occupied by various shops and businesses over the years, eventually being transferred to the Wichita County Heritage Society, where they have been attempting to keep it from disrepair.

So, what does the World’s Littlest Skyscraper look like today?

Well, not so great.

And I honestly laughed when I saw how tiny it is:

Note the sign required to point out where the skyscraper is — perhaps the only one in existence in the world?

In a world where size often matters, this tiny building stands as a good reminder that sometimes, the biggest scams come in the smallest packages.

J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

Written by a targeted J.J. Pryor.

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

*All images made with DALL-E 3.

A “false front” is where the front of a building extends upwards beyond the roof, with nothing really situated behind it.

The adventurous businessmen of the Old West knew there was a good chance their newly built towns wouldn’t last too long, so they scrimped on spending.

They also wanted to impress those opulent tourists who came sauntering through town too — thus, the false-but-pretty and useless front.

We probably know them more from Westerns—those Earthbound versions of Star Wars—where you’d see gunmen falling humorously off rickety tall wooden walls overtop the saloon or the House of the Rising Gun.

Not just because of historical accuracy — the filmmakers also needed cheap temporary buildings to use in front of the cameras. Yet, we, the movie goers, just as the tourists, still marvel at the grandioseness of the set.

But pull back the veil and it all comes crashing down.

My hometown in Canada had these beautiful unoccupied brick houses in most neighborhoods. If you snuck around back, as a kid is wont to do, you’d hear the reason why.

They were some sort of electricity transmission power stations.

I didn’t know exactly what they were as a kid. I clearly still don’t, other than that they, too, were a false front meant to keep local housing prices unaffected.

When I visited Cuba, where my book haters must surely assume I was indoctrinated, I marveled at the towns driving through on my rented scooter.

Their false fronts were painted in the widest variety of loud, clashing, ugliest damn painted walls you ever could see.

Lemon zest with a hint of rebellion. Flamingo caught in toast. Blue. Yuck. The only universal quality among them was the specks of paint slowly chipping off revealing the communisticky constructed concrete beneath.

It took me a bit of time to figure out what these were, especially as I came to see them time and time again in my travels.

Turns out, the government had these false fronts painted for little ol’ me—the gullible tourist.

Although in this particular case, I’m sure the jefe behind that idea was, perhaps, colorblind, +- the color.

And it’s this last one that got me thinking.

While the other false fronts often had a basic purpose — be it saving money, saving beauty, or saving disappointment — there is another kind of false front.

The kind meant to deceive for not-so-nice purposes.

These are called a “Potemkin village.”

And I hate them.

What is a Potemkin Village?

The disputed story behind the phrase is almost amusing, if it wasn’t so reminiscent.

Catherine the Great was due to visit her newest territory of Crimea after Russia annexed it in 1783 (sound familiar?). She had a minister and possible lover that went by the name of Grigory Potemkin who was now in charge of the war-torn region.

As a new great war approached the Russian empire of the time, the Empress decided to visit the frontline territories with a select few foreign ambassadors.

She feasibly wanted to drum up a good impression to help garner their support (and money and soldiers and weapons) for the battles to come.

In Catherine and Potemkin’s minds, that required putting on a show.

As the Empress and her entourage toured into Crimea on a large slow-moving barge down the Dnieper River, Potemkin allegedly had a series of fanciful villages set up and occupied by his troops to put on a false front of newfound prosperity.

The amusing part of the story alleges that these villages were then dismantled and rebuilt in a different order, over and over again as the barge drifted slowly down the river.

Frugal, crafty, and impressive — a triple win straight out of an 80s cartoon, if true.

But whether or not the story is actually real is another matter. Because in the modern age, I can’t help but see Potemkin villages everywhere I look.

We’re Living in a Potemkin Village

The examples stretch far and wide.

Just think about the definition — an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition— and you can imagine the possibilities.

The stage is set every New Year's Eve, where grand declarations of hitting the gym echo into the night, only to be forgotten as quickly as the resolutions were made.

The gym waits, empty and hopeful, but our couches win the day in the end.

Flash to Instagram, where a thousand clicks boil down to a single, polished snapshot. Here, everyone's life is an endless parade of perfect moments, a tropical vacation that never ends.

But behind the screen?

Just ordinary days, ordinary midriffs, and ordinary highs and lows of life, minus the glamour filter.

Cut to the '50% Off Store', a permanent fixture in the retail world. Prices slashed forever on a discount that never really was.

It's a perpetual sale, a bargain in name only. So Potemkiny.

Zoom in on 1982. Donald Trump, before his days in the Oval Office, stages a construction site. Bulldozers push dirt aimlessly, all to create the illusion of progress, convincing investors to buy into his casino dream.

Fast forward, and his presidency plays out like a sequel, grand statements with little foundation and 30,573 reasons to not vote for him ever again.

But it's a script followed by many in the political theater, where Ex-Twitter becomes the stage for grand gestures and hollow promises.

A politician blames windmills for a crisis, then escapes to warmer climes while his state freezes. Another makes bold claims on social media, only to contradict them in action. Anti-this or anti-that politicians get elected on their platforms, get accepted into the ultra-lucrative game of favors from führers, and their morals vanish from existence.

A tech giant testifies before Congress, the company's polished exterior promotes only ‘benefits for society’ while sucking at the teat of our collective fortunes behind closed doors. Celebrities preach environmental conservation, then jet off in private planes. Major corporations tout diversity, yet their boardrooms tell a different story.

With a $5,000 rejuvenated wink and a $17,000 facelifted grin, they tell us tourists of life exactly what we want to hear, time and time again.

But remove the false front, and what do they mean?

The Grand Illusion of Anti-Social Media

Everywhere you turn, especially in the digital colosseum we call the internet, Potemkin villages abound.

Have we forgot what a penguin is? Even if it waddles, squawks, and behaves like a corrupt POS penguin who no one knows how it got elected in the first place?

Or perhaps we have a collective case of ignorance, where the only sane person in a room full of whackos finally starts wondering who the real lunatic is.

Our online existence, “social media”, a mirage we can't seem to escape, is built on a foundation of half-truths and doctored realities.

• Facebook 'friends'? Friendly strangers.

• Those LinkedIn connections? More distant than the stars in the night sky.

• The daily newsfeed? An algorithmic cocktail of facts and fiction, served with a twist of induced rage.

And the culprits?

It's easy to point fingers.

Media moguls with their empires of influence, spinning tales that fit their agendas. TV pundits stirring the pot, cooking up controversies for ratings, even at the cost of common sense and collective cohesion.

But what about us, the everyday people?

We’ve ever so slowly—but willingly—checked into this grand illusion.

In the beginning, Potemkin Village was just a dingy motel by the roadside, occupied by shifty advertisers, dreamy tech-inventors, and smooth-talking politicians.

But we saw something else — a shimmering mirage of convenience, connection, and a chance to share our accomplishments with those we cared about and those we wanted to impress.

So, we moved in, one by one, then in droves.

Now, trapped in this illusion of our own making, we find it's not so easy to check out. We're in Hotel California, humming along to a tune that's become our reality.

In this world of make-believe-real-life, we've unwittingly become both the audience and the performers. We've donned the rose-colored glasses, blurring the lines between what's real and what's just a well-crafted show.

As they say, if a service is free, you are the product.

And after all these years of social mediaizing ourselves to death, it’s not the temporary villages by the side of the river or the ugly colors of the Cuban houses that are Potemkin’s vision—it’s us.

We’ve settled so far up our own asspirations we can’t tell a false front from a penguin suited duck.

Potemkin Village, once a metaphor for deception, is now our zip code. We've settled in, decorated the place, and hung up our hats.

A wonderful bustling village full of beautiful people, golden yachts, and gorgeous, but oh-so realistically achievable (of course!) lives.

Yet, completely and utterly devoid of truth.

Welcome, dear friends, to the promised age of the future:

Welcome to Potemkin Village

Population: Us

Written by a ranty J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

*All images made with DALL-E 3.

Written by a cheery J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Share

Leave a comment

Not all good stories have a happy ending.

When people make the ultimate commitment to their significant others, they state their vows and live happily ever after until the very end.

Usually.

But sometimes those two points can intersect in the naughtiest of fashions. And that’s exactly what happened to these 5 people who died making love and breaking their vows at the same time.

“Your cars are very ugly and they smell very bad.”

No one expected Félix Faure expected to become the most powerful person in France in 1895. He was unassuming, polite, and didn’t have the ambition to rise to the very top.

But luck rolled in his favor when the National Assembly had to break a stalemate for an election. They required someone who was somewhat unbiased and non-hated.

In steps Félix.

Vive le président!

A couple short years later he met Marguerite Steinheil. She also seemed to not-hate him, and soon became his mistress.

He died while in office and, well, while avec Marguerite.

Félix was found dead in a room with her and half his clothes missing. A rumor at the time proclaimed she was performing tête on him when he suddenly had a seizure.

Unfortunately, she may have blown off a bit more than he could handle that day.

“A man should make all he can, and give all he can.”

Nelson Rockefeller was a famous businessman and politician during the mid-20th century in America. He was born into a life of luxury as the grandson of the legendary John D. Rockefeller.

Later on in life, he governed the state of New York and went on to the Vice Presidency of the United States from 1974 to 1977.

Nelson was notable for several different hobbies. He collected art, he loved architecture, and he was rumored to enjoy plenty of extramarital affairs.

His death was no different — it included all three.

On January 26 of 1979, he suffered a fatal heart attack. He was with a 25-year-old former aide from his vice presidency, in an apartment he paid for furnished in his fine art.

What does a young lass named Megan Marshack do when helping a former vice president cheat on his wife, inadvertently killing him in the process?

Call her reporter friend, apparently.

Ponchitta Pierce, reporter at large, immediately went to her friend’s place and promptly called an ambulance. Promptly being 1 hour later, in this case.

The Rockefeller family had Nelson’s remains cremated shortly after his death, and an autopsy was never performed.

If he actually died in the act, no one really wanted to know. But I’m sure Megan may have had a few long-lasting nightmares.

The first of which would’ve been where to find a new apartment in pricey uptown New York.

“The most dangerous tendency of the modern world is the way in which bogus theories are given the force of dogma.”

Jean Daniélou grew up in France during the tumultuous period of the world wars. His father was an anti-church politician in the French government for many years.

Ironically, Jean himself went the opposite direction, becoming a member of the Jesuit branch of the Catholic Church. He was also a noted religious historian, publishing over 20 related works throughout his life.

His prominence grew to such a magnitude that Pope Paul VI made him a Cardinal in 1969.

5 short years later, he was found dead inside a prostitute's abode.

Historians and religious figures argue over just what he was doing inside that home, and the full truth was never admitted.

It didn’t help when the initial reports from the Catholic press changed their story no less than 3 times in the aftermath of his body’s discovery.

And of course, when organizations repeatedly change what the truth is, they’re definitely not trying to hide something, right?

Jean Daniélou may not have been married to a woman, but he may have cheated on his vows nonetheless.

How many women have been pope? Nun.

Pope John XII was one of the more infamous popes to have ever served. He was both the ruler of the Papal States in Rome as well as the pope for almost 9 years starting in 955 AD.

He was also quite young for a pope, starting his tenure at the young age of 18! He was also quite horny.

Most historians agree he was more of a ruler of people rather than of religious virtues. He was promiscuous and belligerent throughout his reign.

Other leaders weren’t too fond of the pope behaving in this manner and soon looked to stop him.

In an attempt to stave off his enemies, John appointed the German king Otto I as emperor and sworn protector of the Papal territories.

As king Otto slowly started to retake conquered holy lands, the pope grew increasingly paranoid that he would be backstabbed. At one point, he decided to reach out to his sworn enemy’s son to create a coalition against his own crowned Emperor.

Confused yet?

Yea, me too.

Eventually, emperor Otto learned of this unexpected betrayal and came to bring the pope to justice. He won the city of Rome while the pope fled into the countryside, along with the holy treasury.

King Otto may have been just about as bright as Johnny because after deposing him, he left the city to it’s newly instated rulers.

A little while later, Johnno mustered up a small army of supporters and retook Rome, again. After mutilating some of his enemies in a not-so-holy manner, he sent out envoys to plea with Otto for leniency.

Before he could hear a response, John died while outside the city doing some hunting.

What was he chasing? Nothing less than forbidden fruit of course — a married woman.

He was thought to have died either from internal bleeding after the encounter, or from being beaten to death by the cuckolded husband.

Holy sh*t.

Written by J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

Written by a jolly J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

One summer when I was a kid, I decided I'd master the pogo stick.

I found an old, rusty one at a garage sale and thought, "This is it." I brought it home, oiled it up, and told my family to watch out — I was on a mission.

For two whole months, that pogo stick and I were best friends.

I'd hop until I tumbled, get back up, and start over. I hopped at day, I hopped at night, I hopped until I gave my neighbors fright. There was something almost peaceful about it. Up and down, ad infinite, counting into numbers higher than I ever consecutively before.

But by the end of the summer, the pogo stick went back into the garage, never to be seen again.

And it got me outside and away from screens, which made my parents pretty happy and hopeful that pattern would stick (hah).

But what if my parents were the real reason I spent all summer hopping?

What if my culture and environmental way of life demanded that I hop and hop and hop ’til I no longer could drop?

What if it was like that for some kids, but even more intense?

For the children of the following peoples, that was the case. Their community’s genetics or culture or way of life demanded they hop and hop and hop, in their own special way.

And it gave them real-life superpowers because of it.

Life Under the Sea

Travel over to South East Asia and you may find yourself crossing paths with a special kind of human being. One that belongs to an ethnic group spread across thousands of kilometers of ocean and beautiful tropical islands.

Some people call them sea nomads, others sea gypsies.

Whatever the world names them, they are the remnant culture of a long-lasting thalassocracy situated between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

They are the boat people of South East Asia.

Their homes exist on mobile stilted houses rising above the seas. For other groups, their homes only touch land when they visit a harbor to trade. But all of their livelihoods come from beneath the waves that they spend most of their lives riding.

As you can probably guess, that way of life involves a lot of diving. The kind where you don’t have a SCUBA tank to help — free diving.

For at least one thousand years, people of this ethnic group have been spending up to five hours a day diving beneath the surface to catch lucrative sea cucumbers, pearls, and shells.

If you’ve ever believed in the phrase practice makes perfect, then imagine how that would go if you stretched it across 1300 years.

These people are underwater machines.

According to studies, an average person can hold their breath for around 30 to 90 seconds.

For the Sama-Bajau people — it’s slightly higher. Some claim to be able to hold their breath up to 780 seconds! More than 10 times the amount of a regular human.

They’ve also been observed regularly free diving 61 meters (200 feet) straight down into the bluish depths. While I may also be able to sink that far down, I’m not so sure I’d be able to come back up.

And since dealing with such great depths isn’t the easiest on our bodies — some members of the group actually rupture their eardrums at an early age — on purpose.

Now you might want to ask yourself, how dedicated are you to your profession? I don’t think I’m quite willing to lose any limbs over writing my scribbles. In fact, I seem to be actually gaining an extra one around my midriff.

But there is another side effect of having dozens of generations of people specializing in freediving. Their bodies adapted, genetically.

Among a few special gene markers, researchers who studied the group have found that the free diving families tend to have spleens that are about 50% larger than the rest of us.

And what does the spleen do? It stores oxygenated red blood cells. In other words, a mini-condensed SCUBA tank right inside their own body.

Neat.

It’s Getting Hot in Here

Travel up to Northern India and you might find yourself in a very peaceful environment. Surrounded by nothing but mountains, monks, and beautifully simplistic temples, you could finally relax.

Or die, because temperatures there can be phenomenally cold.

Perhaps that’s one reason that several Tibetan monks practice an ancient form of meditation called g Tum-mo or g-tummo. The world came to know of this form of graceful contemplation after seeing reports of monks being layered in cold soaking wet towels that become bone dry within an hour.

The crazy thing — this occurs while the monks are sitting and meditating in near-freezing-cold temperatures of around 4°C (40°F). Steam can even be seen rising from the towels before another one is draped over them.

And while this sounds like something out of a child’s bedtime story — studies have shown it's a real thing.

Not only were the monks proved to be able to slow their metabolism by an astounding 60%, but their fingers and toes increased in temperature too, by over 8°C (14.4°F)!

Researchers studied the practitioners multiple times over a few decades to determine if this was actually possible, and if so, how. Their conclusions were the monks used two specific techniques — forceful breath and gentle breath — to naturally elevate their body temperatures.

They found these techniques, especially when practiced day in and day out for years on end, were able to activate areas of our brains responsible for autosomatic reactions in our bodies. This area includes, most importantly, the function of vasodilation.

This is a process in our veins and arteries where blood vessels become wider, allowing more blood to flow in. This results in less blood pressure and a warmer temperature in those areas.

And so, even if it seems like magic, people really can warm themselves up with pure thought alone. Mind over matter, indeed.

Run, Rarámuri, Run

Hop across the planet and plop yourself down on the rocky hills of Chihuahua, an area in Mexico. There you might find yourself in the middle of a race you have absolutely no chance of winning. One that has no breaks, goes through day and night and seems to never end.

If that’s the case, you might be running alongside a member of the Rarámuri (or Tarahumara, as the Spanish called them). Some of you might have heard of them in the bestselling novel, Born to Run, which topped the charts in 2009.

The Rarámuri live an interesting lifestyle. The area they live in is a landscape of vast mountains and canyons. And as their food comes from a variety of fruits, plants, and animals — their land requires they stay active.

One of the more interesting aspects of their culture is how they hunt. It’s called persistence running and it couldn’t have a better name. Perhaps I can explain what that is with a simple story.

Imagine going out and hunting a deer. But not with a gun or a bow (although that is sometimes used), but by chasing it down. Now look down and realize your footwear is extremely basic, not much more than a tied-on flipflop.

And then look around you to see hills, canyons, and mountains with all their rocky pleasures just waiting for you to stub a toe on.

Then ask a zoologist and find out that deer can run up to 80 km/hr (50 mph) — nearly double our own greatest efforts!

So, the only way to win — and have dinner later — is to outlast them until the point of exhaustion.

And that’s why the Rarámuri became famous. Because they’re likely some of the only people capable of doing just that.

Their culture also reflects the specialness of these long but seldom hunts. As part of a ritual, the group holds footraces that can last for hours on end, often up to 18 hours straight and lasting overnight.

One elder of the group even said she once saw a race that lasted 72 hours straight!

Even more interesting? The races usually involve collectively kicking a wooden ball between the racers. Call it an ancient version of soccer if you’d like. But even though soccer games can seemingly last forever, at least they don’t go on for 3 days!

What kind of a sport would ever do that?!

***cricket(s)***

Written by a bouncy J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

Who doesn’t like a good mystery? Georg Baresch sure did. Way back in 1637, he wrote to a famous polymath about a mysterious book he had in his vast collection.

In the letter, he mentioned a mysterious “sphynx” that was taking up space in his library. An old book with detailed drawings and sloppy paint depicting plants, animals, and star structures, many of which don’t exist.

On top of that, the entire tome of 170,000 characters and 240 pages was written in a language that no one in recorded history has any knowledge of whatsoever.

Fast forward 400 years later, and scientists have finally figured out what that language actually was — about 50 plus times, that is.

Because every one of the studies, guesses, and estimations on just what the hell the Voynich Manuscript actually is have been torn apart by other researchers, time and time again!

What is the Voynich Manuscript?

Firstly, the Voynich Manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a rare book collector who first acquired it in 1912. And that’s about as far as our factual history goes.

The thing is, as much as scientists have tried to decipher the language used, the images inside, and the entire purpose of the book, no one can come to an agreed consensus on what the hell this book actually is.

First, in 2009, the University of Arizona carbon dated the manuscript to between 1404 and 1438. Secondly, the first record of the tome is from the letters Georg Baresch wrote some 200 years later.

The language used is also completely unique.

• Some have suggested it’s a form of Greek or Latin short-hand, only to be disproved.

• Others have proffered it’s a form of Mandarin Pinyin or other South-East Asian languages, only to be disproved.

• Others have said the language is just gibberish and completely made-up, only to be disproved.

• Others have made proffered the text is actually hidden by using a cypher, as the original owners were under the watchful eye of the church, only to be disproved.

There are dozens and dozens of other theories, some even using advanced computerized statistical analysis, and all seem to fall short.

And then there are the drawings

A multitude of drawings of plants takes up a large section of the book. Most researchers note their similarities to alchemist drawings at the time, trying to break down what constitutes a certain type of plant and how it can be used medicinally — but we can’t read what the pages describe.

Then there are the drawings of the sun, moons, and stars. Most drawings are often accompanied by pictures of nude women, almost as if the artist viewed them as a necessary component. The book even shows the symbols for the 12 zodiac constellations — complete with 30 female figures painted around each one.

Afterward, there are pages and pages of drawings showing elaborate causeways, pipelines, islands, a few castles, and even a multi-page fold-out of a large volcano.

All with accompanying undecipherable text and, of course, paintings of nude women.

It’s the common theme of the female body and the many plant descriptions that gives an impression to many researchers the manuscript was a type of medicinal book for affluent women.

But then again, most of the plants don’t seem to even exist in the first place, with many pictures showing Lovecraftian hybrid plants consisting of roots, leaves, and flowers — all from different species.

In short, it’s a magical tome full of magical species written in a magical language — and we have no damn idea what it was meant for.

Who Knows?

While we may never know the actual purpose of this mysterious language and manuscript, it certainly won’t stop researchers all over the world from trying to find out the answer to this.

And maybe that’s the only certainty that can come out of this book.

That people’s egos will continue to drive them to discover the secrets of the manuscript. That every scientist and programmer and statistician who sits down and spends years of their life trying to unlock the code of a magical book of gibberish are spending their valuable time not so much to further humanity, or history, or knowledge, but to come out on top as being THE scientist to crack the case.

And if that’s what’s truly driving them, then maybe whoever created this book in the first place is still laughing in whatever grave they wound up in.

Because that’s my guess — that this entire thing was an elaborate joke created as a hobby by a very intelligent individual with enough funding to spend craploads of time crafting such a work.

And until proven otherwise, I’ll continue thinking that’s true.

Because it makes me laugh. And laughter is more important than a made-up language about made-up plants and made-up accolades of who can be the smartest scientist on the planet to crack such a made-up mystery.

If you’re curious to see the Voynich Manuscript in its entirety, Yale University — which holds possession of the book since 1969 — has digitized it for all to see.

Happy deciphering!

Do you know of any intriguing mysteries out there? Would love to hear (and maybe write) about them.

Leave a comment

Written by a mystery-loving J.J. Pryor.

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

Today, amazingly, marks the 500th copy of my book being sold.

I should be popping open a bottle of champagne and celebrating the milestone. And trust me, there's a part of me that is over the moon with joy.

But, there's another part that wonders "What if?"

You see, the black box of Amazon’s algorithm decided my book was too "political" for advertising on Amazon. Granted, it was 2020 and the US was about to experience one of its most debated elections; sensitivities were heightened.

But the thing is—my book wasn't some weighty political manifesto—it was a children's satire picture book!

If Gulliver could travel to Lilliput, why couldn't I jest about politics in child-like caricaturesque landscapes?

The sting grew sharper when I'd find actual political books comfortably nestling in those lucrative sponsored ad slots on Amazon.

Perhaps the algorithm found my satire a tad too spicy?

Nevertheless, I plucked away organically.

Articles, social media posts, emails to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who had ever expressed even the slightest interest in my musings.

Even some of you reading this very newsletter 3 years ago (there were dozens of you!) might remember my zealous crusade. That strategy bore fruit. I saw a surge of about 150 sales in the first month, and I was elated.

Strangers from Finland to Florida had ordered a physical copy of my silly book and possibly had it on their coffee table, framed on the wall, or even in the trash—as surely Reddit user bustermust, who might need to look up what the word satire means—would’ve done:

And here we are three years later.

500 sales!

Pretty damn spanky, if I do say so myself.

But I had to know, was 500 copies of a book anything to write home about, in non-book format?

Books, It’s Not What’s For Dinner Anymore

According to the Amazon entry for my book, it currently ranks:

• #223,807 in Books

• #422 in Political Fiction Books

• #1,325 in Fiction Satire

• #1,492 in Humorous Fiction

Hmm, seems not too shabby for a little old unadvertised piece of child propaganda.

And certainly, if I had published it way back in 2005 when only 282,500 new titles were published and self-published in the US, that might’ve been pretty impressive.

But that’s a far cry from the estimated 4 million published and self-published books hitting our virtual and diminishingly corporeal shelves in 2022 alone.

But hey, at least the total book revenue for book sales must be increasing after all these years, right?

Right?!

Right.

Well, technically.

In 2022, American book industry revenues reached around $25.7 billion.

In 2000, it was…$25.3 billion.

And, of course, adjusted for that nasty little thing called the inflation effect, the industry’s revenue declined 38% in real value.

Ouch.

So, if the competition is crazy high now and the money isn’t really increasing, how do 500 book sales stack up against the average author?

I’m so glad you asked, dear reader!

I converted a nice set of statistics Kristen McLean—the lead industry analyst from NPD BookScan—shared in this comment section about the previous 52 weeks of combined book sales from the top 10 publishers ending in August, 2022:

All I have to say about that is—I had more than 12 copies, woo!

But really, it’s a rather eye-opening chart if you look closely. Less than 10% of books sold more than 5,000 copies that year.

5,000 copies of a published book.

And if you were to get a measly $2 per book as I did, even when copies sell for $15 (guess where all the extra money goes!), for an author to make a decent 6 figures from a book, they’d assumably have to sell in the 50,000+ range.

And for that, only 483 books, assumably by different authors, made the cut.

483 books out of ~4 million.

Holy sweet Jesus, we authors are playing the lottery!

Yet, to listen to my inner pesterer for a moment, I still have to ask myself, could I have sold more?

The What If Game

What if I could've advertised my book like my more fortunate politically connected contemporaries? My professional writer friend with over 20 books out there has always told me you have to advertise your books to make any money.

I always figured if I was given grand permission by the Algorithm Gods to place a bet with their service I might’ve gotten maybe 20% or 40% more sales.

I certainly would’ve appreciated it.

Turns out, I was likely far, far off.

According to a massive antitrust lawsuit filed by the FTC against Amazon recently, trying to sell your product or book on their platform without forking over a nice chunk of your revenue in ads is like asking a billionaire to give a shit about society.

The lawsuit states:

"Now, advertised products on Amazon are 46 times more likely to be clicked on when compared with products that are not advertised."

46 times!

4500% more!

That means for every organic search on Amazon where someone clicked on my book title, 46 more people would’ve clicked if I had forked over money for paid spots.

My writer friend is right.

For context, if my humble book sold 500 humble copies, and with some optimistic back-of-the-napkin math, that potentially would’ve been more than 23,000 book sales!

Now, I’ve made just over $1,000 in revenue from these sales, and you can be damned certain I’d be far happier if that number were closer to $46,000.

But I didn’t pay to play.

For whatever reason, Mr. Algorithm wouldn’t let me.

Subscribe now

Modern Ponzis Require Modern Schemes

It’s no wonder “successful Amazon sellers have to spend anywhere between 10 percent and 20 percent of their sales on Amazon ads.” And to top that proof off, one of Amazon’s biggest gains in revenue of the last few years has been—you guessed it—in advertising revenues.

“Amazon's advertising business has been its fastest-growing division for the past two quarters. Revenue for that division jumped 22% year over year in the second quarter, to $10.7 billion.

Further, ad sales managed to top Amazon's subscription revenue, which includes the $14.99 monthly payments from Prime members.”

As the story goes, somewhere around the mid-2010s, Amazon started to prioritize advertising over organic search. A few years later, the numbers speak for themselves and the FTC has finally taken notice.

It’s a bit of a vicious cycle.

Online retailers started seeing their sales drop lower and lower, and when they increased their Amazon advertising budget, lo and behold, their sales trajectory reversed!

But when advertising fees start taking out a bigger chunk of your revenue, you have to raise the price of your product if you still want to make any profit.

Just look at the data—a clearly monopolistic online market share of 82.3% between Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Target in 2022.

Now, extrapolate that to the greater economy at large knowing many of Amazon’s sellable products have increased their prices purely due to the algorithmic manipulation of higher advertising costs.

Cough, cough, inflation, anyone?

If ol’ Jeffy Bezelnut is to be believed and “advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service,” then the entirety of Amazon’s catalog must be full of absolute shite Chinese knockoffs.

Wait…maybe he was onto something.

Subscribe now

But Wait, There's More!

That’s right! After all the lessons, roller coaster rides, and fun with algorithms, I've finally mustered the caffeinated courage to finish another book.

Despite drowning in more procrastination than Elon Musk at a ‘Save the Earth’ seminar, I’ve penned down another work of art.

Why did it take 3 years?

Just my usual inner turmoil about the title. "Should I Sell My Soul to Jeff?" is still a work in progress.

But as they say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Yup, for this next one, I’ll be selling a part of my soul and flirting with the dark side of advertising.

I can almost hear some of you purists yelling, “Sell out!” And to that I say two things:

Correct.

And…

Better to have sold out than to have never sold at all!

If a sprinkle of soul-selling and ad dollars ensures that my snark and satire are read far and wide, ish, then, dear reader, pour me a glass of whatever it is spiritless billionaires drink.

The blood of children?

Anyway, before I sign off and head off to negotiate as Faust (I wonder if the devil prefers PayPal or Venmo?), here’s a simple promise to you: no matter how the book gets to you—through an ad, an organic search, or even a shady deal with an ancient demon—it's going to be filled with the same wit, charm, and perhaps a pinch more snark.

Or, it might suck and I’ll waste a few hundred on advertising so Amazon’s shareholders can continue leeching off the lifeblood of our society.

Either way, I’ll have another children’s satire picture book coming your way soon!

Written by J.J. Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share

Subscribe now

It was a sunny afternoon when my family found ourselves laughing at the antics of our mischievous little cat, Tigger.

He had taken a liking to our neighbor's flowerbed. Something about those elegant purple phloxes just screamed at him to make a tiny deposit as often as he could. Perhaps he felt he owned them, in only a way a cat could think.

To us, it seemed like playful behavior, and hey, perhaps Tigger was just helping fertilize those beautiful blooms that made the neighborhood a little brighter.

But of course, our neighbor didn't share our amusement. To her, Tigger was a menace, a tiny furball of terror that was desecrating her cherished garden.

One could often spot her brandishing a broom, swinging it wildly at Tigger, trying to shoo him away. But Tigger was swift, darting around with a mischievous glint in his eye, always eluding capture.

The scene, though comical, was a vivid depiction of contrasting perceptions.

What we saw as innocent fun, our neighbor saw as utter nuisance. Eventually, after a few calls from the city and threats to apprehend our furry companion, Tigger became an indoor cat — well, whenever he wasn't quick enough to slip outside.

Recalling this everyday encounter got me thinking a bit.

Here was a common scenario, a friendly spat between otherwise friendly neighbors. Yet the interpretations of the catscapades were as different as night and day.

How often do we come across situations where what seems clear as daylight to us is a perplexing enigma to others?

It's easy to understand that people have different tastes in food, art, or politics. But could it be that even with simple, straightforward things, we're not quite on the same page?

I See What You See?

Take a term as basic as 'penguin' for instance. You'd think we all have a similar image in mind; a cute, chubby, waddling bird in a tuxedo perhaps?

Well, Dr. Celeste Kidd and a group of researchers at U.C. Berkley decided to dive into this simple notion, and what they discovered was both amusing and astonishing.

Turns out, when it comes to understanding even the plainest of nouns, we're more of a mixed bag than a unified front.

The researchers engaged nearly 1,800 individuals in a quirky test, asking them questions such as comparing penguins to finchs or dolphins, and others such as if a penguin was considered noisy or not. Through some number-crunching magic, they figured there were about 10 to 30 different ways people were picturing a penguin.

But here’s the kicker — if you randomly pick two people, there's only a 12% chance they're thinking of a penguin in the same way.

Imagine that, something as simple as a penguin, and take 100 people, and only 12 actually think they consist of the same weight, look, feel, and noise level.

Idiotic, right?

But wait, how does a penguin look, feel, and sound?

If you asked me, I’d say your typical waddling quacker is around 3 feet tall, barks a lot in a quietish tone, has a yellowish beak, bears a tuxedo fur coating a fat little body, and probably weighs about the same as 3 delicious turkey dinners (anyone up for a new thanksgiving delicacy?)

Now, I could list the actual stats for a specific breed of penguin, but that’s not the point.

The point is, how many of you would describe the thought of a simple penguin in your head in roughly the same way?

According to that study, it’s only 12% of you — and that’s kind of frightening.

Penguin, It’s What’s for Dinner

The researchers called this phenomenon discrepant views and if the study’s results are representative of society at large, it might explain a few things.

Especially knowing they found that about every individual felt around “2/3 of participants will agree with them.”

That is, if I told you about this super cute cat named Tigger, I’d inherently assume 66% of you would be picturing my dark brown Maine Coone fluffball (R.I.P. Tigger) before remembering that he grew up before the age of Instagram and thus missed out on the world record for most likes.

But if I told you to picture an apple, a bowl of rice, or a waddling penguin, I probably wouldn’t pause and think, “Does this person even know what a bird is?”

I usually save that question for conversing with puppies, children, or MAGA fanatics.

But there’s the rub.

If we unknowingly can’t even agree on what the hell a penguin is, how are we to engage in meaningful productive discourse on things that actually matter?

Think Different

I’m reminded of the ideas behind “The medium is the message” and its follow-up, Amusing Ourselves to Death. These books postulated the idea our perception is shaped significantly by the medium through which we receive information.

As in, if information appears in a newspaper, it’s seen as more formal and authoritative, and if it appears on TV, it’s often seen as more engaging yet potentially less serious.

Think of an article appearing in AP News versus a talking head on Fox or CNN. One engages the brain, the other the heart.

I’m positive at least 66% of you understand what I mean by that.

But there's another layer to this, one that the penguin study brilliantly displays. It's not just the medium that shapes our understanding; it's our individual lenses of perception that color the information we receive.

Our minds are like invisible Raybans, interpreting the data into a unique range of colors only we truly experience. One person might be colorblind and another a super-seeing tetrachromacist.

And we don’t know who is wearing what style of Raybans at any given time.

That is, of course, unless we stop to ask. To try to understand the other party’s perceptions, life experiences, and reasons for believing and saying what they are.

But in our chaotic modern digital world, where every thought can be boiled down to a like, a retweet, or a 150-character expression of our entirety of being, who among us has the willpower to actually stop and think?

To ponder on the idea that beneath the world wide web of ideas is a nearly infinite ocean of varied understandings influenced by our past experiences, beliefs, and personal narratives.

Perhaps, before jumping at the temptation of one-upping another person with opposing penguinisms, we might try to stop and ask what the penguin did to them, first?

Or at least if they’ve had it for a delicious holiday dinner.

Written by a Tigger-missing JJ Pryor

👋Click the heart thingy? The algorithm loves it. I love it more.👋

Leave a comment

Share