TLDR: Following the recent DOGE and XRP situations, and our influx of new users - I have decided to put together a quick guide on what a pump and dump is, how to spot it, how to avoid it, and what to do should you fall for one. This is just my thoughts on the issue and by no means exhaustive. I welcome comments and my biggest recommendation if you fell for one of these schemes is to accept it, address your emotions, seek support - either by those around you or here if you feel more comfortable, then commit to educating yourself.

Summary:

A pump and dump scheme is where a group of people pitch a coin (or stock) to other people to spike short term volume, and therefore the price, in order to profit from selling their own supply at the higher price to the newer investors.

How to spot a PnD:

Promises of huge gains
Forced short time frames to make a decision
No discussion of risk - or questioning permitted
The opportunity finds you, you don't find the opportunity
Comparison to recent success stories - e.g. GME (dubious whether this will even be a success long term for individuals)

Tips to avoid - see below but the main two for me are:

Recognise emotional decision making, in yourself, and when it comes from others (people you may normally trust). You need to recognise this behaviour, and cut it out at source. To step back and breathe.
Ask yourself, what are they selling me on, and why? If they find you, you are being sold. That is all there is to it.

What is a Pump and Dump scheme?

A Pump and Dump scheme (PnD from here on in), is where an investor, or group of investors promote a coin they already hold (or are purchasing) in order to cause positive sentiment and the price to rise. At this point these investors will then sell their coins to the newer investors, causing the price to crash and leave the people who fell for the PnD with a large potential loss, or coins which are now worth a lot less than the price they paid for them.
These are not new and were traditionally done via phone call. If you have watched the Wolf of Wall Street, or similar films about penny stocks, you have seen this stuff in action. If you are buying, you are the retail investor who gets taken for a ride.
With the recent influx of new users to this site, and following the PnD schemes surrounding Doge and XRP, lets take a look at how to spot a PnD scheme

How to spot a PnD scheme?

Promises of huge gains, in a short amount of time. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. In crypto (and stocks) if someone is talking to you about something, they are selling you their position. If it is positive - they likely own it, if it negative - they either want prices to fall or they hold a competitor. Ask yourself, why someone would be going out their way to tell you something is a once in a lifetime opportunity? If it was, they would be keeping it secret and accumulating themselves. These people are salesman, and you are the one buying the bullshit
Linked to the above there is often a time element - 'get in quick, or you will miss it', they are relying on your impulsive decision making to jump in - they are manipulating you to over ride the logical part of your brain which makes decisions based on information and context
There is no discussion of any potential risks or downsides, and you are removed from groups or harassed for asking basic questions - this is a hive mind at work, and you are being censored from raising any concern or legitimate question.
There may be reference to 'how this time is different', or it plays on recent successes which are in no way comparable - e.g Game Stop - anyone who paused for a second would realise why not only was financially the short squeeze on GME completely different, but also the moral stand point was too. XRP, for example, is a centralised system which enriches the founders beyond belief. Yet these groups tried to ride the sentiment of GME to convince others to join - as a show of rebellion and alliance.
Social media storms are cooked up, it seems like out of nowhere this is all anyone can talk about - when has this ever proven a successful decision? Once everyone is talking about it, you are already too late. You may not lose money, if you are lucky, but you are still the one being duped. Again this is feeding on emotion and Fear of Missing Out. There will be groups created and ran by mods who run them like cults - no talk of anything but price going up is accepted.
There is a time or plan attached - e.g. Pump and Hold at 8:30. For the love of god, if this is the case, sell before then. All the leaders of these groups will have done. All of these public announcements are done again to create legitimacy and make you feel at ease - as a collective.
Generally any concept of 'we are in this together', coming from a group trying to actively push up the price of something short term = PnD. You are not in this together, markets are competitive - they are survival of the fittest whether you like it or not. They want your money, when you listen to them - you are basically offering to hand it over. People invest to make money, especially when the entire premise is pushing a price up to get rich. They do not want what is good for you, they are using you and they will take your money if you allow them to. They are telling you, because you are the opportunity - not the coin.
Be aware, people telling you to hold and buy more, are using you. They want you to push the price back up so they can sell. If you are in these groups - on social media, be aware you may be talking to bots, or at the least people who are trying to dump on you. When it drops, get out.

How to avoid PnDs in future

'Why are they telling me this?' - this is the first and main question to ask yourself. What does the person sharing the information have to gain from telling me? In this case - you invest and push the price up, allowing them to make greater profit. Understand why they would be sharing details with you - if it such a great thing, why are they sharing it?
if it is a friend telling you, ask for more information - why it is doing well, what the plan is etc - if they can't explain it properly, this is a big red flag and they likely have fallen for it too.
Look out for how someone talks to you about it - is it emotionally driven, does it make you excited? scared to miss out? - This is exactly when you need to step back, breathe and ask yourself if you are thinking correctly. Emotional decision making is not a good thing here, and then ask if they are intentionally trying to get an emotional reaction out of you? (see the above - FOMO, get rich quick etc)
Is there any room for nuance? Are you able to discuss the potential cons or risk? If you are laughed at, or harassed, others are told to ignore you (he won't be getting rich, weak hands, pathetic seller) - this is a huge sign that you are investing in something where no other thoughts are allowed. The reason for this, once you are out the bubble - logic returns and you see the smoke and mirrors for what they are. PnD groups work like a cult, only one form of thinking is allowed, everything else is censored.
Did this come out of nowhere, do I even know anything about this? If you don't know anything about it, except it makes money, don't invest in it. This is a terrible decision for two reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, you have asymmetric information - you have no idea why and what you are buying, therefore can't make an informed decision - only an emotional one. Equally, this kind of thing pushes panicked, emotional selling. When you don't know fundamental reasons why you invest in something, when the price dips you will sell. Why? because when your brain asks you the question 'shit it is dropping, what do we do?!' - your logical brain won't have an answer, because you never gave it the information to form one. This second part is more relevant to regular investments, not PnDs of course, but is worth bearing in mind before you invest in anything.
Was the coin relatively stagnant, or has it dipped recently? PnDs typically target coins which haven't moved much recently, or have lower trading volume, this allows for a much easier spiking of the price due to a small change in demand equalling a big change in price. If you look at the charts and it was doing nothing until this big flurry of activity - you are being taken for a ride.
Look for the news, if it is pumping, don't listen to people inside the group - search for reasons why something is pumping. If you can't find anything of value, there probably isn't anything, and you are gambling on emotional decisions.
The opportunity finds you, you don't find the opportunity. Getting rich off 'undervalued' coins, or finding a hidden gem is not easy. They are hidden for a reason. If someone is coming to you with this, remember they are selling. You are buying.
If someone does approach you, talk to someone else outside of the bubble - find another group e.g. CC, or other investors - talk to them, get outside perspective before investing.
look for examples of populist sentiment. Do you hear things about an other? - e.g. haters, those missing out who are jealous. Are you made to feel like you are part of a special group? The ones with insider information? This is a lie, it is very very common manipulation within populist movements, cults etc - to create a narrative of an other to entrench tribalism within the group. This is done to make you switch your brain off, to rule on emotion.
is there a recent comparable story that was successful? e.g. GME (yes this isn't the same at all in reality, but the story being sold is - or at least plays on the hype of GME). If there is, you are being played. The real opportunity, just like the hidden gem, is the first one. When people tell you this is happening again, they are simply using the positive news from one case and applying it to their own - often because it lacks any actual, real, tangible reason for succeeding or being a good investment.

I fell for a PnD, what next?

Have you sold yet - No? Are you in profit? Sell. Whilst you still can. Greed will tell you not to, and perhaps you can eek out a little more money. But you are gambling, and gambling extremely high risk against people trying to take all your money.

Yes, you have sold. Did you make a profit? Yes - great. You are still a an idiot, just a lucky one. Tell yourself that. There is a difference between opportunist traders taking advantage of PnDs and someone getting lucky and getting out before it collapses. Do not confuse the two. The first group know what they are doing (and they may still lose, but they are aware of the real risk). You are fucking lucky. Don't do it again. So count your blessings, go through the same process of learning about PnDs and begin to understand why you fell for it, how to avoid it in future and realise you are up - you won. Don't go back in, you are asking to lose.

Yes you have sold? Did you make profit? No? Ok, this is normal - 90% + of people doing this will end up in the same situation.

Recognise and accept your mistake. Do not feel ashamed of it, it is ok. You were played, it happens to all of us in our lives at some point.
Step away from whatever device you used to invest. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WIN IT BACK RIGHT AWAY. You will most likely make things worse, investing again on emotions - even worse emotions now, shame, anger, disbelief.
Talk to the important people in your life if you feel comfortable, if not, come here or to other anonymous groups for support. It is important to share what happened, to vent emotionally whatever it is you feel.
Realise it is only money, even if gambled way more than you should have done, long term you will get out of this. Focus on other areas of your life for the time being - emotional investment, fulfilment and development - seek out things which may centre to your emotions again, whatever that may be - getting out in nature, cooking, reading, adrenaline sports - whatever the shit you need, do it.
Consider who, if anyone needs to know. Did you borrow from you and your wife's joint account? Accept a loan from a mate? These people need to know the truth. Do not hide it and hope to win it back. Tell the truth. They deserve it.
Do not repeat the same actions, if you want to win long term from this - you need a different approach. Step away from the high stakes casino and figure out long term strategies to make money.
Learn to diversify and manage risk. You are taking a huge gamble going all in on something - even if it isn't a scam, you need to protect yourself through diversifying your investments. Get rich quick schemes are the fastest way to lose money.
Educate yourself on these behaviours - I would recommend 'Thinking Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahnemann as a personal favourite. This book helps to look at and address the biases that make up our emotional decision making, and learn how to recognise these and instead 'think slow'. You won't regret reading it.

The Mods of WSB & A Coordinated AMC Pump

Going to be editing this with info as I come across it. Please DM me if you have anything to add. Many of you have reached out and I've complied a lot of evidence. I realize now that these pumps originated in Discord groups, but this is something I am still actively looking into and won't be including here.
Users of wallstreetbets (and also places like Stockwits, amcstock, and Youtube chats) attempted a coordinated pump on AMC (& GME) today, Feb. 3rd. These comments are still avaible. The fact they are still up and that I found them very easily means that the mods are not able to moderate their community well enough to stop coordinated pumps. There is not evidence that shows the mods were in on coordinated pump, but the fact that they were unable to stop it taking place shows that the subreddit has grown far too big to be managed by a team of 35 mods.
There is evidence that some mods owned both AMC and GME, and it is possible they held these shares while the coordinated pump was happening in threads they were supposed to be moderating (proof of GME ownership at the bottom).
Coldcutcombo69 was mod on WSB during the AMC coordinated pump. Here is them claiming that they were a mod on WSB. This image of mods before and after the day of the pump confirms they were a mod during the AMC pump-and-dump.
Coldcutcombo69 posted a picture of them having a sell order on their AMC stock that never hit, making it possible they owned AMC shares during the coordinated pump.
Coldcutcombo69 also posted some kind of DD thread about AMC two days ago, promoting the stock here. The content of this post has been removed. This post promoting AMC was made while Coldcutcombo69 was a moderator.
Coldbutcombo69 was a moderator during the AMC coordinated pump. They are no longer a moderator as of the time of this post, only a few hours later. They confirmed this here. A WSB mod was posting comments and threads promoting AMC while possibly still holding AMC shares, and a pump-and-dump occurred in the daily threads that they (along with others) were supposed to be moderating.
turdled is currently a WSB mod. They said, "We don't comment or promote trades. That's up to the subscribers and their upvotes/downvotes to decide." View it here.
turdled's claim was false. Coldcutcombo69 had been a moderator for 25 days. During that time they posted comments and threads promoting AMC, while providing evidence that they actually owned AMC shares. A moderator (who may command more respect in a community of 8.5 million people) promoting a stock is wrong, and the mods clearly believe that is the case since they said they don't do it. But at least one of them did. It could be that Coldcutcombo69 was removed because they were promoting AMC, but they had been doing this for days and were only removed a few hours ago.
ZJZ (a well known moderator) posted this today and was removed as a mod. The head mods also removed more mods, cutting the number of mods from from 62 mods to 37. Coldbutcombo69 was cut from the mod team at this time. It seems very suspicious to me that the head mods removed a bunch of mods from their positions after the events of today, especially because one of those ex-mods had been promoting AMC so much while being a mod.
Note: there is some kind of extended purge happening within the mod team right now. The mod team started at 62, then was cut with ZJZ to 37, then 36, now it's down to 35. EDIT: Two new mods have been added, bringing the count back up to 37. One of them tried posting something in a WSB thread, but their comment was deleted by the auto-mod because they have never posted in WSB before. Here is some proof of what's going on there.
ZJZ has exposed that there are bad actors on the mod team, using their power on the sub to try and make cash off movie deals and crypto scams. This at least adds weight to the points im raising in this thread.
EDIT: There was a thread on WSB by a moderator trying to explain what happened with the mod team. You can see that thread here. There is a lot of push back in the thread. The mod's claim is that the profit from the movie deal would have been given to charity. This may not be true, as Discord logs show another mod asking what their profit will be from the movie deal, asking "What's our cut.". Infighting with the mods seems to be a continued issue with a mod changing the subreddit description from the classic "like 4chan found a bloomberg terminal" to this. This change was instantly reverted.
MOD UPDATE 2/4: It seems that the moderator team has changed again. 23 mods now remain. OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR is now listed as the most senior mod, and they have allowed this thread to stay up. The mod reports that the Reddit admins have stepped in.
Statement from Reddit admins, according to OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR: "After reviewing this situation based on input from both current and past moderators, we have decided to remove several moderators at the top of the list that were creating instability in the community." Source.
NEW INFO: I've also been sent a good amount of evidence from multiple people indicating these types or coordinating buying and selling schemes were happening on places like Youtube, Twitch, and Discord. All of these groups seem to be composed of WSB/WSB spinoffs users. These users would spam hash tags, spam and raid Twitch channels, and coordinate these social media pushes with timed buying and selling of GME/AMC/BB/NOK. It is possible (and looks likely to me) that the timed pumps you see below were organized by a Discord group. I have collected a lot of evidence on this front, but this evidence of the real organizers of the pump is something I might have to pass along to someone who is more experienced at dealing with this stuff.
The AMC Pump
Here is evidence of the coordinated pump by users on WSB. The coordinated pump effort occurred in the daily thread, but also spilled out into some posts. Note: I have yet to see any comments/posts that moderators made showing them participating in the coordinated pump effort. It is not known if they knew about these comments or not.
"AMC 1 pm LET FUCKING GO" - WildPhoenix55 58 upvotes. Posted around 12:00 PM CST. Not removed as of 8:40 PM CST.
"AMC 2 DA MOON @ 1PM EST" - OutlandishnessOk4137 Posted around 12:00 PM CST. Not removed as of 8:40 PM CST.
"watching that 1pm movie"
At 1 PM, we’re going to the Moon! Get ready! 🚀 🚀 🚀Discussion *Note that this thread was 6 days ago. Still strange that it was not taken down
Comments in this thread talking about 1 PM pump
EVIDENCE THE 1 PM PUMP WORKED: 1 PM seems to be the main time that was set. You can actually see the coordinated pump spike the price of AMC up to $9.70 right after 1 PM. You can also see the massive amount of volume increase during that time as well. Volume between 1:00-1:05 shot up to 8,725,700. This was the highest volume for a 5 min period all day. Check it out here.
It was also reported to me that some users received DM's about the pump. If you are reading this and received any kind of DM like this, please message me. After seeing the first pump work successfully, they tried it again 1 hour later. Here are a swarm of comments made coordinating the pump for 2 PM.
"2 shares at 2 pm AMC!!" EDIT: This account has been deleted. You can view a picture of this post here.
"Everyone buy 2 shares of AMC and 2pm let’s rush these heggies 💎💎💎💎🚀🚀🚀" "AMC at 2 !!!!" "2 AMC shares @2pm rush" "AMC at 2. Let’s give them some payback🚀" "do i buy now or at 2" "Buy AMC at 2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific. 2pm is when it’s happening."
The 2PM coordinated pump was not as successful. It could be that some users were confused with the time differences. Either way, there was still a marked increase of volume during the 5 min period of 2:00-2:05 which also resulted in the stock re-testing its daily high. Check it out here.
You can actually watch a Youtuber Trey's Trades see the pump at 2 PM in action. He is reading comments on a WSB spin-off subreddit amcstock. You can see people spamming chat for people to buy at 2 PM. Here is the video. The fact that this guy's stream chat is filled with a pump-and-dump scheme and he did nothing about it is pretty telling.
I've backed up the comments and info here. If you find anything else suspicious about this, please DM me. I want to make it clear that there isn't evidence that the mods participated in the pump. But the pump-and-dump (which is illegal) happened under the watch of the mod team. They may have tried to stop it, but 8.5 million people is a lot. If they didn't think they could keep the place running without illegal things happening in the comment sections, they should have set the sub to private and put in proper pre-cautions first.
EDIT: This pump also occurred for GME and users in the GME thread were able to comment about it. None of these comments are removed and they exist in very large numbers. They are mostly heavily downvoted, but the fact they are able to stay up means the mods failed at their job.
Comment 1 Comment 2 Comment 3 Comment 4 Comment 5 Comment 6 Comment 7 Comment 8 Comment 9 Comment 10 Comment 11
The volume spikes do show an uptick in volume around 1PM and around 2PM, but they are not as strong as the AMC boost in volume. The volume during these times were high, but they weren't the highest points in the day for GME.
EDIT: I want to make it clear to people who are saying "those are just bot accounts." Bots are still controlled by humans. If bot spam cannot be caught and deleted, that means 8.5 million people are exposed to pump-and-dump schemes run by bots. It does not reflect any better on the mods if the comments are made by humans or made by bots controlled by humans. It is now a day later, and still none of the comments have been removed by a moderator or moderator bot.
UPDATE: Wall Street Bets has completely removed any post talking about ZJZ and his post about the head mods trying to engage in crypto scams and strange movie deals. (EDIT: This has changed, see above.) The rising sections is now completely filled low-effort, small text posts that are only pushing $GME. Here are those threads. Low-effort threads like these are explicitly against WSB rules. Why are mods letting rule-breaking, ticker spamming posts stay up?
Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 Example 4 Example 5 Example 6
WSB mods are banning users for mentioning ZJZ and his post. (EDIT: This has changed, see above.)
Mods Removing Negative GME Posts
I started digging into this when I posted to Wall Street Bets with a post containing some information about GME. The post pushed back against some of the "GME revolutiuon" talking points. It was a pretty tame post, meet all the guidelines for posting, and contained enough content to warrant staying up. The post was removed by the mods, but you can still see it up here. The content of the post was a combo of these two comments I made. This comment here and this comment here. Somebody in the comments recommended I make the contents of the comment into a separate post- which I did until it was removed.
The moderators removed this post, the removal states: "Moderators remove posts from feeds for a variety of reasons, including keeping communities safe, civil, and true to their purpose."
I sent a DM to the mods asking why exactly the post was removed. I have not been given a reply. Does the content of the post I made (pt.1 / pt.2) break any of their rules? Why would the mods remove a post containing that info?
Even worse, the exact contents of the post I made exist in comment form and are still up. If the info somehow breaks their rules, why leave it up in the comment section? Why haven't they removed the comments that contain the EXACT wording I used in my post?
It seems very strange to me that a post I made that contained some research to counter act the "GME Revolution" narrative would be singled out removal for "keeping communities safe, civil, and true to their purpose."
The front-page of Wall Street Bets is FILLED will positive memes and DD that supports GME. There is not a single negative post about GME on the entire front page that I can find. Why not leave up some negative DD and let the community downvote/upvote it?
The mods will let the comment section of threads get filled up with misinformation (GME SI being 226% is a common one that is easily debunked, yet is posted every 5 min in daily threads). People are gambling their life savings on outdated information yet when I make a post to push back against some of the common GME arguments, it gets removed.
Mods removing negative GME posts is unethical because WSB mods own GME shares.
jamsi is a mod on WSB. They left this comment: "I just received this e-mail from Robinhood. I am no longer using Robinhood for any of my purchases. Only keeping my $GME - not selling." Here is the comment.
Swedish_Chef_Bork_x3 is a mod on WSB. They left this comment: "Another $2k locked and loaded to buy in tomorrow. Feels like fucking Helm’s Deep in here. I have tomorrow off work, gonna get drunk and hope I don’t sleep through my alarm.". Here is the comment.
rawbdor is listed as a mod under the Moderators section of Wall Street Bets. rawbdor posted a comment saying: "The price is going to plummet hard no matter what we do. The real question is, will they be able to steal our shares in the process. They can drop the price all they want on low volume. But they'll never be able to buy it back unless you sell it to them."
A link to that comment is here.
This comment makes it pretty obvious that rawbdor owns some shares in GME, right? Saying things like our shares implies they own some.
ITradeBaconFutures is also listed as a mod. They made it clear that "Mods did not trade GME". You can find that comment here.
turdled is listed as a mod. They said, "We don't comment or promote trades. That's up to the subscribers and their upvotes/downvotes to decide." View it here.
One mod claims that mods don't trade GME, when its obvious from the three examples above that they did. Another says they don't comment or promote trades, which is also a lie. Other mods have been doing that. They also "promote" trades when they remove content that argues the other side of GME. If the only content they allow on the front-page is GME Positive content, they are promoting that content.
WSB has a mod team of 35 accounts moderating 8.5 million people. CNBC gets about 200k viewers at peak hours, while WSB has almost a million viewing it at a time when the market is open.
The mods could simply send me a DM and explain why my post was removed. They haven't. Market manipulation is bad. It's bad when investment firms do it and its bad when retail investors do it. The mods could DM me right now and say "Hey, here is the reason the post was removed." They haven't. If they do send me a DM, I will post an update here.
TL;DR
Now-former WSB mod ZJZ, in a removed & locked post, accused dormant top mods of coming back to siphon media coverage, potential movie rights, and springboard a cryptocurrency, while suppressing other mods
Coldcutcombo69, a moderator on WSB, was posting comments and threads promoting AMC. A coordinated AMC pump happened in the daily threads and comments that this moderator (and others) were tasked with moderating. This mod was removed as a moderator after this thread was posted. Coldcutcombo69 held AMC stock before the pump, but it is unclear if they held or sold that stock around or after the time of the coordinated pump.
Today, several users, but no mods, in a discussion thread attempted to push buys of AMC at 1 & 2 PM EST. Those times would later coincide with high volumes of stock trades for the day. Similar coordination was attempted by users (no mods) for GME.
WSB's front page is filled with only positive coverage of GME (here's a snapshot), while they removed my post containing negative GME DD with no legitimate reason given.
Mods are holding GME contradicting another high level mod's comment that "mods did not trade $GME". Mods made a false statement that they don't promote stocks, as one of them clearly did. You can also see the other mods comments about GME as also promoting stock.
Tervia's comment here has good info on Reddit moderation.

The Break Up of Alex & Sofia: A Psychoanalysis

got asked to make this it’s own post, so i did. For reference, keep in mind I’m 28F (so split between them age wise) and was an athlete in undergrad though not in a sport anyone cared about cause who tf cares about track
Friendship break ups are really hard, especially for women in their 20’s.
For women, that time period is usually the first times they’re actually enabled to make our own decisions, including through sexual empowerment. Freedom from your parents. Your female friendships are often therapeutic in this setting, as they’re the first people who really “understand” you. ESPECIALLY if you’re at a school with casual hook up culture, female friendships can especially protect you from being drugged while you navigate the novelty of casual sex under various substance influence.
At least from the outside perspective, this is how it seems: disclaimer this is psychoanalytical af no I don’t think I’m “definitely” right

Sofia struggled with substance abuse and mental health in relation to work in capitalism and leaving a conservative rural area for a big city/culture shock where she could finally fit outside of the minute role she felt existed for her in her hometown. Just leaving the environment didn’t negate the years of negativity, or feeling like an “outsider” or “bad influence”
Sofia’s substance abuse started young, in childhood, making her particularly vulnerable to being taken advantage of in these contexts later in life. (Or able to disregard healthy behavior because it’s suspicious to you because you grow up thinking and knowing you won’t be accepted and flaunting “healthy” behavior in conservative cultures only shames normal, human reactions. As a woman who is sexually empowered, especially from a young age, there is a strong will to rebel. Or just not care. To then disregard a lot of “rules” because the ones setting them no longer have your respect. Purity culture especially makes women more at risk because sexual freedom is conflated as “high risk” behavior)
Alex came from d1 athlete mentality, which, imo is always a little toxic. You don’t play at those levels or have that drive without taking negative motivating factors and channeling them into fuel on the field.

However, sports psychology is poor. Sports psychology for women even more so.
Female sports don’t command money (in part because we engrain that in our culture)
For a female athlete in college, you’re raised on a pedestal by other collegiate members (“narps”)
Then, you leave college and are pretty much on a level playing field, because that national prestige or ability to remain an athlete and be profitable isnt as realistic or available for women (yet?/it probably shouldn’t be a huge goal to play a game for a living just saying. The other work environments and hours shouldn’t be so shitty that’s the only version of happiness you can imagine but i digress)
Alex happened to leave college and be an athlete’s girlfriend. An athlete within baseball, whose wives’ club mentality is one of the most misogynistic (my brother went back to back to back national championship games in baseball in college. The fan base is incredibly white as it relates to America’s pastime and racism). I’ve posted before about the overlaps in barstools culture with this.
Alex had fuel coming in from needing to be better than her ex. She has fuel in general, as most athletes do, from needing to be better than XYZ. Track is actually helpful in that regard because it’s always racing against yourself, ultimately. Your own PRs. But for soccer, what happens when you no longer have a field to play on? Who are your new opponents? Where is your team?
Sofia and Alex’s friendship came at the cusp of their combined lowest mental points. On a time when they were essentially on their own. They had had to be solo and strong because of their circumstances, mentally and fiscally to an extent (even if they ultimately had parental support or pressure to fall back on). In the process of building CHD, they built each other up, and used their tragedies and lack of caring about other’s mentalities to show it was profitable, smart, and powerful to be a sexually empowered female in a male world.
That’s what so many of us wanted. (Literally the Tyra Banks meme “we were all rooting for you!” Comes to mind) especially for collegiate aged women, sexual empowerment and discussion is NEW and still very culturally based. Women can be sexual but only privately versus men can discuss sexual conquests openly and aren’t thought poorly of if it doesn’t work out with a partner. You don’t assume something is “wrong” with them. You don’t remind them “their clock is ticking”. Hypersexuality is part response to purity culture and likely a response to a heavy atmosphere of sexual trauma and being casual towards it is destigmatizing it inwardly.
But money corrupts.
Power corrupts more so.
Combine both with Alex internalizing that the brand that gave her so much power and happiness and joy to work, during a dark period of her life, as a tangible result of how she was better (than her exes, everyone that’s wronged her, etc) as potentially being taken away from her by sofia (in the deal on the rooftop), versus by Dave (who was very manipulative in his “I keep 100% of the IP and all of your stories and all of YOUR content”) and this is where the break down in how they responded comes in:

Alex was in it for the money and recognition. She wanted celebrity status, not as justification for herself, but as justification for the attention from others. She was willing to do whatever she wanted to get that. Hopefully, with time, she’ll have a “moment of recognition” in how her actions were, but as long as she keeps carelessly traveling idgaf (I’m an epidemiologist, I have no sympathy for celebrity status right now. Tbh I don’t listen to CHD but I still follow the subreddit and listen to SWAF)

Can we blame her? Isnt that a facet of current sporting culture? Do you actually expect someone who has grown up in the wings of the public eye, whose parental role models were in sporting culture, to not embrace that spotlight? Particularly when her ex who caused her pain has that spotlight and is somebody’s version of a sex symbol? Why can’t she want it for herself?

but Sofia just wanted validation for HERSELF. As proof that she and who she is as a person was still valuable, that she was still worthy of acknowledgment. That the pain of her substance use and mental health was for a greater purpose. That she could share it and help people, not just profit from them. It’s clear with her guest quality and the work she’s done since going solo.
Maybe Alex also felt pressure in their friendship and business relationship to be Sofia’s healer. To always be the one caring for her, making sure she got home okay, and maybe that was exhausting even if it was a role she enjoyed playing. I often feel like I’m “heavy” for my friends to “put up with” because of my anxiety and PTSD. I don’t like to put pressure on living with them, which reduces my issues, because of this.

Alex ALSO has mental health issues, and the combination of living and working with someone else struggling with something so heavy and not having a medically appropriate background to know how to help was likely incredibly toxic for their friendship.
I’m sure it made some great content, but it was clear they didn’t embody or encourage healthy behavior.
Their own healing is going to be subjective. It’s not going to coincide. It’s not going to operate on the same scales or in the same direction and they’ll need different things. Such as separation when one person no longer serves you.
My therapist reminded me “just because someone was a good friend to you at one point in your life doesn’t mean they still are”

Maybe this is more obvious with knowledge of CHD production behind the scenes. If Alex has constantly been just a figurehead and spoke openly about others stories and content, then to her what she’s doing now is no different. She’s being rewarded by her boss saying “yes keep acting this way. Money is flowing in. Do whatever you want.” So why would she stop? That’s who is paying her bills. That’s who ultimately gave her the “freedom” and show that she wanted to just be herself

To her, it’s the same thing. Especially if she had frequent ghost writers. It was never her content to begin with. Which, ultimately, makes her just a sex symbol for a male dominated gaze who may very well be financially compensated adequately (NOW) but is ultimately manipulated for the entertainment of others. If that’s your whole life, and what you’ve always done... who are you?
Like with child stars or actors in general, you feed off energy i imagine. Extroverted people are almost more vulnerable to social coercion than others. To me, this enables them to be more susceptible to thriving off external validation and avoid the reality of who they are and that they don’t like themselves internally/struggle with who they are as a person (or just don’t know who they are without XYZ existing. If you’ve always been in sports, especially one single sport, your identity is tied to that. You don’t have the time or energy to question who you are. It takes years after graduating or being removed from that atmosphere to do so.) Alex now has money, time, and comes from rich white privilege. She likely will never have people who tell her it’s okay to struggle, because it seems like her family and general friend group is the “everything is fine. Here’s some money. Look! You can travel. You turned out okay”
I’m sure she’ll have a time period later in life where she has this recognition.
However, the CHD brand was built around the symbolism of a female friendship.
Of female empowerment in a patriarchal world.
The sexual empowerment worked because, at the end of the day, you had this community of people who understood you were just trying to figure out yourself and willing to laugh with you at your negativity. Not laughing at you. A community of people who were able to embrace, applaud, and financially reward you for sexual prowess when you’ve been told to dim it your entire life “to be taken seriously”. A community who LIKED the self deprecation because it was RELATABLE because we likely ALL have or know someone with sexual trauma related to drinking/college culture and dating is hard and flaunted like you’re always supposed to be in a relationship, especially if you’re attractive 🙄
Abiding to the influencer brand of how CHD has gone since “the break up” and how Alex has people like Tana—who exploit their childhood abuse, not so they can learn how to be healthier and live happier lifestyles or draw attention to substance abuse, but so they can continue to party in LA with idiotic “celebs” whose only contribution to the community positively is through money. Who go riot malls for YouTube material. Who are stuck in their own cycles of abuse and unhealthy behavior but vlog about the glamour and think “talking about it” is the same thing as “healing” because they won’t go to actual therapy even though they can afford it now. Who don’t realize they’re desensitizing themselves to the trauma by letting random men they barely know choke them out versus addressing how fucked up it was that they were raped as a child, or that their parents couldn’t protect them, or that they needed validation or father figures and only got it from their peers and just wanted an escape from reality and now need one ALL THE TIME. Who dont realize those people they think embrace them won’t embrace them when they’re sober and actually healthy, because it reminds them of how they’re not. But it’s scary to recognize that and you internalize it as not being loveable versus being brought up in unhealthy environments and not knowing better.
Maybe with time, Alex will look back and realize the strength of female friendships lies in being there for each other in darkest times because humanity definitely doesn’t have your back.
In the USA, 1 in 5 women are or will be attempted to be raped in their lifetime, over 80% have been sexually harassed.
And yet, prostitution is not legal. Birth control is not freely accessible. Universal healthcare and comprehensive sexual education is not nationally mandated so a lot of people may never realize just how fucked up their circumstances are. Education is often unaffordable and inaccessible for those who most need it. Sexual harassment is so normalized that we voted in a president despite him being a rapist pedophile. And 55% of white women tried to vote him in again. The visual leader of the Barstool brand endorsed him openly.
Sofia wanting to distance herself from a brand and drinking culture, at a company currently breaking into alcohol and gambling exploitation, on the basis that the majority of their fan base may not have done it otherwise, but will because they now have access to it (like with how Juuls target teenagers with flavoring and people who wouldn’t have normally smoked have nicotine addictions now) as well as FINALLY being paid adequately, YET was labeled as “greedy” mainly because Alex stayed instead of trusting Sofia and sticking with her.
We normalize competition in the sense that most people are competing for just the right to live, for acknowledgment that the things they went through matters. It’s why working classes are currently pitted against each other and conservative Republicans think progressive policies are sure to doom the USA because Fox News says so. So instead of making our citizens stronger overall, we keep half of them convinced that healthcare should be debated, an educated population isnt good on a global scale, and that change ISNT possible even though societies are supposed to adapt that’s literally how progress works. We have research that shows us why we should do it and instead capitalism made education so elite that we distrust intelligence or condemn it as “liberal education”.
So do I blame Alex for her inability to recognize that when she thought she was going to lose the brand that made that feasible for her? Maybe not.
Do I think Sofia got fucked mentally, friendship-wise, and culturally and Alex enabled and fed into it? Absolutely.
Even if CHD was always the “Mean Girls” mentality and didn’t ever really offer advice, Alex embodied “Regina George” and Sofia was “Cady Heron” in its time.
Good female friendships are awesome, and hard to come by in a world that makes it so and makes you convinced you have to somehow compete for these men when the bar is on the actual ground for chivalry and women just want men who won’t scream or yell at them, will communicate, and will explore sexually in the bedroom without stigmatizing them or making them feel bad for their bodies.
Shout out to anyone who read my dissertation.
I’ve been in quarantine on a farm working remote contracts for almost a year now. I’ve also watched a lot of LOTR in the past week and barstool and Dave is going a very “Sauron” way and Alex embodies “saruman” vibes to me, for another allusion.

Unleashed pt. 52

First / Prev / Next

Alexa was sitting cross legged before Sassie, with Aiov lying casually on the German Shepherd’s back. She had a metal bowl in her lap with chunks of fresh meat for Aiov and cooked meat for her large canine protector. It had been a difficult time as the dog had missed Aaron more and more, to the point that she had begun to refuse food. Aiov's enthusiasm, however, seemed to help slightly in countering that refusal, and Alexa had found that feeding them together at least got some food into the lonely Earth ambassador.
She scratched at the dog’s head as Aiov happily chomped on another scrap of meat. “Look at that! You won’t be outdone by a leokit now, will you?” She placed a cube of seared meat before Sassie’s nose. She sniffed it twice before eating. “You’re going to be so spoiled by the time we get him back. We’ll both get in trouble.”
Aiov snuggled into the thick black and tan fur, using her paw to guide the next morsel into her mouth. Sassie managed a few more pieces before turning her head away with a grunt. Satisfied with what she had achieved Alexa gave a few more scraps to Aiov before placing the bowl into the recycler. The loudspeakers throughout the Rinoxian vessel blared a loud message announcing they had now crossed into Hive space and that their readiness was being moved to level three.
Her door chimed. Opening it, she found Allistan in his new Terran Wolves uniform. “You need to come quickly, the Porkchop Express has arrived.”
As she grabbed Aaron's old leather jacket, Sassie immediately rose to follow which caused Aiov to roll to the floor. "You come," she spoke to the dog, then turned to the distinctly unhappy leokit who had just lost her warm pillow. "You stay, sorry.”
They walked briskly through the corridors of the Rinoxian warship towards a secure meeting room which had two Terran Wolves outside the door. Their black uniforms and red collars were easily identifiable and they gave sharp salutes as Alexa approached. “I told you not to salute.”
The two guards lowered their hands sheepishly as the doors opened. Sassie immediately surged past Alexa to happily greet the returning crew members. She moved from Ranjaz to Jaym, receiving many scratches and hugs. Even Eruwenn and Cygna received a quick examination, but she soon stopped when no sign of Aaron could be found. The German Shepherd forlornly returned to Alexa's side as the Awakened took a seat at the meeting table. “Is the room secure?”
Cygna, now in a smart black uniform with white collar, stood. “We have taken additional precautions due to the sensitive information we will be discussing.”
Tilting her head, Alexa took in the Fae’Dan’s new clothing. “You’re one of us now?”
Eruwenn gave a slight chuckle. Aside from Alexa, she was the only one not in uniform. “She lost a game of dalcho, or two.”
“Seven.” Ranjaz said with a wicked grin. “Don’t worry, she’s actually been a fairly competent assistant. Aside from her gambling issues, obviously.”
Her head drooping to look at her feet, Cygna replied, “I swear by Tulseria’s right hand, I will get you back for this!”
The Kittran’s grin grew more predatory. “Wanna bet?”
There was a long table by the wall where Embar was fixing himself a drink, He turned, shaking his head. “I’m not sure I approve of your recruiting techniques.”
The Kittran shrugged. “She’s worth it – even broke the code on this.” He tossed the recovered device onto the table as Embar returned and took his seat opposite him. “And, you’re going to want a stronger drink, General.”
Curiosity piqued, Allistan took his seat, preparing his notepad and pen. “What did you find?”
Ranjaz was about to speak when Eruwenn held up her hand. “I think we should let General Embar read this first. He can take a moment before we all continue.”
Raising an eyebrow, Embar sat down in a nearby chair and connected the device to a non-networked datapad. “Why me?” He began scrolling through the files, tapping on icons and delving deeper. His breathing suddenly stopped, his face contorting. Disbelief morphed into anger, and as his body tensed, anger turned to white-hot rage. He placed the datapad down on the table before him and stood, walking back towards the drinks table. He lowered his head, his body radiating anger as his muscles clenched and unclenched, then raised his fist into the air and slammed it into the table. Bottles, glasses and everything else it had held went crashing to the ground as it buckled under force of his blow. “We’re going to kill every last one of those Sentinel bastards!”
No longer smiling, Ranjaz stood. “You’re Tulseria damned right we are.”
Jaym was sitting silently, but she pulled a rag from her pocket and dabbed at her tears. After they had fled from the casino she had tried to help crack the encryption on the stolen device. Part of her wished they never had, as its contents had disturbed her so much. Now that they had finally caught up with Alexa, Embar and the others who had been on the Rinoxian homeworld, she empathised deeply with the pain this information was bringing. “It’s so awful, I’m so sorry Embar.”
Eruwenn patted the young Arkellian on the shoulder to comfort her as she looked at the Rinoxian. “Please believe me, General Warbringer. The council knew nothing of this.”
Alexa picked up the datapad, using her nanites to more quickly access the information. She grit her teeth, biting back her anger, then passed it quickly to Allistan. “You need to read this. Then we need to plan our next move.” She looked at the back of the unmoving Rinoxian. “Embar?”
Embar slowly turned around, his jaw set, determination in his eyes. “We keep this quiet. We’re on an active mission and need everyone focused on the job at hand.”
Allistan went to click his pen as he read, but with a gasp the pen fell from his fingers. “We can’t keep quiet, the galaxy needs to see this.”
The Rinoxian nodded. “They will. When the time is right.”

It had been two cycles and the incursion fleet had advanced deep into Hive space. Over half of the force accompanying them were the Rinoxians under their new Galactic Federation commanders. There were over a dozen Galactic Federation ships along with six Gowe destroyers, and a dozen ships from other races including the Niham and Kah’Ree. Admiral Pelar, on board the Blazing Dawn, commanded four Ashi ships including the Righteous Fury.
The smallest craft by far was the Porkchop Express, a speck amongst titans. Its white painted hull, chrome bull bars and bright cartoon logo were a stark contrast to the military ships it accompanied. Sassie was more comfortable now that she was in familiar territory, and slept on a pile of Aaron’s clothes in his quarters.
Allistan and Alexa were sitting opposite Jar’Bek in his small office. The Ashi looked exhausted as he finally put down his datapad. “I’m sorry to have kept you.”
Allistan fidgeted in his seat. “Not at all, was that your mother again?”
Stiffening slightly at the use of the word mother the lawyer forced himself to relax again. “Admiral Pelar has informed us that they have been repeatedly scanned by the Gowe. She’s taking no action, as we’re supposed to be allies, but wanted you to be aware.” Alexa nodded and he continued. “When we arrive at the next system the commanders of each ship have been called to the Hooves of Destiny. Vice-Admiral Koo Ji has requested an in person meeting, with all senior officers.”
There were several pen clicks. “That seems unusual.”
Jar’Bek gave a knowing nod. “Extremely. To remove every ship’s command, behind enemy lines? It makes no sense.”
Alexa pushed her hair back from her face. “The Rinoxians agreed to it?”
The Ashi nodded. “Most of their command have been replaced. Anyway, they outnumber – and outgun – the other ships. Why would they be concerned?”
Allistan’s pen clicked. “They probably just put it down to Gal. Fed. protocols, or fear.”
Jar’Bek nodded. “They’ve had us stopping in random systems to scan. No doubt it’s to delay us, but perhaps also to lower the Rinoxian’s guard?”
Leaning back in her chair, the Awakened considered the options. “Maybe there's another fleet waiting to ambush us? Or following us?”
Allistan twirled his pen in his fingers. “No, no. All eyes are on the border since Aaron’s capture. It must be something else.”
Moving on to her next idea, Alexa asked, “Sabotage?”
The Ashi gave a chuckle. “That is Admiral Pelar’s conclusion. The Gal. Fed. officers have been on board the other ships, and the possibility exists that there are Sentinels working amongst them. They are all in command positions, and will all be leaving. It’s a logical conclusion.”
Allistan’s pen halted its spinning. “The Ashi ships, they can’t have been sabotaged, right?”
The lawyer nodded. “True, but, it wouldn’t matter. Their ships are old and have seen too much action. Those Gowe ships alone are more than they could handle.”
The Fae’Dan sighed and shook his head at the situation they were facing. “We should have brought more ships. The new ones.”
Alexa, staring at the ceiling, spoke softly. “No, we don’t need to show our hand just yet. But send word to Chae’Sol, make sure he has the coordinates.”
Jar’Bek nodded and made a note on his datapad. “What about the others?”
The Awakened closed her eyes. It was times like this she missed her human and his habit of taking charge. “Tell Embar to warn his contacts among the Rinoxians. The others… I have no idea, I just want to sleep.”
Allistan, a stickler for accuracy, replied, “I didn’t think Awakened slept?”
She sat up and gave a half-hearted smile. In an unusual moment of vulnerability, she replied, “I was told you can do anything in a dream. For those moments, we would all be together again.”
Allistan struggled to come up with a response to that, and the Ashi, having noticed this, stepped in to fill the gap in conversation. “We’ll find him. I can’t lose the most profitable client in the galaxy now, can I?”
Now past the moment of awkwardness, the Fae’Dan also answered. “I’m sure he’s fine. In fact, he’s probably already on his way back to us.”
Alexa gave Allistan a withering look. “You think he single-handedly defeated the Hive, stole a ship and managed to figure out how to fly it back here?”
The former Inspector paused to consider it. “No. It will most likely be something even more preposterous. Perhaps he married their Queen?”
The ridiculousness of the idea brought a chuckle to the Awakened. “Maybe. Hopefully nothing that drastic; he’d probably just turn their society upside down with some ridiculous scheme.”
Jar’Bek also smiled. “A little civil unrest, perhaps a few riots? No doubt with merchandise.”
Finally breaking into a broad grin, Alexa replied, “I think we all might be over-estimating him a little.”

Aaron stood in the trade area of Toivoa station with a contingent of Gardener Royal Guards behind him, Tsy’Lo by his side, and a very angry mob in front of him. Several well-dressed local leaders were dragged from the crowd to stand before him; Mycena, Tricinic, Procyon and a dozen other refugee races were crammed into the triple height area of the station.
One of the leaders staggered towards Aaron. “You! You caused this!”
Aaron, feigning as much innocence as possible, pointed to his chest. “Me?”
One of the Mycena he had met during his time on the station came forward. “We’ve all seen the videos! They kept us in the dark about what is going on out there! The Galactic Federation are coming! Our leaders lied to us!”
The accusatory leader, a Procyon with greying fur, pointed at Aaron. “Your... Your propaganda, has driven them mad! Your lies! They’re destroying the station!”
The human smiled and maintained his innocent expression. “My propaganda?” Several in the crowd held up datapads; Aaron’s smiling face was on every one. “Oh... that propaganda.”
Tsy’Lo tugged on his sleeve. “What did you do?!”
Aaron crouched down slightly. “Remember when I accidentally picked up the kids datapad and you returned it?”
“Yes…” The Tricinic flushed orange as realisation struck. “It wasn’t the child’s datapad!”
Aaron straightened up. “Yeah, thanks for helping bring down society.” He laughed as Tsy’Lo became a very opaque green hue. “Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea.”
The greying Procyon shook his fist at the human. “You better! They should throw you in a cage for the rest of your life for this. Hundreds of celes of peace, destroyed!”
Aaron looked down at the angry alien. “Your peace, not theirs.” He gestured back towards the Gardeners, and walked towards them without waiting for a reply. He raised his hands high, motioning for the unruly mob to settle down. “Alright, alright. Settle down, munchkins. So the wizard’s a liar? Welcome to reality. The Gardeners have been fighting and dying to keep you safe from the flying monkeys, while you all hide in your Emerald City and get on with your lives. That shit ends now. You’re crying out for change? Then welcome to the revolution, baby! We’re opening up the borders, we’re rejoining the rest of the galaxy! No more hiding!”
The crowd was already worked up, and cheering came easily despite the large lack of understanding. The human nodded — he was enjoying this far too much — and then gestured again for quiet. He spoke quietly at first, adding excitement to his voice as it built in power. “So prepare for a chance of a lifetime! Be prepared for sensational news!”
The Procyon official’s mouth opened and closed silently before he managed to shake his mind free of the initial shock of the human’s words. “No! Stop! What are you even saying?”
Aaron didn’t care about the official. He put the palm of his hand on their face, which easily dwarfed it in size, and gently pushed them slowly backwards. He then leapt up onto a crate; his showmanship on camera was nothing to his on-stage presence. “A shining new era is tiptoeing nearer, and where do you feature? Just listen to teacher! You’ve stagnated here for long enough. Lied to and kept in the dark, well, no more!”
The crowd was his, he knew it. The official knew it. Tsy’Lo knew it and was a nervous shade of blue. Aaron clambered from the crate to the roof of a stall, standing high above the crowd. The cheers followed every rambling sentence and, drunk on power, Aaron was loving it. “Spread the word to every planet, every station, every colony and every ship. Change is not coming, it’s here and it is now!”
The crowd roared again, and the desperate official turned to Tsy’Lo. “What in the nine moons is he talking about?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.” Aaron snapped. He stood looking out over the crowd. “I am the Ambassador of a world called Earth. I have taken ownership of a small star system that is being colonised as we speak. These colonies are a coalition of races, from within the Federation, as well as without. We rule ourselves, but have treaties and agreements with the Federation itself, as well as various individual races within it.”
Several questions were called out from the crowd, but one voice was louder than the others. “How does that help us?”
With a smile, the human walked back and forth across the roof of the stall as he spoke. “Good question my friend.” He pointed vaguely at where the voice had come from. “I do not have contact with my homeworld at this time. To ensure that all of whatever Earth has become would be included we put in place clauses for future territories, dominions, settlements etc, etc…” The crowd was quiet now, trying to follow the human’s explanation. Looking out at the blank faces Aaron realised he needed to get to the point. “Congratulations, you’re now a protectorate of Earth!”

He was met with utter silence.

Suddenly, there were several angry yells from the crowd, some claiming this was a joke while others were simply confused. The official was the one who dared clamber to the crate below Aaron in order to yell up to him. “Are you insane?”
Aaron’s smile made Tsy’Lo shudder, as it was the same one he had given as he had explained his idea to the Gardener Queen. The human stepped forward to stand at the front of the stall roof. “I declared war on the Gardeners. The war lasted seven Earth minutes, and was quickly resolved when the Queen surrendered to me in person.”
Silence fell once again, and Aaron found himself half-yearning for the sound of crickets to emphasize the moment.
The crowd erupted once more, outrage at the ridiculous claims the strange alien was spewing forth. Tsy’Lo released a deafeningly loud harmonic whistle which was followed by another momentary quiet. They paled as the crowd's attention fell on them. “You need to listen, all of you. He is speaking the truth, sort of. He held the Queen and the Gardeners council hostage with a bomb.” Small grey particles filled the Tricinic at the memory of being used as a weapon. The crowd began to grow rowdy at this news, causing Tsy’Lo to let off another sonic blast. “It is all a human trick; once we are part of his alliance we fall under the treaties he already has in place.”
The crowd looked back up to the human. “Like I said, congratulations. You just walked in through the backdoor of a peace treaty with the Galactic Federation, and over a dozen separate treaties with other races.”
The crowd were now arguing amongst themselves. The official - who Aaron was now mentally calling Gobshite - once again challenged him. “At what cost, though? What do you get out of this?”
The smile of mischief once more graced the human’s lips and Tsy’Lo considered pulling him down from his stage. They had been on their way to the border when news of the riots on Toivoa reached them. Aaron’s presence had been demanded and he had happily accepted. The human looked almost as gleeful as that moment of acceptance when he spoke again. “Me? I get to go home. I get friends with big sticks. I get to trade openly with you, and believe me, I have a lot of crap to sell you.” He chuckled. “You get to be part of the galaxy again. You get to travel and trade. Our rules are simple and fair; everyone is equal under the law. You have exactly the same rights as everyone else who joined us. And the cost?” He paused for effect, making sure they were all paying attention. “You stand on your own two feet.” He glanced around, noting the sheer diversity of the crowd. “Or one foot... or four... Or whatever it is you’re balancing on.”
The crowd was a buzz of conversation, and Gobshite once again chimed in. “You think they’ll let us back without a fight? We can expose them! Those bastards tried to exterminate us!”
The crowd jeered along with the old Procyon. Aaron held up his hands. “Woah, woah. Only some of them. That’s the thing, there are a lot more members now. So here’s the plan: shut up. If you don’t say anything, they sure as shit aren’t going to out themselves, are they? While everyone is staring at the former Hive terror that they all feared, you guys just start working and trading, nice and quiet.”
A few murmurs of agreement came from the crowd. Gobshite, however, was more than a murmur. “You want us to forget our ancestors suffering?”
A little irritated, Aaron was more harsh than he intended. “You’ve wallowed in it long enough. Look at you, hiding for generations, keeping your communications to a minimum to avoid detection. Is this all some master plan as you build an army to seek revenge? Fuck no!” He saw the shame on their faces. “You’re happy to leave this status quo to future generations? You want to remember the suffering of your ancestors, fine, build a fucking statue. But don’t hold back your children to do it.”
The crowd were growing louder again as they discussed his words. “Look!” the human yelled. “I’m not saying you forget, or forgive. I’m saying you keep your mouths shut. We won’t announce your presence to the Federation. Instead, I want those of you looking to start something new to come join the new colonies. No big fanfares, just get on with it. In a place filled with different races, you’ll just be another stranger.”
He saw the crowd looking at each other, and knew was a lot to take in all at once. “We gather evidence, build trust. Get yourselves established, forge friendships and alliances, and become accepted as part of the new colonies. Let those in the know think their past crimes are forgotten. And when we are ready, we burn down their false history and anyone who tries to defend it!”
The crowd cheered once more, and Aaron smiled triumphantly down at Tsy'Lo as he leapt casually from the roof. As he landed, many hands patted his back and many questions were yelled, but it all ceased as one of the Gardeners stepped forward. It was Eridor, as there was no mistaking the red cape he wore. "We need to leave, the Federation have entered our space.”
Next

Old Austin Tales: Forgotten Video Arcades of The 1970s & 80s

In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day.
There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters.
But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade.
I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but being a north austin kid I never went there until later in the mid 1990s. There were also places like Malibu Grand Prix and Showbiz Pizza and Chuck-E-Cheeze, all of which had fairly large arcades for kids which were the secondary attraction.
If you're of a certain age you will remember Einsteins and LeFun on the Drag. They were there for a few decades going back way before the Slacker era. Lesser known is that the UT Student Union basement used to have an arcade that was comparable to either or both of those places. Back in the pre-9/11 days it was much easier to sneak in if you even vaguely looked like you could be a UT student.
But there was another place I was too young to have experienced called Smitty's up further north on 183 at Lake Creek in the early 1980s. I never got to go there but I always heard about it from older kids at the time. It was supposed to have been two stories of wall to wall games with a small snack bar. I guess at the time it served a mostly older teen crowd from Westwood High School and for that reason younger kids my age weren't having birthday parties there. It wasn't around very long, just a few years during the Golden Age of Arcades.
It is with almost-forgotten early arcades like that in mind that I wanted to share with y'all some examples of places from The Golden Age of the Video Arcade in Austin using some old Statesman articles I've found. Maybe someone of a certain age on here will remember them. I was curious what they were like, having missed out by being slightly too young to have experienced most of them first hand. I also wanted to see the original reaction to them in the press. I had a feeling there was some pushback from school/parent/civic groups on these facilities showing up in neighborhood strip malls or next to schools, and I was right to suspect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's list off some places of interest. Be sure to speak up if you remember going to any of these, even if it was just for some other kid's birthday party. Unfortunately some of the only mentions about a place are reports of a crime being committed there, such as our first few examples.
Forgotten Arcade #1
Fun House/Play Time Arcade - 2820 Guadalupe
June 15, 1975

ARCADE ENTHUSIASM
A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.

March 3, 1976

ARCADE ROBBED
A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.

First it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years.
Forgotten Arcade #2
Green Goth - 1121 Springdale Road
May 15, 1984

A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.

I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool.
Forgotten Arcades #3 & #4
Games, Etc. - 1302 S. First St
Muther's Arcade - 2532 Guadalupe St
August 23, 1983

Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money game
It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe.
AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick."
VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 .
Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants.
WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle.
"After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating.
IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old."
Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped."
TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them.
SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse.
"I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products."
THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked.
Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."

Well there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd.
Anyone who has been to Emo's East, formerly known as The Back Room, knows they have arcade games and pool, but it's mostly closed when there isn't a show. That shouldn't count as an arcade, even though the former owner Ronnie Roark was apparently one of the top suppliers of cabinet games to the area during the Golden Era. Any pool hall probably had a few arcade games at the time, too, but that's not the same as being an arcade.
We also learn from the same article of two forgotten arcades: Muthers at 2522 Guadalupe where today there is a Mediterranean food restaurant, and another called Games, Etc. at 1302 S.First that today is the site of an El Mercado restaurant. But the article is mostly about showing us how bad the effects were from the crash at the end of the Golden Era. It was very hard for the early arcades to survive with increasing competition from home game consoles and personal computers, and the proliferation of the games into stores and restaurants.
Forgotten Arcades #5 #6 & #7
Computer Madness - 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Electronic Encounters - 1701 W Ben White Blvd (Southwood Mall)
The Outer Limits Amusements Center - 1409 W. Oltorf
March 4, 1982

'Quartermania' stalks South Austin
School officials, parents worried about effects of video games
A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest.
So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School.
Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need."
A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced.
The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider.
Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar.
Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."

Well you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Forgotten Arcade #8
Smitty's Galaxy of Games - Lake Creek Parkway
February 25, 1982

Arcades fighting negative image
Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life.
Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County.
In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk.
In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said.
Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol.
Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner."
While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom.
Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley.
He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.

This article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s.
But the article written before the end of the Golden Era tell us much about the pushback I was talking about earlier. Early arcades were seen as "dirty" places in some circles, and the owners of the arcades in Williamson County had to stress how "clean" their establishments were. This other article from a couple of weeks later tells of how area school officials weren't worried about video games and tells us more arcades in Round Rock and Cedar Park. Apparently the end of the golden age lasted a bit longer than usual in this area.
At some point in the next few years the bubble burst, and places like Smitty's were gone by the late 80s. But the distributors quoted earlier were right that arcade games weren't going completely away. In the mid 1980s LeFun opened up next in the Scientology building at 2200 Guadalupe on the drag. Down a few doors past what used be a coffee shop and a CVS was Einsteins Arcade. Both of those survived into the 21st century. I remember the last time I was at Einsteins I got my ass beat in Tekken by a kid half my age. heheh
That's all for today. There were no Bonus Pics in the UT archive of arcades (other than the classical architectural definition). I wanted to pass on some Bonus newspaper articles (remember to click and zoom in with the buttons on the right to read) about Austin arcades anyway but first a small story.
I mentioned earlier the secret of the UT Student Union. I have no idea what it looks like now but in the 90s there was a sizable arcade in with the bowling alley in the basement. Back in 1994 when I used to sneak in, they featured this bizarre early attempt at virtual reality games. I found an old Michael Barnes Statesman article about it dated February 11, 1994. Some highlights:

Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m.
Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around."
"I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops.
"I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.

The gameplay looked like this.
Bonus Article #1 - "Video fans play for own reasons" (Malibu Grand Prix) - March 11, 1982
Bonus Article #2 - "Pac-Man Cartridge Piques Interest" - April 13, 1982
Bonus Article #3 - "Video Games Fail Consumer" - January 29, 1984
Bonus Article #4 - "Nintendoholics/Modems Unite" - January 25, 1989
Bonus Article #5 and pt 2 "Two girls missing for a night found at arcade" (truly dedicated young gamers) - August 7, 2003

Mon. Jan. 25 Daily HUT Content - What is new?

Hey guys, it’s Coooolin!! Wow! The first month of 2021 is ALMOST over!!! How’s everyone’s January comin along!? Let me know, doown beloww!
(Pumpin this out, will update with syns in 5-10 min!)
Here’s the new cards for today!!! Thank you , EA!

NHL 2030 - Event Cards

Bowen Byram - 90 OVR - COL / LD - DIS² ... woah
Quinton Byfield - 90 OVR - SUD / C - SPA²
Filip Zadina - 89 OVR - DET / LW - BAR²
Jamie Drysdale - 89 OVR - EER / RD - SWA²
Michael Rasmussen - 88 OVR - DET / C - H and S²
Owen Tippett - 87 OVR - FLA / RW - SPA²
Gabe Vilardi - 87 OVR - LAK / C - H and S²
Jakub Zboril - 87 OVR - BOS / LD - BAR²
Ty Smith - 86 OVR - NJD / LD - DIS²
Keffer Bellows - 86 OVR - TIM / LW - BAL²
Brandt Clarke - 85 OVR - COL / RD - SWA²
Sebastian Cossa - 82 OVR - OIL / G - 6’4” / 212 lbs - H and S²

Primetimes

NHL

(NO PLD OR LAINE)
Brad Marchand - 89 OVR - BOS / LW - LTL¹ , MAG¹
Alexander Radulov - 88 OVR - DAL / RW - WM¹ , WH¹
John Klingberg - 88 OVR - DAL / RD - PP¹ , SH¹
Joe Pavelski - 87 OVR - DAL / C - GLA¹ , T¹ .... 88 FOs w Thief on
Paul Stastny - 83 OVR - WPJ / C - PP¹ , MAG¹
Joel Eriksson EK - 82 OVR - MIN / C - GLA¹ , WM¹
Conor Garland - 81 OVR - ARI / RW - LTL¹ , WH¹
Joel Edmundson - 81 OVR - MTL / LD - HOW¹ , WM¹
Andrew Copp - 81 OVR - WPJ / C - SPE¹ , T¹ ... 83 FOs with Thief on
Kevin Lankinen - 78 OVR - CHI / C - BAR¹ , SPA¹
Eric Robinson - 78 OVR - CBJ / LW - BAL¹ , GLA¹

Other Leagues

Tobias Stephan - 79 OVR - LAU / G - 6’4” / 194 lbs - DIS¹ , H and S¹
Andres Ambühl - 78 OVR - DAV / RW - BAL¹ , HOW¹
Jonas Arntzen - 78 OVR - ORL / G - 6’3” / 190 lbs - SPA¹ , SWA¹
Sandro Zurkirchen - 77 OVR - LUG / G - 5’11” / 172 lbs - BAR¹ , H and S¹
Ahti Oksanen - 77 OVR - KOL / LW - PP¹ , SWA¹
Mason Mctavish - 77 OVR - PET / C - DIS¹ , SPE¹
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

• Jumbo Elite Pack - 50k C / 1k P
20 items, with at least 11 80+ OVR players
• NHL Players Pack - 30k C / 600 P
10 items , all Gold NHL Players with at least 4 80+ OVR players
• Players Pack - 15k C / 300 P
10 items , all Players , at least 5 Gold Players and 1 80+ OVR player

P.S.

• HUT CHAMPS PROCESSING - where did you place?
• More Event Cards!!! - 5pm EST - whos your favourite?!
• Blockbuster Deal ! - PLD for LAINE!
• Where does your team stand?
• Hockey in History
——————

What’s to Come?

• Rivals Resets - Tomorrow at 5pm EST
• SB Season Reset - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• Rivals Rewards - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• HUT Champ Rewards - Wednesday at 6am EST
• SB Rewards !! - Thursday at 5pm EST
—————

Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - NHL2030 - is QUUIINTON BYFIELDD OVR 90 with the syn DOUBLEEE SPAARKKK! (SPA²⁾
Best Defence of the Day - NHL2030 - is BOOWENN BYYYRAAM OVR 90 with the syn DOUBLEEE DISTRIBUTORRRR (DIS²⁾
////
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is BRAADD MARCHAND OVR 89 with the syn LIIGHT THE LAAMP , and MAGIICIAAN
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is JOOHNN KLINGBERGG OVR 88 with the syn PAASSSING PLAYYMAKERR and SHUUT DOOWN
• MORE NHL 2030 CARDS OUT!!
• HUT CHAMPS PROCESSING
• LAINE FOR PLD ! WOW!
———— —— ———

Important Notice

Think of your life like a bow and arrow. All your stress, personal problems, world problems, etc., will make the arrow fall back... and the more problems, difficulties, etc., pushing this arrow back is really getting to you... right?
Well not for long.
All those problems will be launched, and a gone ‘er.
You will get through your problems you’re having in life. — the further back this arrow goes? The further you will go into greatness.
I believe , and I pray that your problems will launch into something powerful...
Because you?
You deserve it.
Hope all is going well for you.
——

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Jan 25
$ 146.30 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $8.76 / 6.37% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. Thanks*
—— —— —— —-

NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

I made this for everyone. I sincerely hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do!

ANYONE HAVE ANY SONG SUGGESTIONS??How are you not listening to this playlist already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Joker and the Thief” by “Wolfmother” stuck in my head.... wanna listen to it? It’s on the playlist!
Sidenote - I really want to show my friend his music is worth all the time and effort he puts into it... he hasn’t been getting a ton of listens on his songs... can you please help me out? If you click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!! Please let me know if you like his music, and I’ll direct all the comments to him :) Thank you so much!
———-

Sites To Bookmark!

If you click here you will be redirected to bilasport. Bilasport is the best Online Streaming site for your entertainment needs for all sports! (Not affiliated)
A great streaming source recommended by NHLStreams is SurgeSport. Click on Hockey and you’ll be good to go!
Want to make your dream team, and show others what you’ve been working on, and much more? I will redirect you HERE!.
Here’s a helpful pack guide for you! Click!
Want to know how the market is holding up? With a simple TAP! you will be on the newly fresh made website for the HUT market, made by one of the guys on the sub!
.... what do the stats on a card mean? Is my card I want / pulled good? Click here to find out!!
When is my favourite team playing? When do they play!? Here you can click on this link, and tap on your favourite team. From there, tap “Schedule” . You can add this to your homescreen on iPhone by clicking the square with the upwards arrow, scrolling down, and tapping “Add to Home Screen”
——- —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —- —— —-

Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!
————— —————— —————

Story Time!

An old Cherokee chief teaching his grandson about life ....
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
One is evil, he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt and ego.
The other is good, he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
The same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person too.”
The grandson then asked his grandfather, “which wolf will win?”
The old chief simply replied “The one you feed.”
What wolf are you feeding? You can let me know down below in the comments if you wish!
——-
25 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! TODAY IS NATIONAL BUBBLE WRAP DAY!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)

[World] - Sergeant jailed on charges he stole to feed gambling habit | New Zealand Herald

Why market moves(long)

To understand how stocks move, first, you gotta understand the interaction between buyers and sellers. Basically, it's Econ-101 supply and demand. Too much demand? Buyers will have to raise their prices so that sellers sell.
Second, the types of market participants. Active and passive participants.
Passive participants are like, buy buy sell buy sell buy sell buy buy buy sell buy sell sell buy. This is almost completely automated and determined by the weighting of the stock versus the index or the methodology that it is following.
The bots of VOO, for example, don't give a damn if an accounting scandal has happened or if a new breakthrough has been reached. Every day, it will buy and sell stocks indiscriminately, following the algos.
And increasingly, newer assets under management are coming mostly under those passive investment vehicles such as passive ETFs, passive mutual funds etc leading to them having a larger and larger share of the market. (I am coming to active participants later)
Thirdly, you gotta understand hedging. Which is basically an investment position to offset losses. Example, you sell a naked call. You see the stock moving closer to the strike price. You immediately buy shares to ensure that you don't take a loss.

Ok, now why do individual stocks move?

They move based on events (plain old news, market-related movements etc). Now, let's go back to active participants such as retail investors, hedge funds, fund managers etc.
Suppose, there's a quarterly earnings report coming out for ASML. Almost all active participants have somehow figured from various news reports that the earnings report will be good because of the huge demand for ASML's product.
As a result, an active fund manager takes a big position on that stock. The stock moves a bit. Hedge funds and other firms also take their positions.
A retard post about the company's upcoming good earnings on the internet and all early retard investors quickly get in.
The stock moves up. In the meantime, the passive funds are adjusting their position in the stock, realtime. If it's going up. They are buying more to adjust their position.
Now, don't forget. Those passive ETFs or funds have other semiconductor stocks in their ETFs and shits. Which means, even if only ASMLs quarterly earnings were supposed to be good, other stocks of the same sector will benefit. As there are tons of both active and passive algos that don't trade individual stocks but ETFs and similar stuff due to liquidity reasons or other reasons.
Edit: for clarification, this is not the only type of passive investment ETFs. In fact, some will sell if the stock rises.
This gets even better. Suppose, lots of retail investors are also buying call options of this stock. If the underlying continues to go up, the delta could keep on rising. Suppose it went from 5% to 10% to 20%. This would force the option sellers to keep on buying more and more shares and could lead to gamma explosion where the market makers create a violent feedback loop due to hedging.
It gets more fun than that. Remember the various HFT firms and scalper bots? Well, they know it all too well that some firms are busy at hedging frenzy. They also join in on the feeding frenzy that is this stock.
After said earnings release(or most likely, just before it), most of the active participants like retail traders and hedge funds may well start taking profits. And the stock generally runs up more than the expected in the first place.
This leads to the violent unwinding of the positions that we generally see after the earnings release. Because everything happens in the exact reverse order I just described here. That's why it's a terrible gamble to buy options in hope of a good earnings release or similar news.
It feels euphoric if you are on the right side of the tide and equally depressing if you are on the wrong side of the tide.
The same thing can happen in the opposite direction if a piece of bad news is expected or happens.
Here, earnings release is just one of the events that I described. It could be any event like index inclusion, regulatory shifts, stock splits, analyst upgrade-downgrades, some fund manager or hedge funds buying the stock etc.
Also, don't forget that all this is also affecting other stocks in the same sectoregion etc due to them being connected through passive investments and active participants exploiting the passive participants.
A very recent example of this happening would be the stock PLTR. Remember, they signed a contract with FDA for $44M but the stock moved almost $10B or more(I haven't calculated) or about 20%. Two weeks ago maybe, Citron declared short attack and a violent unwinding of positions happened and the stock went down about 15-20% after climbing 10-12% that day. Or the day before that when it climbed 20%+.
Now I have sold calls on PLTR (yeah, I like it that your 12/04, 12/11, 12/18 expired or will expire worthless).
This is not how all stocks move.
But a large portion of the stocks that are mentioned here in the sub move this way. This is why it sometimes feels like to you folks as KINDA pump and dump. But whether you retards accept it or not I know you guys are the cream of the crop. While most of you act as if you know nothing, I know very well most of you probably make money.
You guys are like people who watch tech reviews to buy a smartphone.
Ok, I completely went out of topic. Sorry.
This is not how all stocks move.
Some boomer stocks like MMM, JBT etc may have low retail interest. In those cases, the stocks are almost absolutely up to the mercy of other active participants, who or which may as well not care that much leaving those stocks to the hands of the algos of passive participants.
But in those whole processes, there's almost no price discovery that's actually working. Passive algos are buying and selling (but mostly creating buying pressure) completely arbitrarily, HFT bots buying and selling because, reasons.
The participants who are using traditional valuation metrics, analyzing the good and bad of stocks are getting outnumbered by all the other participants and generally speaking, the volume of their trades are also declining in the overall market. Think of big participants like Berkshire(which is undoubtedly the most powerful active participant in the market), pension funds, sovereign funds etc, they barely buy or sell any stocks they have if they have entered on the right price.
Sure, I am kinda underselling the influence of big institutional investors, but it is not completely without any merit.
So you are saying there's no price discovery in the various stocks?
Absolutely not. Even in the greatly flawed system I described being used by most market participants there's plenty of it happening by newsflashes, sell-side analyst recommendations, retail fomoers etc.
Only the stocks that have heavy institutional ownerships, with a healthy retail interest seems to me to be less volatile(this is my intuition speaking really, so this statement is probably false in the first place) such as MSFT etc and they probably have better price discovery.
What about those stocks doubling the day they IPO?
The reason behind that is very simple. Tons of retail investors place Market Orders. This means they are ready to pay whatever the price this thing will go for. In those scenarios, investment banks can hardly control the price of the stock as there's just too much demand to satisfy. In short, it's a feeding frenzy. And this is one of the things that's primarily driven by retail interest.
What about those SPACs and low-float stocks?
Well, this again needs no explaining. Too low float, too much interest. Various whales also know this and use this for their benefit. After the merger is complete(or slightly before it) retail investors and whales leave for the next thing in the line. So the stock tanks and the stock price never recovers.
If the company that's being pumped is actually any good, the stock would likely later get the attention it deserves after the sell-off.
I hope all those points are good enough to explain most of the funky behaviour an individual stock would make. I know my explanations are not exhaustive and there are many angles I haven't covered, but it is what it is.
Now, to the MORE IMPORTANT STUFF. Individual stocks also move due to numerous macro reasons. When the entire market is in a euphoric phase, you can throw a dart and that stock would move up. The opposite and the stock would go down.

Why and how does the market move?

Liquidity. This is probably the most important thing that drives the market as a whole.
Excess liquidity that's circling around will inevitably try to enter into the economy in one way or another. Either through purchasing more assets or any other way.
Now, we all know it pretty well that this trend is being exaggerated by the low-interest-rate environment that's present in the current developed markets. People are being forced to participate in the market in the hunt for return.
Also, almost every investor from every country seems to be more interested to participate in the US stock market, even more than their home markets. And the recent trend of commission-free brokerage services and easy flow of capital has helped to provide even more participation in the stock market than usual.
Options trading is also at historic highs and probably most of you buy call options and put options is probably mostly bought by institutional investors(like it always were). As a whole, this frenzy can move the market very quickly.
Remember, SoftBank bought billions in options on very concentrated tech names? That along with retail call options purchasing mania lead the market to a euphoric state. The S&P 500 has become so heavily influenced by those tech names that if they move, the entire market moves. If they fall, the entire market falls.
But we haven't probably addressed a big elephant in the room. Volatility suppression.
Futures traders, algos, our central bank etc all are participating in the dangerous game of volatility suppression.
This all can unwind though. And it can unwind fairly quickly.
If we take the case of February or March. If you remember, Mr Ackman was screaming fire, fire, fire(he have had his intentions) but the market was barely paying attention.
But with the lockdowns and everything, suddenly everyone seems to have gotten caught with their pants down.
And you know how quick all the things were. Active investors, retail investors everyone suddenly flocked for put options, VIX etc. A Minsky moment has suddenly come.
Margin calls, longs are burnt left and right, market makers have completely turned their positions etc, you know the usual deal but exactly in the opposite direction.
Suddenly gold, treasuries, cryptos etc whatever are being sold to cover their positions. Institutional investors are suddenly visited by their risk managements and they suddenly become net sellers.
Passive investments vehicles also sell stocks that are being kicked heavily.
Literally, everyone's a seller. No one wants to buy. And the situation doesn't change until the Fed comes in and says, "Brrrr".
Liquidity suddenly becomes available in the debt market. Retail investors jump. Buy the dip, they said. Money keeps flowing in from everywhere.
There are many other things that I probably needed to say to complete the story. But it is what it is.
Also, interest rate trumps over everything. Every valuation metrics, pricing schemes are dependent on it. So that's super important.
Let's say suddenly interest rates rise the market will immediately collapse along with your meme stock. Because of two main reasons. Every company is loaded with debt and the risk free return has just increased resulting in more money chasing treasury bonds and other instruments.

These pieces of information any useful?

Yes and no. As they say, hindsight is always 20/20.
Let me tell you my short story navigating the market this year.
February. News of the virus and everything. I see VIX, S&P, bond market, foreign markets etc and I keep sucking my thumb thinking nothing's going to happen. Being burnt by two trades and market starting to freefall almost. I realize my mistake and change my strategy.
Fed says, "Brrr". I fail to change my strategy. Something even worse could be coming. Lol. After almost a week passing I realise my f***ing mistake. Again. At least I can say it's not just me.
The information is almost always there. Problem is we(not everyone of course, some of you are much more flexible) fail to act upon it.
Ok, one more story about an individual stock.
Remember AAPL's third-quarter earnings result? I sold calls before earnings thinking the stock will go down after earnings report.
There was overwhelming evidence that this is not going to be true. And I read almost all of it (WFH and everything). Yet my monkey brain somehow decided to trust the analyst estimates and the overall news cycle surrounding the economy.
AAPL then reported a literal blow away quarterly earnings report.
For me 2020 was a year of reckoning and I learned to remove my directional assumption from the market and to just go with the flow. But I am pretty sure it wouldn't matter, cause when it's time, I just wouldn't remember.
I posted this one before but it got removed by votebots.

PSA: You're not just losing to large funds, you're losing to regular folks who've been doing this for long time. And we are definitely not The Man.

Comprehensive DD on $CTYX: The OTC Biotech Stock of the Decade That Is Being Slept On

[Connectyx (OTC-PINK: CTYX). Will change to Curative Biotechnology with ticker $CURB in Q1 2021.]
I posted this on pennystocks yesterday.
Full Disclosure: I have a $6k initial position in this stock at a cost average of $.06. The stock is now at $0.155 (as of 2/6/21) with my position at $15.5k and movement is just starting.
I am not a financial advisor. I am simply a broke graduate student interested in investing and fucking retiring early. This post represents my personal views and should not be taken as financial advice. Do your own damn research and stop pumping your hard-earned cash into trending stocks on Reddit posts that are nothing but hype, rocket emojis, and a mob chat jerking each other off. Also, not a doctor! The medical content below should never be a substitute for professional medical advice.
With that said, $CTYX is going to fucking Pluto 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 🌑
Price Target: $0.5 by May 1, 2021; $1.25 - $3.00 (~10x) within 2 years with credible potential to be listed on NASDAQ.
This company is absolutely solid on all sides: healthy financials, an experienced & reliable management team, favorable market conditions with a reasonable business model, a solid lineup of products in its pipeline, and many large announcements anticipated within the next 3 months. Simply put, there is extreme asymmetric upside.
$CTYX or Connectyx was taken over by its current team led by CEO Paul Michaels around Feb 2020. Within a year, this CEO has kept every promise he's made and established the infrastructure for growth. The company specializes in bringing orphan drugs (more on this below) through clinical trials and then to market. Paul and his team have decades of experience in big pharma, biotech research, finance, and drug licensing/development (in-depth description in the Management Team section below). They've vetted 3 promising drug candidates in under a year and promised to start clinical trials by mid-2022. If any one of these pass phase 1/2 trials, the market cap grows by hundreds of millions. They also have a reasonable chance to obtain a Priority Review Voucher (PRV) from the FDA that is worth $100-$300M from their strategic picks. They have a clean balance sheet, acquired non-dilute bridge financing while putting these drugs through trials, and have plans of additional deals in the near future.
Why orphan drugs? Orphan drugs are therapeutics that treat rare diseases (defined as illnesses affecting less than 200k Americans per year). From the Orphan Drug Act, there are multiple incentives given by the government to develop orphan drugs: (1) significant tax credits (2) longer market exclusivity after approval (3) waiver of certain FDA fees (4) easier & faster approval process. In 2019, the global orphan drug market is estimated to be valued at $151B. By 2027, this is projected to reach $340.84B (10% compounded annual growth). This the cornerstone of their business model. By gathering a group of experts, they can cheaply vet high potential candidates to add to their development pipeline and then commercialize them from reduced fees as well as fast-track benefits from the FDA.
So why the hell is it call Connectyx? It is just the old name of a software services company which the team acquired. The company has filed for a name change that will be granted within the next 2 weeks to Curative Biotechnology Inc. with a new ticker $CURB. In addition, the CEO himself has hinted at an uplisting to $OTCQB (a certification upgrade from current pink sheet status), mergeacquisition announcements, and $100M in non-dilutive funding. The official FINRA announcement of the name change will be the catalyst for the additional news.
Some quick notes about the charts. The 15x jump in the past couple of months is only the beginning. There is a clear trend of resistance breakthroughs and medium-term consolidation after each announcement. Volatility is low, the number of outstanding shares is small, and there is limited dilutive potential for an OTC.
Let's dive deeper into this hidden gem.
All-Star Management Team
CEO Paul Michaels
Curative BioTech lucked out with a CEO with 25 years of experience in investment banking with a focus on life sciences. Paul has an impressive record, starting as the Executive Vice President and board member of Global Capital Group (a Wall Street wealth management firm). He also got extensive experience in big Pharma through Inabata & Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of a large Japanese drug company, Sumitomo Chemical Group, which totaled $21.8B in revenue in 2013 and employs over 30k people. While serving as Inabata's CFO, Paul licensed American drugs (some from Gilead) for the Asian market. After, the guy helped create Nobelpharma, an orphan drug company, which licenses drugs for rare diseases and got over $35M in initial capital.
In February 2020, Paul took over Connectyx (a software services company at the time) and made it an orphan drug company. It is extremely rare for pink-sheet companies to have such high-caliber, established talent as a leader: decades of experience with finance and leadership positions in multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies. He helped build up Inabata and Nobelpharam (both thriving today), and I am confident in his ability to do it again with Connectyx.
VP Communications Pam Bisikirski
Recently, Curative announced Pam as the new Vice President of Communications. She previously served as the director of marketing of National Vision for 21 years. National Vision ($EYE) is a huge optical retail, eye care, and eye-ware company that is trading near a $4B market cap on NASDAQ.
Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Michael Grace [news] - Ph.D. in Biochemistry and BS in Chemistry from the University of Nebraska. 30 years of experience in BioPharma with top roles in names like Procter & Gamble, Schering-Plough, Bristol-Myers Squibb, NPS Pharma, and Advaxis Immunotherapies. Lead 6 products to registration and commercialization.
Dr. Ronald Bordens [news] - Ph.D. in Biotechnology with over 26 publications and over 2000 citations. 40 years in biotech and big pharma in research & development. Had a fruitful 26-year career at Schering-Plough Research.
Richard Garr [news] - Serves as Director and CEO as well as President of Neuralstem Inc. (now Seneca Biopharma, Inc. which is listed on NASDAQ as $SNCA) for 20 years. Advocate for right to try treatments in the US and Europe. Founded Access Hope CRO (contract research organization) which dedicates itself to this cause. Was founder and current Board Member of the First Star Foundation Mid-Atlantic chapter which focuses on ill children (including pediatric brain cancer).
Robust Drug Pipeline
Keep in mind this company became a biotech firm in Feb 2020 and they already have 3 drugs in the pipeline along with exclusive rights licenses. Insane.
1) IMT504 immune therapy to treat late-stage rabies.
(11/23/2020 Announcement implies IMT504 rabies license deal is complete)
Strategic relationship with Mid-Atlantic BioTherapeutics, Inc. announced on 8/27/2020. Acquired all rights for development of this patented immunotherapy to treat late-stage rabies (a disease with 100% fatality rate after the treatable period, [kills 59k](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6613553/#:~:text=about this topic%3F-,Each year%2C rabies causes approximately 59%2C000 deaths worldwide%2C including approximately,of postexposure prophylaxis (PEP).).)) globally per year).
Now, the value of this may not be in the drug approval itself (although passing trials would be a huge asset of course). The value is the potential in CTYX obtaining a Priority Review Voucher (PRV). These coupons are handed out by the FDA each year to incentivize research into rare diseases. Exercising the coupon means diminishing the approval process from 10 months to 6 after trials. Further, you can freely sell these on a secondary market to other companies! Historically, these have been sold between $100M to $300M each. If obtained, this is an instant 2x-6x increase to its current $50M market cap. There's more.. notice that the FDA has added Rabies to its PRV-eligible tropical diseases list. Currently, there is only a handful of rabies therapies being researched. This means there's actually a good chance of CYTX getting rewarded a voucher, despite the relatively low count of vouchers distributed annually. PRVs are also possible for all other drugs in the pipeline.
2) CURB906 monoclonal antibody cytotoxic conjugate for the treatment of Glioblastoma.
(10/16/2020 NIH gives a grant of license for worldwide rights)
The second license was filed near July 2020 for a novel monoclonal antibody conjugate to treat brain cancer. Glioblastomas are aggressive brain tumors with poor survival rates in children. Recent studies (e.g. s1, s2) have shown different combinations of chemo-therapy and antibody-drug conjugate (ADCs) therapeutics were effective in both mice and human models. ADCs are innovative methods that attach a cytotoxic compound (one meant to kill cancer cells) to an antibody that specifically attaches to certain cancer cell receptors, thus delivering therapies to their targets. There is great promise and lots of potential in these therapeutics. Exclusive Evaluation and Commercialization Option License Agreement with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has been granted.
3) Metformin repurposed to treat retinal degeneration.
(2/4/2021 NIH gives a grant of license for worldwide rights)
This is probably the ace in the hole and the largest reason behind the recent stock surge. On 2/4/2021, CTYX announced they received an NIH grant for exclusive worldwide rights to adapt a diabetes drug, Metformin, to treat retinal degeneration. Not only is Metformin proven safe (it is a widely used drug to treat Type1 Diabetes since 1995), there are many studies (e.g. s1, s2, s3) that hint at its effectiveness for retinal diseases. The recently granted license not only covers pediatric retinal generation (in the form of Stargardt Disease), it covers treatment in adults as well and includes macular degeneration. This promising treatment potentially covers 2/3 of the US population (2/3 of Americans are pre-diabetic, 1/10 are diabetic, and 11 million have some form of macular degeneration; why care about diabetes? diabetes causes retinopathy).
Huge Upcoming Announcements
The announced name change is the opening of the flood gates for all upcoming news. Additional licenses, uplistings, and deals with be done under the new company name. Expect many of these announcements following FINRA approval. These are some forward-looking implications:

(Within 2 weeks) FINRA approval of name change to Curative Biotechnology Inc. and ticker $CURB.
(Within weeks of name change) Following the name change, there will be an uplisting to OTCQB. OTCQB is a tier up from Pink Sheets and must adhere to stricter management certifications, undergo annual audits, and are more stringent in their financial reporting. Connectyx is currently working to become fully reporting OTCQB; to that end, the Company appointed Jonathan D. Leinwand, PA as Legal Counsel.
(Within weeks of name change) Talk of multiple upcoming drugs (if the Metformin announcement was one of them, we should see at least one more).
(Within weeks of name change) Hints at $100M of non-dilutive funding for clinical trials.
(Within months of name change) Mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships with other firms for licensing and commercialization.

Downsides
Before we get ahead of ourselves and dream about retiring in 3 months while riding this into space, we gotta ground ourselves and discuss the downsides. Remember: in life, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. There are always downsides and risks.
Risk 1) This is currently a pink sheet. That itself should make you more cautious because there is reduced regulation, more "flexible" rules, and less scrutiny/transparency.
Risk 2) High risk, high reward. If all 3 drugs flop (assuming no additional therapeutics are added) and they don't get a PRV (priority review voucher), then this company is worthless. Granted, the chances are low, but still a possibility to consider.
Risk 3) Share dilution and raising capital. Because clinical trials often require obscene amounts of capital (~$400M investment for normal drugs), there is a risk that managers might dilute the stock in order to raise money or to take profits in general. There are currently 322M outstanding shares with 1.1B authorized shares. Read the share disclosures, do the math, gauge the risks. Note that orphan drug trials are a lot less costly as well.
Risks and unknowns are certainly there. However, the upside potential is too big to ignore. Buy at pennies, sell for dollars. Do the research and take advantage of any dips that might come on Monday from 2 days of green explosions.
------------------------------------------------------------
TL;DR.

You should fucking read it, because this Phoenix has a high probability of rising from ashes to become the OTC stock of the yeadecade with effortless 10x upside in the short-term.
$CTYX will change to $CURB (Curative BioTech) soon. Business strategy: (1) bring together financial experts, veterans in big pharma, accomplished biotech researchers, and world-class grant writers to vet orphan drugs (2) make deals and obtain licenses for these drugs to help get them through clinical trials (3) take advantage of special FDA benefits for orphan drug approval (faster approval process, fee waivers, etc) and commercialize them after with longer exclusive rights.
Finance: company has no problematic debt, clean sheets, non-dilutive funding, and a small number of outstanding shares for an OTC (322M).
Products: 3 promising drug candidates in the pipeline within a year. Multiple exclusive license grants approved by the NIH.
Upcoming Announcements: (1) name change (2) uplisting to $OTCQB from pink sheets (3) more non-dilutive funding (4) additional drug(s) in pipeline (5) mergers, acquisitions, and deals with other pharma companies.
Current market cap: $50M. Upside: (1) +$100M - $300M if awarded a priority review voucher (PRV) (2) +hundreds of millions in market cap if any of the 3 promising drugs goes past phase 2 ~end of 2022 (3) +millions in speculative capital if new drugs are announced in pipeline (4) potential future merger with large pharma or uplisting to NASDAQ (other biotech companies are listed with half the number of products).

Resources
Again, these are just my thoughts. For your own research, I've linked some relevant forums, analysis, grant listings, company resources, insider profiles, and other sources. Happy digging.
Company
Company Website (new website coming soon w/ new company name)
Yahoo Finance (has all their press releases, financial summaries, and prospectives)
"Prospective" Grant Listings (all grants listed have been approved)
CTYX Financial Filings
CTYX Share Structure and Security Details
Insider Personel
CEO LinkedIn (Paul M Michaels)
CSO LinkedIn (Barry A. Ginsberg)
VP Communications (Pam Bisikirski)
Chairman of Audit Committee of Board (Michael K. Fish)
Forums / Discussions
https://stocktwits.com/symbol/CTYX (~200 followers right now)
https://investorshub.advfn.com/Connectyx-Techs-Hldg-CTYX-15134/ (warning: UI is god awful)

gambling news feed video

Gambling Insider is the essential business-to-business publication for the igaming industry. Read by gambling professionals around the world in print and online US stocks bounced back as investors saw the end approaching of the frenzied Reddit-driven stock market dislocations. Today’s economic data also bolstered the prospects of stimulus and after a ... Gambling. Extra Newsfeed. the same political rants you see on Facebook, but they're well written. More information. Followers. 41K . Elsewhere. More, on Medium. Gambling; Allan Ishac in Extra Newsfeed. Nov 24, 2018. Truth In Satire Vegas Taking Bets On Which Trump Child Will Be First To Cop Plea With Mueller. Read more… 1K. 5 responses ... he UK Gambling Commission (UKG) has partnered with Facebook to create guidance aimed at limiting the number of gambling-related adverts users see on the social media platform. The guidance explains the different ways in which Facebook’s safety tools and settings can be adjusted within an individual account to control what a user can and can’t see in their Newsfeed. Read by gambling professionals around the world in print and online × Gambling News; In-Depth; iGaming Calendar; Connections; IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS FOR THE GAMING INDUSTRY. GAMBLING INSIDER GI Friday; GI Magazine; Trafficology ; GI Huddle; Gaming America; GGA2021; GET PRINT MAGAZINE; Online Online 8 Feb 2021 GI Huddle Sweden series: Part 2 - Erik Bergman on affiliates, philanthropy and more. Erik ... Au menu du jour : du jeu vidéo avec Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory et Ys IX: Monstrom Nox, une suite au film Gambling School, le mangaka Masanori Morita qui dessine One Piece et enfin Masami ... RSS feed of all the betting news in one place - Gambling online casino news and updates RSS feed. Live Betting sports news feed of all news media providers. Australia RSS Feed - gambling.gg/feed.xml + Follow RSS Site - gambling.gg About Site - Keep up with articles and news from Gambling Guide and Online Casino Reviews. Frequency 2 posts / year View Latest Posts ⋅ Get Email Contact UK News Property Transport Motors World News Viral news Feed a Family Sponsored articles. Find news for your town . Gambling addict financial director jailed for £800,000 fraud. UK News Published ... We aggregate sports betting news and gambling online casino news from many sources, we have news feed that you can pull data from in XML format. Stay updated with news about innovative models of betting and news about the betting industry. Copy to Clipboard. Stay updated with our betting news RSS feed. Contact us for extended news updates. Last News Update: AdmiralBet to offer NSoft’s ...

Gambling – Extra Newsfeed

gambling news feed

gambling news feed - win

When the subs drop below 5000 and you can no longer feed your CSGO gambling addiction so you turn to the new Twitch Meta

Adoption Alert! NANO to be used by Boots UK EE Co-op and Procter & Gamble and Oxford Saïd Business School etc and will also be supported by MasterCard Crypto payments

With the recent influx of new users - I decided to post a guide to Pump and Dump schemes - what they are, how to avoid them and how to move on from them