"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)
I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to. Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547 I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can. I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts. Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T
Intro
"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
"We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
Widespread match fixing
The Pandemic
"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.
CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association
"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
"They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
"Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
"That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission
"They have been put in an impossible position."
RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
Also says more coaches being banned are coming
He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
Stream Sniping
"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?
Match Fixing
"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."
RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
"Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
"It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
"I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."
North America
"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
Talent
"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."
Valve
"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"
Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
Closing Statements
"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."
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In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase. Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below: https://www.playboy.com/ https://www.playboytv.com/ https://www.playboyplus.com/ https://www.iplayboy.com/ Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success. “Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.” https://www.scientificgames.com/ https://www.microgaming.co.uk/ “This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.” https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/ As per their SEC filing: “Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1 They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon. https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again: https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea “Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.” “According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently: https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress. Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait. https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/ Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05 Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing: “For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.” “In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.” They are profitable across all three of their current business segments. “Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world. "Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.” Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame: “As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn. The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :( He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :) Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw. I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003 Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this: “Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy. “Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative. https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html Y’all like that China money? “Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.” Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose. I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing “Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.” “Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.” Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong. Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will. Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way. Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains. TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here: WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf Or here: https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.” STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon. Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
Alright Degenerates- I posted a small little snippet a day or so ago about BFT. I wanted to do a bit of DD on BFT but also wanted to highlight something that was brought to my attention by a degenerate gambler. Lastly, I wanted to compile some good little snippets that have been put together by some other members as well as from the investor presentation. Before reading further please understand the major Risks.
This is SPAC with ~10.00 NAV, if the deal falls through it could drop to 10.00 USD
The warrants could be very lucrative but they can be called and if a deal fails to materialize, these can become worthless.
If you're ok with the above risks, continue reading.
Keep in mind that this merger is not complete, but the terms of the deal have been provided to investors and we will be able to either vote yes for the deal or vote no and redeem our shares in BFT for 10.00 cash. So there is downside to this play should the vote not go through or should the two entities terminate the agreement. Right now the downside is ~3 dollars per share according to the close price from today.
Deep Customer Base with deep ties to gambling/betting industry with Deep penetration in Europe and growing customer bases around the world. Gambling is a tricky business and regulated differently than other industries. Many big players have avoided the industry and Paysafe has a great reputation and has become one of the early movers in the industry. The following are some notable customers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I actually know Paysafe and the usage quite well. PayPal has many restrictions in Europe regarding iGaming , so does Square. This is a big play on iGaming for those that aren’t aware. I was a mid- high stakes online poker player through the 2010-2018. Played a variety of sites. : iPoker; PokerStars, Paddy, MicroGaming, 888, Party. Why so many sites? Because I was always on lookout for where the action was, if a big whale sat down at one online casino; you bet your sweet ass I’m there. So let me give you my take as a consumer that’s probably spent over $100,000 in transaction fees personally on Paysafe. This was one of the cheapest and fastest ways to move money around online. Unlike Stripe this which is against risky business such as CBD and gambling, paysafe is actually one of the leading payment providers in both UK/AUS / Ireland for iGaming. Big example is William Hill, Bet365, Bwin. Now why would you want to move money online around as a gambler ? Well, Visa/MC charge close to 50%->75% more, online casinos = the merchant. They don’t wanna pay that, and in fact put limits on this type of payment processor. (Your visa’s credit cards etc). If a punter deposits / withdraws frequently, the online casino could literally be on the hook for like 20-30% of the turnover throughout the gambler’s period. (This assumes the gambler doesn’t lose all his money per deposit. Imagine you’re a professional sportsbettor, you’re not loyal to one site. Different spreads / odds are offered on every site, you want to be able to move your money from one to another quickly and cheaply. Arbitrage opportunities do exist in sports betting as bookmakers hedge their books to minimize risk, diff frequencies of bets occur on each sports book; you get the idea. For recreational punters, it’s simple: some sporting events that are smaller simply don’t exist on one site that exist on another. Eg. Perhaps you using Pinnacle / 10dimes for low spreads on high volume events, but perhaps you want to gamble on live events on bet365 on another day, and bet ponies on Hill. What if you only have $5000 ? Giant pain in ass to deposit money to each site, paysafe lets you move it around easily. Should you use visa, you may get blocked from depositing on various sites; Bodog, WHill, Bet365 just to name a few. Withdrawals and clearing deposits with bank transfers or checks takes days-> weeks and gamblers ain’t gonna wait for that shit. You can also buy prepaid paysafe cards from stores if you don’t wish to use your real credit card; and load that shit up. One of the biggest markets this is prominent in is South east Asia, they are some of the biggest punters and fucking loving gambling. Looking at you pinoys, Indonesians, Malays. Not everyone wants to fly to Macau to get their rocks off. As much as this is a play on FinTech, please understand this company has more or less the best Payment service on online gambling globally. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill has connections and a strategy to dominate Igaming.
Igaming addressable Market is expected to grow immensely from a few billion to tens of billions.
https://preview.redd.it/qfacblzz0b461.jpg?width=241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbcdace95286ffccf613daa79b93554ca3e5728b This is an end to end payment processor with big big big name relationships for very disruptive companies that have huge addressable markets. The reason I am excited is because IGAMING is just really starting to take off and Paysafe is a first mover with brand new experienced management and very very fair valuations that could pop after a merger. TL;DR- BUY BFT stock and BFT.W because BFT stands for big freaking tenderloins.
SEO is easy. The EXACT process we use to scale our clients' SEO from 0 to 200k monthly traffic and beyond
Hey guys! There's a TON of content out there on SEO - guides, articles, courses, videos, scams, people yelling about it on online forums, etc etc.. Most of it, however, is super impractical. If you want to start doing SEO TODAY and start getting results ASAP, you'll need to do a TON of digging to figure out what's important and what's not. So we wanted to make everyone's lives super easy and distill our EXACT process of working w/ clients into a stupid-simple, step-by-step practical guide. And so we did. Here we are. P.S:startups, andseoloved the guide, so I thought you guys might like it too.
A bit of backstory:
If you guys haven't seen any of my previous posts, me and my co-founder own an SEO/digital marketing agency, and we've worked w/ a ton of clients helping them go from 0 to 200k+ monthly organic traffic. We've also helped some quite big companies grow their organic traffic (from 1M to over 1.8M monthly organic), using the exact same process. So without further ado, grab your popcorn, and be prepared to stick to the screen for a while, cause this is going to be a long post. Here's everything I am going to cover:
Get your website to run and load 2x - 5x faster (with MINIMAL technical know-how)
Optimize your landing pages to rank for direct intent keywords (and drive 100% qualified leads)
Create amazing, long-form content that ranks every time
How we get a TON of links to our website with ZERO link-building efforts
How to improve your content’s rankings with Surfer SEO
Step #1 - Technical Optimization and On-Page SEO
Step #1 to any SEO initiative is getting your technical SEO right. Now, some of this is going to be a bit technical, so you might just forward this part to your tech team and just skip ahead to "Step #2 - Keyword Research." If you DON'T have a tech team and want a super easy tl;dr, do this:
Use WP Rocket. It's a WordPress plugin that optimizes a bunch of stuff on your website, making it run significantly faster.
Use SMUSH to (losslessly) compress all the images on your website. this usually helps a TON w/ load speed.
If you’re a bit more tech-savvy, though, read on!
Technical SEO Basics
Sitemap.xml file. A good sitemap shows Google how to easily navigate your website (and how to find all your content!). If your site runs on WordPress, all you have to do is install YoastSEO or Rankmath SEO, and they’ll create a sitemap for you. Otherwise, you can use an online XML Sitemap generation tool. Proper website architecture. The crawl depth of any page should be lower than 4 (i.e: any given page should be reached with no more than 3 clicks from the homepage). To fix this, you should improve your interlinking (check Step #6 of this guide to learn more). Serve images in next-gen format. Next-gen image formats (JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP) can be compressed a lot better than JPG or PNG images. Using WordPress? Just use Smush and it’ll do ALL the work for you. Otherwise, you can manually compress all images and re-upload them. Remove duplicate content. Google hates duplicate content and will penalize you for it. If you have any duplicate pages, just merge them (by doing a 301 redirect) or delete one or the other. Update your ‘robots.txt’ file. Hide the pages you don’t want Google to index (e.g: non-public, or unimportant pages). If you’re a SaaS, this would be most of your in-app pages. ] Optimize all your pages by best practice. There’s a bunch of general best practices that Google wants you to follow for your web pages (maintain keyword density, have an adequate # of outbound links, etc.). Install YoastSEO or RankMath and use them to optimize all of your web pages. If you DON’T have any pages that you don’t want to be displayed on Google, you DON’T need robots.txt.
Advanced Technical SEO
Now, this is where this gets a bit more web-devvy. Other than just optimizing your website for SEO, you should also focus on optimizing your website speed. Here’s how to do that: Both for Mobile and PC, your website should load in under 2-3 seconds. While load speed isn’t a DIRECT ranking factor, it does have a very serious impact on your rankings. After all, if your website doesn’t load for 5 seconds, a bunch of your visitors might drop off. So, to measure your website speed performance, you can use Pagespeed Insights. Some of the most common issues we have seen clients facing when it comes to website speed and loading time, are the following:
Images being resized with CSS or JS. This adds extra loading time to your site. Use GTMetrix to find which images need resizing. Use an online tool (there are a ton of free ones) to properly resize images (or Photoshop even), and re-upload them.
Images not being lazy-loaded. If your pages contain a lot of images, you MUST activate lazy-loading. This allows images that are below the screen, to be loaded only once the visitor scrolls down enough to see the image.
Gzip compressionnot enabled. Gzip is a compression method that allows network file transfers to happen a ton faster. In other words, your files like your HTML, CSS, and JS load a ton faster.
JS, CSS, and HTML not minified/aggregated/in-lined. If your website is loading slowly because you have 100+ external javascript files and stylesheets being requested from the server, then you need to look into minifying, aggregating, and inlining some of those files.
Use Cloudflare + BunnyCDN Why the combo? Why not just Cloudflare? Well, I won't get into details, I've experimented a bit with it, and if you are looking for something cheap and fast this is the best combo. Cloudflare you can opt in for the free account. BunnyCDN on the other hand is on a pay-as-you-go basis, and unless you are getting over 100K+ visits a month, you'll likely never go above their minimum monthly threshold of $1.
Want to make your life easier AND fix up all these issues and more? Use WP Rocket. The tool basically does all your optimization for you (if you’re using WordPress, of course). Lastly, if you want to validate the website speed optimization changes you've made, or if you simply want to test how your current site is performing, you can useGoogle Page Speed Insights*.* In May 2020, Google rolled out its Core Web Vitals update, which in layman terms means starting next May (2021), the three most important website load speed metrics you will need to worry for ranking will be:
LCP - Largest Contentful Paint -> under 2.5s
FID - First Input Delay -> under 100ms
CLS - Cumulative Layout Shift -> under 0.1
Step #2 - Keyword Research
Once your website is 100% optimized, it’s time to define your SEO strategy. The best way to get started with this is by doing keyword research. First off, you want to create a keyword research sheet. This is going to be your main hub for all your content operations. You can use the sheet to:
Prioritize content
Keep track of the publishing process
Get a top-down view of your web pages
And here’s what it covers:
Target search phrase. This is the keyword you’re targeting.
Priority. What’s the priority of this keyword? We usually divide them by 1-2-3…
Priority 3 - Top priority keywords. These are usually low competition, high traffic, well-converting, or all 3 at the same time.
Priority 2 - Mid-priority keywords.
Priority 1 - These are low priority.
Status. What’s the status of the article? We usually divide them by…
1 - Not written
2 - Writer has picked up the topic for the week
3 - The article is being written
4 - The article is in editing phase
5 - The article is published on the blog
Topic cluster. The category that the blog post belongs to.
Monthly search volume. Self-explanatory. This helps you pick a priority for the keyword.
CPC (low & high bid). Cost per click for the keyword. Generally, unless you’re planning to run search ads, these are not mandatory. They can, however, help you figure out which of your keywords will convert better. Pro tip: the higher the CPC, the more likely it is for the keyword to convert well.
Now that you have your sheet (and understand how it works), let’s talk about the “how” of keyword research.
How to do Keyword Research (Step-by-Step Guide)
There are a ton of different ways to do that (check the “further readings” at the end of this section for a detailed rundown). Our favorite method, however, is as follows… Start off by listing out your top 5 SEO competitors. The key here is SEO competitors - competing companies that have a strong SEO presence in the same niche. Not sure who’s a good SEO competitor? Google the top keywords that describe your product and find your top-ranking competitors. Run them through SEMrush (or your favorite SEO tool), and you’ll see how well, exactly, they’re doing with their SEO. Once you have a list of 5 competitors, run each of them through “Organic Research” on SEMrush, and you'll get a complete list of all the keywords they rank on. Now, go through these keywords one by one and extract all the relevant ones and add them to your sheet. Once you go through the top SEO competitors, your keyword research should be around 80%+ done. Now to put some finishing touches on your keyword research, run your top keywords through UberSuggest and let it do its magic. It's going to give you a bunch of keywords associated with the keywords you input. Go through all the results it's going to give you, extract anything that’s relevant, and your keyword research should be 90% done. At this point, you can call it a day and move on to the next step. Chances are, over time, you’ll uncover new keywords to add to your sheet and get you to that sweet 100%.
Step #3 - Create SEO Landing Pages
Remember how we collected a bunch of landing page keywords in step #2? Now it’s time to build the right page for each of them! This step is a lot more straightforward than you’d think. First off, you create a custom landing page based on the keyword. Depending on your niche, this can be done in 2 ways:
Create a general template landing page. Pretty much copy-paste your landing page, alter the sub-headings, paraphrase it a bit, and add relevant images to the use-case. You’d go with this option if the keywords you’re targeting are very similar to your main use-case (e.g. “project management software” “project management system”).
Create a unique landing page for each use-case. You should do this if each use-case is unique. For example, if your software doubles as project management software and workflow management software. In this case, you’ll need two completely new landing pages for each keyword.
Once you have a bunch of these pages ready, you should optimize them for their respective keywords. You can do this by running the page content through an SEO tool. If you’re using WordPress, you can do this through RankMath or Yoast SEO. Both tools will give you exact instructions on how to optimize your page for the keyword. If you’re not using WordPress, you can use SurferSEO. Just copy-paste your web page content, and it’s going to give you instructions on how to optimize it. Once your new landing pages are live, you need to pick where you want to place them on your website. We usually recommend adding these pages to your website’s navigation menu (header) or footer. Finally, once you have all these new landing pages up, you might be thinking “Now what? How, and when, are these pages going to rank?” Generally, landing pages are a tad harder to rank than content. See, with content, quality plays a huge part. Write better, longer, and more informative content than your competition, and you’re going to eventually outrank them even if they have more links. With landing pages, things aren’t as cut and dry. More often than not, you can’t just “create a better landing page.” What determines rankings for landing page keywords are backlinks. If your competitors have 400 links on their landing pages, while yours has 40, chances are, you’re not going to outrank them.
Step #4 - Create SEO Blog Content
Now, let’s talk about the other side of the coin: content keywords, and how to create content that ranks. As we mentioned before, these keywords aren’t direct-intent (the Googler isn’t SPECIFICALLY looking for your product), but they can still convert pretty well. For example, if you’re a digital marketing agency, you could rank on keywords like…
Lead generation techniques
SaaS marketing
SEO content
After all, anyone looking to learn about lead gen techniques might also be willing to pay you to do it for them. On top of this, blog post keywords are way easier to rank for than your landing pages - you can beat competition simply by creating significantly better content without turning it into a backlink war.In order to create good SEO content, you need to do 2 things right:
Create a comprehensive content outline
Get the writing part right
Here’s how each of these work...
How to Create a Content Outline for SEO
A content outline is a document that has all the info on what type of information the article should contain Usually, this includes:
Which headers and subheaders you should use
What’s the optimal word count
What information, exactly, should each section of the article cover
If you’re not using Yoast or Rankmath, you can also mention the SEO optimization requirements (keyword density, # of outbound links, etc.)
Outlines are useful if you’re working with a writing team that isn’t 100% familiar with SEO, allowing them to write content that ranks without any SEO know-how. At the same time, even if you’re the one doing the writing, an outline can help you get a top-down idea of what you should cover in the article. So, how do you create an outline? Here’s a simplified step-by-step process…
Determine the target word count. Rule of thumb: aim for 1.5x - 2x whatever your competitor wrote. You can disregard this if your competition was super comprehensive with their content, and just go for the same length instead.
Create a similar header structure as your competition. Indicate for the writer which headers should be h2, which ones h3.
For each header, mention what it’s about. Pro tip - you can borrow ideas from the top 5 ranking articles.
For each header, explain what, exactly, should the writer mention (in simple words).
Finally, do some first-hand research on Reddit and Quora. What are the questions your target audience has around your topic? What else could you add to the article that would be super valuable for your customers?
How to Write Well
There’s a lot more to good content than giving an outline to a writer. Sure, they can hit all the right points, but if the writing itself is mediocre, no one’s going to stick around to read your article. Here are some essential tips you should keep in mind for writing content (or managing a team of writers):
Write for your audience. Are you a B2B enterprise SaaS? Your blog posts should be more formal and professional. B2C, super-consumer product? Talk in a more casual, relaxed fashion. Sprinkle your content with pop culture references for bonus points!
Avoid fluff. Every single sentence should have some sort of value (conveying information, cracking a joke, etc.). Avoid beating around the bush, and be as straightforward as possible.
Keep your audience’s knowledge in mind. For example, if your audience is a bunch of rocket scientists, you don’t have to explain to them how 1+1=2.
Create a writer guideline (or just steal ours! -> edit: sorry had to remove link due to posting guidelines)
Use Grammarly and Hemingway. The first is like your personal pocket editor, and the latter helps make your content easier to read.
Hire the right writers. Chances are, you’re too busy to write your own content. We usually recommend using ProBlogger or Cult of Copy Job Board (Facebook Group) to source top writing talent.
Step #5 - Start Link-Building Operations
Links are essential if you want your content or web pages to rank. If you’re in a competitive niche, links are going to be the final deciding factor on what ranks and what doesn’t. In the VPN niche, for example, everyone has good content. That’s just the baseline. The real competition is in the backlinks. To better illustrate this example, if you Google “best VPN,” you’ll see that all top-ranking content pieces are almost the same thing. They’re all:
Well-written
Long-form
Easy to navigate
Well-formatted (to enhance UX)
So, the determining factor is links. If you check all the top-ranking articles with the Moz Toolbar Extension, you’ll see that on average, each page has a minimum of 300 links (and some over 100,000!). Meaning, to compete, you’ll really need to double-down on your link-building effort. In fact, in the most competitive SEO niches, it’s not uncommon to spend $20,000 per month on link-building efforts alone.
Pro Tip Got scared by the high $$$ some companies spend on link-building? Well, worry not! Only the most ever-green niches are so competitive. Think, VPN, make money online, health and fitness, dating, CBD, gambling, etc. So you know, the usual culprits. For most other niches, you can even rank with minimal links, as long as you have top-tier SEO content.
Now, let’s ask the million-dollar question: “how do you do link-building?”
4 Evergreen Link Building Strategies for Any Website
There are a TON of different link building strategies on the web. Broken link building, scholarship link building, stealing competitor links, and so on and so on and so on. We’re not going to list every single link building strategy out there (mainly because Backlinko already did that in their link building guide). What we are going to do, though, is list out some of our favorite strategies, and link you to resources where you can learn more:
Broken link building. You find dead pages with a lot of backlinks, reach out to websites that linked to them, and pitch them something like “hey, you linked to this article, but it’s dead. We thought you’d want to fix that. You can use our recent article if you think it’s cool enough.”
Guest posting. Probably the most popular link building strategy. Find blogs that accept guest posts, and send them a pitch! They usually let you include 1-2 do-follow links back to your website.
“Linkable asset” link building. A linkable asset is a resource that is so AWESOME that you just can’t help but link to. Think, infographics, online calculators, first-hand studies or research, stuff like that. The tl;dr here is, you create an awesome resource, and promote the hell out of it on the web.
Skyscraper technique. The skyscraper technique is a term coined by Backlinko. The gist of it is, you find link-worthy content on the web, create something even better, and reach out to the right people.
Most of these strategies work, and you can find a ton of resources on the web if you want to learn more. However, if you’re looking for something a bit different, oh boy we have a treat for you! We’re going to teach you a link-building strategy that got us around:
10,000+ traffic within a week
15+ leads
50+ links
...And so much more, all through a single blog post.
Link-Building Case Study: SaaS Marketing
“So, what’s this ancient link-building tactic?” I hear you asking. It must be something super secretive and esoteric, right? Secrets learned straight from the link-building monks at an ancient SEO temple… “Right?” Well, not quite. The tactic isn’t something too unusual - it’s pretty famous on the web. This tactic comes in 2 steps:
Figure out where your target audience hangs out (create a list of the channels)
Research the type of content your audience loves
Create EPIC content based on that research (give TONS of value)
Promote the HELL out of it in the channels from step 1
Nothing too new, right? Well, you’d be surprised how many people don’t use it. Now, before you start throwing stones at us for overhyping something so simple, let’s dive into the case study: How we PR’d the hell out of our guide to SaaS marketing (can't add a link, but it's on our blog and it's 14k words long), and got 10k+ traffic as a result. A few months back when we launched our blog, we were deciding on what our initial content should be about. Since we specialize in helping SaaS companies acquire new users, we decided to create a mega-authority guide to SaaS marketing (AND try to get it to rank for its respective keyword). We went through the top-ranking content pieces, and saw that none of them was anything too impressive. Most of them were about general startup marketing strategies - how to validate your MVP, find a product-market fit, etc. Pretty “meh,” if you ask us. We believe that the #1 thing founders are looking for when Googling “saas marketing” are practical channels and tactics you can use to acquire new users. So, it all started off with an idea: create a listicle of the top SaaS marketing tactics out there:
How to create good content to drive users
Promote your content
Rank on Google
Create viral infographics
Create a micro-site
...and we ended up overdoing it, covering 41+ different tactics and case studies and hitting around 14k+ words. On one hand, oops! On the other hand, we had some pretty epic content on our hands. We even added the Smart Content Filter to make the article much easier to navigate. Once the article was up, we ran it through some of our clients, friends, and acquaintances, and received some really good feedback. So, now we knew it was worth promoting the hell out of it. We came up with a huge list of all online channels that would appreciate this article:
entrepreneur and startups (hi guys!). The first ended up loving the post, netting us ~600 upboats and a platinum medal. The latter also ended up loving the post, but the mods decided to be assholes and remove it for being “self-promotional.” So, despite the community loving the content, it got axed by the mods. Sad. (Fun fact - this one time we tried to submit another content piece on startups with no company names, no links back to our website, or anything that can be deemed promotional. One of the mods removed it for mentioning a link to Ahrefs. Go figure!)
Hacker News. Tons of founders hang out on HN, so we thought they’d appreciate anything SaaS-related. This netted us around ~200+ upvotes and some awesome feedback (thanks HN!)
Submit on Growth Hackers, Indie Hackers, and all other online marketing communities. We got a bunch of love on Indie Hackers, the rest were quite inactive.
Reach out to all personal connects + clients and ask for a share
Run Facebook/Twitter ads. This didn’t particularly work out too well for us, so we dropped it after 1-2 weeks.
Run a Quuu promotion. If you haven’t heard of Quuu, it’s a platform that matches people who want their content to be shared, with people who want their social media profiles running on 100% auto-pilot. We also got “meh” results here - tons of shares, next to no likes or link clicks.
Promoted in SaaS and marketing Facebook groups. This had awesome results both in terms of traffic, as well as making new friends, AND getting new leads.
Promoted in entrepreneur Slack channels. This worked OK - didn’t net us traffic, but got us some new friends.
Emailed anyone we mentioned in the article and asked for a share. Since we mentioned too many high profile peeps and not enough non-celebs, this didn’t work out too well
Emailed influencers that we thought would like the article / give it a share. They didn’t. We were heart-broken.
And accordingly, created a checklist + distribution sheet with all the websites or emails of people we wanted to ping. Overall, this netted us around 12,000 page views in total, 15+ leads, 6,000 traffic in just 2 promotion days. As for SEO results, we got a bunch of links. (I would have added screenshots to all of these results, but don't think this subreddit allows it). A lot of these are no-follow from Reddit, HackerNews, and other submission websites, but a lot of them are also pretty authentic. The cool part about this link-building tactic is that people link to you without even asking. You create awesome content that helps people, and you get rewarded with links, shares, and traffic! And as for the cherry on top, only 2 months after publishing the article, it’s ranking on position #28. We’re expecting it to get to page 1 within the new few months and top 3 within the year.
Step #6 - Interlink Your Pages
One of Google's ranking factors is how long your visitors stick around on your website. So, you need to encourage users reading ONE article, to read, well, the rest of them (or at least browse around your website). This is done through interlinking. The idea is that each of your web pages should be linked to and from every other relevant page on your site. Say, an article on "how to make a resume" could link to (and be linked from) "how to include contact info on a resume," "how to write a cover letter," "what's the difference between a CV and a resume," and so on. Proper interlinking alone can have a significant impact on your website rankings. NinjaOutreach, for example, managed to improve their organic traffic by 40% through better interlinking alone. So, how do you do interlinking “right?” First off, make it a requirement for your writers to link to the rest of your content. Add a clause to your writer guidelines that each article should have 10+ links to your other content pieces. More often than not, they’ll manage to get 60-70% of interlinking opportunities. To get this to 100%, we usually do bi-annual interlinking runs. Here’s how that works. Pick an article you want to interlink. Let’s say, for example, an article on 'business process management'. The goal here is to find as many existing articles on your blog, where ‘business process management’ is mentioned so that we can add a link to the article. Firstly, Google the keyword ‘business process management’ by doing a Google search on your domain. You can use the following query: site:yourwebsite.com "keyword" In our case, that’s: site:example.com “business process management” You’ll get a complete list of articles that mention the keyword “business process management. Now, all you have to do is go through each of these, and make sure that the keyword is hyperlinked to the respective article! You should also do this for all the synonyms of the keyword for this article. For example, “BPM” is an acronym for business process management, so you’d want to link this article there too.
Step #7 - Track & Improve Your Headline CTRs
Article CTRs play a huge role in determining what ranks or not. Let’s say your article ranks #4 with a CTR of 15%. Google benchmarks this CTR with the average CTR for the position. If the average CTR for position #4 is 12%, Google will assume that your article, with a CTR of 15% is of high quality, and will reward you with better rankings. On the other hand, if the average CTR is 18%, Google will assume that your article isn’t as valuable as other ranking content pieces, and will lower your ranking. So, it’s important to keep track of your Click Through Rates for all your articles, and when you see something that’s underperforming, you can test different headlines to see if they’ll improve CTR. Now, you’re probably wondering, how do you figure out what’s the average CTR? Unfortunately, each search result is different, and there's no one size fits all formula for average CTR. Over the past few years, Google has been implementing a bunch of different types of search results - featured snippet, QAs, and a lot of other types of search results. So, depending on how many of these clutter and the search results for your given keyword, you’ll get different average CTRs by position. Rule of thumb, you can follow these values:
1st position -> ~31.73% CTR
2nd pos. -> ~24.71%
3rd pos. -> 18.66%
4th pos. -> 13.60%
5th -> 9.51%
6th -> 6.23%
7th -> 4.15%
8th -> 3.12%
9th -> 2.97%
Keep in mind these change a lot depending on your industry, PPC competitiveness, 0-click searches, etc... Use a scraping tool like Screaming Frog to extract the following data from all your web pages:
Page title
Page URL
Old Headline
Delete all the pages that aren’t meant to rank on Google. Then, head over to Google Search Console and extract the following data for all the web pages:
CTR (28 Day Range)
Avg. Position
Add all of this data to a spreadsheet. Now, check what your competition is doing and use that to come up with new headline ideas. Then, put them in the Title Ideas cell for the respective keyword. For each keyword, come up with 4-5 different headlines, and implement the (seemingly) best title for each article. Once you implement the change, insert the date on the Date Implemented column. This will help you keep track of progress. Then, wait for around 3 - 4 weeks to see what kind of impact this change is going to have on your rankings and CTR. If the results are not satisfactory, record the results in the respective cells, and implement another test for the following month. Make sure to update the Date Implemented column once again.
Step #8 - Keep Track of Rankings & Make Improvements On-The-Go
You’re never really “done” with SEO - you should always keep track of your rankings and see if there’s any room for improvement. If you wait for an adequate time-frame after publishing a post (6 months to a year) and you’re still seeing next to no results, then it might be time to investigate. Here’s what this usually looks like for us:
Audit the content
Does your content have an adequate word count? Think, 1.5-2x your competitors.
Is the content well-written?
Do the images in your article add value? E.g. no stock or irrelevant images.
Is the content optimized for SEO? Think, keyword density, links to external websites, etc.
Audit internal links
Does the content link to an adequate number of your other articles or web pages?
Is the article linked to from an adequate number of your web pages or blog posts? You can check this on Search Console => Links => Internal Links. Or, if you’re using Yoast or RankMath, you can check the # of internal links a post has in the WordPress Dashboard -> Posts.
Audit the backlinks
Do you have as many backlinks as your competitors?
Are your backlinks from the countries you want to rank in? If you have a bunch of links from India, but you want to rank in the US, you’d need to get more US links.
Are your links high quality? More often than not, low DA / PA links are not that helpful.
Did you disown low-quality or spam links?
Audit web page
Does the web page load too slow? Think, 4+ seconds.
Did you enable lazy loading for the images?
Did you compress all images on the web page?
...And that's it. Hope you guys had a good read and learned a thing or two :) HMU if you have any questions. If you want to read the full version in a more reader-friendly format, you can check out our SEO process blog post here.
Does Blazblue Dark War and Dark Mai make anyone else uncomfortable?
Because.... Why? Why would they do this to Mai Natsume? Why would they make one of the game's nicest, wholesome, most pure hearted characters.... a villain? I get that they might wanna put characters in a new light, but they could've picked any other character to make evil. Kokonoe; she's already done morally ambiguous stuff, it'd make sense to make an evil Kokonoe. Or maybe Kagura, maybe they'd take his pervertedness to the extreme? Or Taokaka? That would honestly be pretty funny. Even Es would make more sense; she hardly shows emotions at all. But MAI? That'd be like if you made Celica evil; you just don't do it! I mean, sure, Dark Mai may be drop dead gorgeous and sexy as Mai always is; but........ I don't feel good at all. Is it because Arc System Works doesn't like Mai? Because compared to the other characters who came from side material, Es and Naoto, they treat those 2 far better than Mai. Es got to be in the base game of Cross Tag Battle, so all the people who bought it on Switch for 5 dollars would play with Es all the time and not care about Mai cause she's always just dlc. Naoto got to be on the boxart of the updated CTB, showing him off to all the newbies cause he's more important than the other dlc characters I guess. Es gets to have figurines and body pillows that are still in print and don't cost an arm and a leg unlike Mai's figurine and body pillow; they don't care about reprinting Mai's stuff. There are some fan artists, for example Jcdr on deviantart, who draw both genderbender art, and Blazblue art; so you'd think they'd be be quick to draw Mai Natsume; they don't. But they draw Es a lot though. Or toraishi 666? He only draws the small breasted girls from Blazblue; but he made 1 exception for Es! Even something simple like searching "blazblue ponies" on google; what's one of the first results? Es, as a pony, all by herself. Most of the other pics are ensembles of characters as ponies. And of course there is no Mai pony to be found. And now in Dark War, Es and Naoto are right on the boxart with fucking Ragna Noel and Jin, and are prominent in the trailer, with no Mai in sight. At least that's what I thought at first, until someone pointed out one frame with her as her new evil self, and she's unrecognizable. What I'm trying to say is, it seems Arc and everyone else doesn't care about Mai, yet seem to love Es far more. Why? Both of Es's Xblaze visual novels are both like $20 each on steam; while you can read both of Mai's Heart mangas online for free, AND she even has her own story mode in Chronophantasma with full English voice acting (Es didn't have an English voice until CTB); she was mentioned in the main story there as well, well before Es entered the main games. So she's more accessible than Es. And Mai is the only one of the 3 characters from spin offs that is actually from the real Blazblue world, and not some alternate dimension unlike Es and Naoto; with several canon characters meeting Mai and even being her friends. So what is this need for Arc to make Es one of the main characters, and even worse to make Mai a bad guy? Is it because she's trans? Does the fact that she used to be a guy make people hate her? I hate to stereotype, but gamers tend to hate trans people and LGBT people in general (I don't need to remind everyone of the reaction certain sites had to The Last Of Us 2). And Japan tends to have no qualms with making fun of trans people (Mother 3 anyone?). Well that's not fair; being trans shouldn't matter to what kind of person you are. And Mai Natsume is the best trans character I have ever seen. Hell, even the Heroes Wiki has labeled her as "Pure Good", something they are very strict about. They only give that label to people without a single bad bone in their body. That should show how much of a good person Mai is. It breaks my heart that no one else sees her the way I see her. That in Arc's new mobile game Es and Naoto and Jin and Bullet and Kagura and the rest are all heroes for the player to collect and love, while Mai is merely a boss only for the player to kill. That eventually we'll see Mai on the Villain's Wiki, and then they might reject her from pure good, forever showing the world how Mai's reputation has been tainted. That Japanese people with their fancy cell phones and gambling money will say "Wow, I finally rolled Es! That's $50 well spent! Es is best girl uwu! I can't wait to use her to speedrun killing Mai! Who even like Mai anyway?". Thoughts like those make me cry. Sorry for ranting. It's just...... Mai Natsume is my favorite character. She's the whole reason I played Blazblue in the first place. I'd hate to sound sappy, but she's my waifu. I love her. After her arc and all she's been through, I'd hug her for hours. If she was real I'd put a ring on it. Which makes me feel even worse that everyone else seems to not care about her. It's Fiora from Xenoblade Chronicles all over again.
I think I can trust y'all to be above the circlejerk on a certain other sub so would you please blow your load all over this DD so I can stop huffing copium? Reasons why I believe GME is a good long term investment:
The gaming industry is a high growth market. Currently valued at $156B and expected to reach $200B by the end of 2021. This means that in order for GameStop to lose revenue they would also need to lose roughly 66% market share, otherwise the high growth of the gaming market alone will keep them afloat. The thesis that GameStop is the next Blockbuster is predicated on the current trend of market share loss continuing until the company goes bankrupt. There is no doubt in my mind that GameStop needs to pivot into e-commerce in order to gain back lost market share and continue benefiting from their position as a retailer in a high growth market. Ryan Cohen is the former CEO of Chewy, an e-commerce retailer specializing in pet products which directly competes with Amazon. Chewy has grown from a 400K market cap to over 40B. R.C. recently purchased 9.8% of Gamestop’s outstanding stock through his investment firm RC Ventures LLC. This is his open letter to the GME board written on Nov. 6th. On Jan. 11th it was confirmed that RC would be joining the GME board alongside two partners from Chewy, CFO Jim Grube and CMO Alan Attal. Given the timing of this move it is logical to conclude that GME may be taking RC’s recommendations to heart. On Feb. 2nd three additional experts in the e-commerce market were appointed to executive positions within GME: former AWS engineering lead Matt Francis as CTO, Amazon veteran Josh Kreuger as VP of Fulfillment, and former Chewy VP of Customer Service Kelly Durkin as SVP of Customer Care. Gamestop is poised for a promising earnings report TBA this March due to console release cycles. GME stock has soared in recent weeks due to wild speculation driven by online forum WSB. Prior to recent events GME stock was shorted over 140% of outstanding float, WSB users saw an opportunity to squeeze the shorts due to the above good news regarding GME long positions. This has provided GME with much needed breathing room to make stock offerings and pay back accrued real estate debt. Often touted by those bearish on GME is the news that they would be closing over 450 stores in 2020. However this falls in line with the plan RC outlined in his open letter, and I believe this could actually lead to bullish sentiment. If the board of GME is listening to RC then that is good news.
Why GME may be a decent speculative play:
There is good reason to believe that the prevailing market thesis among wall street investment firms is bearish on GME. Source: every interview of wall street insiders conducted on major media outlets, and the fact that they were shorting GME 140% of the outstanding float. SI% dropped considerably at the end of January as shorts were gradually squeezed out of their positions due to the stock going viral on social media. This suggests that there are at least some who consider shorting GME to be too risky. SI% is still estimated to be over 100% of the outstanding float, and many investors doubled down on short positions at the peak of the GME hype when the stock soared to $500 a share. If the market thesis on GME reverses, the short positions will eventually be covered. A correct valuation of share price based on market fundamentals still places it in the $20-30 range in optimistic estimates. This is the range in which I believe that short positions should consider covering IF the prevailing market thesis changes, creating upward momentum.
Why GME has potential as an insanely lucrative gamble at the same IQ level as Burry's Big Short:
This is where we enter into the area of conspiracy theories. This part of the thesis assumes that not only have HFs over shorted the stock beyond the outstanding float, but that the real SI% is much much higher than reported and is being hidden through illegal stock counterfeiting. The SEC has acknowledged these dangerous activities in other cases. This website has a decent explanation of how HFs take advantage of companies going bankrupt to turn on the money printers. IF the usual suspects in this counterfeiting ring were planning to take advantage of GameStop’s impending bankruptcy then there could be as many as 30 fake shares for every one FTD. This is speculation on speculation, and assumes that some very illegal activity has been going on in regards to GME shares. I personally did not make my decision to invest in GME shares based upon this, but it could be important to the overall market thesis regarding GME. Ok with that disclaimer out of the way, what metrics could we use to determine if this is being done to GME? The site linked above outlines a few key data points which we can use to investigate this practice. Fails to Deliver data for GME has been compiled here. GME was one of the most shorted stocks in 2020. All major media outlets have released opinions that “GameStop is the next Blockbuster”. Citron was releasing pieces attacking GME. While this is circumstantial evidence at best, it does fit the criteria of media attacks. The ongoing media coverage of the GME event is largely negative, describing WSB as a “pump and dump scam” at best. The WSB GME event was the perfect storm for counterfeiters, IF there were a large number of counterfeit shares being used in “Short Ladder Attacks” they would have been easily disguised in the high volume leading up to GME ATH. When RH restricted users from buying the stock they may have inadvertently revealed the underlying transactions of counterfeit shares being used to push the price down. A deep analysis of the transactions on the day immediately following the RH change may be quite revealing. IF the above alleged is true then the counterfeiters would have tried their hardest to push the price down on those days. They also have potentially infinite leverage to do so, which is why the concept of a “Short Squeeze” has largely gone extinct. The Shorts can produce an infinite supply of shares to counter buy interest. The only way they can lose is if GameStop makes a turnaround and long investors stay in. They need to do everything they can to get them to sell. If you have followed through this with me this far then I invite you to come to your own conclusions regarding this issue based upon logical reasoning. Some questions I’d like to ask you: Was GameStop a good target for share counterfeiting? Does the FTD data suggest that there was at least some counterfeiting being done? Is the market’s reaction to the GME event in line with normal expectations? Are there any other reasonable explanations for the high FTD numbers over the past year?
This is what I think could be happening right now, assuming the above is correct:
GameStop was supposed to go bankrupt. Counterfeiters that have been consistently preying upon companies in similar situations saw an opportunity to turn on the money printers, which have been going BRRRRRR for all of 2020 at least. When GME went viral they took advantage of the high volume to attack the share price, preventing a short squeeze. The goal is to drive the price down all the way to 0. If it is as bad as I think it is, there is 0 chance of the counterfeit shares used to short the stock ever being covered. The shares simply don’t exist, but there are a number of ways they can just keep kicking the can forward and hiding them from the SEC (which is unlikely to do anything meaningful about it even if they did know). However there may be limits to how long they can keep this up. The ringleaders are either still hoping that everyone jumps off the bandwagon after crashing the stock, or they will take their profits and escape. This is make it or break it for them, and they don’t intend to be around when it breaks. What happens next is anyone’s guess. I predict something similar to the 2008 financial crisis as the criminals behind this scam leave the DTCC and the FED on the hook after they loot the ship. I bet the biggest players have already fucked off into the sunset. In Conclusion: GME is a promising company in a high growth industry, however there are indications that they were preyed upon by criminal share counterfeiters, which means that it is a matter of GME vs. criminal billionaires and I’m starting to doubt if my investment was worth the risk even considering a strong belief in Ryan Cohen’s ability to turn things around. Hindsight is 2020, welcome to 2021. If I was in DFV’s shoes right now I’d be in a fast car heading somewhere far away.
Hopefully a post like this can be stickied since a lot of people are posting the same questions. If you are new or just getting back into collecting basketball cards then please read. For the New Collector How do I start? Collect what you like. What do you enjoy the most? A player or a team? That should guide your collection. Then figure out how you want to get your cards; either buying boxes or buying singles. Buying boxes are always a gamble as you don't know what you are gonna get. Buying singles from eBay or comc are typical ways to go about this. Boxes are so expensive, what gives? Currently, we are in a bull market for cards in general but especially with basketball. The demand for them has increased exponentially. A lot of previous collectors, when they were younger have come back to the hobby. Also, influencers like Gary Vee have touted that basketball cards can be assets, so you have wealthy people looking to invest getting into the hobby as well. Hobby boxes of Prizm used to be $60-100 when they initially came out but now 2019 Prizm are $800. Group Breakers are also pushing this. I have the money and I want to buy boxes, which box? (For this discussion, I'm only focused on hobby boxes) NBA boxes come in tiers: Low Class (I don't mean this in a bad way...just that these are usually the cheapest in terms of pricing) NBA Hoops (usually the first release of the season) Panini Panini Complete Donruss Middle Class (just like in real life, middle class is slowly becoming high class in terms of affordability especially for Prizm,Optics,Mosaics) Certified NBA Hoops Premium Stock Court Kings Absolute Revolution Prizm (most sought after for general public for refractors and colors) Mosaic (colors) Optic (colors) Select Timeless Treasures Gold Standard Chronicles Illusions Origins Upper Class (dollar dollar bill y'all...either you have a really good job or you are swimming in credit card debt lol) Spectra Noir Impeccable Immaculate One and One Obsidian National Treasures (most sought after for RPA - rookie, patch, auto) Flawless Opulence Eminence (15k per box!! WTF?!?!?...It's now listed at 50k!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Now, where do I find these boxes? Boxes can be separated into Hobby or Retail. Hobby boxes can be bought at your local card shops or online at sites like Blowout and the like. Retail are typically found at big box stores like Walmart, Target, etc. Retail can also be found online as well. Because of how hot the basketball market is, it is super hard to find retail boxes because people are literally camping out or stalking the distributers that restock those shelves. So for many people, once those shelves are stocked, someone will come along and purchase everything. Sometimes it's someone who will rip it all or worse yet, sell it all at 3-5x MSRP. But what about the college boxes/cards? Prizm Draft Picks or Flawless Collegiate or National Treasures Collegiate don't hold too much value to us NBA fans. So if you buy these boxes, please don't expect for those cards to increase in value. It's obviously ok to like the cards of the players you like or the college team you like but those cards will not hold the value like their NBA uniformed card counterparts. If you do buy these boxes and want to sell them, the best time is around the draft time and before the first NBA cards comes out (usually NBA Hoops). What happened to Topps and Upper Deck? Isn't Panini a sandwich? Panini is an italian styled sandwich but it is also a huge company that got big by selling stickers. Stickers of all things! I know! They are so big that they are bigger than Topps and Upper Deck combined i think. Anyways, back in 2010, Panini got the exclusive rights from the NBA to produce cards and thus forced Topps and Upper Deck out. Topps had baseball and football so they were fine with it and Upper Deck had hockey and a number of financial issues that I think still plague the company. So now we are stuck with Panini for better or worse. There's so many color variations? Which ones are valuable? As a collector, whichever one catches your eye. As a flipper, look for the serial numbering. Typically the lower the serial numbering, the more valuable it should be. /1 > /5 > /10 > /49 > /99 > /199 > etc... A note on color, a lot of collectors place a premium on the color parallel if it is the same color as the team's colors or jersey colors. But I've seen non-numbered silvers sold for more than the numbered colors? What gives? That is the market sometimes...If the general public decides that the silvers are more desirable than that is whats going to happen. Yay! I pulled a Zion silver prizm rookie card! It will be worth $100k in 10 years right?I can now retire right? NO. While Zion is definitely the sexy new cards, there can be a whole host of things that can derail your retirement plans. First, Zion may flame out. He may have a career threatening or altering injury like Derrick Rose or Blake Griffin. He may never live up to his hype like Wiggins. He can become a player that the fans hate or turn on like Durant. The basketball card market starts to crater if all the new money wants to start selling and get out of the market. I've dug up some old cards. Most are from the late 80's and early 90's and with this basketball card boom, I'm rich right? NO. You have literally found kindle for a fire. Just kidding but not really. Unfortunately, a lot of the cards in the late 80s and early 90s were massively overproduced. If you think there a tonne of prizm cards, it still doesn't compare to the sheer number of 1988-1995 cards (Hoops, Fleer, Upper Deck, Topps). That 1990 Hoops Michael Jordan? You're lucky to get a $2 for it. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble about it but that's the truth. When is the best time to sell a card? Usually during the season and the playoffs. If you want the most, do not sell during the off-season. Another thing to think about is the player that you are looking to sell. If it is a player that is not a star or superstar, it's best to sell after that player has strung along a few good games. If it's a star or superstar, the best time would be if that player is about to win a championship. Case in point, Kawhi's value was through the roof when he won in Toronto and now his value has dropped since his failure with the Clippers. Rookie cards are too expensive. What do I do? If the rookie cards are a little too much in price, you can always collect the 2nd year cards. This seems to be the case more than ever now as younger collectors just don't have the financial resources. To me a base is a base, so a 2nd year card is the same as a 10th year card. But that's just my opinion. Is my card valuable? Before asking this question, please for the love of god look it up on ebay. Type in the player, year, brand of the card and scroll down until you see the Show Only filter and click on Sold Items. This will pull up all the previous sales of that card. This will give you your best answer as to how valuable your card is. But what about the Beckett value? Before the internet and ebay, Beckett was the best way to figure out approximate value of a card. But now we have the internet and ebay and 130point. But what if I have a One of One? How do I know how much it's worth? Congrats! You have a pretty cool card. If it is of a superstar like Lebron or Luka, you just gained a $1k+ card. No one can accurately tell you the value of the card until it is sold. But if the card is of a common player or scrub, you might be lucky to get $20. From u/kHartos, he wrote the following for Retail Boxes: Here is another thing I see asked a lot - retail box formats. So here they are in order of smallest to largest. Not all formats are available for all products. Gravity pack - smallest packs, typically 4-8 cards. Comes from gravity feed boxes. Fat pack - jumbo gravity pack. Available for low end sets like Hoops and Donruss. Cello pack - multiple smaller packs wrapped in cellophane. Hanger - A small box of multiple packs Blaster - The sh*t fliplifers most try to get you to buy for 4x MSRP (which is always 19.99). This is larger than a hanger, smaller than a Mega. Mega box - Exclusive to Target and Walmart. MSRP at $49.99. Usually Target and Walmart Megas get their own exclusive parallel/s. I hope this helps for the newbies. Feel free to add as I'm sure I have missed some tips. Edit: Formatting
I was going to just let my Simple account roll over to the new bank to see how they handled it but since my card started getting declined all over the place for no reason and support was no help, I decided to jump ship. After Envel breaking and lot letting me sign up, and Schwab turning me down for lack of credit history (I've basically lived off-grid in terms of debt all my life), I settled on SoFi as my first trial for a new primary bank. Since I really wish there'd been more posts like this to help me compare options, I'm making one for SoFi. I'll go through the big Simple features one by one and make a comparison.
Goals (Vaults):
Vaults are, for all intents and purposes, identical to Simple Goals. You can create an arbitrary numbers of them. You can set a goal amount. You can schedule monthly contributions to a Vault. You can turn on AutoSave for a Vault which will allow you to automatically funnel a dollar amount or percentage of your direct deposits into a Vault. You can also turn on Roudup Transfer to select a vault to grow with your round ups. You can decide to automatically draw from Vaults when your spending balance runs out, or you can disable this and your card will be declined if all of your money is tied up in Vaults. You cannot have protected and unprotected vaults like you could in Simple. It is all or nothing. The feature I liked from Simple that it's missing is the ability to only contribute X amount each day if you have disposable income, or money in Safe to Spend. Since there's no direct 1:1 comparison to Safe to Spend in SoFi, this is not possible. I liked the idea with Simple that when I have extra spending money, I'm also saving extra.
Expenses
There's no analogous functionality to this in SoFi though you can schedule regular bill pay.
Spending Categories
You can categorize your spending and review it at a glance in SoFi much like you can in Simple. There aren't as many fine-grained categories, but you can also create arbitrary custom tags to drill down with as much detail as you want. The part where SoFi really shines is you can track spending in more than one account, similar to Mint or YNAB. More on that later.
Joint Accounts
You can set up a joint account simply by inviting someone. It's as easy and powerful as Simple. SoFi does not currently support owning a joint and individual account, but the FAQ says it's on their roadmap as a feature.
Sharing
Just like Simple, SoFi supports instant transfers between members. It also supports sending money to anyone via their email address or SMS. No idea how this actually works or looks on the receiving end. It's poorly documented.
Checks
You can order paper checks, or, like Simple used to support, send a check from the app by using the Bill Pay interface. You can deposit checks through the mobile app at $25,000/day.
Cards
Just like Simple, you can lock your card or change your pin instantly through the app or website. That's it for Simple features. The only big thing missing is the concept of Safe to Spend and expense automation.
Things Simple didn't do
The big one for me is the Relay feature. This is an all-in-one dashboard for your net worth. You can add any account or asset to your SoFi account to track its worth. If the account supports Plaid, you can also see transaction history. This lets you see and categorize your spending on just from your SoFi Money account, but any account you have connected. This lets you track or spending similar to Mint. You can add bank accounts, credit, investment accounts, loans, cars, real estate, or arbitrary assets and liabilities. Seen this all in one place and automated is very satisfying. Investment accounts. This is what made me try SoFi in the first place. I just recently started taking investing seriously and actually paying attention to my 401k. In SoFi you can open an Active Investing account similar to Robinhood where you can buy whole or fractional shares in stocks and ETFs. You can open IRAs (including SEP for self-employed people or anyone with side-gig money). You can open joint investing accounts. You can open "Auto Investing" accounts that operate similar to ETFs where you set an aggressiveness goal and they manage your investing for you. This is a good replacement for a savings goal. Just create a conservative automated investing account and you can earn much better interest on your money while you save it up. You can also buy a handfull of common cryptocurrencies. This is all wrapped up in an attractive UI with guided wizards to help you choose the best options for your investment accounts based on your goals. They will also cover up to $75 in transfer fees to transfer investment accounts to SoFi. They support personal loans, home loans, and student loans. There appear to be interest perks for members who set up autopay from their SoFi checking accounts. They have an invite-only credit card program with various rewards that are tied into other features in SoFi. Free access to financial and career advisors online along with a whole slew of other financial, life, and career resources. Their GetThatRaise tool will ask you about your salary, your seniority, your job title, what kind of success you've had, and will help you put together a proposal for a raise based on average salaries in your area for your position. Local offers lets you browse businesses with promotional SoFi deals. If I go to Quiznos right now I get 10% cash back if I run my SoFi card as credit. Your Vantage score is always available for free and tracked. Referal bonuses can be had for getting people to open investment accounts or get loans. There are a bunch of partner offers similar to being a AAA or Costco member. They have a bunch of articles to help you learn as you go.
Things I dislike
A lot of features like the GetThatRaise tool are not really obviously exposed anywhere. I've found things by digging around FAQs and documentation where are not linked anywhere else on the site that I can find. They're not really doing a great job of pushing their features in front of the user. No opening links in new tabs. This is a big quality of life annoyance. I can't click a stock and open it in a new page. If you get a few links deep looking at stocks you can't just go back to where you were. You have to start over and search again instead of going back to your previous results. This is incredibly annoying. Feedback isn't always great. For example if you open an investment account, there's a pending approval period. This is not listed anywhere on the web site. The mobile app indicates a pending approval. But on the website the only way to know it's not approved is your initial deposit hasn't gone through yet. There are a lot of other little things that could be better documented or better communicated to the user. Screenshots: Dashboard Vaults Investment Dashboard Relay Dashboard Relay Account Listing ...continued I'm very happy with SoFi so far. I'm still digging up features. Being able to invest through my bank app is awesome. I'm going to screw around with some fun WSB-style gambling with disposable income in active investing, and set up longer term and lower risk accounts for savings. The APY on the Money (checking) account is 0.25% but I don't really care as all I'm going to keep there is my spending money and my emergency fund in a vault. I plan to keep as much of my money as possible in some level of investment account and "high yield" checking/savings accounts have been a complete joke for some time. If you're using one of the other common banks people are jumping to, feel free to post a breakdown like this to help others decide.
(I've tried to organize this post as cohesively as possible but I understand that there is a lot of stuff here so sorry if it's kind of disjointed) My Grandmother - 71f - and I - 22f - used to be quite close when I was a child. I would spend most weekends at her house, we went on regular outings, and she was the one who really encouraged my love of reading and my silly little writings when I was younger. Now is a much different story. There is no question about if she's dying just a waiting game of when she will. Her only leg is infected that they are talking about amputating (she refused to go to the doctor until we made her go), out of control diabetes (600 will get a shrug from her and she refuses to take insulin), stage 5 kidney failure, and a yeast infection that she refuses to go to the doctor about. I suppose that I do resent her for the fact that most of these conditions could've easily been managed/treated if she would've went to the doctodone what the doctor had said but that's not the root of the resentment. The root of the problem is so much more insidious and a lot harder to talk about. For the past six years me and my mother have been taking care of her. This is after she broke her other foot, let it get infected past the point of no-return, and had to get it amputated up to her knee where the infection had spread to. The past six years I know that me and my mother haven't been perfect. There has been a lot of tension (especially during quarantine) and we've all had our blow ups at each other. I will say though that we've taken the very best care of her that we could. I've taken days of school to take care of her when my mom simply couldn't miss work. We've both bandaged wounds, changed diapers, bathed her, etc, etc. I don't resent her for any of that because I love her and she deserved/deserves to live with as best quality as life as can be provided. I suppose that maybe the resentment began when she missed my graduation (2017) to go the Casino for ten hours. It only intensified when during my LPN schooling she constantly questioned my choice to go into the healthcare profession. When I had to leave LPN school (two months from finishing) to help her I was met with a "Well maybe you can find something that won't require so much brainpower that will suit you better." I could still forgive her though because I simply decided that her advice/opinion simply wasn't true and maybe I had taken it the wrong way. I got into a Respiratory Therapy program during the fall of 2019 and was over the moon. My grandmother was obviously less excited then anybody else but had the good grace not to say anything. Well we can all guess what happened in early 2020 that shut down my campus and meant that we couldn't go to our on-site clinicals. I was upset about not getting to go but understood why. My entire family (minus me) is immunocomprised in one way or the other. My mother has COPD (from ARDS) and footdrop. My father is a diabetic and had rocky-mountain-tick fever. My sister had lymes. We're all anywhere from moderately to morbidly obese. We all took the pandemic seriously and bunkered down in our shelters to outwait the storm. We've all been bored but been as reasonable as we can. Everybody but my grandmother. She's always been a gambling addict but it became an obsession during quarantine. Her previous lack of motivation to do any type of chore became an outright refusal to even make her own bed. Her strength (already not great) went completely downhill as she wouldn't do anything but gamble online. It got to the point that we would fake internet outages just so she wouldn't blow all of her money. My parents - both unemployed - would pay the bills and she would promise to pay them back only to blow her next paycheck again. This was a cycle that we all talked to her about and got screamed at for. We all basically did our best to get scarce much to her obvious anger. This lead to the time she demanded that I take her to the bakery and I politely said that I wouldn't. When she pressed me I admitted that I was worried about her blood sugar. This lead to a twenty - five minute lecture where she basically told me that I was trying to control her and that I was going to become like every other healthcare worker - an idiot. Now that got my goat and I refused to speak to her for about a week but convinced myself to get over it. Then the real kicker happened. When the casinos opened back up she screamed at us until we took her. I said that I flat - out wouldn't take her. It was as if a nuclear bomb went off. Every single bad thing that she's ever thought about me came flying out of her mouth and struck me straight in the heart. She called me pretty much ever unkind quality in the book. Selfish, spoiled, arrogant, hateful, righteous. You name it. She insulted not only me but my mother (a druggie aka has chronic crippling pain that has only gotten worse since taking care of her), my father (a useless bastard, he has such low-self esteem from her and her shitty husbands that he's scared of messing up when making a pizza), my sister (an Indian bitch, she's half - choctaw and isn't my father's biological child something that's always rubbed my Grandma the wrong way) and several of my friends. I had my own say back where I pretty much told her that she could fucking shove her cane up her ass and maybe when she pulled it back out her head could come with it. Our relationship has never been the same since. I've never told my family any of what she said about them and I don't ever intend to. I help her just the same as I always would and she seems to think that I've forgiven/forgotten the whole thing. Instead it just festers in me all the time. I want to try and let go of the resentment because her days might be numbered in days instead of weeks but I simply don't know if I'll be able too. I don't know if I came her for advice to how to help me let go, improve our relationship or if i simply just want some kind words while I try to grieve, help, and overcome at the same time. Thank you for your time.
TL;DR: What the actual Fuck. (Maybe 5/6 grams Lemon Tekked) I've made bad decisions in my life, countless in fact, you could say that I'm drawn to bad decision making like a moth to a flame, a really, very low IQ moth with borderline learning disability. I will preface this story with saying that this may have been my worst decision I have ever made. I'm one of these people who goes on trustpilot and clicks '5 star reviews only' in order to re-establish my confidence in a product or company that I am excited to use, usually after purchasing and awaiting delivery, you could call it being optimistic, but a more accurate description would involve deserved play yard insults implying lower intelligence, so when I first saw a documentary on Youtube pop up in my recommendations discussing the amazing life altering effects of Magic mushrooms, I was instantly hooked and intrigued, needless to say I scoffed at the notion that a 'trip' could take a sharp downward trajectory to anyone, but more specifically a novice user, unaware of the potential that a mushroom that can be found down the street a my local dairy farm could have. After all, I have done every drug under the sun, minus a few of the life ruining heavy hitters available in the darker parts of my city, I'd partied hard in my life, but my assurance lay mainly with my vast experience with Marijuana, after all, if you have done high doses of marijuana, life begins to feel trippy, things begin to get a little 'psychadelic', how much different could a shrooms trip be? Famous last words. Add to that the fact that I meditate daily for 20 minutes (and one day about a month ago, 23 minutes when my timer malfunctioned), my arrogance coming into this experience was insummountable and honestly looking back, kind of funny. Magic mushrooms are not exactly easy to find where I live, and nowhere to be bought either so soon after my interest peaked following my happenstance online introduction to the wide world of psychadelics I was despondant that it seemed as though the door shut swiftly behind me and my life altering experience of rainbows and lollypops and endless sunshine that was to innevitably to come after ingestion would have to be put on the back burner for the foreseeable future. Then as I was perusing every thread available to me following the google search 'Magic mushrooms changed my life', 'shrooms are amazing' and really every conceivable variation of positive buzz words following the words magic mushrooms or shrooms, my google ad sense was tingling and low and behold the answer to all my prayers was revealed in the form of sponsored advertising, available direct from the groovy good time capital of the world, Amsterdam, in the form of Magic Truffles. This site claimed that these Magic truffles delivered the exact same experience available through the use of their above ground cousins, but were legal to sell and ingest as opposed to their aforementioned relatives. One quick google search of 'Magic mushrooms are the same as Magic Truffles' and one vague bit of text below a possible clickable google link with no context which read exactly the same as what I had typed in the search box (funny that) and I was convinced and away to the races. Obviously in all my infinite wisdom and countless hours of research, which could be more accurately summed up as 'seeking positive reinforcement to the idea that I was already set to pursue' I was all ready for the world famous 'Heroes Journey'! Seeing as though I had to order and wait for delivery I thought it best that I start with the most potent strain available, 2 packs, 30 odd grams. Much to my delight the online shop had the option available to seperate reviews based on star ratings and after reading several 5 star reviews claiming an amazing experience and overlooking the constant advice that this level is not for a novice user (because I smoke MJ and meditate it doesn't apply to me! Right?! Right?!) I was ready to rock and/or roll. While I was waiting for my delivery, which at this point in my head was just a box full of 'life change', I more or less imagined I would just crack it open and my existence as it was would be improved in every area, I would be like popeye throwing back spinach and hulking out, but instead my brain would realise its life purpose through the experience and then I would be put on the right path, which is honestly something I never had, a path, a purpose, something more than a menial human existence. Anyway I read about the best ways to have a trip, the best time, I even researched the best lunar times for a trip as I was convinced the moon would have an abject effect on my experience, ridiculous, but I wanted to do this right. I bought a coffee grinder and decided on a lemon tek for a stronger more enlightening experience, filled with even more rainbows and lollipops and elves braiding each others hair in the sunlight. I was ready to go, I even started to refer to myself as a psychonaut to my brother, who correctly insulted and laughed at me, perhaps just because it's just a ridiculous thing to verbalise to someone in the real world, and even though I said it as an offhanded joke in regards to my coming experience, part of me believed it to be true or at least that it would innevitably be the truth. The day came, I hadn't eaten in the morning, I had slept (although perhaps like a kid on Christmas Eve excited to wake and open his presents), I meditated for a full hour and I had just returned from a short walk in the forest while listening to a Joe Rogan psychadelic compilation on youtube (skipping over any discussion of bad trips, because that doesn't apply to me, I meditate you see, 20 minutes, everyday!!) and I was as ready as I was every going to be. My freshly ground Magic truffles lay in a glass immersed in lemon juice and in my eyes it appeared as if this concoction was some kind of magical wizardry in which all my questions (and prayers) could and would be answered, my living room was cleaned and I had but a pen and paper ready to scribble down what would be my life purpose, plan and all the answers to the universe that I could then spread to my disinterested famly and friends. Going into it I imagined as though I could sit and the shrooms would magically show a clear path and answer all the questions I wrote down, the big one circled and and underlined and 3 times the size of everything else written on the page, 'WHAT IS MY PURPOSE', you could call that my main trip intention. I was a little nervous as I chugged down 30 grams of the most disgusting tasting thing I had ingested since my brother undercooked lasagne when mum was away for a conference when I was 13, and the consistncy wasn't winning any best in show awards either, but it was done, I was jyving to some Bob Marley, and the nerves settled, my life was about to change! Around 15 minutes in, the TV I was streaming my music on started to become wavy and the colours appeared more vivid and vibrant, I turned to my cat and revealed while grinning 'It's starting', and she looked back and said 'You're damn right!' (Just kidding....or am I). I was now vibing hard at this point to the music and was ready to shut it off and jump on the answer train, all aboard, the time had come, I was ready to change. I closed my eyes and lay back. In the early minutes of my trip I just let my brain wander about a bit and I would vary between thinking the colours behind my eyelids were super cool and deeply considering every showerthought I had perused the night before, thinking different variations of 'huh', 'cool', 'wow', 'Wait, did my cat just talk to me!? 'that's so true' 'I never thought of that' and generally feeling awesome and cool, I had given in to the experience (hahahaha) just like I read online and was advised , that wasn't so hard, probably because I meditate you see, 20 minutes, everyday!! Play time was over now, I was ready to get down to business, 'What is your purpose?', I would repeat this in my head in an non forceful manner not sure at this point what to expect, my body was starting to shake a little bit now and I reached for the comfort of my coach blanket, still feeling good, still vibing, still on my heroes journey, just thought it to be part of the experience, but the shaking didn't stop. In fact it got worse, maybe I was an hour in at this point and I was completely wrapped from head to neck in several blankets still shaking and starting to grow concerned. My positive vibes and hopes for the trip were out the window and halfway to the next town over at this point and my thoughts had turned darker, and filled with relentless anxiety, the first speed bump in my 'spiritual awakening' came in the form of body shakes and it sent me down the hole of which I would not return while the shrooms were working their magic around my body. 'You bought these online, what if they're poisoned!', 'you're a loser!' and maybe worst of all, 'YOU ARE GOING TO BE THIS WAY FOREVER!', round the merry go round the thoughts went, each time the same statement or feeling I had felt minutes earlier progressively escalated in the gut punch of raw emotion and pain that I felt, each reaffirmation of the feeling making me feel worse and worse. Maybe I was 90 minutes in now, I was no longer wrapped cosily on the couch vibing to classic reggae, now I was in an inescapable fortress which felt roughly like how I had always imagined hell, except in place of lucifer and never ending physical torture, I was trapped in my own head sitting upright on the couch rocking back and forth staring at my hand as I clung to the notion that I was human, it was the only anchor I had left in this existense, I was never going to give into this experience, I now after the trip realise what posters meant by 'give in', but my brain was so unprepared and I was so unprepared to lose myself completely I did the worst thing I could, I fought...against 30 grams of the strongest strain of Truffles (Maybe 4/5 grams dried)...on a lemon tek, but you see...I meditate...everyday...for....uhhh whatever. As I stared at my hand it felt like I was in the movie Get Out when the main character is trapped in his own body after step mother of the year hypnotises him with her words and mystical tea cup, but I could still move, I could still pace around the room literally apologising, asking whoever or whatever was listening to let me out. I would consider myself mainly an atheist so looking back and thinking about what I felt in those moments is now interesting, although I imagine many atheists turn to a higher power in their final moments, which as I believed in my heart, I was going to die. I'll preface this next part by saying that I have a girlfriend who was working during this whole 'ordeal' or otherwise known as 'the incident' and I had carved out a solid 7 hour window in which I knew that I would be left alone to 'discover myself', at this point in the trip one of my main fears riding the merry go round was that my gf would suddenly appear in the doorway separating the kitchen and the living room where I was quickly losing all sense of self and just imagining the worst possible reactions that a human person can emote seeing what she would be exposed to and it was about the worst nightmare I could imagine at that point in time (Although time was a relative term at that point...in existence(?)) Things got worse as the minutes passed, you ever smoke to much, get so baked and then shower and you feel like you are literally in an angels embrace just beyond the pearly gates, another similar feeling of relief is when I stick my head under the tap in the bathroom and guzzle the months water supply of a small nation and literally feel that the feeling is comparable to that of ecstacy, yeah shrooms isn't at all like that is it? But it was my hail mary pass and at that point sitting on the couch praying to the mushroom gods and rocking back and forth staring at my hand like a character in the 3rd act of a 90's horror flick seemed to be pushing me further over the abyss. Walking to the bathroom was horrible, I still had that 'get out' passenger view through my eyes and my legs looked so very very far from my eyes, I decided to stick with a winning (?) formula and cried and prayed the gruelling 20 step walk while staring at my hand although at that point as far as reality anchors go, it was waivering and I was unsure of what I was at that point. I decide (whatever decide means at that point) to go straight to the cold shower and forego the 2nd option of potentially life affirming marathon water chug and as soon as the water hit my scalp I felt better. Haha nah just kidding, showering on shrooms is so alien I can't even describe what it felt like, especially running my hands through my wet hair, feels like aliens touching and carressing my scalp and not in anyway was it comforting, I was to far gone, Actually the cool water slowed my negative thoughts so that was something. I was back in the fetal position, but now I was naked in the shower with ET massaging my scalp as I lapped up cold water from the unwashed shower floor, afraid that if I shifted the water from my head in order to drink from the shower head the bad thoughts would instantly return and I just couldn't have that. Who knows how deep I was now, how long it had been, what my name was, what I was, where I was or what the fuck was going on, I never gave in to the mushrooms, I kept fighting and fighting the whole way, I was a complete disaster, I hadn't only lost sight of why I was doing this, WHAT IS MY PURPOSE?', I didn't even know anything, nor did I remember ingestion, I was completely gone, my ego was gone, I was praying for what felt like forever, lying on the floor of my shower soaking wet, apologising to a non existent entity and begging to be let go. It was not over. The shower helped in some ways but not in any real sense, I think I was still only going deeper and deeper into hell and the shower had been my hail mary, my brains sliver of sunshine, my 'AHA! moment' when I was fetal on the couch and it had failed me, I had no moves left, I was sitting up at this point and was shivering and needed to get warm, hot/warm water felt like torture as even slightly warm I was sure it would get hotter without notice and burn me which sent my anxiety through the roof. I finally mustered up the motivation to stand up and make moves, I think I was past the worst of it, I turn around, and my worst nightmare came to life, it came in the form of a person standing in front of me with a dumfounded and terrified look on their face. Yes, you guessed it, my reflection! An absolute disaster and a true sight to behold, naked shivering and crying in all my wonderful glory. But that couldn't be me, I don't look that much like a primate?? Yes I was in the worst mental shape of my life at that second and I looked as bad as I physically could as a human, but I swear I could have been shipped to a cage in the local zoo, start snacking on whatever deluxe fruit was served that afternoon and noone would have been the wiser, it was terrifying dont look in the mirror! DON'T! I began touching my face and observing the incredible likeness I had to our primal ancestors and any illusions I had about what I actually looked like were shattered. But it did remind me of who I am a bit and that was a slight turning point. Side note, I felt that for a few days after the trip and struggled to look in the mirror without whincing a little bit, I dimmed the lights to the lowest possible setting and showered in the dark, but the feeling passed and I came to terms with the fact that as well as my illusions being shattered, the reality was, I was also out of my mind on shrooms and I was shivering and soaking wet from a freezing cold shower (I also forgot to moiturise that morning) #justshroomythings Some more time passed and I did feel like I was slowly coming out of it, I still felt terrible, absolutely the worst I have ever felt, except for 5 minutes prior when I felt even worse (if that makes sense) than that and I took so much solace in that, slowly realising you're not going to die is a pretty amazing feeling, remembering who, where and what you are. I returned to the safety of the pile of 45 blankets I had assembled in the corner of my living room couch and just as I was about to be met beneath them with what I imagine would have been incredible relief I realised that the window was ajar, I had opened it during the start of my meltdown/monster ego death in an attempt to get some fresh air and stay in control, had my inside cat gotten outside? Did a bird of prey take her to their nest to serve as food for their squaking evil offspring, whatever anxiety I had rangled into submission in whatever alotted time I penciled in for my alien shower flew off the handle again and I was back in it, running around the house stark naked screaming my cats name, praying that she was inside sleeping somewhere but she was nowhere to be found, the anxiety was unbearable, I was convinced she was gone and probably deceased, if not somehow decapitated. What would I say to my girlfriend? How could I be so stupid? At this moment I was at my open front door naked with the door which faces quite a busy road between cities screaming my cats name in 2 or 3 degree weather, and just before I completely destroyed my life and stepped outside in full view of whatever neighbour was walking their dog or peaking through the window after hearing a deranged soaking wet naked man that so closely resembled a chimp they wouldn't know whether to call the police or animal control to deal with this issue I hear a 'meow' behind me and I turn and yawning and pacing towards me looking slightly annoyed is my wonderful cat. I feel the most profound sense of relief that I have ever felt, it was truly otherwordly and once I was back inside with the door closed behind me I felt genuine euphoria for about10 minutes, I was crying and hugging my cat, who really wasn't having it but I didnt give her an option at that point. I was back, side window was closed and I was under the pile of 82 blankets blaring Bob Marley again. The euphoria wore off, but I was out, I had been set free. I sat there with the music turned right down trying to make sense of what the fuck just happened. I said as such over and over and the more the euphoria faded the more active I became, I was pacing the room rubbing my hands over my damp head saying 'What the fuck' to myself genuinely unsure of what had just transpired. I hadn't learned the vast secrets of the universe or been amazed and immersed in the groovy wavy colours, I hadn't figured out my life purpose, or even made any leway in the journey towards it. I was arrogant and reckless, I thought because I smoked alot of weed and meditated I was ahead of the pack and could take on any experience. I laughed at the idea of a trip sitter, I was so enamoured with the idea of a heroes journey that anything less would have been futile and in my mind pointless. I can say this, I have much more of an appreciation for life now, I thought in those hours that my time was up, that my journey had come to an end and in the early portion of my ego death I felt regret that I hadn't done more and been more. I have been humbled in my everyday life, and I feel as though I strive to be a better person. I now know how much I love my cat and my girlfriend, and am so grateful to have them. I quit sports gambling as a big theme of my trip was how I was a loser and I don't keep track of losses because if I did I would feel ashamed. I remember moments of the trip where I felt incredibly connected to everything, my biggest takeaway from this experience is that we all are connected deeply and that's an amazing thing to know I think. Anyone reading this who wants to experiment with psychadelics, they are no joke. Just because you've done every other drug under the sun and think you can handle anything, you can't, these things will rip apart the most stable person IF you are reckless with them, if you aren't prepared. Truth is, even someone else had written this and if I read this post before my trip and read the warnings I still think I would have done it, because I was reckless and felt invincible and I know some of you reading this feel that way too (beginners I mean), just start slow you idiot. I hope this story doesn't deter anyone interested in a psychadelic experience, honestly I thought I would right a summary of my trip and hit post but 5 hours later hear I am proof reading this for the 4th time, writing about it has been theraputic and I appreciate all you real psychonauts who took the time to read it (I tried to make it as entertaining as I could). I'm sure shrooms are amazing and transformative in the right environment and used by the right educated person at a proper beginner level dose, DON'T BE RECKLESS...DON'T BE ME! The last thing I'll say is that I remember over and over apologising to the 'mushroom gods' or whatever entity I believed was there as I was falling to the depths of hell in my experience and I remember saying that if they let me out, if they let me free and if they allowed me to live I would never return, I would never use shrooms again, that I was unworthy and even though I could potentially take a much lower dose and be fine, I made a promise that afternoon and I intend to keep it, and I'm an atheist (?) so that's just how profound this experience was.
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