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Patch Notes 0507

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To New Eden Capsuleers,

EVE Echoes will undergo maintenance on 5/7/2025 at 08:00 (UTC+0) and will take approximately 120 minutes to complete. During this time, players will be unable to log in to the game. We kindly ask for your understanding and patience during the maintenance.

Malpais Region Briefing

With further exploration of regions like Cobalt Edge, more remote and dangerous systems frequented by Wasteseekers have been discovered—Malpais.

The Malpais Region consists of 15 Constellations, with a total of 102 Systems, all of which have a security level assessment of below 0.

This region is controlled by "Wasteseeker Drones," with Wasteseeker Centrums, Wasteseeker Encampments, unexplored Relics, and weakened Wasteseeker gathering points scattered throughout.

Scout reports indicate that the regular Wasteseekers in Malpais appear weaker than those in other areas and do not carry warp disruption modules.

Capsuleers can use Spatial Rift Filaments to construct routes to enter or leave Malpais.

Constellation Distribution

The Stargates leading to the outside regions from Malpais have been cut off, the systems within the region are not fully connected, and can be roughly divided into western constellations, southern constellations, and northern constellations, a total of 3 areas.

Main Enemy Distribution

Western Constellations: Medium and Small Wasteseeker fleets, with only Battlecruisers and smaller-tonnage ships allowed entry.

Southern Constellations: Medium and Large Wasteseeker fleets, with only Battleships and smaller-tonnage ships allowed entry.

Northern Constellations: The main enemies are Small Wasteseeker fleets, with only Destroyers and smaller-tonnage ships allowed entry.

Weakened Wasteseeker Gathering Points

Scouts have observed damaged Wasteseekers gathering in special Cosmic Anomalies. These Wasteseekers are weaker in combat, and the anomalies contain abundant loot.

Special Mechanisms

Corrosive Dust

Due to the presence of large amounts of corrosive dust within the region, prolonged exposure to the Malpais Region will cause damage to ships. If a ship remains in the Malpais Region for more than 1 hour, it will suffer continuous damage until it exits the domain.

Under the influence of corrosive dust, the energy consumption of optical refraction systems increases significantly, and the fuel consumption rate of stealth modules rises tenfold.

High-Activity System Alert

When Wasteseeker Cosmic Anomalies within the system are destroyed at high frequency, the pulses generated by frequent Wasteseeker fleet explosions will cause the system to be highlighted on the radar starmap.

Starmap data resets every hour.

Wasteseeker Bounty Reward

Due to the high risks involved when capsuleers carry high-value materials while exploring the Malpais Region, CONCORD will assess the value of materials in the ship hold and increase the Wasteseeker bounty reward accordingly. The value of materials will exclude Pinpoint Fibers during calculation.

The bounty bonus rewards are divided into seven tiers.

Wasteseeker Research Data

Destroying Wasteseekers in the Malpais Region may result in the drop of various levels of Wasteseeker research data. Capsuleers can bring these back to the station for use, earning varying amounts of LP or merit points as rewards.

Note: If capsuleers carry this item in their ship's cargo hold and the ship is destroyed in the Malpais Region, the item may be lost.

Structure Info

Due to the unique environment of the system, the Malpais Region is currently completely controlled by Wasteseeker Drones. Trailblazers have not established a station, and capsuleers cannot anchor any structures.

System Broadcast

The Malpais Region does not have a broadcast management center, so it is impossible to view online capsuleers, and the local population is displayed as ?.

Capsuleers cannot obtain standings, they can only recognize fleet members and contacts, all other individuals will not display standings.

Capsuleers may choose to broadcast their local messages so that other capsuleers in the current system can receive them, but doing so will reveal their presence.

Ore Resources

Its ore distribution is similar to that of the Asteroid Belt in the Kalevala Expanse, with gas cloud C70 being a currently popular resource.

Planetary Resources

The planetary resources of the Malpais Region do not significantly differ from those found in other regions within New Eden.

Due to the high difficulty of leaving the region and the inability to anchor structures, this region is currently unsuitable as a regular location for Planetary Resources Harvesting.

Spatial Rift Filaments

"Expedition" Spatial Rift Filament

Small "Expedition: Malpais Region-4" Spatial Rift Fiber: Supports up to 4 players teaming up to explore the northern constellation of the Malpais Region.

Medium "Expedition: Malpais Region-4" Spatial Rift Fiber: Supports up to 4 players teaming up to explore the western constellation of the Malpais Region.

Large "Expedition: Malpais Region-4" Spatial Rift Filament: Supports up to 4 players teaming up to travel to the southern Constellation of the Malpais Region

How to obtain: Purchase from the market.

"Homeward" Spatial Rift Filament

When creating a channel to the Malpais Region, if the value of the materials carried by the Capsuleer is too high, the ship's Inventory will trigger spatial anomalies, causing the System signal to be monitored and marked, and broadcasted to the local channel. During construction, the value of the Homeward Rift Filament itself will be ignored.

"Homeward: Malpais Region-1" Spatial Rift Filament

Returns to a random low-security System within the Empire Faction's territory, can only be used near a star, has a low alarm Threshold, and a short construction time. How to obtain: Acquired by destroying Wasteseeker Drones in the Malpais Region

"Homeward: Malpais Region-1" Spatial Rift Filament II

Returns to a random low-security System within the Empire Faction's territory, has a medium alarm Threshold, and a medium construction time. How to obtain: Acquired by destroying Wasteseeker Drones in the Malpais Region

"Homeward: Malpais Region-1" Spatial Rift Filament III

Returns to the System where the Expedition Rift Filament was used, has a high alarm Threshold, and a long construction time. How to obtain: Purchased from the market

Version Preview: Target Analyzer

Release Time: After maintenance on May 21

Three types are available this time, each with three models. How to obtain:

Experimental: Purchased from the LP store

Scholar: Dropped randomly by destroying Wasteseeker Drones in the Malpais Region

SoE: Blueprint dropped randomly by destroying Wasteseeker Drones in the Malpais Region, manufactured using the blueprint

Target Module Analyzer

When destroying a target, it increases the likelihood of its installed modules dropping. This model's effect cannot stack and is determined by the final blow.

Target Cargo Analyzer

When destroying a target, it increases the likelihood of items in its cargo hold dropping. This model's effect cannot stack and is determined by the final blow.

Target Structure Analyzer

When destroying a target, it increases the likelihood of leaving behind a Wreck. This model's effect cannot stack and is determined by the final blow.

New Event Encounters

Duration: May 8, 2025, 8:00:00 ~ May 22, 2025, 8:00:00（UTC+0）

Starry Night Voyage: Mountain and Sea Encounters Missions

During the event, tasks can be refreshed on the Encounters Bulletin Board, with 3 difficulty levels and 4 tasks available.

Insurance Updates

To improve the Capsuleer experience, simplify insurance rules, encourage market activity, boost market demand, minimize unnecessary delays after ship destruction, and reduce the impact of consecutive ship losses, CONCORD has partnered with insurance companies to implement several significant updates to the insurance mechanism.

Insurance Cost Calculation

Distinctions between different ships, modules, rigs, and Nanocores will no longer apply. Instead, upon ship destruction, calculations will be made as follows:

Regular Ship Premium = Fixed at 30%

Capital Ship Premium = 50% - Number of Capital Ships Destroyed Within 30 Days x 5%, with a minimum of 35%

Supercapital Ship Premium = 50% - Number of Supercapital Ships Destroyed Within 30 Days x 10%, with a minimum of 40%

After the adjustment, Capsuleers no longer need to wait for 3 months and can make claims at any time (with a 12-hour lock period for PvP).

To boost market demand and promote healthy economic development, we will gradually phase out claim discounts for lower-priced ships, weapons, modules, and rigs based on insurance claim data in the future.

For example, low-tier weapons or rigs priced under 1 million ISK have low usage rates, low claim costs, and low market demand. A 30% premium would further weaken their market demand, reducing item value. Removing the discount will not significantly increase the burden on Capsuleers but will boost market demand, making items easier to trade.

Special Battlefield Insurance Costs

Currently, in special battlefields such as the Dormant Realm and CyanSea Vault, different insurance rules are applied. After the update, insurance discounts for CyanSea Vault and Relics skirmishes will be removed, leaving only the Dormant Realm insurance discount. Detailed rules are as follows (discount rates remain unchanged):

For ships destroyed in the Dormant Realm, an additional discount will be applied based on the total number of ship losses this week:

For the first destruction each week, the insurance premium will be set at 33% of the normal value.

For the second destruction each week, the insurance premium will be set at 66% of the normal value.

For the third destruction and beyond, the insurance premium will be charged as normal.

Special Ship Insurance Costs

Currently, CONCORD ships enjoy addi

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May 06, 2025 at 03:48PM

Netflix's "Adolescence", Emoji Codes & Emoji Repurposing

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Since its release just a few weeks ago, Netflix’s four-part drama Adolescence has attracted a massive global audience. One scene, centered on the supposed hidden meanings of certain emojis, has sparked widespread media attention. In this article, we unpack how the show presents emoji use and why many reports about certain “secret meanings” are possibly misleading.

📺 Netflix's "Adolescence"?

In case you haven't heard of it before now, Adolescence is a British crime drama television mini-series released on Netflix on March 13, 2025.

The program's four episodes focus on the aftermath of a schoolgirl’s murder and the arrest of 13-year-old Jamie Miller as the prime suspect. As Jamie is held in custody, investigations uncover a pattern of social media bullying, including being labelled an “incel” by classmates based on emoji-laden Instagram posts.

Through police interviews and psychological assessments, the series explores how social media, isolation, and exposure to controversial worldviews converge in a deeply vulnerable young mind while also portraying the strain placed on Jamie’s family as they face public scrutiny and grief.

Since its release, the show has received widespread critical acclaim and quickly became the most-watched streaming series in the UK during a single week.

🕵️ The Emojis In Question

Mild spoilers for the show from this point onward.

Emojis are cited directly in two prominent moments in the show, with the first of these two instances occurring about halfway through the second episode.

In this scene, the son of Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe (who is involved in the case) explains to him that Instagram posts that Bascombe had assumed were childish flirtations are accusations casting Jamie as an incel.

Here are the emojis cited in this scene and what Bascombe's son Adam claims they mean. Note that we do not see any emoji designs on screen throughout the show, meaning it is at times uncertain which exact emoji is being referenced.

"The Dynamite": most likely the 🧨 Firecracker, though also possibly the 💥 Collision based on an additional description in a later episode. Adam claims this is an "exploding red pill" (see below).

"The Blue Pill": most likely the 🔵 Blue Circle, the blue pill is a reference to the film The Matrix where taking a blue pill would allow someone to remain in comfortable ignorance, continuing to believe a pleasant but false reality.

"The Red Pill": most likely the 🔴 Red Circle, though it's possible it may be the 💊 Pill emoji. As with the blue pill, this is a reference to The Matrix, with the red pill letting the consumer "see the truth." In this specific interpretation, this is about a supposed awakening to harsh or controversial "truths" about society, gender roles, and male identity—often tied to misogynistic or anti-feminist ideologies.

"The 100": the 💯 Hundred Points, which Adam claims is a reference to an interpretation of the "80/20" rule (the Pareto principle). In this specific interpretation, it's the belief that 20% of men receive 80% of female attention.

When Bascombe expresses skepticism ("It's a bit of a stretch"), Adam describes certain coded meanings his teenage peers use each of the color heart emojis for:

Adam then states, "I could show you 15 others. Messages sent to Jamie all. All different emojis. They're saying the same thing".

It's not clear if Adam means 15 unique different emojis or some other number of different emojis across 15 other Instagram posts.

However, one additional emoji is directly cited later in the third episode of the show: the 🫘 Beans emoji, described as "the kidney beans."

The emoji is mentioned by forensic psychologist Briony Ariston while conducting her final assessment of Jamie at a youth detention facility. Ariston produces printouts of Instagram posts and asks Jamie directly, "What do these emoji mean?"

Jamie responds, "She's pretending like I'm part of one of those truth groups."

He then begins to interpret another emoji that isn't named as meaning "want love, won't get it", before affirming the meaning of three other emojis in the Instagram posts that Adam described in the previous episode and that we've outlined above:

🍑 Emoji "Codes" and Emoji Repurposing

Rather than examining how these meanings emerge or how often they’re actually used in these alternative ways, many media reports take the show’s depiction at face value and have made claims that these described meanings in the show are broadly applicable. In doing so, they risk amplifying a moral panic that overlooks the broader, more nuanced picture of emoji usage online.

Indeed, despite the intrigue around Adolescence’s depiction of hidden emoji meanings, emoji repurposing is neither new nor inherently ominous.

Some of the earliest well-known emoji reinterpretations date back over a decade, with the 🍆 Eggplant and 🍑 Peach becoming widely used innuendos due to their visual resemblance to body parts.

These interpretations grew from niche jokes into mainstream symbols, appearing in pop songs, advertising, and even moderation guidelines on social platforms.

Other prominent examples show how different groups reimagine emojis to suit their cultural expressions. The 💀 Skull emoji has been adopted by Gen Z to mean “I’m dead” (i.e., something is hilarious), while 🧢 Billed Cap now symbolizes “lying” (from the slang “no cap”).

In the same way that these examples have been born out of slang, there is a whole host of different emoji interpretations that reference preexisting "not safe for work" slang, in particular in regards to sexual innuendo or illicit substances.

Fandoms have their own emoji lexicons, too. BTS fans use the 💜 Purple Heart emoji (cited in the show as meaning "horny") to signal “I purple you”—a phrase coined by member V to represent love and loyalty. Beyoncé fans use the 🐝 Honeybee emoji to show their allegiance to the "BeyHive," and Taylor Swift fans reference the 🧣 Scarf emoji in connection with "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" and its symbolic red scarf.

These repurposings are emotional, cultural, and community-driven, often forming a kind of visual shorthand for shared experiences or identities.

These kinds of emoji uses often start as in-jokes or group references and scale through repeated exposure on platforms like X (fka Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok. This process can make certain meanings feel widely known, even if they originated in small corners of the internet.

However, this scaling can also lead to confusion. When media outlets or concerned parents encounter emojis being used in unfamiliar ways, they may assume there's a coded message or even a form of organized communication. In reality, most repurposed emoji meanings are context-specific: just because a group uses a particular emoji in a specific way doesn’t mean that meaning becomes the primary or universal one.

This is particularly true in the case of Adolescence, where emojis are linked to incel or "manosphere" culture within the show.

While certain online communities may assign ideological meanings to emojis like 🔴 Red Circle or 🧨 Firecracker, these interpretations are highly localized and not reflective of mainstream usage. The show dramatizes these meanings as hidden codes, but in reality, they are better understood as subcultural quirks—similar to slang or inside jokes that only carry weight within their originating spaces.

That said, by depicting how teenagers have come to understand these emojis in those specific ways, the show dramatizes how teenagers can encounter incel or manosphere concepts through online spaces.

💜 What About the Colored Heart Emojis?

One recurring theme in online conversations—and echoed in coverage of Adolescence—is the idea that every colored heart emoji carries a specific, hidden meaning.

But much like emoji “codes” more broadly, these meanings have more in common with digital chain mail than with linguistic truth. While some interpretations may be adopted temporarily by certain communities, they’re not fixed. People use colored hearts for all kinds of reasons: to match a color scheme, to support a cause (like 💚 Green Heart for environmentalism), or simply because it feels right in the moment.

Broadly speaking, all heart emojis convey affection, appreciation, or emotional connection. Their color might add tone or emphasis, but it rarely encodes a secret message. The idea that there’s one universal “correct” interpretation for each color is simply not true, even if certain colors may get used in specific contexts more frequently than others.

👪 What Can Be Done By Parents?

Understandably, scenes in Adolescence have sparked concern from parents and educators. But the core takeaway shouldn't be that emojis themselves are dangerous or inherently deceptive.

Young people have always reimagined language and symbols as part of their self-expression and emoji repurposing is just one part of that broader cultural evolution. While it’s impossible (and unproductive) to prevent teens from using emojis creatively, ironically, or playfully, it’s also important to remember that not every emoji carries a hidden or harmful meaning. In fact, most emojis are still used in their intended way—or, when repurposed, their meanings are harmless and far removed from any “manosphere” connotation.

Emojis aren’t encrypted messages—they’re flexible cultural tools. Like slang or memes, their meanings shift depending on context, community, and platform. Rather than treating them as fixed codes to crack, it’s more useful to view them as collaborative symbols shaped by humor, identity, and online communities.

If a message from your child includes emojis that seem out of place or feel inconsistent with the tone of the conversation, the best approach is simple: ask. A genuine, non-judgmental question like “Hey, I noticed you used this... what does

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May 06, 2025 at 03:08PM

Eve Online: Audience With The King Of Space

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Eve Online player The Mittani is the CEO of Goon Fleet, the single largest corporation in Eve Online, both loved and reviled for its practices which include teaching new recruits to scam other players. As of two weeks ago The Mittani was also voted in as the new Chairman of the Council of Stellar Management, the player-run and player-elected body that CCP liases with with the aim of improving the game. Prior to the announcement of the election results, I caught up with him at the Eve Fanfest for a mammoth interview. Click on through for talk of warfare, intrigue, hatred, propaganda, and why he says Eve Online is a terrible game.

RPS: You referred to yourself as ”a pretentious douchebag” twice during your presentation yesterday. For anyone who doesn’t know anything about Goonswarm or its leadership, could you explain why?

The Mittani: I refer to myself as a pretentious douchebag because I have a reasonable self perception. [laughs] No, it’s because I’m quite arrogant and people make fun of me for it, so it’s easier than trying to deny it.

RPS: How does somebody who’s arrogant end up leading a group that’s known for being irreverent?

MT: Well, I’m only arrogant about things that we’ve accomplished or things that I’ve done over the years. And we don’t have much of a hierarchy, so even though I lead a large alliance, even non-members can take me to task or call me a silly larping metrosexual. It’s just all in good fun.

RPS: You also mentioned in the same talk that Goonswarm is an autocracy. Is that just a preventative method against espionage?

MT: Autocracy is the most effective form of government in null sec [the enormous sections of space within Eve Online with no AI police, where players rule themselves]. Council systems don’t work very well. Goonswarm is very lucky in that we have one large corporation, Goonwaffe, which used to be Goonfleet, which is mostly Something Awful members and has over 2,000 people. Since I’m the CEO of that corporation all the other ancillary corporations in the alliance are relatively powerless, and that works towards an autocracy. Council-based alliances typically have corporations of roughly the same size.

RPS: And that’s problematic because... ?

MT: Democracy is death. In a situation where you need to be able to respond quickly and with force to strategic problems, invasions or what have you, you can’t wait for a vote.

RPS: Could you not divide those duties up?

MT: It doesn’t work in practice. In theory though, all of Eve is a democracy because there’s no way of forcing someone to log on and play the game, and they can always leave the corporation if they don’t like it.

RPS: I want to give a little background as to how Goonswarm came to be reviled by a certain chunk of Eve’s playerbase. Could you provide a potted history?

MT: In late 2005 and early 2006 we entered into the game from the SomethingAwful.com forums. There are SA members in most MMOs. But at the time, Eve was structured in such a way that rewarded “old guard” players. Because Eve has a skill point system rather than an experience point point system, you can’t just grind to get powerful. You have to wait.

That really institutionalises a new player vs. old player divide. We got into trouble almost immediately because despite the fact that we had no skills and no money, we were able to leverage the size of our community – and I say no skills because we had no skill points, which isn’t to say that we weren’t skilled players – we were able to get around these ancient veterans and disrupt the social order of the game. But in order to do that, we had to ignore some of the social mores that had developed in the game, or “e-honour”, as I sort of disparagingly refer to it. This “I’m an honourable space-samurai and we’re going to joust on the field of battle” thing. These people who focus on their kill/death ratios, and fret about ethics, and all this sort of silly bullshit.

Anyway, it wasn’t honourable to use what they call “blobbing” tactics. When you’re using frigates [the smallest ship class in Eve] to blow up heavy assault cruisers, and you lose 50 frigates in the attack but the cruiser costs 400 times as much as a frigate, they’re gonna get really mad and say that you’re being dishonourable.

RPS: Did those Eve players know that that was even possible?

MT: No, we took them by surprise. They thought we wouldn’t amount to anything, and when we did start amounting to anything we were vilified immediately.

RPS: And what was your role in the corporation back then?

MT: I was sort of a shadow chancellor. I ran the espionage program. We probably have the single best spy network in Eve, because in order to succeed we had to metagame. It was just one of the ways that we’d level the playing field with older players. We’d do whatever it took to win. So I was the spy guy, and that was how I made a name for myself. When the time came for a new CEO, it was just a really good fit because I’d just retired from my law practice.

RPS: What stands out as something you’re particularly proud of?

MT: The central narrative of Goonswarm is always “The Great War”, which was a conflict between us and a now defunct alliance called Band of Brothers which was implicated in a developer corruption scandal. They were also one of the first organisations to come after us when we arrived and referred to us as “a cancer on the Eve community”.

At first, when we arrived, we’d tried to play nice. We’d reached out to respected members of the Eve community, we didn’t scam, we didn’t grief, we didn’t pirate, we didn’t spy, and it was only after we invaded our first conquerable region and started destroying capital fleets and punching well above our weight that Band of Brothers started taking an interest. They resurrected the fact that our CEO at the time – who was a tremendous douchebag, to be fair – had mocked the real-life death of an Eve player more than two years before. All of a sudden now that these capital fleets were being destroyed, NOW they were really offended by that, never mind the fact that two months prior they’d been cheering on us cute newbies who were invading the Cloud Ring.

RPS: This is the same CEO who you mentioned was facing some massive real-life financial scandal?

MT: Yes. Dan Dargon, aka Remedial, was the founder of Goonfleet and he was a lawyer who was running this mortgage modification business in New Hampshire without a license, and is now facing twenty-five million dollars in fines from the New Hampshire banking department. I wish I was making that up, but it’s true.

Remedial’s certainly a character. But yes, some people think that Goonfleet’s always been made up of scammers and griefers, but we tried to play nice originally. Then we decided to become the monster that they made us out to be.

RPS: Hearing you tell it, it sounds like you guys were the ultimate underdogs. That can’t have been all there was to it.

MT: What I feel is an issue here is the inherent hypocrisies in the mores of the Eve community. Many people who are not in Goonswarm – who are our enemies - really do think of themselves as honourable space samurai, when in practice most of the things that happen in null sec are based upon ugly realpolitik. We just don’t feel the need to lie about it. Everybody spies in nullsec.

RPS: I thought that was a given?

MT: Some people didn’t use to. We did it because we had to, in order to survive. The fact that everybody does it is one consequence of us winning the Great War and becoming one of the dominant powers in the galaxy.

RPS: So what happened to Band of Brothers?

MT: I, uh, disbanded them.

RPS: What? How was that even your choice?

MT: At the beginning of the second stage of the Great War we had a defector from the executor corporation of Band of Brothers who thought that we were cooler guys. Basically he thought that his alliance was full of assholes, because their leadership structure was full of guys who wanted to be in “the most elite alliance in Eve”. Whereas Goonswarm, a lot of the time, were bad. We had a lot of newbies and no pretentions.

The disbanding itself was covered by the BBC. Ordinarily when you have a defector you do smash and grabs, just getting the other guy to steal everything that’s not nailed down and come over to your side. Now, I was still just the spymaster at this point, and I was sitting there in my office and I had this brain fart – with the access that this guy had, he had the authority to kick out every single corporation in the alliance and then shut down his own corporation, thus disbanding the alliance, which has the impact of disabling all the sovereignty defenses in their region. This had never been done before. All of a sudden I was like, “Holy shit! I can do this!”

Also, at the time Goonswarm owned half the galaxy. We controlled all of these regions, but as soon as we disbanded Band of Brothers we abandoned everything and all moved into what had been their territory. Over the course of two very bloody months we purged them and took all their space.

RPS: You hated them that much?

MT: Well, this goes back to the T20 scandal and these people declaring us a cancer on Eve. The entire Great War took four years, so yeah, maybe we were a little vengeful.

RPS: How loyal are most Goonswarm pilots?

MT: Extremely loyal. Most Eve pilots spend some time playing alone, in Empire space, and they eventually find a corporation and join up. Something Awful forum members start playing and they go straight into null sec. They know no other world. Which is great, because high sec and low sec are hideously boring places.

RPS: Are you guys bound together by your history?

MT: We do have a culture and an ideology. One of the reasons why we’re no longer as vilified as we used to be is that that culture has spread. We won the culture war. The fact that the defector left to join us is an indicator of that, but ther

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May 04, 2025 at 11:30AM

The E-Girl Work Machine as the Body-for-Others

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Marxist feminist scholar Silvia Federeci argues that “one of capitalism’s main projects has been the transformation of our bodies into work machines” (10). In other words, the accumulation of capital requires human labor and thus our minds and bodies are shaped in order to maximize productivity and profit. The advent of the Internet has given rise to a whole host of new work machines, unlike any other before. Today, I would like to examine the e-girl work machine.

The simple definition of “e-girl” is “electronic girl,” but the term has a negative connotation. Typically, it is deployed as an insult against women in male-dominated, online spaces, with the underlying suggestion that they exist in those spaces to harvest male attention for money, favors, or popularity. Any woman, regardless of her behavior or intentions, is liable to be labeled an e-girl if she dares to exist in Internet spaces.

I stream for a living on the male-dominated platform, Twitch, which—whether I wish it or not—has granted me the title of e-girl. It is the easiest job I have ever had. I talk to strangers and play video games for a few hours every night. My time is my own, so I have the freedom to work on my own projects and build towards a career I would actually like. E-girling has saved me from the monotony of the office 9-5 and the brutality of minimum wage. Though my profession may not be particularly grueling, the e-girl work machine may yet be worth exploring. How does one transform a human being into an e-girl work machine?

To answer this question, we must first consider how one makes money on Twitch. A streamer’s income primarily comes from three places: ad revenue, straight from the pockets of viewers in the form of bits, subscriptions, and/or Paypal donations, and sponsorships. For the sake of this article, I will be focusing on the first two. Regardless of how a streamer feels about it, Twitch will play approximately three minutes of advertisements per hour for viewers that do not have a subscription to the streamer they are watching; streamers have the option to schedule these advertisements. The more viewers a streamer has, the more ad revenue they receive; i.e., it is in a streamer’s best interest to incur as many concurrent viewers as possible. Subscriptions, bits, and PayPal donations are a bit more capricious because they rely on the whims of the viewers. A streamer can simply hope viewers will be generous enough to gift or they can set explicit goals that encourage viewers to donate in some capacity—for instance, a streamer might promise to play a certain game or wear a cosplay if they receive a specific number of subscriptions.

On a platform in which the demographic is predominantly cisgender, heterosexual, and male, the ability to portray oneself as a conventionally attractive, gender conforming, cisgender woman has many advantages in the acquisition of capital. Research indicates that the success of a female streamer is primarily predicated upon how physically attractive she is (Uszkoreit 166). An enticing thumbnail will increase a streamer’s ad revenue as viewers are more likely to click on the stream and, if they like the content, donate to the streamer. The ideal e-girl work machine is, first and foremost, a beautiful woman—or at least capable of masquerading as one.

This prerequisite presented a conundrum for me when I first entertained the idea of streaming as a job rather than a hobby. I was not a woman and had not been a woman for a decade. (And even when I was a woman, I was very, very bad at it, as my peers often reminded me.)

I will explain this as simply as possible, without gratuitous personal detail: I was assigned female at birth (i.e., I was born with a vulva and uterus). At age 15, I decided I did not want to be a girl anymore; I cut my hair off, donned men’s clothing, changed my name to Charlie, and insisted on they/them or he/him pronouns. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at age 16 and, at age 19, prescribed testosterone (which I had to discontinue after a few months due to mood disturbances.) In private and public, I assumed an explicitly non-female identity until I was 25 years old. While I did not experience life as a cisgender male and could only rarely pass as one, I was exempt from much of the trouble young women deal with. Heterosexual men hardly ever bothered me; it is only the deeply insecure male that finds my kind—the in-betweens that aspire to manhood—threatening. I was either ignored or begrudgingly treated with a respect I have since lost. I was fully a subject. I had little sense of danger and could comfortably walk through the most dangerous San Francisco neighborhoods at night by myself. Gender dysphoria was a pain, but I was spared the crippling body dysmorphia that many young women endure.

I had no idea how to be a woman, but it seemed a small price to pay to never have to wake up at six in the morning ever again. And so, the transformation to e-girl work machine began; I grew out my hair, learned how to do makeup, and, through trial and error, figured out what women’s clothing worked best for my build. It wasn’t so bad, at first. Even a bit fun—to be an e-girl felt like doing drag, donning absurd, feminine frippery to perform in front of a camera. E-girl drag helped establish a boundary between my stream persona and my private self.

But to be a work machine is not a temporary state; it is etched into our very being. Survival under capitalism necessitates we exist permanently as work machines. And so the e-girl work machine—commodified womanhood—took shape in me, manifesting in my brain and body as the feminine neuroses that had plagued me before I scorned my assigned sex. Because the e-girl work machine is, when all is said and done, a body-for-others. In his book, Masculine Domination, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu explains:

Everything in the genesis of the female habitus and in the social condition of its actualization combines to make the female experience of the body the limiting case of the universal experience of the body-for-others, constantly exposed to the objectification performed by the gaze and the discord of others. (66)

To be an object that is gazed at—“a thing that is made to be looked at or which one has to look at in order to prepare it to be looked at” (68)—is an uncomfortable experience in the real world, but it is magnified, not lessened through the camera lens. While streaming, I am forced to look at myself far more frequently than I would like to. I must constantly evaluate myself as an object and try to see myself as an object through the eyes of others. Is my makeup smudged? Are my eye bags too prominent? Am I showing too much or too little cleavage? Does my waist look tiny today? The awareness that I am being looked at and judged like so much meat is ever-present and consuming, for I know that my income relies on appeasing the gaze and that any failure to do so will be remarked upon. Bourdieu posits that women’s clothing “has the effect of not only masking the body, but of continuously calling it to order” (28). The clothing I wear limits my movement to avoid any accidental slippage, forcing me to abandon the masculine body language I had once studied and adopted. It is often tight and uncomfortable, pressing into my skin and reminding me incessantly of my flesh and the need to hold myself taut, tucked in, lest I relax and run the risk of looking unattractive. My body aches after stream, exhausted from the rigor of being called to order.

It does not help that harassment from male chatters is a daily occurrence. Whether it is objectifying language, the unwanted sharing of sexual fantasies, cruel comments about my body, or threats of sexual violence, an obnoxiously loud portion of male Twitch chatters are intent on reminding me that I am an object. Anything that reminds this particular breed of man that I am not flesh, that I am mind too, is a threat. Before I began streaming on Twitch, I rarely ever had my intelligence questioned by men; my father, an internal medicine doctor, encouraged me from a young age to share my opinions on all matters cultural and political with him. Despite our differences in age, gender and education, he would always engage with me as an intellectual equal. In both my undergraduate and postgraduate programs, male peers and professors took me seriously and listened to me.

Not so online—it is only through the medium of Twitch streaming that I have been exposed to so many ignorant, uneducated men that seem certain of their intellectual superiority over me. I used to feel comfortable being wrong, to admit I did not know something. But the knowledge that a man may see me stumble once and then fancy himself my better makes navigating conversations about anything academic a minefield. I would do anything to avoid becoming flesh and only flesh, my cerebral nature denied me.

This new awareness of my body has had some negative impacts on my psyche; the relatively normal level of body dysmorphia I had before I began is now overwhelming. I am possessive of my image, uncomfortable with taking photos of myself and being photographed. I am filled with an animal panic when I know that the form I take in the minds of others is out of my control. Feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir describes the experience of womanhood as the sense that woman is “doubled; instead of coinciding within herself, here she is existing outside of herself” (349); I do not walk the world in my body, I watch myself walk through the world as a body. I have become a neurotic narcissist, thinking constantly of my appearance. I cannot even derive pleasure from this alienated flesh; understanding my body-for-others as a commodity, reduced to a carnal state, the erotic has wilted in me. The irony of becoming a body is that I have no desire to indulge in it.

I do not wish to e

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The E-Girl Work Machine as the Body-for-Others open.substack.com

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May 04, 2025 at 11:20AM

Generated Transcripts Are Here

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Great news, Pocket Casts fans! With version 7.85, we’ve introduced Generated Transcripts, a powerful new feature that makes engaging with your favorite podcasts easier than ever. Available on both Android and iOS for our Plus and Patron members, this feature allows you to follow along with podcast conversations.

Podcasts are full of incredible insights, but sometimes you want to revisit a key moment without scrubbing through the entire episode. With Generated Transcripts, you can now read along, search for specific phrases, and quickly find key discussions—even if a show doesn’t have their own transcripts.

To access them go to the player and from the toolbar tap the message icon. If you don’t see it you can reach it through the dot menu or customize the toolbar.

We continue to support transcripts provided by podcast creators, ensuring that manually curated ones remain available. However, with this new feature, we’re expanding access by automatically generating them for new episodes from the most-followed podcasts.

If a show already provides its own transcripts, those will remain available. But if they don’t, our generated transcripts will step in to ensure you can still follow along and search key moments.

We can’t wait to hear what you think—try it out and let us know your feedback!

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May 02, 2025 at 02:16PM

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Generated Transcripts Are Here blog.pocketcasts.com

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May 02, 2025 at 02:15PM

Displaying Bookmarks Publicly

https://ift.tt/F92wZoH

            Mtt

                December 12, 2022,  5:56pm

          1

Is there a way to display bookmarks publicly like there is with bookshelves?

For example, I can use the following to display Books I’m reading:

{{ range .Site.Data.bookshelves.currentlyreading }} <p class="bookshelf_book"> <a href="https://micro.blog/books/{{ .isbn }}"> <img src="{{ .cover_url }}"> <span class="bookshelf_title">{{ .title }}</span> <br> <span class="bookshelf_author">by {{ .author }}</span> </a> </p> {{ end }}

Is there a way to do something similar with bookmarks I’ve saved?

I’ve considered using something like FeedRoll to display the provided Bookmarks JSON feed, but it automatically duplicates every single entry.

            sod

                December 12, 2022,  7:14pm

          2

Yes, you can do something like this:

{{ $bookmarks := getJSON "https://ift.tt/lVeuvBk" }} {{ range $bookmarks.items }} <div class="h-entry"> <a class="u-bookmark-of h-cite" href="{{ .url }}"> <p>{{ .content_html | plainify | truncate 140 }}</p> </a> </div> {{ end }}

The example above prints a short summary for every bookmark and links to it. But there’s more data in the feed you can choose to expose if you want to.

            Mtt

                December 12, 2022,  7:29pm

          3

Ah, I should’ve known you would have the answer! Thank you! Having not tested it yet, does it deal with the duplicate item issue or does it list every bookmark twice?

            sod

                December 12, 2022,  7:34pm

          4

It lists whatever you have in your JSON feed. I don’t have duplicate entries in my feed, but maybe something is up with yours?

            Mtt

                December 12, 2022,  7:38pm

          5

For a little clarity, this is what I’m referencing. Maybe I’m missing something or in your brilliance you fixed yours somehow.

UPDATE: In that conversation, I’m saying RSS but I mean JSON.

            sod

                December 12, 2022,  7:50pm

          6

Okay, I’m not a premium subscriber, so I don’t get archived copies of my bookmarks. As long as there’s a way to distinguish the original from the archived version, we could eliminate the duplicates.

We can hopefully figure something out if you’re willing to share an example. Do not share the URL to the feed; that’s private. Instead, copy and paste one original/archive pair of bookmarks.

            Mtt

                December 12, 2022,  8:09pm

          7

If I understand your meaning, the only differences in the feed items seems to be that the archived version has a title set whereas the standard one doesn’t…and the id has a link prefix.

{
  "id": "link470113",
  "title": "Title of Page",
  "content_html": "<p>Content here</p>",
  "url": "amazonarchivedurlgoeshere.net",
  "date_published": "2022-12-03T20:15:10+00:00",
  "author": {
    "name": "John Smith",
    "url": "https://url.net",
    "avatar": "avatar.jpg",
    "_microblog": {
      "username": "name"
    }
  }
},
{
  "id": "14630634",
  "content_html": "<p>Content here</p>",
  "url": "https://url.net/",
  "date_published": "2022-12-02T21:48:59+00:00",
  "author": {
    "name": "John Smith",
    "url": "https://url.net",
    "avatar": "avatar.jpg",
    "_microblog": {
      "username": "name"
    }
  }
}

Just to make it simpler, I obviously replaced the info with filler.

            sod

                December 12, 2022,  8:32pm

          8

That may not be it. For example, I see title in my feed for bookmarks with a title. And I see the link prefix as well. But could we tell them apart by the URL? Is there a common prefix or other patterns for the archived versions?

Update: I might have confused myself. This may be the solution after all. Can you try the following snippet, @Mtt?

{{ $bookmarks := getJSON "https://ift.tt/lVeuvBk" }} {{ range $bookmarks.items }} {{ if not .title }} <div class="h-entry"> <a class="u-bookmark-of h-cite" href="{{ .url }}"> <p>{{ .content_html | plainify | truncate 140 }}</p> </a> </div> {{ end }} {{ end }}

            JohnPhilpin

                December 13, 2022,  2:03am

          9

Interesting thread here - this might allow me to repurpose my bookmarks for something else I have been thinking about … BUT … I am clearly doing it wrong - how do you add any of this code to the site? It isn’t on the page itself I assume?

            sod

                December 13, 2022,  8:19am

          10

You’re right; these snippets can’t go into a page or post. They have to be included in a custom template. Or one could construct a shortcode for easy inclusion anywhere.

I might get around to releasing this as a plug-in in the future, if no one beats me to it.

            pratik

                December 13, 2022,  1:25pm

          11

I thought the same too. Check out the thread linked in @jsonbecker’s response.

          1 Like

            Mtt

                December 13, 2022,  8:37pm

          12

This does work and might be as close as possible to achieving what I’m going for; however, the content.html part automatically includes added “footer” text. The only solution I can come up with is to limit the truncation further so that gets chopped off. But by doing that, defeats the goal of what I want to do.

I also tried automatically importing the JSON feed through the Micro.blog import tool (then I could run a filter to categorize it), but it won’t allow importing from M.b sources.

So I feel like every solution gets me 90% of the way there. Might be something to put on the back burner and see if things change on any part of it.

            sod

                December 13, 2022,  9:23pm

          13

What do you mean by footer text? Can you provide an example?

content_html is the actual content from the page you’ve bookmarked. So it will vary greatly depending on which websites you’re bookmarking. It’s probably hard to come up with a general solution, unfortunately.

            Mtt

                December 13, 2022,  9:40pm

          14

Sorry, I could’ve worded that better. Within the content, the text “Read: link.com” is appended at the end for every link.

            sod

                December 13, 2022, 10:21pm

          15

Okay, it could probably be solved as long as it’s consistent. Can you provide an unaltered bookmark from your JSON feed? Something like this:

{ "id": "14915304", "content_html": "Bookmark improvements in Micro.blog <a href="https://www.manton.org/2022/03/23/bookmark-improvements-in.html\">manton.org</a>", "url": "https://ift.tt/PkXc0uR", "date_published": "2022-03-23T14:54:40+00:00", "author": { "name": "Manton.org", "url": "http://Manton.org/", "avatar": "https://ift.tt/LfGTyN9", "_microblog": { "username": "manton.org" } } }

            sod

                December 13, 2022, 10:25pm

          16

The Bookmarks Shortcode plug-in (BETA) is a thing now, @JohnPhilpin. Install, add your bookmarks JSON feed in the settings, and paste this snippet on any page: {{< bookmarks />}}. More detailed instructions can be found on the plug-in page.

          2 Likes

            Mtt

                December 13, 2022, 10:50pm

          17

Here ya go:

{
  "id": "14630634",
  "content_html": "<p>For today's <a href=\"https://ift.tt/Q0saTEu>, I made my RSS feed prettier. Before, the browser served a bunch of messy XML, but now you're greeted by <a href=\"https://dahlstrand.net/notes/feed.xml\">a friendly preview and instructions</a>. 🥳</p>\n\n<p>Based on <a href=\"https://github.com/genmon/aboutfeeds/blob/main/tools/pretty-feed-v3.xsl\">pretty-feed.xsl</a> by Matt Webb. You should add <a href=\"https://interconnected.org/home/\">Matt's blog</a> to your feed reader! 👀</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/1000x/https%3A%2F%2Fdahlstrand.net%2Fimages%2Fpretty-rss.png\" alt=\"A split view of the same web feed: before and after. The before shows a plain text XML representation of content. Boring! The after shows a pretty-looking preview of the same.\" width=\"1224\" height=\"1224\" loading=\"lazy\"></p><p class=\"post_archived_links\">Read: <a href=\"https://micro.blog/bookmarks/470113\">dahlstrand.net</a> </p>",
  "url": "https://ift.tt/sHhJ0cq",
  "date_published": "2022-12-02T21:48:59+00:00",
  "author": {
    "name": "Sven Dahlstrand",
    "url": "https://dahlstrand.net",
    "avatar": "https://ift.tt/LwFSsKm",
    "_microblog": {
      "username": "sod"
    }
  }
}

            sod

                December 13, 2022, 11:25pm

          18

What a nice bookmark you got there. You could remove the offending HTML with Hugo’s replaceRE: replaceRE "<p class="post_archived_links">.+</p>" "". Merged with the previous example:

{{ $bookmarks := getJSON "https://ift.tt/lVeuvBk" }} {{ range $bookmarks.items }} {{ if not .title }} <div class="h-entry"> <a class="u-bookmark-of h-cite" href="{{ .url }}"> <p>{{ .content_html | replaceRE "<p class="post_archived_links">.+</p>" "" | plainify | truncate 140 }}</p> </a> </div> {{ end }} {{ end }}

            JohnPhilpin

                December 14, 2022,  9:37pm

          19

well - look at that - of course you have … and of course I tried it … and of course it isn’t working for me

I am pretty sure that I am using the wrong JSON

This is clearly not right

https://micro.blog/feeds/johnphilpin/bookmarks/decc3dfad46628dc2cac.json

https://ift.tt/vUojwTh

Displaying Bookmarks Publicly help.micro.blog

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May 02, 2025 at 12:49PM