For anyone in love with you,

Someone like you.

essyllus — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:43:30 GMT

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDA!!! ♥

hope you had a wonderful one :')

It's been here all along.

essyllus — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:11:26 GMT

Friends cut. Here is a protected entry, which more or less tells you whether or not I'm reading your journal. I've only cut people for the following reasons: if you have a dead/barely living journal, if we didn't really connect, if we don't have common interests anymore.

Likewise, if you feel creeped out/annoyed/etc. by me reading your journal, this is an opportunity to cut me as well, no hard feelings.

We can stay fly like a G6.

essyllus — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 02:38:56 GMT

Happy birthday, Diana!!! ❤❤❤

Hope you had a wonderful day, and I wish you all the best for 2011. :-*

Let's test your knowledge.

essyllus — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 07:31:31 GMT

~~How on earth are you 26.~~ I hope my future husband is this awesome.

You're still beautiful.

essyllus — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 06:59:33 GMT

TT___________TT

Sea of love.

essyllus — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:05:19 GMT

Happy belated birthday, Ingrid!!! ♥♥♥
I do apologize for being late :C stupid paper... I hope you had a wonderful birthday and that you feel very loved... every day. :)

Best I ever had.

essyllus — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:23:42 GMT

JAY PARK IS BACK WHUUUUT

heyyy 8)

L M F A O. I am proud to call myself his fan

hehhhhhhhh

HE'S DOING GOOD BABY HE'S DOING GOOD

mmm jayback

fff cool sexy doode more like CUTE SEXY DOODE

so typical of Jay. to brand his lovelies on his head

Jay & Chacha cuteness

I NEED THE HQ GDI

DO YOU SEE WHY I NEED THE HQ. UGH SO CUTE. SO CUTE. HOW IS HE ONLY 23

honorary ambassador to KOSAD (Korean Sports Association for the Disabled)

I love this picture

...more than the original. which is saying something because UNF BLAZER.

I have no idea about the people in this crew but omg so excite ide. 8)

And if you have no idea who the hell Jay Park is, this is for you.

A World of Hits

essyllus — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 03:14:26 GMT

With remap's help, I have finally found the article I was looking for! Lately people have been seeing a trend of less diversity in mass media, and it immediately reminded me of this particular article that discusses how mainstream media is becoming more ~~tasteless~~ mainstream. While the article doesn't touch upon race or stereotypes in the media, I think it provides some insight about the economic forces at play and support for the idea that corporate still thinks that mainstream America = white America.

Unless you have a subscription to The Economist or to an online database like Proquest, I'm afraid I can't directly link you to the article. So I've posted the entire article here.

NOVEMBER 20th saw the return of an old phenomenon: the sold-out cinema. "New Moon", a tale of vampires, werewolves and the women who love them, earned more in a single day at the American box office than any film in history. The record may not stand for long: next month "Avatar", a three-dimensional action movie thick with special effects, will be released (see picture). This film's production budget is reportedly $230m, which would make it one of the most expensive movies ever made. "Avatar" will be a great disappointment if its worldwide ticket sales fail to exceed $500m. Yet it is a reflection of how things are changing in the media business that such an outcome is unlikely.

There has never been so much choice in entertainment. Last year 610 films were released in America, up from 471 in 1999. Cable and satellite television are growing quickly, supplying more channels to more people across the world. More than half of all pay-television subscribers now live in the Asia-Pacific region. Online video is exploding: every minute about 20 hours' worth of content is added to YouTube. The internet has greatly expanded choice in music and books. Yet the ever-increasing supply of content tailored to every taste seems not to have dented the appeal of the blockbuster. Quite the opposite.

This is not what was predicted by one of the most influential business books of the past few years. In "The Long Tail", Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired, a technology magazine (and before that a journalist at The Economist), argued that demand for media was moving inexorably from the head of the distribution curve to the tail. That is, the few products that sell a lot were losing market share to the great many that sell modestly. By cutting storage and distribution costs, the internet was overturning the tyranny of the shop shelf, which had limited consumers' choices. And, by developing software that analysed and predicted consumers' tastes, companies like Amazon were encouraging people to wallow in esoterica. Such companies did not just supply niche markets--they helped create them.

"The Long Tail" set off a lively debate. Professors at Harvard Business School questioned whether many companies can profit from selling a little of a great many things. The supply of obscure films and music seems to be growing faster than people are discovering them. Harvard's Anita Elberse argued in an article last year that only a foolish firm would shift its focus away from the mass market. People in the media business, who have to back their judgments with money, have a different view. In a sense, they say, both Mr Anderson and his detractors are right. At the same time, both are missing the real story.

"Both the hits and the tail are doing well," says Jeff Bewkes, the head of Time Warner, an American media giant. Audiences are at once fragmenting into niches and consolidating around blockbusters. Of course, media consumption has not risen much over the years, so something must be losing out. That something is the almost but not quite popular content that occupies the middle ground between blockbusters and niches. The stuff that people used to watch or listen to largely because there was little else on is increasingly being ignored. The strongest survive...

Take American broadcast television. This is an industry in decline, albeit from an immensely profitable peak. The "big four" networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) have steadily lost viewers over the years as eyeballs have wandered to cable networks and, to a lesser extent, online video. Yet the top programmes are holding up well. In the 2000-01 season the most popular show on broadcast television, "Survivor", was watched by 17.8m households on average. The leader in 2008-09, the Wednesday edition of "American Idol", drew 16.5m. Less popular shows--fairly funny sitcoms and cheap reality programmes such as "COPS"--suffered far worse. Indeed, the further you look down the prime-time rankings, the more audiences have eroded (see chart 1 on the next page).

The fact that the biggest shows continue to draw audiences nearly as big as their predecessors did may not sound impressive. But it has great commercial consequences. As broadcast television has lost audience share, its salesmen have convinced advertisers to pay more and more to reach a given number of viewers. They get away with this because broadcast television is still unchallenged as a mass medium. No other venue, including the internet, can guarantee an audience of many millions on a single evening. So a show that reaches 10m Americans today is worth a lot more than a show that reached 10m at the beginning of this decade. Simon Cowell, the star judge on "American Idol", reportedly renewed his contract earlier this year for more than $100m over three seasons. He is probably worth it.

Or take music. Like broadcast television, recorded music is a troubled business. Sales of CD albums are declining thanks to illegal file-sharing and the rise of digital download services such as iTunes, which allow listeners to pluck out the best tracks. Yet hit albums can still sell well. In Britain, where album sales in all formats have declined by 18% since the 2004 peak, those of albums occupying the number-one spot have increased slightly (see chart 2). A recent analysis by Billboard, a trade magazine, found a similar trend in America. There, sales had declined across the board, but the hits were holding up best. Albums ranked between 300 and 400 suffered the greatest proportionate losses.

One possible reason is that the profile of music buyers has changed. Young fans, who are more likely to follow up-and-coming guitar bands and dance music, are highly likely to download music illegally. In 2008 Britons in their 40s spent more on pop and rock music than teenagers or people in their 20s, according to TNS, a market-research firm. As young people with more unusual tastes abandon music shops altogether, the market becomes skewed towards safe, established pop acts. One of last year's biggest sellers was the cast recording of "Mamma Mia!", which features songs by ABBA, a fizzy 1970s pop group. But this is not the whole story.

Offer music fans a virtually infinite choice of songs free of charge, and they will still gravitate to hits. That has been the experience of We7, a music-streaming service based in London which has 2.5m users. Only 22% of We7's 4m songs are streamed in any given week, says Steve Purdham, who founded the company. The top 100 artists account for more than half of all streams. Users of Spotify, another ad-supported music service, are similarly unadventurous. Will Page of PRS for Music, which collects royalties for British songwriters, calculates that the most popular 5% of tracks on Spotify account for 80% of all streams. He is counting only the 3m tracks that were streamed at least once between February and July. Another 1.5m were not touched at all.

"People want to share the same culture," explains Roger Faxon, head of EMI Music Publishing. Music is an intensely social medium, most enjoyable when it is discussed and shared with friends. Because choice in music--and, to an extent, other media--is collective as well as individual, it is hardly surprising that people cluster around popular products. And Mr Faxon cites another reason, having to do with the advent of online piracy. File-sharing has made virtually all music available for nothing. Yet it has not altogether stopped people from buying. Even enthusiastic pirates will still buy CDs of music that they love, in order to get the cover art or simply to express their devotion. And what people love, it turns out, are hits.

Although you might expect people who seek out obscure products to derive more pleasure from their discoveries than those who simply trudge off to see the occasional blockbuster, the opposite is true. Tom Tan and Serguei Netessine of Wharton Business School have analysed reviews on Netflix, a popular American outfit that dispatches DVDs by post and asks subscribers to rate the films they have rented. They find that blockbusters get better ratings from the people who have watched them than more obscure ones do. Even the critically loathed "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is awarded four stars out of five. Ms Elberse of Harvard Business School has found the same of ratings on Quickflix, the Australian equivalent of Netflix.

Perhaps the best explanation of why this might be so was offered in 1963. In "Formal Theories of Mass Behaviour", William McPhee noted that a disproportionate share of the audience for a hit was made up of people who consumed few products of that type. (Many other studies have since reached the same conclusion.) A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read "The Lost Symbol", by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.

This explains why bestselling books, or blockbuster films, occasionally seem to grow not just more quickly than products which are merely very popular, but also in a wholly different way. As a media product moves from the pool of frequent consumers into the ocean of occasional consumers, the prevailing attitude to it--what Hollywood folk call word of mouth--can become less critical. The hit is carried along by a wave of ill-informed goodwill.

These days it may travel far. Blockbuster films, long among the most international of media products, are now more so. The leading studios have beefed up their foreign-sales arms and learned how to market films that open at roughly the same time all over the world. Sony has done particularly well this year, pulling in more than $1.6 billion in ticket sales from outside America, a record for the studio. Big films such as "2012" and "Angels and Demons" have earned roughly twice as much in foreign cinemas as in American ones.

Hollywood seems to have exported the blockbuster model, too. Anil Arjun, chief executive of Reliance MediaWorks, reckons ticket sales for the top five films in India grew by 250% between 2004 and 2008. Growing professionalism and a multiplex building boom have lifted the market as a whole, but the biggest films are rising most quickly. In addition, the best Hindi films increasingly serve expatriates in London and California's Bay Area.

Blockbusters are also reaching people in more ways. Peter Chernin, who recently stepped down from overseeing News Corporation's film and television business, notes that technology does not just expand the range of products available. It also gives people much greater choice in how they consume the most popular ones. No longer must people go to a cinema or a video shop if they want to see a popular film. They can get hold of it as a video-on-demand, download it or stream it. "Hits are going to be the single biggest beneficiary of technology," Mr Chernin reckons.

In short, just because people have more choice does not mean they will opt for more obscure entertainments. That is especially clear in the book trade. A study of the Australian market by Nielsen, a research firm, found that the number of titles bought each year (measured by ISBNs) has risen dramatically, from about 275,000 in 2004 to almost 450,000 in 2007. Niche titles selling fewer than 1,000 copies each accounted for nearly all the growth in variety. Yet their market share fell. In Britain, sales of the ten bestselling books increased from 3.4m to 6m between 1998 and 2008.

The bestsellers are gaining in part because of a change in the retail marketplace that affects other media too. High-street bookshops, which carry a reasonable selection of what publishers call "mid-list" and "back-list" titles--that is, modestly popular and somewhat out-of-date books--are struggling. Borders UK, owner of a British chain, is reportedly seeking a buyer for its stores. Such shops are being displaced by online retailers, which offer vast selections of obscure titles, and also by supermarkets, which sell a tiny selection of hugely popular books.

In newspapers, too, the leading outfits are faring best. The three biggest-selling American publications--the New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal--have all held on to subscribers better than the large metropolitan papers that comprise the second tier. That market also has a thriving long tail in the shape of small-town papers. This has less to do with consumers' tastes than with advertising. The metropolitan papers are suffering because the classified advertisements on which they rely have collapsed under pressure from free listings websites such as Craigslist. Small-town papers also depend on classified ads, but they face less online competition. The nationals rely more on display advertising.

What is a media company to do? As sales become ever more concentrated, it is becoming both more urgent and harder to establish a foothold near the top of the market. A book or film that fails to attract a mass audience tumbles quickly into the depressed middle. To avoid this fate, should a company spread its development and marketing budget over lots of products, hoping that one or two catch on, or should it bet on just a few? The problem is especially acute in businesses like music, where money is tighter than ever and even the hits are not quite as solid as they used to be.

The joke answer, proffered by several executives asked these questions, is that media companies should simply churn out hits. This is less of a joke if a firm knows in advance what will prove popular. Of all creative media enterprises, Hollywood is the most confident of its ability to predict demand. Film studios carry out rigorous audience research and adjust production and marketing budgets according to the size of the group they are targeting. The studios have learned that stars are much less reliable generators of profits than films based on known characters and stories. That is why, in August, Disney agreed to pay $4 billion for Marvel Entertainment, a veteran comic-book and media firm that had filed for bankruptcy protection in the mid-1990s.

Above all, Hollywood has learned that bigger is better. Although small films can do astonishingly well (the latest is "Paranormal Activity", a cheap thriller that has sold more than $100m-worth of cinema tickets in America alone), they do not do so at all dependably. SNL Kagan, a research firm, calculates that between 2004 and 2008 films costing more than $100m to produce consistently returned greater profits to the big studios than cheaper films did. With DVD sales slumping in the recession and outside financing hard to obtain, the leading studios are cutting back their output of films. But the cuts are concentrated at the bottom end. Studios have shut down or neglected their divisions that specialise in distributing low- and middle-budget films. None has sounded a retreat from big-budget blockbusters.

Hollywood is one of America's most stable industries, with the same number of big studios now (six) as in the early 20th century. As both production budgets and risks soar it seems less likely than ever that an outsider will break into the club. On the contrary: the club may eventually shrink. The trend towards blockbusters is likely to suit the most successful studios, with the deepest pockets, the best marketing departments and the greatest ability to wring revenues from a hit by selling DVDs, television rights and toys.

Of course, not everything can be big. Complex political films; violent cartoons; English folk music--none of these things is likely to produce queues around the block. And a great many hoped-for hits fail: every media company puts out many more misses than hits. What to do with them? One answer, says Mr Bewkes, is to take advantage of the protective power of brands. Television programmes, in particular, do not compete for audiences on a completely featureless playing field. They are shown on channels that attract distinct audiences with different expectations. In the right context, a middling show can survive. "You let the strong brand carry the medium product," Mr Bewkes explains.

Another way of rescuing less popular stuff is to charge more for it. In many media businesses it is an accepted principle that such products cost more. Specialist magazines are often expensive. Less popular books cost more than bestsellers, because the latter are discounted. Even television has a successful model for charging more for shows that a smallish group of people feel passionately about, in the form of premium subscription channels like HBO. Yet, with the exception of live screenings of opera and sport, film tickets all cost the same. This is one thing that could change.

But nobody knows quite what to do. The old-media world of limited choice, in which any product that was not too objectionable was guaranteed a decent audience, was a comfortable place. Pleasing a customer who can choose from several hundred films and television programmes even without getting up from the sofa, by contrast, is an unnerving prospect.</a>

As I was re-reading this, it occurred to me how TL;DR this entire thing is. :| I'm not sure if too many people would be interested in reading this... but if you do, major props to you. And I'd love to hear whether you think the ideas in this article suggest more/less/same diversity in the media.

THE ECONOMIST
PROQUEST

想起你就疯疯地。

essyllus — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:08:51 GMT

Happy birthday catherine ! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

You are the Sasuke to my Sakura,
The Elraine to my Kiri,
The ~~Finn to my Jake~~ Jake to my Finn,
The Winnie to my Pooh.

I wish you the very best birthday ever. :')

So whatever.

essyllus — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:15:58 GMT

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SASUKE♥

we love you. :') ~~/hasn't read the manga in ages~~

Mm, what you say.

essyllus — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:20:15 GMT

☆memoriable icon☆ meme
☆ my thread! ☆

Replay replay replay.

essyllus — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:43:40 GMT

BOOKTOWN
JOIN THE CLUB!

kipling and I started a book club! :) It's summer time, no better time to get going on those books you've been meaning to read.

When you join, please remember to check out the rules and introduce yourself. I'm really hoping that this will be a friendly, tight-knit group. :)

怎么这么难？

essyllus — Sat, 08 May 2010 19:22:02 GMT

Neocha
Neocha EDGE

I take back every single time I said that Chinese music wasn't any good.

Let's ride, yo.

essyllus — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:52:35 GMT

Behind the cut is the list of a 100 famous women from the 20th and 21st century. This is not a complete list and by no means the only famous women during that period of time. Please read through the list and count up all the ones that you are familiar with without needing to look up, tallying your score at the end and commenting with what it was. You don't need to repost the list, just a simple score will do. The list also has a large amount of international names, so people who not US residents can attempt to take it too.

1. Melanie Klein
2. Muriel F. Siebert
3. Julia Child
4. Valentina Tereshkova
5. Nadia Comaneci
6. Virginia Woolf
7. Carrie Chapman Catt
8. Barbara Walters
9. Ella Fitzgerald
10. Simone de Beauvoir
11. Harper Lee
12. Eleanor Roosevelt
13. Jiang Qing
14. Rigoberta Menchu
15. LaDonna Harris
16. Estee Lauder
17. Betty Friedan
18. Elsie de Wolfe
19. Dolores Huerta
20. Margaret Sanger
21. Ellen Ochoa
22. Emily Davison
23. Hannah Arendt
24. Alice Paul
25. Jody Williams
26. Mary McLeod Bethune
27. Ann Landers
28. Gertrude Stein
29. Mother Theresa
30. Benazir Bhutto
31. Hillary Rodham Clinton
32. Dr. Sally Ride
33. Phyllis Schlafly
34. Billie Jean King
35. Golda Meir
36. Toni Morrison
37. Rosalind Franklin
38. Grace Hopper
39. Lillian Smith
40. Betty Williams
41. Shirley Jackson
42. Gloria Steinem
43. Amy Klobuchar
44. Margaret Mitchell
45. Wilma Rudolph
46. Gwendolyn Brooks
47. Babe Didrikson
48. Jane Addams
49. Eve Ensler
50. Laura Ashley
51. Maggie Kuhn
52. Sandra Day O'Connor
53. Coco Chanel
54. Rosa Parks
55.Elvia Alvarado
56. Margaret Mead
57. Victoria Woodhull
58. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
59. Martha Stewart
60. Jane Roe
61. Linda Ellerbee
62. Rachel Carson
63. Daisy Bates
64. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
65. Angela Merkel
66. Virginia Apgar
67. Agatha Christie
68. Barbara McClintock
69. Marian Wright Edelman
70. Maya Angelou
71. Laura Ingalls Wilder
72. Suzanne Lenglen
73. Esther Peterson
74. Sonja Henie
75. Marie Curie
76. Anne Frank
77. Jackie Joyner-Kersee
78. Maria Montessori
79. Dorothy Parker
80. Helen Keller
81. Nancy Brinker
82. Anita Hill
83. Frances Perkins
84. Condoleezza Rice
85. Lise Meitner
86. Pearl S. Buck
87. Mary Leakey
88. Madeleine Albright
89. Mary Quant
90. Jane Goodall
91. Ruth Handler
92. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
93. Sylvia Plath
94. Gertrude Ederle
95. Jean Nidetch
96. Helen Gurley Brown
97. Emmeline Pankhurst
98. Emma Goldman
99. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
100. Madeleine L'Engle

I only know 32/100... fail. ~_~ This list should also include Song Meiling, Teresa Teng, Margaret Atwood, and Madonna... Isabelle Allende... etc. I want to see more women in the political/international relations scene!

Living on a prayer.

essyllus — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:26:57 GMT

Happy birthday Sarah!

eeeeeeeeep I'm so excited for you to come over here on Sunday!!! It'll be so fantastic elastic 8) *can't wait to squish you* ♥

You're all I ever wanted.

essyllus — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:24:14 GMT

❝ONE THING I LOVE ABOUT YOU.❞
my thread here

Black and gold.

essyllus — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:57:19 GMT

Friends Cut.

I unfriended if

→ your journal is dead or inactive.
→ we've lost mutual interests.
→ I find myself skimming over your entries.

Of course, this friends cut is reciprocal. If you'd like to defriend me, this is the time to do it. I won't take offense and I wish everyone the best of luck. :)

I need you so we can live happily.

essyllus — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:05:57 GMT

Booth: We’re partners, you know? Together all the time, right? You’re a woman and I’m a man. I never had a relationship like this where we were...like two guys, except you’re not, you know, a guy. Yeah.

Brennan: No. No, I’m not. Should I feel odd about....wanting to hang out with Will?

Booth: No, of course not. You know, because essentially, I mean, you’re a guy like me. But not really.

Brennan: That would mean that, to me, you are essentially a woman. Yeah, I can see that.

Booth: No, no, no, I’d prefer not to be a woman, if you don’t mind.

cue screaming forever in 3... 2... 1...

Something I wanna say to you.

essyllus — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 06:47:13 GMT

Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.

I wanna bathe with you in the sea.

essyllus — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:44:48 GMT

Nothing on you, babe.

essyllus — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:26:07 GMT

God I'm smiling so hard tonight.
Fuck yeah Jay Park. ♥

Don't stop go, stolen from ironside.

essyllus — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:30:31 GMT

THE HONESTY MEME
Step 1: Post this into your LJ publicly.
Step 2: Others will reply anonymously (if they'd like) about what they really think of you.
Step 3: Cry, because this meme is so brutal, and it hurts. Except not really...

anon is enabled, comments are not screened, ip logging is never on.

I got you dancing.

essyllus — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:06:14 GMT

A bit belated but -

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURA, ZEN, AND JAMIE !!!

Hope your day is nearly as awesome as you girls :') ♥

My sunshine.

essyllus — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:34:11 GMT

春节愉快！
Happy New Year!

I want you, I need you, I love you.

essyllus — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:31:04 GMT

Happy birthday shixon and mrsatterthwaite !!! ♥♥

I hope that you have an awesome day with great friends, family, and food. :)

I'm departing Seattle in less than seven hours, and I'm still packing. I'll probably be off the net until then, so see you guys when I'm three hours ahead!