Does anyone else think that voir dire is NOT the album that they hid on YouTube? Maybe I’m in my tinfoil hat shit but I read an article that said they made songs a month before the release unless they’re talking about the 2018 release. Also what where the fake names the fake album cover. Also in my opinion the songs sound like modern day earl.

Long time zen ape here. Following closely since January 2021.
Unfortunately I don't know how to paste images in to this post so I'll just use links and type stuff out instead. But I'll keep it short. Most of this has probably already been said but I just want to piece it all together in one post. It's also all my own opinion and why I've held since January 2021 and will continue to hold.
After the January squeeze, price was quite volatile and had stressful days up and down.
In January the volume was 300 million shares a day average (1.2 billion presplit). Then in February the volume was still high but not as high. About 50 million a day (200 presplit). Then suddenly on February 24th the volume was 332,446,800 (1329787200 presplit). And even more crazy the volume on February 25th was 601,235,200!!!! (2.4 billion presplit).
So what happened? On February 24th Ryan Cohen did his tweet with a McDonald's ice-cream and a 🐸 emoji. Reddit users were trying to figure out the meaning. But now with hindsight I think the short sellers froze the squeeze (ice-cream) and rolled over in to Leaps (leapfrog emoji).
So as we saw this week, the leaps can have a maximum of 39 months. Meaning a shit ton (potentially up to 601,235,200, which was the volume on 25th February) will expire by May 24th.
So then let's see... May 24th Ryan Cohen tween is Stan Smith from American dad underwater and starting to rise. So could it have meant that the price will rise until May 24th 2024.
A positive of LEAPS is you can close them at any time. So, over the last 3 years they could have been closed. But as we see from RKs YouTube video he referenced in his latest tweet, he talks about shorts closing if the sentiment around a company changes. However, as we see form the medias nonsense they still believe the company is going to zero with YOY revenue decreasing. So why would they have closed? Basically they haven't, they may have even doubled down. So this is mostly likely why we have such a huge volume all of a sudden and potentially huge price increases still to come as the LEAPs expire.
I can't remember exactly and can't download GMEs latest 10-k or latest quarter results but I'm sure I saw it mention that GameStop could buyback shares which could significantly increase the price. Can somebody confirm?
So what do I think will happen? I think there will be a squeeze and price increase dramatically around or past May 24th.
Will shorts close? Probably not because their sentiment hasn't changed yet. They still believe the company is dying. As the next year goes on, and GameStop maintains profitability and grows YOY and sentiment changes we will see a more slow and gradually (and less stressful) squeeze over the coming year in my opinion and I'm here for the long term.
So personally, in my opinion, without a doubt I'm holding tight in the infinity pool 💎✊
What does everybody else think? Anything im missing?

Looks like there are a lot of "Yas is trash" or "Yas is not too bad" after all the changes.
I'll say for certain that Yasuo isn't as horrible as I thought he was gonna be after LT and kraken changes, but he will definitely need a buff as people begin to understand the meta. I've played a few games on my main account, and a lot of smurf games (in the plat/emerald/diamond elo) and here is what I picked up so far...
1) Yasuo without LT feels weird, and this will take time to adjust too. So many fights I was confused why my AS felt slow and why I wasn't attacking as fast, and it would click in my head that I am running fleet not LT.
2) Although Yasuo's AS feels like shit, his ults feel a lot better than last season. I had a game on my main where I was able to get IE and BT and I landed a multiman knock up. The damage coming from my R was insane. All of the items giving more AD definitely shows in your R.
Overall, Yasuo is gonna need some love from Riot, but don't throw away all your hard years on Yasuo for Yone or other champs just yet. Let the boy cook! I have a feeling once he sees some love from Riot he will be back to a decent spot.
Now this leads me to builds and runes.
Runes:
Fleet: Absolute favorite so far. Sustain in lane is amazing (keep in mind I play mid vs a lot of poke). I primary mid, so as a mid Yasuo I really really like fleet paired with the new rune absorb life. by the 5 minute marker I've had a total of 300+ healing, so the runes paired together are worth more than 2 pots by the 5 minute mark. Also, this makes it so that if you don't go any life steal early you still have sustain, plus the MS is nice.
PTA: I only played a few games, but it feels... okay. I was really hoping the changes to LT would make PTA the new Yasuo meta as I enjoy short trades, but sadly, in a lot of match ups Yasuo still gets out traded, and that leaves you in a weird spot in lane when you don't have sustain, it definitely doesn't feel as good as LT for trades in lane, and late game the benefits aren't as good. Overall, I need to test the rune more as it could have potential, but I definitely didn't like it as much as I liked fleet.
Conq: Not much to say here. It's an okay rune. I only played a game with it. Watched PZ take it a few times, and saw that his numbers were pretty low on Conq. I just don't think Conq is good anymore on Yasuo. It's not a bad option, and it definitely scales well late, but in a meta where games are decided well before even the mid game Conq's value is just over shadowed by better runes.
Build:
There is only one build that I have really enjoyed and have had a good amount of success with and that is...
Greaves > Bork/zeal > IE > everything else situational
I did a few games with PD rush and tried the new Wildarrows item. In games where I didn't rush Bork I felt subpar. In games where I rushed greaves into Bork (or grabbed zeal when ahead before Bork) I felt decent. I need to 100% do more item testing to figure out what Yasuo should build, but greaves Bork definitely felt decent.
That's about it so far. I will probably make a YouTube video sometime this week after more testing, but those are my initial thoughts after day 1 of testing. If anyone here has any suggestions let me know as I am open to trying new builds to test out.

Over the last day I have seen a lot of people online speaking poorly of Ubisoft for their decisions of charging $120 for the fullest version of the new assassins creed and also recently the fullest version of Star Wars Outlaws. I don't understand what these people expect. Games are INSANELY expensive to make nowadays, especially these massive triple A games. MUCH more expensive than they were before, and yes, I know modern games are now $70 as opposed to the previous $60 norm, but these companies are not going to be able to survive off of that $70 budget alone when taking into account the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to make and market a video game. Ubisoft I'm particular has tried many methods to make profits and all of them get shit on by the online community. Battle passes, dlc, online passes, loot boxes. None of them are acceptable to online gamers. What is the realistic expectation of Ubisoft to make these massively expensive games and keep being able to make them if they can't charge more than the base price? Maybe I'm missing something in the argument, but almost every video in my YouTube feed right now is about how terrible Ubisoft is as a company for these practices. Thoughts
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk 🙂

Neil Patel gets alot of shit for his advice because he mainly pushes his own products. BUT one thing he does get right is not have all his eggs in one basket. He blogs on his website, makes content on YouTube, LinkedIn, instagram, tiktok, twitter, email newsletter. He diversifies is content across MANY platforms and algorithms so he’s just not a slave to Google. HCU could’ve hit his website hard but he could still do well on IG and TikTok.
IMO i think this is the future of SEO and is moreso content marketing than just optimizing a website for google. Its a shit ton of work to create and pump out that much content across so many platforms but I believe is necessary.

Hiyo. I bought my computer ages ago and back then it was able to run all the games I wanted (assassin's creed odyssey ran just fine). I broke the video card (thats on me) and bought a new, higher performance one. I also bought new SSD.
Nowadays even 15 year old games have weird lags, Not video lags, but more like.. sometimes it feels like the PC has to calculate too many things at once and craps itself . AC Odyssey doesnt even run anymore and even League of Legends is unplayable because it just doesnt responds to my inputs for half a second every 3 seconds.
Task manager shows the CPU is at nearly 100% usage which concerned me. I talked to multiple people and they all said my CPU is "bottlenecking" my PC . I had no idea what it meant. I assumed it is because the video card is a better one but I dont really understand how it is real that i buy a better video card and suddenly games just shit themselves.
Anyway , obviously I'd like to run some games since half of my PC is definitely capable. I dont mind turning the graphic settings down (already did). I am afraid I'm gonna have to buy another CPU and perhaps an SSD as well since it is almost full and I heard that can be a bottlenecking problem also
so here are my specs:
MB: ASRock H81M-VG4 (2 DIMM slots) CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 @ 3101 Mhz Ram: 16 (2x8) GB DDR3 @ 1333 Mhz VGU: NVidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti ssd: one 112 GB as a boot and one 466 gb for the games (this is a 128 and an 500 gb I assume) power : Corsair VS550 -550W
The PC was assembled by me so I might have made mistakes during it, but all I can think of is applying thermal paste wrong which I assume can lead to the processor shitting itself over time. The Pc worked for years just fine however. Once I had to disassemble it for transport and during it the video card broke, but as I said the new one outlined above should be better. I do not remember which model was the old one. The problems started a few months after I put in the new video card.
I should note that non-intensive tasks such as watching YouTube or Netflix or typing this post, or just 25 year old games like diablo 2 work just fine.
So what do I do now, do I just buy a bigger SSD and a better CPU? or is there a cheaper way? Perhaps buy a worse video card? or something else? The goal is run AC Odyssey, LEague of Legends, and Path of Exile without any fuss (and as I said, dont care which graphic settings)
Thanks for reading and in advance if you have any insights.

Does anyone know a way to upload the VL show without taking up a lot of space on my phone I usually take a screenshot video but that’s going to probably be too much storage for my phone. I want to share it though with the fans how can I just record it The video portion from the SiriusXM app and put it on YouTube on here. It’s probably an hour and 40 minutes.

am 18M and brother is 13M I don't know what went wrong while my parents raised him than me but he thinks he's king of the world. He goes so much in my head I hate it.he argues with every sentance which is said to him and never accepts anything ,shouts on everyone dad, mom, me, grandmother everyone.my dad was so pissed off at him today he was very near to getting beaten up which my dad has never done to both of us,he does shout at us when things get to much out of hand but never has hit us,my brother goes to play football and is pretty more athletic than me cause I am not able as I have hereditary problem which he luckily didn't get so I get blisters even if I run/walk like 2 km and it doesn't help here, I really get 0 respect as regard to my elder cousin brother who is a iit(good engeneering institute in india) passout if that helps, I really want to beat the shit out of him one day.help me I don't know how u can help me out but please tell me what I can when I try to tell him something he makes dumb fucking face with his tongue out like speed(youtuber)his eyes widened out, he watches atleast 1000 YouTube shorts everyday atleast, I am so done with him I am gonna go to collage this year for my 1st year but I have a feeling when I leave shits gonna get much worse than it already is. Help me out.

Just watched his set from Stagecoach on his YouTube channel.
Holy shit! What a show! Incredible energy, incredible musicianship, great performers who are fun to watch, great songs. I can’t wait to see them in person.
Link to the show below.
https://youtu.be/mBegQJkF7Cw?si=X-RSvaYc1GW9p9Vr

I’ll just lead off with, why the fuck do they act as if we should feel bad in the slightest for these assholes?
The Christian couple is the absolute worst and the poster children for the hypocrisy of the ultra religious. The stupid fucking YouTube shit, which immediately even took away my sympathy for the wife.
Fuck em all, they got what they deserved and the doc should have just been an hour and a half about the facts. There’s no “human story” element here, bad people doing things to bad people.

Does this mean I like guys or does it just mean it turns me on?
So for context, I am 21 nonbinary transmasc, 3 months on T today. I’m currently in a 1 year relationship with my beautiful girlfriend who I love very much who’s cisgender queer. I have never been with a man. I came out as a lesbian/stud (I’m Afro Latine) when I was 13 loved women ever since.
The first exposure to porn I’ve ever had was when I was 7. This was like 2010 when YouTube was barely what it is now and less censored. I think I was searching two girls kissing but two guys kissing came up as well and for some reason that through my reality all the way off as if it made the difference. But of course it did so I clicked on it and it ended up being this like foreign drama or opera and the guys were fully fucking no censorship. I was astounded at the time cuz well I’m 7 and for some reason two girls kissing wasn’t out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until when I was 11 years old that I got my own phone did I remember I had seen gay porn before and I went to on porn and searched it up. I didn’t realize at the time but it made me feel funny (ik the word to it now) so I would secretly watch it from time to time.
Now I’m 21 and as of late I’ve been watching it more often. I feel a lot of things, 1. Guilty because i have a girlfriend, 2. I’m confused am I “straight”, 3. How could i be I would hard pass on any sexual or romantic relationship with a man, 4. Am I projecting because I want bottom surgery in the future, 5. Do I subconsciously want to top a guy like a gay dude? 6. Is this that “T made me gay” shit bc if so like I said in #3 nah.
This too many contradicting feelings in my head so I need third person opinion.

I have long held a deep-seated hatred for Lawtubers. I'm not talking about lawyers on social media generally. I'm talking specifically about those losers who graduated from a podunk law school, with no academic accolades at all, couldn't get hired at even a shitty law firm, and spent their career doing shitlaw (if any law at all) before going on YouTube to live stream and pretend like they're legal experts. They give us actual, practicing lawyers a bad name and they have committed the grave sin of making me want to blow my brains out any time I happen to unwitting find myself listening to them speak.
The star of this post is Good Lawgic. I made a previous post about how these morons manage to get law degrees (now deleted because I do an auto-prune of my Reddit history every few months to deal with other schizos), but the reason I'm making this post is his latest grift: https://www.givesendgo.com/UngagTrump
For those who haven't been following along the countless Trump lawsuits, in the NY "I paid to cover up having sex with a porn star" lawsuit, the judge issued a gag order preventing Trump from being himself and saying his usual unhinged shit about jurors and the family members of the judge/court staff/etc.
Good Lawgic, who regularly covers this kind of shit, must have finally saw an opportunity to make a buck "practicing law" because he started a crowdfund for himself to file an appeal to overturn the gag order on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. The wonderful thing? He links his petition! It's here: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:us:6d741966-3725-45b3-b46d-feb3e3ba4f88
I gotta say, I was excited. I can finally read him write! If you guys don't know, lawyers don't debate for a living. You can't tell how good a lawyer is based on online debate performance (for a number of reasons I won't get into here). We write for a living. Seeing a lawyer's writing is really the only way to truly assess their competence. Here, he has done the kindness of displaying his incompetence for everyone to see. I won't go through all of the grammatical mistakes because there's so fucking many of them. He should've at least asked ChatGPT to fix his grammar. Shit, he should've asked ChatGPT to write the whole brief instead.
Those of you who aren't lawyers might think that this looks okay. But hopefully by the end of this post, I'll have successfully convinced you that Good Lawgic is a grifting, incompetent loser.

The Legal Standard

He doesn't state it. Lol. Lmao, even.
I'll elaborate. The "meat" of this document is on pages 5 to 19, or the "Memorandum of Law in Support of Temporary Restraining Order". This is basically the legal argument portion.
Now, if you're going to ask for a TRO, or literally anything from a court, at least start by stating the relevant legal standard. What do you need to prove to be granted a TRO? I don't practice in NY state law (federal court gigachad here btw), so based on a quick google search, in NY, it's this: https://casetext.com/regulation/new-york-codes-rules-and-regulations/title-22-judiciary/subtitle-a-judicial-administration/chapter-ii-uniform-rules-for-the-new-york-state-trial-courts/part-202-uniform-civil-rules-for-the-supreme-court-and-the-county-court/section-2028-e-temporary-restraining-orders
Nowhere in Good Lawgic's "Memorandum of Law" does he even recite this standard, much less explain why it's met. In a brief, after stating the relevant legal standard(s), you need to argue, with facts and/or precedent, why that standard is met or not met (depending on what nets you a win). Do you know how you do this analysis? With citations. Citations to the factual record are necessary for factual assertions, and citations to precedential cases are necessary for explaining why your position is legally correct. They must also be easily discoverable by whoever is reading your brief. For comparison, read this ACLU brief, also written in favor of lifting a gag order on Trump (though in a different case and written as an amicus brief, which is radically different from a TRO petition): https://www.aclu.org/cases/united-states-v-trump-amicus-brief?document=Proposed-Brief-Amici-Curiae-of-the-ACLU-%26-ACLU-DC-in-Aid-of-the-Courts-Re-evaluation-of-its-Gag-Order#legal-documents
In the ACLU brief, these actual, practicing lawyers cite almost every line. As they should. Seriously, pick a random page, and you'll see that to the extent possible, every statement, assertion, and argument is supported by some citation. The reality is, Good Lawgic didn't write a brief. He wrote an editorial full of conclusory statements and sophistry. His "Memorandum of Law" belongs on Breitbart, and he obviously has no idea how to write an actual legal argument for a court. There's nothing legal about his petition. He just says shit without citations. It's a Memorandum of Feels and Vibes. This is how a "NY litigator of 25 years" writes? Are you kidding me?
Oh, wait, his entire work experience is (checks LinkedIn) debt collection.

The Grift

The reality is, even as stupid as he is (seriously, the grammatical errors, oh my god), he knows this brief isn't winning. It's going to be immediately slapped down because it's asinine. But you know what? He's grifted at least 26k from Trumptards so far, and after his petition gets summarily eviscerated, it's going to be further evidence of the ~corruption of the NY courts and the liberal conspiracy against Trump~. The sad reality is he feels free to proudly link his dogshit petition because he knows his followers and donators are illiterate. But you know what? I'm glad he linked it. Because I get to read this hilarious affirmation made under penalty of perjury: "We need to freely access Trump."

This will be my first time ever openly sharing about my addiction; from the root cause to the effects and struggles that having a porn addiction has impacted my life to this day
So I just recently turned 21 and I'm beginning to look around and realize that for as long as I've acknowledged that I have a problem and need to quit, I keep feeding the addiction KNOWING that it's ruining my life. I'm going to split this post into 3 sections explaining the following stages: The root causes/early development, Progression of my addiction to current day, and Main struggles from my PA and how I go about everyday life to heal. Not exactly sure why I'm posting this but I just feel like it's something I need to let out. Hope someone can relate or give me their take on it.
The root causes/early development: So I believe that my PA manifested due to a few different reasons: Playing "doctor" with my sister as a child, early age porn exposure, and then using porn as a coping mechanism to deal with any negative emotions. So starting w/ "playing doctor", it first happened at a very young age, somewhere between elementary school to 6th grade. I think most people know what that is but to keep it short basically my sister who is a year older than me introduced my to basically role playing as doctor and patient. I wasn't sure if SHE even knew it was wrong but the point is, it happened. I genuinely don't think she was doing in an abusive way but I'll never know. I don't remember the small details of exactly how it happened but what leads me to think this was a factor that contributed to my porn addiction is that I know now as an adult that it's wrong, however as we "played doctor" I only grew to enjoy it and occasionally we took things outside of "playing doctor" - which is why I don't know what to make of it... Long story short it went from "doctor" to us making up our own games like "spy" where we pretended to fight each other as spy's, getting "knocked out" unconscious while she'd touch... and I specifically remember wanting to play these games in hopes that it led to that. But even outside of playing games I grew to wanting to touch her and act on perverted thoughts as a child that were NOT normal for my age or in general. And sometimes I would sneakily act on them - which as I'm reflecting on right now makes me think that me KNOWINGLY trying to be sneaky and act on perverted thoughts at that young of an age had to have carried on with me as I got older (contributing to my porn addiction).. And then the last thing that I vividly remember was when I was probably 10-12 years old is when again we were actually kind of aggressively play fighting, somehow ended up with each other's hands DOWN THERE mutually and we kept going on with each other until she made me.... yeah. And that was the last memory I had of what started out as us "playing doctor". Fast forward to current date since that last memory and we've never spoken about those experiences (more on that later). Going onto the actual exposure of pornography and WATCHING porn, I was exposed to it somewhere in between the same timeframe as when I'd play doctor and the last memory of us playing (somewhere between the ages of 8-12). I can vividly remember the scene that played late at night on the tv that my parents had left on (I shared a room with them). And then moving forward from there, somewhere in between I would find videos on YouTube of this "prank" channel where he'd go up to paid actors, bet that if he beat them in rock paper scissors that they'd have to make out with him. And as a young kid at the time seeing a girl in a bikini making out with a guy as he grabbed on her ass just made me horny and I learned to masturbate from there. And I cant think of a stronger dopamine hit for a 8-12 year old little me at the time than seeing those videos and pleasuring myself. After this, I'd hit middle school where I was bullied a lot, all while lacking social skills necessary to make any genuine friends or deal with the emotional turmoil of being bullied. Fast forward a few months and I think I just progressively began to normalize using porn as a coping mechanism - All the way from whenever I just got mad while dying repetitively on the videogame, to avoiding the fact that I hated my life everyday that I went to school. I'd use porn to receive that "good feeling" whenever I could. And I think my sexual addiction got worse when I began touching myself in the shower almost everyday in middle school to the imagination of the pretty girls that were at my school, even though I had neverarely talked to some of them. It was just a thing for me where every night I took a shower, I closed my eyes and fantasized about doing stuff with them. And then the cycles of me normalizing these things continued and eventually I found out about REAL porn sites.
Progression of my addiction to current day: So shortly after finding the real porn sites I entirely opted to use those as much as possible as the cycle continued. So by my freshman year of high school I was already using porn sites regularly. I remember during summer and winter breaks, sometimes I'd sleep at my grandmas and stay up all night switching from ejaculating to porn, to watching my favorite youtuber and streamers, to going back to jerking off. It was a multiple times a day/night occurrence OFTEN. Sometimes even during the middle of the day I'd pretend to use the bathroom but really I had a porn video pulled up and I watched until I was done. And as time progressed one video didn't exactly cut it for me. I don't think its that I couldn't get off to the first video, but more so that I just had the urge to see more and didn't want to nut yet. I didn't even know if I was purposely edging or not. I did not even understand that edging was a concept yet. Its just something that occurred naturally for me. And during all of this, I am still somewhere in the age range of 13-15. Consistently ejaculating to pornography, further exploring the more basic categories of porn like anal and lesbian. I think a notable memory was one of the first times I watched porn in the middle of work during summer break (extended family owns a construction company so I worked over breaks). It's crazy because in construction all we have are porta-potties that are always hot and nasty and the urge just came over me one day to pretend like I was using the bathroom and get one off before I went back... I don't think I even realized at the time that I had an addiction because this was still early high school. It was just something I looked at as a good feeling and whenever the urges came to me I took any chance I got to fulfill them. Even if I was sharing a room with a family member, I'd be as slow and quit as I could, touch myself under the covers, finish in my underwear and then showechange the next morning like it was normal. Moving forward, this type of behavior continues all the way throughout high school and the feeling of ejaculating just is not as intense as it use to be, so I look up ways to spice it up and I tried shit all the way from sitting on my own hand til it goes sort or numb so it "feels like someone else is touching you", to doing it in more risky places like my backyard outside when I was home alone and had my pants pulled down all the way, to whatever else I could try. Reflecting back, I just look at all these actions as the progressions of a sexual/porn addiction that is still developing. And this is how I rationalize the way I developed a porn addiction. Now it wasn't AWFUL in high school but it was getting bad. I realized that I had actually had a bad addiction that needed to be addressed a few months after graduating high school. From that point forward It was something that I had acknowledged was an issue but nonetheless, continued to do out of habit and as a continued coping mechanism. Whether it was from the lack of relationships, to my current life situation/direction I was headed in, or just any negative emotion - I used porn to release. Sometimes I'd even just do it out of boredom, not even because I had a dying urge to get one off. And then after that point of realization, I sat in "depression" for a few months still going about my everyday life until one day my dad mentioned that I should try therapy. He knew nothing about the addiction but I did let him know I feel depressed and the many struggles that I faced - which I believe is due to my porn addiction. So long story short, I go to therapy for about 3 sessions and end up dropping it because it just wasn't something I felt was helping or enjoyed (more on that later). From there to current day, I've gone at MOST one week periods attempting to quit porn and every time I relapse. From the age of 1 to-current day 21 years old, the progression of the categories of porn that I watch has grown and a few different fetishes like face sitting, femdom, and role play has increased. I don't NEED to watch these specific categories to get off, however these are ones I've found myself most recently watching and edging to, sometimes for 1-3 hours at a time, usually at night on weekends or before I fall asleep. And to take it a step further, I had started pouring money into camgirl sites, phone sex sites, only fans, etc.. I live with my parents still so it's not to the point that I'm broke and have no money, but still what the fuck am I doing putting my hard earned money into a porn addiction... (I'm a functioning adult on a pathway to financial freedom, more on this later).
Main struggles from my PA and how I go about everyday life to heal: So I believe that the main struggles with my porn addiction consist of: the inability/struggle to create and maintain healthy relationships, low self esteem, poor social skills, lack of motivation, and the cognitive dissonance of continuing my addiction to porn even though morally I believe it is wrong to lust over. I believe all of these struggles that come with porn are connected to each other - minus the cognitive dissonance. But everything else kind of stacks on top of each other. So my thought process is that I already dealt w/ low self esteem and confidence from a very young age, and porn just completely enhanced those problems and made it even harder to fix/work on. If you're anything like me and have watched videos on the sciences of porn on your brain, and possible struggles that we deal with, I'm assuming you know how it goes for the most part. I'd say I show symptoms of all effects of being a porn addict, however I've learned to "act normal" to an extent. Like YES I struggle to make friends and hold conversations with people in general but I can make it happen. Sure it'll be a little awkward depending on who I'm speaking to, but I feel like I act normal enough to not be a total outcast and all out weirdo around people. But I just feel like every relationship I have with anyone is extremely surface level or unfulfilling. I feel like as a person I lack so much substance and personality due to the fact that I never really put myself out there and learned social skills when I was coming up. My mindset was molded into something like "keep your head down and stay out the way" in order to avoid conflict. So I never really put myself out there to develop any type of super crazy/interesting personality. I work, play videogames, go to the gym, watch anime. I feel like there's not much else - which might also be a side affect of my porn addiction. Lack of emotion. And I refuse to call it depression. Kind of got red pilled by Andrew Tate Philosophy and it entirely HAS helped me. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not - because when I was fresh out of high school and hyper focused on the bad parts of my life, I felt depressed as shit. Legit like I couldn't do anything to fix it. And the more I identified as "depressed" the more I allowed myself to look for things in my life to confirm that belief. So eventually I went on a self improvement journey and just stopped allowing "depression" to hold power over me. Now I don't believe in it so it's not something that can hold me down in that crippling way. HOWEVER, I DO believe in just being in a shitty situation - which is what I feel like having a porn addiction along with it's effects and symptoms is. It's a shitty situation and I can either allow it to keep ruining my life OR I can get up everyday and attempt to fix it. And I refuse to play the victim card. Sure, I may have been exposed to some fucked up shit at a young age and used porn as a coping mechanism. There is no denying that it happened and that it may have been unfair and out of my control. YES, that's my problem. I may be a victim of pornography but I do not have to ALLOW it to continue to ruin my life. Easier said than done but it's definitely possible and I will not blame my lack of discipline or call it "depression" because I'm unable to quit. The way I see it is, there is a lot of shit that happened to me in the past that I have to come to terms with, and then I must come up with a plan to improve and learn how to be better. For example, struggling to hold eye contact with people, hold basic conversation with people (specifically women), find confidence within myself, become more social, etc... These are all skills that we can practice and learn. Simply by going outside and putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations that allow us to put the reps in. I believe that if I quit porn and start walking up to 10 strangers a day and try having simple conversations with them, in time I can only get better at being social and connecting with people. It's gonna suck and feel like shit at first, but I truly believe that it's a way to improve and get better. As I stand in my current situation I would say I have a lot of work to do but I'm still a functioning addict. I have friendships and relationships with family but they are very lack luster and I long for something deeper and more intimate. I know I'm not ugly and have the ability to pull a good looking girl, shit I've turned down this really pretty girl who always asks to hangout simply due to the fact that I feel like I'm gonna fuck it up and have bad social skills. And its getting to a point where friends and family are wondering why I haven't had a girlfriend in years. Overall its a lack of self esteem, which hinders me from being able to confidently put myself out there as a person who's deserving of love/companionship, which then makes me sort of self isolate and stray away from any type of connection or opportunity to be vulnerable. Which just leads me to feeling like a loser or someone that is undeserving of love because I'm just in a shitty situation. And yeah. Its kind of a self sabotaging cycle because I feel like I understand what's going on but I don't have the discipline and don't put the work in to get better. But that's just my two cents. This post was extremely long and I probably rifted off topic a few times and had my thoughts all over the place, and I still have a lot more I could give input about but this is the jist of everything
If anyone has a support group or needs someone to talk to, 1. I'd like to join the group, or 2. Feel free to message me for any support or conversation.

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting one reddit and it's a quite of a long question, but I just don't know what to do.
My boyfriend and I have been together 3 years and we've lived together almost all of that time. Almost a year (11 months) ago I found out he was cheating on me (kinda? idk, I'll explain). He had been using reddit to find snapchat accounts for girls to exchange nudes with. He'd been doing it for about 2 months and with about 10 girls (that I know of). They would normally sext a bit and then not talk again. I confronted him and he admitted to me that he had/has a porn addition, and that he'd been doing this type of thing on and off since he was about 15. He said he never really saw it as cheating because to him it was kinda like "interactive porn". He said that it almost felt like a seperate part of his life and he couldn't connect with the part of himself that did it. He said it was only when he actually saw the effect it had on me that what he was doing became real to him.
Anyway, we decided to work through it and he started going to therapy to work on himself/his porn addition. It took a bit of time to get back to normal, but eventually our relationship returned to normal and we've been pretty good recently. Here's the thing: most of his bad behaviours/actions are due to low self esteem. He struggles to accept good things in his life and so tends to self-sabotage them (which was part of the reason the cheating happened in the first place). It also kinda follows a cycle - every 6(ish) months he'll do something really bad that we need to heal from (e.g. the cheating, getting super drunk and doing something dumb, etc). It's gotten a lot better since he's started therapy, but the cycle is basically like this: we're doing really well, he does something to self-sabotage, the relationship struggles and we have to heal/build up trust again for 1 or 2 months, the relationship recovers and we do well for 4 or 5 months, the cycle repeats.
I'm worried because it's been almost 6 months since the last incident. Our relationship has been pretty good recently, but the last time he cheated we were in such a good place and that's why he sabotaged it, so us doing well doesn't really put my mind at ease.
I've noticed recently that he's started being a bit more secretive with his phone again. For example, he'll tell me about some funny shit he saw on reddit, but when I ask to see the post he doesn't show me and says he'll send it to me. It doesn't matter how many times I ask to see it, it won't give me his phone. Another example: the other night I was in our bedroom and he was in the kitchen. I didn't have my phone but I needed a calculator, so I asked to use his because it was on the bed. He said yes, but then immediately came into the bedroom, watched me use the calculator and then asked for his phone so he could watch a YouTube video.
When he first cheated, to regain/build up trust in our relationship he gave me the passwords to all his social media and we had a deal I could go through his phone anytime I wanted. As soon as I felt like things were back on track, I logged out of everything (and deleted the passwords so I couldn't log in again). I also stopped going through his phone a few months back, and we've been really good at communicating - I'll normally just ask him outright how he's doing with the porn addiction and if there's anything I should know (he always says no). I don't want to ask to go through his phone again because that feels like a huge step backwards and I know it'll make our relationship feel tense/weird for a few days, but something just feels off. I just don't want to do anything rash because I do have quite severe anxiety and it might just be projection, but it's around the point in the cycle where something bad happens, I've noticed a bit of a disconnect between us (more unnecessary fights and stuff) and then there's the phone secrecy too.
What should I do? I love him endlessly and I know he loves me, but I don't want to ignore warning signs and brush them off as me being paranoid if they're not, ya know?
Sorry it's so long...thank you! :)

(Going to be a long post ) Ye post unke liye hai jo padh mhi rahe hain par sapne abhi bhi iit se neeche ke nhi hain. Iss saal jee mains diya, boards diye, kuch aur entrances diye . When i was in 12th, after wasting 11th i wanted to become the - abse sirf padhai aur kuch nahi - student. April gaya, may gaya, june , july , august gaya. Mid terms ae, tab laga ab to padhna hi hai . Strategy videos of scoring 99%ile in 4 months took over kyunki 99 percentile se neeche sochna to gunha hain na! Phir ai 99 %ile in 3 months , then 2 months , then 1 month. Phir jan attempt ke ek hafte pehle how to get 90 percentile in one week . Nhi hua kuch boards diye , april attempt diya . Nhi ai yr rank! Mains mein 60 percentile Now, do I regret for not studying? Yes. Can I change the results of this year? No. Will I get a very good govt college everyone dreams of? No. Par ab regret se kya hoga? Kuch nhi Abhi jo log 11th mein hain, 12th mein hain, you might be feeling ki abhi to bohot time hai. Nahi hai. Time aise jaega ki pata bhi nhi chalega. I got 60 percentile in mains. Pata hai jab mains ka score calculate kiye to 47 ban Raha tha. There wasn't one chapter from whole 12th and 11th I could point my finger and say ki isse koi bhi question dedo, I'll do it. Not a single one. Jab marks calculate kiye to laga ki yar agar har mahine pcm mein ek ek chapter bhi Kiya hota to atleast kuch college to mil jata. Kuch to milta. The habits that destroyed me were yt shorts, series, movies, songs. No relationship shit aur anything. It was all me, enough to ruin my exams. Boards ka result check Kiya and you won't believe how fucking happy I was to pass the jee criteria of 75% in boards. How happy. But this is not what I imagined my life to be after 12th, did I? No. Koi nhi karta yr! I'm searching for colleges nowadays. The colleges I've never heard Of, jinke reviews bhi ache nhi , im praying ki usi mein hi jae. Kahi to ho jae. Kisi college mein. Jinke naam tak nhi sune the ,unke bhi cutoff clear nhi ho rahi. And I'll probably go in a college jiska maine 2 saal mein kisi se naam bhi nhi suna tha. I'm searching for a college jiski placement thodi to decent ho. But I. Sab ka kyaal tab kyu nhi aya jab I wasted my time? Jab I did not study when I could fucking have? Ab lagta hai ki kitna aasan tha padhna. Padhi, exam do aur college le jao. I made plans which I never executed Most of my friends have got above 90 percentile. I can't even text or call them without thinking that kya soch rahe honge vo. The worst is disappointing the ones who trusted you, gave you everything you asked for. tumhare sirf ek baar mangne se tumhe vo cheez laake de di. Apne parents. Meri maa ka sapna tha ki main IIT delhi jau. She used to be so happy jab vo bolti thi. I broke it. I fucking broke it. She still supports me, still cooks my fav dishes, still smiles at me , i am lucky and blessed to have a family jo mujhe har failure pe samjhati hai aur support karti hai. My mom still loves and cares for me . She still talks to me. But it still hurts jab unhone bola ki humein bata do agar humein zyada hi expectations laga li ho tumse aur humein hi soch liya ho ki humara bacha to acha kar hi lega. She isn't wrong. She isn't. Ek hota hai aapne mehnat Kari and something happened which was out of your control which led to a bad result. And ek hota hai jab aap mehnat nhi karte and you know you deserve that shitty result . Sabse bura tab lagta hai when i think ki i know i have the brain and i can study and i could have cleared the exam with a good result. But kabhi padhai seriously hi nhi li. No one would believe me if i said ki i like to study. Bhai mujhe sach mein seekhna acah lagta tha. Jab cheezein samajh aati thi to alag hi khishi hoti thi. Alag hi. Par maine kabhi consistently efforts nhi lagae. And that led to the downfall. Life mein na, ek na ek point par aapko ruk kar sochna hoga ki bhai main kar kya raha hu? Hum sab ko pata hai kya karna hai , mujhe bhi pata tha. You all fucking know that YouTube, insta is not going to help you. Ye sab na bolne ki batein hoti hai ki jee doesn't matter, ur rank doesn't decide your futue. My rank is 5L. I don't know what to do. But one thing ik is rank fucking matters. Mere peeche 7-8 lakh bache hain aur aisa nhi hai ki humara kych nhi hoga. Hoga. Kuch to ho hi jaega. Par abhi at this moment i have no fucking idea ki kya hoga. I can't tell about others. But for me i know mere paas time, resources, supportive environment, saare sukh suvidha thi and i could have easily stopped my self and my family from getting into this situation. Drop isn't really an option as my family thinks that 97-96 percentile isn't really possible for someone who scored 60 this year. And vo apni jagah sahi bhi hain . They trusted me and i failed. Now its their decision and i will accept jo bhi vo bolenge. Will yalk about it in some later posts. To abhi bhi time hai , sudhar jao . Meri tuition teacher kehti thi- life mein ek goal hona bohot zaroori hai. And today i understand her words. Ek goal banao. Not necessary ki jee ho. Aur bohot kuch hai duniya mein. Because you might or might not realize, but financially independent hona life mein bohot zaroori hai.Mujhe padhai ke alawa koi aisi skill nhi aati jispe main depended rahu. Time waste mat karo. Kuch seeko. Kuch bhi useful. Don't just pass your time. Just. Don't. Padhai karo. Aur agar vo nhi kar rahe to koi skill develop karo . Downfall hota hai life mein , kabhi aisi cheez ki vajah se jise hum vontrol kar sakte hain aur kabhi aise cheezon ki vajah se jise hum control nhi kar sakte. And it's important, ki jo humare control mein hain , hum usse kharaab na hone de. Life ko jeeyo. I won't say ki sirf padhai karo. Nahi. Live. Be happy. Dance. Enjoy. Padhai ke alawa bhi bohot cheezein aapko success dilati hain . But padhai ek kaafi hadd tak safe and secure way hai to success. Learn and live please All the best (Spelling vagera pe zyada dhyaan mat dena, typing karte hue error ho gaya hoga. Post ko samajhna)

This will be my first time ever openly sharing about my addiction; from the root cause to the effects and struggles that having a porn addiction has impacted my life to this day -
So I just recently turned 21 and I'm beginning to look around and realize that for as long as I've acknowledged that I have a problem and need to quit, I keep feeding the addiction KNOWING that it's ruining my life. Im going to split this post into 3 sections explaining the following stages: The root causes/early development, Progression of my addiction to current day, Main struggles from my PA and how I go about everyday life to heal, and And I think that there are so many aspects of dealing w/ a PA that just makes me feel like, not hopeless but if I had to put the feeling into words its basically like waking up everyday feeling ashamed what I'm doing to myself but not even allowing myself to feel bad for myself because although I didn't understand during the development of my PA, I continue to let it ruin my life day after day.
The root causes/early development: So I believe that my PA manifested due to a few different reasons: Playing "doctor" with my sister as a child, early age porn exposure, and then using porn as a coping mechanism to deal with any negative emotions. So starting w/ "playing doctor", it first happened at a very young age, somewhere between elementary school to 6th grade. I think most people know what that is but to keep it short basically my sister who is a year older than me introduced my to basically role playing as doctor and patient. I wasn't sure if SHE even knew it was wrong but the point is, it happened. I don't remember the small details of exactly how it happened but what leads me to think this was a factor that contributed to my porn addiction is that I know now as an adult that it's wrong, however as we "played doctor" I only grew to enjoy it and occasionally we took things outside of "playing doctor" - which is why I don't know what to make of it... Long story short it went from "doctor" to us making up our own games like "spy" where we pretended to fight each other as spy's, getting "knocked out" unconscious while she'd touch... and I specifically remember wanting to play these games in hopes that it led to that. But even outside of playing games... I grew to wanting to touch her and act on perverted thoughts as a child that were NOT normal for my age at the time. And sometimes I would sneakily act on them - which as I'm reflecting on makes me think that me KNOWINGLY trying to be sneaky and act on perverted thoughts at that young of an age had to have carried on with me as I got older.. And then the last thing that I vividly remember was when I was probably 10-12 years old is when again we were actually kind of aggressively play fighting, somehow ended up with each other's hands DOWN THERE and we kept going on each other until she made me.... yeah. And that was the last memory I had of what started out as us "playing doctor". Fast forward to current date since that last memory and we've never spoken about those experiences (more on that later). Going onto the actual exposure of pornography and WATCHING porn, I was exposed to it somewhere in between the same timeframe as when I'd play doctor and the last memory of us playing (somewhere between the ages of 8-12). I can vividly remember the scene that played late at night on the tv that my parents had left on (I shared a room with them). And then moving forward from there, somewhere in between I would find videos on YouTube of this "prank" channel where he'd go up to paid actors, bet that if he beat them in rock paper scissors with them that they'd have to make out with them. And as a young kid at the time seeing a girl in a bikini making out with a guy as he grabbed on her ass just made me horny and I learned to masturbate from there. And I cant think of a stronger dopamine hit for a 8-12 year old little me at the time than seeing those videos and pleasuring myself. After this, I'd hit middle school where I was bullied a lot, all while lacking social skills necessary to make any genuine friends or deal with the emotional turmoil of being bullied. Fast forward a few months and I think I just progressively began to normalize using porn as a coping mechanism - All the way from whenever I just got mad while dying repetitively on the videogame, to avoiding the fact that I hated my life everyday that I went to school. I'd use porn to receive that "good feeling" whenever I could. And I think my sexual addiction got worse when I began touching myself in the shower almost everyday in middle school to the imagination of the pretty girls that were at my school, even though I had neverarely talked to some of them. It was just a thing for me where every night I took a shower, I closed my eyes and fantasized about doing stuff with them. And then the cycles of me normalizing these things continued and eventually I found out about REAL porn sites.
Progression of my addiction to current day: So shortly after finding the real porn sites I entirely opted to use those as much as possible as the cycle continued. So by my freshman year of high school I was already using porn sites regularly. I remember during summer and winter breaks, sometimes I'd sleep at my grandmas and stay up all night switching from porn completion, to watching my favorite youtuber and streamers, to going back to jerking off. It was a multiple times a day/night occurrence OFTEN. Sometimes even during the middle of the day I'd pretend to use the bathroom but really I had a porn video pulled up and I watched until I was done. And as time progressed one video didn't exactly cut it for me. I don't think its that I couldn't get off to the first video, but more so that I just had the urge to see more and didn't want to nut yet. I didn't even know if I was purposely edging or not. I did not even understand that edging was a concept yet. Its just something that occurred naturally for me. And during all of this, I am still somewhere in the age range of 13-15. Consistently ejaculating to pornography, further exploring the more basic categories of porn like anal and lesbian. I think a notable memory was one of the first times I watched porn in the middle of work during summer break (extended family owns a construction company so I worked over breaks). It's crazy because in construction all we have are porta-potties that are always hot and nasty and the urge just came over me one day to pretend like I was using the bathroom and get one off before I went back... I don't think I even realized at the time that I had an addiction because this was still early high school. It was just something I looked at as a good feeling and whenever the urges came to me I took any chance I got to fulfill them. Even if I was sharing a room with a family member, I'd be as slow and quit as I could, touch myself under the covers, finish in my underwear and then showechange the next morning like it was normal. Moving forward, this type of behavior continues all the way throughout high school and the feeling of ejaculating just is not as intense as it use to be, so I look up ways to spice it up and I tried shit all the way from sitting on my own hand til it goes sort or numb so it "feels like someone else is touching you", to doing it in more risky places like my backyard outside when I was home alone and had my pants pulled down all the way, to whatever else I could try. Reflecting back, I just look at all these actions as the progressions of a sexual/porn addiction that is still developing. And this is how I rationalize the way I developed a porn addiction. Now it wasn't AWFUL in high school but it was getting bad. I realized that I had actually had a bad addiction that needed to be addressed a few months after graduating high school. From that point forward It was something that I had acknowledged was an issue but nonetheless, continued to do out of habit and as a continued coping mechanism. Whether it was from the lack of relationships, to my current life situation/direction I was headed in, or just any negative emotion - I used porn to release. Sometimes I'd even just do it out of boredom, not even because I had a dying urge to get one off. And then after that point of realization, I sat in "depression" for a few months still going about my everyday life until one day my dad mentioned that I should try therapy. He knew nothing about the addiction but I did let him know I feel depressed and the many struggles that I faced - which I believe is due to my porn addiction. So long story short, I go to therapy for about 3 sessions and end up dropping it because it just wasn't something I felt was helping or enjoyed (more on that later). From there to current day, I've gone at MOST one week periods attempting to quit porn and every time I relapse. From the age of 18-curerent day 21 years old, the progression of the categories of porn that I watch has grown and a few different fetishes like face sitting, femdom, and role play has increased. I don't NEED to watch these specific categories to get off, however these are ones I've found myself most recently watching and edging to, sometimes for 1-3 hours at a time, usually at night on weekends or before I fall asleep. And to take it a step further, I had started putting money into camgirl sites, phone sex sites, only fans, etc.. I live with my parents still so it's not to the point that I'm broke and have no money, but still what the fuck am I doing putting my hard earned money into a porn addiction... (I'm a functioning adult on a pathway to financial freedom, more on this later).
Everyday life and dealing with my addiction: So I believe that the main struggles with my porn addiction consist of: the inability/struggle to create and maintain healthy relationships, low self esteem, poor social skills, lack of motivation, and the cognitive dissonance of continuing my addiction to porn even though morally I believe it is wrong to lust over. I believe all of these struggles that come with porn are connected to each other - minus the cognitive dissonance. But everything else kind of stacks on top of each other. So my thought process is that I already dealt w/ low self esteem and confidence from a very young age, and porn just completely enhanced those problems and made it even harder to fix/work on. If you're anything like me and have watched videos on the sciences of porn on your brain, and possible struggles that we deal with, I'm assuming you know how it goes for the most part. I'd say I show symptoms of all effects of being a porn addict, however I've learned to "act normal" to an extent. Like YES I struggle to make friends and hold conversations with people in general but I can make it happen. Sure it'll be a little awkward depending on who I'm speaking to, but I feel like I act normal enough to not be a total outcast and all out weirdo around people. But I just feel like every relationship I have with anyone is extremely surface level or unfulfilling. I feel like as a person I lack so much substance and personality due to the fact that I never really put myself out there and learned social skills when I was coming up. My mindset was molded into something like "keep your head down and stay out the way" in order to avoid conflict. So I never really put myself out there to develop any type of super crazy/interesting personality. I work, play videogames, go to the gym, watch anime. I feel like there's not much else - which might also be a side affect of my porn addiction.

I just had a really good session with one. I’m pissed I forgot to hit record on the app I was using. I usually hit it right away when I open it up. Usually it’s just gibberish.
But the session went like this:
Me: Is there any Spirits here?
Spirit Box: Yes (crystal clear)
Me: What’s your name?
Spirit Box: Eve.
Me: Why are you here?
Eve: I’m Lost.
3 questions 3 direct answers.
When I realized I wasn’t recording I tried to get Eve back and then another male voice came through so I ended because it didn’t sound intelligent.
I’m so mad at my self for not recording that.
I like using EVPs better. Just a normal audio recorder. And play back.
But I’ve also seen some really crazy sessions on YouTube and Tiktok in places that are actually haunted. Stuff that seems super intelligent with direct answers to questions.
I personally don’t like them because I hate the constant static white noise generator. But when you get a good back and forth going it doesn’t seem like bull shit.

Please just stop with the ridiculous "reaction face" thumbnails. Every time I see your exaggerated expressions of shock, awe, or fake disgust a part of soul dies and I just don’t want to watch your content.
Let’s talk about just how fucking stupid this is. First off, the faces. No human being reacts to anything in such a ridiculously exaggerated manner unless they’re trying to win an Oscar for "Most Over-the-Top Performance in a Thumbnail." Are we really supposed to believe that every piece of mundane content on YouTube is so shocking or mind-blowing that it elicits such a response? I’d love to see these creators react to actual life events. "Oh my god, cereal for breakfast?! 😱"
Then there’s the sheer dishonesty of it. These thumbnails are nothing but clickbait, designed to lure you in, only to deliver some mediocre boring-ass content. It’s the digital equivalent of a carnival barker hyping up a show that turns out to be a sad, broken-down donkey in a tutu. But unlike the carnival, where you learn your lesson and move on, YouTube’s algorithm keeps shoving more of this shit in your face like an overzealous waiter pushing “today’s special" that you didn’t ask for and don’t want.
And let's not forget the utter lack of originality. You scroll through your feed and it’s a parade of the same gaping mouths and wide eyes. It’s as if all these creators went to the same School of Overdone Thumbnails where they majored in "Looking Like You Just Saw a Ghost While Stepping on a Lego." It’s formulaic, lazy, and frankly, insulting to anyone seeking genuine content. Just because Mr. Beast or some other creator did it, doesn’t mean that it’s the secret shortcut to being a YT billionaire – BE ORIGINAL with your content! To YouTube creators who resort to this cheap bullshit, I say this: have some respect for your audience. Create content that stands on its own merit, that draws viewers in with quality and substance, not with the promise of an over-the-top reaction that you never intended to deliver. Your otherwise interesting content can be easily ruined by your silly-ass reaction face in a thumbnail.
While I’m on a tirade – stop fucking asking me to “like and subscribe” within the first few seconds of your videos! Seriously? I haven't even had the chance to decide if your content is worth my time, let alone my endorsement. It's like walking into a restaurant, sitting down, and before you’ve even glanced at the menu, the waiter is demanding you leave a five-star review. Fucking quit it!
It’s not just presumptuous—it's obnoxious. It reeks of desperation and a lack of confidence in the content. If what you’re presenting is truly valuable, engaging, or entertaining, viewers will naturally want to support you. You shouldn’t have to pander to them before they’ve even seen what you have to offer. It's like proposing marriage on the first date. Slow down, buddy. Let’s see if we even like each other first.
And let’s talk about the irritation factor. You click on a video hoping for a solution, some entertainment, or maybe to learn something new, and what’s the first thing you hear? "Hey guys, make sure to smash that like button and subscribe to my channel!" It’s like an unwelcome pop-up ad that you can't skip. It's an instant turn-off, a red flag that screams, "I care more about metrics than about providing value." What’s worse it reduces the act of liking or subscribing to a mindless, mechanical action, rather than a genuine show of appreciation. It undermines the whole purpose of these metrics, which is to signify that viewers found the content worthy and want more of it. But no, we’re trapped in this vicious cycle where creators, driven by algorithms and analytics, prioritize these metrics over the quality of their work.
Trust your content. Focus on making it good enough that viewers will want to stick around until the end, and then feel compelled to like and subscribe of their own volition. Asking for likes and subscriptions should be an afterthought at the end of your content – hell, even the middle if they’ve watched that far. Respect your audience’s time and intelligence. Earn their support with merit, not with your pathetic begging.
That is all.