I'm Sara, a social media and marketing manager who's traded her nostalgic blog entries and picture collages for nonstop community engagement. (Luckily, I love it.) Here I'll stash some stories, recall memories, and wax poetic about the places, people, and things I've come to love.23 - Boston, MA - Manager of Community Engagement at DailyFeats - MFA Candidate at Emerson College
Find me elsewhere:
Sara Hopson
*Habit loop template from charlesduhigg.com, images added by us :)
Do you want to be a habit-forming, positive-action check-in whiz?
By Sara Hopson, Manager of Community Engagement @sahopson
Here at DailyFeats, as you’ve noticed, we’re all about good. A few months ago as we…
#shamelessplug
We’re pumped to featured on Mashable today! Thanks for sharing, Antonio!
DAILYFEATS: CHECKING FOR YOUR GOAL
DailyFeats offers a way for people to get motivated to achieve their personal goals, by incorporating a positive rewards system and tailored programs that help people take small steps toward success.
Source: Mashable
I’m not much for end of the year self-indulgence in blog post form but it was a pretty awesome year. I’d like to remember these high points in particular. What were yours?
August - A moment I’m not likely to forget is this one, when we saw Ashley put on her wedding gown. There was not a dry eye in the room, and it felt impossible that our lives had suddenly lead up to that moment. It seemed like a dream and was a wonderful, beautiful reality.
June - Getting to take Shannon to her first Red Sox game (after we spent TONS of time in Fenway but not in the park). Shonak was kind enough to give us the tix.
March - While visiting Kels in DC for the first time, we decided (on a whim) to get tattoos together commemorating our awesome group of friends. We Google-Mapsed our way to Comes a Time Tattoo Parlor in Fairfax, VA and within an hour we were all tatted up. Then we got ice cream.
May - After a fortunate meeting at a networking event (#RubyRiot), I met these fools and had a great summer working with them on Swellr.com. I learned so much and completely changed my future path.
June - Bonnaroo. What can I say? Best money I’ve ever spent and great bonding time with my future roommate. These four days really felt like a different world entirely.
May - Sammy took us to the tugboat for the first time over Memorial Day weekend and I can honestly say the days spent on it were some of the most memorable and wonderful I’ve had with my close friends. And it is hands-down the best view of Boston (see this shot I took on 4th of July weekend for proof).
September - Who knew that a compulsory visit to Southie for St. Patty’s Day would lead to a cross-city move 8 months later? Moving to our new house in Andrew Square was one of the most exciting and rewarding (after a ton of stressful situations) things I’ve done. I love nearly everything about it, even the seemingly negative stuff - like living next to the projects. I did live in downtown Erie for four years, after all - I feel at home in questionable neighborhoods!
September - I ran the Doug Flutie 5K with other MassChallenge finalists. Granted, my time was really not good compared with how fast I’ve run my 3.1 mile daily run countless other times, but the fact that I did this at all was important for me because it made me realize how a little discipline goes a long way. I’ve really gotten myself back into healthy shape this year and knowing I was going to be running a 5K with a bunch of guys really kicked me into high gear. Moving to Southie didn’t hurt — my daily runs went from treadmill-bound to ocean-side.
Ongoing - Visitors. Ya know, we started off our move to Boston with a bang of a visit from Katie, Rachel, Ashley, & Ted. But living in a city for a few months makes visits much easier to handle, so 2011 was the Year of Having Visitors. (It’s funny - now that I’m living in a house with ROOM for friends to stay, I haven’t had any yet.) So thank you to the following: Katie, Rachel, Ashley (Dawson-Berger <3), Kaitlyn, Mollie, Strell, Luke, Ian, Andy C., Shannon O’C, Kelsey, Brian, Chaz, Fabian, Agnew, Mom, and Tess for making it to my new city. The rest of you - I’m still waiting! :)
Not saying this year didn’t have its lows, but I can’t say they’ve left too much of a damper on me. I’ve learned things the hard way and been fortunate enough to enjoy the high points with the lows.
Happy 2011 and a challenging, exhilirating 2012 to all!
Hi. This is LOuie. It seriously is me. Im even going to leave
the O stuipdly capatalized because who would pay an intern to do
that?? Okay so you bought the thing with my fat face on it and
you clicked the button that said i could email you. And i know
that now you are thinking “aw shit. Why’d i let this guy into my
life this way?”. Well dont worry. Because i really swear it that
i wont bug you. I will not abuse this privalage of having your
email. You wont hear from me again… Probably, unless i have
something new to offer you. The reason i’m writing now, in the
back of a car taking me to the Tonight Show set, is to let you
know that as of now there is some new and cool stuff on my site,
related to Live at the Beacon Theater. Theres a thing where you
can download and print a dvd box cover and label so you can burn
and make your own dvd of the video. And theres a new option where
you can gift the special to as many people as you want (for 5
bucks each) and they’ll get a nice gifty email from you with a
link to the video.
Also, some of you may know, i recently made a statement (that
sounds so dumb. Like i’m the president or something) about how the
video has been doing online. Im pasting it in here below in case
you missed it.
Lastly I’m planning to put some more outtakes of the show on
youtube and i think i will put one on the site that is only
available for free to you folks on this list, who bought the
thing and opted in. But dont hold me to that because really i
just thought of it and typed it.
Okay well please have a happy rest of the year and more happy
years after that. And please even have been happy in your past.
What?
Thanks again for giving me 5 dollars. I bought 3 cokes with it.
Regards. Sincerely, Actually,
Louis
===========================
People of Earth (minus the ones who don’t give a shit about
this): it’s been amazing to conduct this experiment with you. The
experiment was: if I put out a brand new standup special at a
drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to
buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone
just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money
can be made by an individual in this manner?
It’s been 4 days. A lot of people are asking me how it’s going.
I’ve been hesitant to share the actual figures, because there’s
power in exclusive ownership of information. What I didn’t expect
when I started this was that people would not only take part in
this experiment, they would be invested in it and it would be
important to them. It’s been amazing to see people in large
numbers advocating this idea. So I think it’s only fair that you
get to know the results. Also, it’s just really cool and fun and
I’m dying to tell everybody. I told my Mom, I told three friends,
and that wasn’t nearly enough. So here it is.
First of all, this was a premium video production, shot with six
cameras over two performances at the Beacon Theater, which is a
high-priced elite Manhattan venue. I directed this video myself
and the production of the video cost around $170,000. (This was
largely paid for by the tickets bought by the audiences at both
shows). The material in the video was developed over months on
the road and has never been seen on my show (LOUIE) or on any
other special. The risks were thus: every new generation of
material I create is my income, it’s like a farmer’s annual crop.
The time and effort on my part was far more than if I’d done it
with a big company. If I’d done it with a big company, I would
have a guarantee of a sizable fee, as opposed to this way, where
I’m actually investing my own money.
The development of the website, which needed to be a very robust,
reliable and carefully constructed website, was around $32,000.
We worked for a number of weeks poring over the site to make sure
every detail would give buyers a simple, optimal and humane
experience for buying the video. I edited the video around the
clock for the weeks between the show and the launch.
The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12
hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned
$250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As
of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over
$500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a
profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I
would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the
show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you
about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted
and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would
have owned your private information for their own use. They would
have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way,
you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you
can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or
Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you).
You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from
us again.
I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have
shitloads of money, but at this point I think we can safely say
that the experiment really worked. If anybody stole it, it wasn’t
many of you. Pretty much everybody bought it. And so now we all
get to know that about people and stuff. I’m really glad I put
this out here this way and I’ll certainly do it again. If the
trend continues with sales on this video, my goal is that i can
reach the point where when I sell anything, be it videos, CDs or
tickets to my tours, I’ll do it here and I’ll continue to follow
the model of keeping my price as far down as possible, not
overmarketing to you, keeping as few people between you and me as
possible in the transaction. (Of course i reserve the right to go
back on all of this and sign a massive deal with a company that
pays me fat coin and charges you straight up the ass.). (This is
you: yes Louie. And we’ll all enjoy torrenting that content. You
fat sweaty dolt).
I probably sound kind of crazy right now. It’s been a really fun
and intense few days. This video was paid for by people who
bought tickets, and then bought by people who wanted to see that
same show. I got to do exactly the show I wanted, and exactly the
show you wanted.
I also got an education. And everything i learned are things i
was happy to learn. I learned that people are interested in what
happens and shit (i didn’t go to college)
I learned that money can be a lot of things. It can be something
that is hoarded, fought over, protected, stolen and withheld. Or
it can be like an energy, fueled by the desire, will, creative
interest, need to laugh, of large groups of people. And it can be
shuffled and pushed around and pooled together to fuel a common
interest, jokes about garbage, penises and parenthood.
I want to thank Blair Breard who produced this video and produces
my series LOUIE, and I want to thank Caspar and Giles at Version
Industries, who created the website.
I hope with all of my heart that I stay funny. Otherwise this all
goes to hell. Please have a safe and happy holiday, and thank you
again for all this crazy shit.
Sincerely, Louis C.K.
”
then lost it. Oh well! I’ll let them do it for me in their Community way.
NBC, don’t pull another Conan or Arrested Development on this show. Seriously. I’ll write more on this topic later but let’s just look at how awesome Danny Pudi (and by extension, the entire cast/production team) of this show is:
Watch the Christmas episode tonight and hopefully NBC wizens up about how much better this show is than lots of others on TV right now and ever. That is all.
A Christmas-themed episode needs a Christmas-colored CALL TO ACTION.
LET’S TARGET COMMUNITY’S ADVERTISERS TONIGHT! AGAIN!
Watch Community live, and tweet at the advertisers you see, thanking them for their support of this amazing show. (To make it a little easier, use this incredibly handy chart.)
Reblog! Tweet it at cast members, blog writers, random celebrities! LET’S GOOO!
(via communitythings)
Me, May 2009, at my first of-age concert experience (trying to look cute and failing miserably) (what’s my left arm doing?)
This spring I’m taking a course called “Construction of Taste”. Seeing as it’s being taught by easily the most challenging professor I’ve had ever, I don’t think it’ll be all: “I have good taste because I watch The Wire and I like TV on the Radio”. That being said, after I enrolled, I started to think about taste, and where it comes from, and how the hell mine is such an amalgamation of myriad sources.
So, my ‘taste’ in music. I implore you to take a gander at my last.fm page which has been tracking my listening since September 21, 2007. (Holy crap.) Although I can humblebrag about a few of the top artists, for the most part, it’s the ones that I’m soooort of embarrassed about that are the ones I ‘discovered’ myself (or came to know years ago through traditional channels, i.e. Star 104 or MTV or My Cool Friends in High School).
Yeah I love the Black Keys. Yeah Cold War Kids and TV on the Radio are my 7th and 8th most played artists, respectively! Of COURSE I love Arcade Fire and Bon Iver. I’m soooooo cool! …since I don’t have sarcasm font on here yet, I hope you can get a sense for the use of italics there, because interspersed between those awesome musicians are Coldplay, Maroon Five, and, yes: John Mayer is, in fact, my most played artist over the past four years of a whole lot music listening. (By over 1,000 additional plays than anyone else) (Shut up)
It doesn’t get much better as you peruse the rest of the list. Feminists will be glad to know that the first female artist on there is Taylor Swift at #19 - at least she’s followed closely by Gaga, Feist, and Spektor. Britney Spears doesn’t even show up til #58! Go me.
POINT BEING, if in fact I have one, is that I have really wacky taste in music and have realized its origins. I listen to music constantly, and am fiercely loyal to the bands or musicians I love. Even JM, even though up there I kinda smack-talked him (and myself by association). I am mostly unapologetic about how many times I’ve listened to Trey Songz “Say Aah” in the past year, how quickly I knew every word to Kanye & crew’s “Monster, or how completely John Mayer and Kings of Leon dominate my most played songs.
Proudly rocking the JM swag in August 2010. And look - a sorority girl in the background drinking water. Amazing.
But where does this shit come from? I blame my parents for the excessive Tom Petty and Beatles, my hometown and hometown friends for any country music whatsoever, and the rest, honestly, seems to be relationship-related. Not all just nostalgia pieces or “our songs” (because, who does that after 8th grade?) but ex-boyfriends’ favorite bands. Seriously. This is some sort of epidemic in my music-listening-taste-construction; has anyone else fallen victim to this? I’m not copping an disingenuous love of these bands or songs, but I have to give credit where credit is due and admit that I wouldn’t have any ‘taste’, probably, if it weren’t for a few serious dating relationships.
It’s strange! Exes introduced me to Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, TVotR, Lupe Fiasco, The Black Keys, Cold War Kids, the Foo Fighters (to at least a more serious extent), Feist, O.A.R., Regina Spektor, Cat Power, Spoon, etc. etc. etc., all of which have become absolute staples in my music library. These guys would probably be very smug about this fact but I’m banking on none of them reading this and/or caring enough to gloat.
This makes me wonder if any of my musical predilections have rubbed off on the people I spend most of my time with. I remember always being obnoxious about introducing my girlfriends to new music or music I just discovered or music I had secretly been obsessed with for months but they didn’t have a song on the radio so I couldn’t admit to it yet, nor would any of said girlfriends want to listen unless it was popular or almost-popular. I think Ashley would say I’ve helped break her out of her emo-listening-prison, but I wish I could think of more. Do any of my girls share my obsession with Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney (whose next album comes out tomorrow and I’msoexcited)? When Katie texted me “Who the fuck is Arcade Fire?” during the Grammys this year, my heart sank. Numerous times I’ve thrown “Wolf Like Me” onto Power Hour playlists in hoping it’d catch on with my roomies…to no avail.
So be it. I’m a sponge, apparently. One that is bad at wringing myself out onto other dry sponges like the people around me still listening to Ke$ha, Daughtry, or Jason Aldean (…and other various country horrors that shall not be named). I’ll have to work on that.
Peak of my love of music - Bonnaroo ‘11!
