Yahoo steers towards 'Buffy' conf. to upstage Media confer.

[barracuda]

I landed on Yahoo ten minutes ago and took this screenshot. If this was not vetted by someone in an intelligence agency, then the in-house editors at Yahoo are simply up to no good. Who in good conscience would be encouraging people to buy any house at this stage of the game? And in California? This is highly manipulative, and in a direction no well-meaning person would reasonably condone. Should this have been created without bad intent, these people must be stupid.

My google image searches for "woman yawn" and "girl yawn" do not reveal this particular image. Nor do they reveal very many images of exposed necks during the yawn, like in Hugh's post. Most are like this:



or this:



This doesn't prove Hugh's point, but it does point in the direction of a highly selected image. On the other hand, a google search for the article in question, "Don't sleep, be worried" brings up an article which mentions sleep-driving, making food while sleeping (sleep-cooking?), and snoozie-sex, but does not mention sleep-walking, or contain the phrase "scary things". So we can assume these tidbits were editorialized by someone at Yahoo.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of the most subversive shows on television.

Full disclosure: I personally have never watched Buffy on TV; only on a collected seasons video from my library. But I can tell you that for a half hour show, the episodes sans-commercials were less than 17 minutes long. Cut the titles and credits and you are down to about 14 minutes of dramatized script. I could stand to watch only about two episodes, and I looked hard for the subversion, as it was highly recommeded to me. I just don't see how a fifteen minute show with fifteen minutes of toothpaste sales intercutting the action is in any way subversive. My estimation of the episodes I watched was that the script simply did not correctly function in the abscence of the commercial interludes. It was as if the show had been amputated.

I am pointing these things out less to confirm Hugh's notions than to, at least, try to reasonably assess them.

And I do enjoy looking at Sarah Michelle Gellar. Mmm hmmm. Yahoo, indeed.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

.....
I am pointing these things out less to confirm Hugh's notions than to, at least, try to reasonably assess them.

.....

I was citing Sunday June 8 specifically. I copy/pasted the relevant page elements.

I haven't customized my access but there may be regional and even personal differences in what Yahoo displays based on internet use history and/or demographic sociology.

I suspect that personally-tailored psyops is the ultimate future (?) goal to maximize effectiveness, exactly the way Amazon gives you book recommendations.

Mainstream internet service providers like AOL and Yahoo are even more perfect for psyops than the traditional Operation Mockingbird psyops of newpapers, books, magazines, tv, radio, and movies.

The SF Bay area may get a different front page from a military-friendly area like the South where 50% of military recruits come from or San Diego which has big military bases.

All this can be done without people noticing, knowing why, and no explanation.
Seems like a perfect psyops lab to me.

The Yahoo front page has a very different tone on weekends from weekdays.
The news is far more sublimated in favor of steering towards consumption and amusement.

Perfect for making money AND perfect for keeping free time from being spent finding out what the hell is going on.

[IanEye]

Keyword: SLAYER.
...not very nuanced...

that would make a great sig line...

... not very nuanced ...

[barracuda]

I was citing Sunday June 8 specifically. I copy/pasted the relevant page elements.

I realize that, man. My thoughts here were in support of your notion of a highly manipulative word/image setting which transcends corporate profit centers and enters into propaganda. Fuck it.

[orz]

I landed on Yahoo ten minutes ago and took this screenshot.

Just looking at that, how can anyone even imagine that is manually updated on a daily or hourly basis by real humans operating to an insanely specific agenda exact to the last word, number and picture yet with no knowledge of what they are doing.

THIS IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE AND SIMPLY NOT HOW A MASSIVE WEB PORTAL SITE IS RUN.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

I was citing Sunday June 8 specifically. I copy/pasted the relevant page elements.

I realize that, man. My thoughts here were in support of your notion of a highly manipulative word/image setting which transcends corporate profit centers and enters into propaganda. Fuck it.

Sorry, didn't mean to tussle with an ally.
I really appreciate your even taking time to check it out and show stuff like that housing hype..

If I could take screen shots and paste them here the way you did, I could do almost a daily expose of editing tricks in layout.

This is standard operating procedure: maximizing profits/minimizing awareness.

[AlanStrangis]

barracuda: Buffy was an hour long show. Whatever video was at your library was probably heavily redacted/edited by the CIA and inserted back into the library to discourage more people from giving it a second look.



Hugh, Buffy was promoted to the teen/young adult crowd that watched the OC/90210, not the 12 and under set.

Now Xena, at least would carry some small modicum of credibility from my perspective because it was regularly aired on weekend mornings, when kids would likely be watching.

[orz]

If I could take screen shots and paste them here the way you did, I could do almost a daily expose of editing tricks in layout.

Please nobody tell him how...

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

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Just looking at that, how can anyone even imagine that is manually updated on a daily or hourly basis by real humans

Why would there be zero human input? All automatic? All the time? No way.

A hybrid of algorithms and editorial review/intent is the most likely model of control.

operating to an insanely specific agenda exact to the last word, number and picture yet with no knowledge of what they are doing.

Messages are just inserted when need/opportunity arises. Pretty simple. And EASY.
And I AGREE that there is knowledgable complicity. That's important to carrying out the task to best effect.

[orz]

Why would there be zero human input? All automatic? All the time? No way.

A hybrid of algorithms and editorial review/intent is the most likely model of control.

Yes that's probably exactly how it works, and this introduces too much randomness, and too much involvement of low-level workers not 'in on it' worldwide, for it to be feasible that the many very specific connections you've made to be intentional and exactly planned.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Interesting that my op was about three things-
-Yahoo internet manipulation
-the Media Reform Conference
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And Buffy wins. lol.

.....
Hugh, Buffy was promoted to the teen/young adult crowd that watched the OC/90210, not the 12 and under set.

Now Xena, at least would carry some small modicum of credibility from my perspective because it was regularly aired on weekend mornings, when kids would likely be watching.

There's quite a bit of spill-over in viewing. Whatever is on TV gets to kids even though Saturday morning is a special time for the youngest.

Heck, I hardly watch TV for years now and I get plenty of 'Buffy' in my life from briefly dating a fan, the show's advertising and odd merchandise and even *philosophy book* at Borders.

The same spill-over happens with anything marketed whether you watch it as a fan or not. This is how I re-learned how to notice the essence of pop media images and messages that children pick up through titles, role-models, themes, and stereotypes.

[orz]

This exact same thread wasn't too interesting when we had it about a year ago, and it hasn't improved much.


There are so many variables involved in what a specific user, in a specific place, at a specific time, sees on the yahoo front page that if you study apparent connections between the items it's basically a form of scrying. Try tea leaves or TV static instead for less boring results.

And if you believe these apparent connections are subliminal messages to you put there by a 100% secret massive conspiracy penetrating every level of the Yahoo company, without anyone even once having raised the slightest suspicion(?), operating right down to the detailed level of specific headlines and images, and conspiring with or manipulating academic event organisers to organise the dates of events etc etc etc then you are or might as well be a paranoid schizophrenic.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Why would there be zero human input? All automatic? All the time? No way.

A hybrid of algorithms and editorial review/intent is the most likely model of control.

Yes that's probably exactly how it works, and this introduces too much randomness,

except when a story meant to be countered is coming and prepared for with a diversion...

and too much involvement of low-level workers not 'in on it' worldwide,

How would this be less possible with staffing than other psyops in media?
An inside psyop-complicit decider or a few and some immediate underlings doing their bidding is all it takes.

Heck, I knew a wonderful progressive woman who worked at Fox and just held her nose. Most employees do their compartmentalized job and rationalize away any potential compromises with their principles by appreciating a good secure income for their families.

for it to be feasible that the many very specific connections you've made to be intentional and exactly planned.

Have you seen the daily propaganda from the many media run by the US State Department's Broadcast Board of Governors?
Voice of America, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Marti, etc...

Spooks have run daily media quite well for decades. They run as normal media with normal staff but with deciders and perps who do the spook stuff within that cover.

Have you read 'USA Today' newspaper on a daily basis?
Pure CIA/State Department schlock every day.

[compared2what?]

A superficial description is quite adequate for how children see tv shows.
That's how parents and lefties and academics and more nuanced viewers miss the effect on youth.

Keyword: SLAYER.
...not very nuanced...

This is just 'sacred warrior' role modeling ala Star Wars but for girls-

I beg to differ. As would any number of the 10-to14-old girls known to me who have watched it, none of whom had any trouble perceiving that it is exposing "sacred warrior" role modeling, not promoting it. During the seasons when that was what it was doing. Which wasn't all of them. But in general, from a girly perspective, if there was one thing it definitely was, that thing would be nuanced. Institutional hidden evils aside, it is about a teen girl whose fundamental dilemma is that her mandate (preventing the hellmouth on which Sunnydale High School is situated from being opened) prevents her from achieving liberty and independence, specifically wrt issues of sexuality and gender. In short, if she doesn't keep the hole sealed, she exposes herself to a world of risk. But if she does keep the hole sealed, she can't have much of a life in the world at all. Actually, on the sexuality tip, it's an elaborate dissertation on rarely mentioned nuances for teens of all genders and gender orientations.

Obviously, some or all of this subtext did not reach every single viewer of the program. That is no fault of the program's. It is a sad state of affairs the best solution to which is probably an educational system that encourages children and adolescents to become thinking viewers.

I vigorously and strongly object to any and all debasement of populist art that depends either on misunderstanding it or on the claim that since it will be misunderstood anyway, it might as well have no meaning as any meaning.

Furthermore, I am not arguing that there is any such thing as a single BtVS "philosophy." It was a television series that provided food for thought from which one, or more than one philosophies might be inferred, including mutually exclusive ones. That's one of the things popular art forms marketed to a youth demo are good for. (By which I mean that answering youth's need for its own thought-provoking texts and answering it well is a good thing, imo. Especially if you can dance to them.)

Barracuda -- The semi-season that was Season 1 isn't that good, let alone that subversive. However, seasons 2 and 3 are largely awesome;seasons 4 and 5 have a much-better-than-average awesome:lame episode ratio; and most episodes in season 6 are awesome and lame at one and the same time, but by then it doesn't matter, because if you've made it that far you will watch to the bitter end, including the god-awful, reprehensible, and incoherent final season.

But it's certainly not compulsory viewing, if it doesn't speak to you.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

This exact same thread wasn't too interesting when we had it about a year ago, and it hasn't improved much.

I've been watching Yahoo for a year more, though.

There are so many variables involved in what a specific user, in a specific place, at a specific time, sees on the yahoo front page that if you study apparent connections between the items it's basically a form of scrying.

Uh, no. When Yahoo puts just four stories in their "Featured" box, those are the four stories that will get the most reading. And that can influence the alleged "Today's Top Searches" which attracts those young personalities that want to see 'what everyone else is seeing.'

Even the alleged "Today's Top Searches" has had FAKE PLANTS inserted to foreshadow an upcoming story.

That's called "preparatory propaganda."

And Yahoo has used FAKE SOCIAL AFFIRMATION by inserting fake search results like that AND by leading readers to anonymous loaded answers in a questions section.

And if you believe these apparent connections are subliminal messages to you

To any reader, yes. Just like advertising and PR and perception management.

put there by a 100% secret massive conspiracy penetrating every level of the Yahoo company,

That's your totalist straw man, not what I said. Now your in Pan-mode, ay?

without anyone even once having raised the slightest suspicion(?), operating right down to the detailed level of specific headlines and images,

? hunh?

and conspiring with or manipulating academic event organisers to organise the dates of events etc etc etc

?? I never said any of that. You made it up.

then you are or might as well be a paranoid schizophrenic.

Well, since you just made that shit up, I retain my mental health, thanks.
And your distortions don't speak well of your attention to detail or proportionality.