Jessica Wildfire's Blog, page 436

This is great advice.

This is great advice. I’ve been doing this more or less for a year now, and it’s not only working but also more fulfilling. Strong ties over weak ones.

Don’t forget, he needs a snack break and a short nap after each lesson.

Don’t forget, he needs a snack break and a short nap after each lesson.

I’ve made my case!

I’ve made my case! It’s going to be a tense few weeks. I’ll be tweeting daily and trying to get others to do the same.

You described her pretty well. :)

You described her pretty well. :)

That’s okay.

That’s okay. I find super-aggressive behavior extremely attractive in men. My boyfriend says I can’t sleep with you, but we can sext! How about it?

A beginner’s guide to personal branding

Are you a struggling online artist? Outspoken personality? Passionate vlogger? Maybe your channel isn’t hitting those peak numbers, or your DeviantArt page hasn’t blasted off yet.

The rich and insta-famous all have one thing in common: wicked personal branding techniques. It’s true. If you want to slice through the deafening cries of “me-me-me” Internet noise these days, you need to take bigger risks. No pain, no money rain.

I’m not here to sell you a personal branding kit like the other marketing gurus. No, you need to go old school.

How old school?

Old West old school.

Brand yourself with an actual cattle brand.

Jason Kottke has already written a great post about designing cattle brands. Cattle branding already comes with its own vintage alphabet that’s just perfect for your new logo.

In cattle brands, letters come in all shapes and sizes — regular, tilting, legged, winged, running, dragged, walking, lazy, reversed, and upside down. They’re like sex that way.

Take a look at these samples. You can add symbols to your brand, too. Diamonds, circles, rails, lapped circles, and letters inside circles, crosses, and horseshoes.

The right choice of font can say a lot about your content, and highlight your vibrant persona. Just take a look at what you can do with a boring name like Sue:

From https://www.lsirish.com

Imagine Sue before she branded herself. Unbranded Sue sounds like someone who sits quietly on her couch on Friday nights reading a book about the Dewey decimal system and petting her overfed cat.

No look at Sue with a backwards S and a rail over her name. Now that Sue is going places. She definitely gets free drinks from whatever bar she goes to, where she live streams her blind dates from Tinder. Sue with a backwards S has a hundred thousand Instagram followers, and threesomes before brunch on Sunday, which she also live streams.

Now, meet Sue with a lazy u hugged inside a star. Are you sitting down? Because this Sue is going to blow your mind. She does naked karaoke on YouTube. Every video gets a million views. The president even liked one of her tweets. She’s besties with PewDiePie.

You don’t know who that is? OMG, kill yourself.

You’re wondering now, do you have to use a real cattle brand? Yes. Duh. Absolutely. No half measures on your social media.

You’re the real deal. You brand yourself FTW.

Don’t design a kickass, Old West-style cattle brand and then chicken out. A legit brand makes the difference between you and that basic girl who released her own debut album as a podcast.

You’ll need to order a branding iron from your local blacksmith. You think you don’t have one, but you do. It’s run by a buff hipster named Bradley — down the block from your raw vegetable bar.

The best organic blacksmiths have started opening self-branding stalls. That’s where you’ll take your iron. Dig a pit about ten inches deep, and purchase a sack of premium, environmentally-friendly branding coals for $75. Stick the iron in and wait until it grows red hot.

Wait, don’t brand yourself yet! Let the iron cool to a light grey temperature. If you brand yourself with a red hot iron, you’ll wind up in the ER.

They say all press is good press. They’re wrong. A personal branding accident isn’t good press.

Now, where you brand yourself matters the most. It’s best to avoid the forehead, because that could scare people. You don’t want your followers associating your brand with Manson — the biggest branding faux pas of the 20th century.

Now, the neck — that’s sexy. Make sure you apply the brand evenly with a rocking motion. Use your selfie cam to help guide final placement. Choose the application area wisely. That brand’s staying for at least 5 years.

You have endless options. Shoulder, hip, thigh, or flank. Everything depends on your life goals. Do you lead a virtual yoga studio on YouTube? Go for the midriff. A sexy little brand over your belly button could triple your traffic and attract all kinds of positive vibes.

Personally, I’ve considered branding my chest. That’s where everybody looks anyway. It’s prime time, high traffic attention real estate. Sure, my eyes are up here. But my brand’s down there.

You’re probably wondering about pain killers. No, not a good idea. That will dull your aim.

Sounds like a lot of work. Right? Just imagine tilting your head and pulling your hair back to expose that kissing spot, with your own initials emblazoned there. So hot. Your Instagram followers will go wild. Don’t be surprised if your phone burns out from the heat.

Top 25 Christmas facts you didn’t know

(From the unofficial Christmas wiki)

The first evidence of Christmas extends back a hundred thousand years, to fossil remains of Midwestern North America. Archeologists recently uncovered cave paintings of fir trees decorated with animal bones.

A dig in 2011 also revealed small stone objects chiseled and polished into what scientists believe are the first official tree ornaments.

Early hominids celebrated Christmas by human sacrifice rather than gifts. Each family offered up their least favorite relative, and the local priest harvested their organs and made festive dishes from them. This priest was usually an elder with a long beard, round belly, and a jolly laugh. On Christmas Eve, the priest would wrap the organs in animal skins and deliver them to the villagers. He traveled by dog sled.

The sacrifices themselves happened on the last Friday of November. Hence, Black Friday originally began as Red Friday.

Jesus made the first and most significant reforms to Christmas. He discouraged sacrifice and suggested toys instead. The first stuffed teddy bear was an actual bear cub. Other reforms by Jesus include the introduction of carols, hymns, and wood carvings of himself on a cross. The wood carvings became the most popular toys for both children and adults.

Everyone wanted one.

King Arthur XIV made Christmas a national holiday in 822 AD. But after that, the holiday changed little over the next several hundred years, until it began to fade from public consciousness. Instead, people worked or got drunk or had extensive amounts of sex.

The Christmas orgy became commonplace.

All that changed in 1855 when Charles Darwin wrote and illustrated a play about a selfish duck named Ebenezer Scrooge. In the first official Christmas drama, three ghosts visit the selfish duck. A cricket. A dog. And then finally a dementor from folktale versions of Harry Potter.

Darwin’s play taught people how to erase their past wrongs by giving away huge numbers of gifts one day a year and throwing a large party. This idea caught on and spread worldwide, stimulating the global economy and resolving the Great Depression.

During this era, Christmas cards also appeared. They became popular as a way of easing the burden of visiting extended family members. Often, a card could replace the social burden of an in-person exchange.

In 1926, Alexander Bell launched the first smartphone along with the enormously successful ad campaign, “Don’t visit. Just send a card and a text message.” Millions of young people bought phones exclusively to avoid long, painful conversations with judgmental relatives.

Christmas grew a sultry side during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Hugh Hefner introduced the first sexy Santa outfit for women. His magazine Playboy ran the first seductive Christmas ad in 1973 with the caption, “Be naughty this year.”

In 1983, Disney launched its popular cartoon series Duck Tales. The pilot episode was an adaptation of Darwin’s original masterpiece. The series put Disney Productions on the map, leading to the first ever plastic, mass-produced Christmas toys. By the following year, demand for plastic toys had exploded. Especially plastic toys in the shape of supermodels.

In 1992, Congress passed a bill making Christmas a month-long celebration to include shopping, movies, and holiday parties. Fitness companies lobbied for the lifting of FDA restrictions on the fat and sugar content of common holiday foods like pie, cookies, and eggnog. They began releasing “get back into shape” ads during the actual week of Christmas, and running membership specials in January to boost their bottom line.

The first Friday of January is now known among fitness gurus as “Fat Friday,” the day when body-shamed women wait in line outside of gyms for hours to take advantage of deals on memberships and equipment.

Christopher Columbus, the last living heir to the original who discovered America, released two historically significant films about Christmas in the 1990s. The original scripts chronicle the adventures of a young boy named Tom Sawyer, who outwits two Confederate army deserters who kill his parents and try to rob his house.

Fun fact: while the movies take place in late December, they were filmed during the summer. The entire cast developed seasonal affective disorder and required extensive therapy. The child actor who played Tom Sawyer never fully recovered.

Fun fact: Christmas lights originated in the 1950s. New suburban families had difficulty adjusting to neighborhoods with minimal street lighting. They kept missing the driveway when they parked, and accidentally tripping over lawn tools when they came home at night.

After an epidemic of shin injuries, neighborhood committees encouraged residents to install strings of lights on their houses and in their yards to provide illumination. Soon, children and adults alike began to complain how dull they looked. A prominent electrician named Dr. Seuss, also known for children’s books, invented the first multi-color flashing lights.

We hope you enjoyed this fist edition of “Top Christmas facts you didn’t know.” Have fun sharing these at office parties.

Welcome to Medium, then!

Welcome to Medium, then! On a related note, I found myself skimming through a Joel Osteen book last week. Strangely, if you take out the God stuff it’s pretty good advice. He talks about the need to stick to routines and hope even if your life sucks, because if you give up it will suck even more. Someone needs to write an atheist translation of his books. :)

Agreed. Thanks for reading!

Agreed. Thanks for reading!

That was an intense post.

That was an intense post. Great job writing so clearly about this kind of issue. You seem to be doing a lot better. I’ve found writing to be far and away the best kind of therapy.