AMA Ask Jan Anything!

[Noblejanobii]

Might as well hop on the trend!

 

[Fleurdelis]

why are you still trying to find your berries

 

[moon]

Mind telling us about your avatar? :3

 

[professor plum]

what kind of berries have you lost

 

[budube]

Are you sure you lost your berries and didn't eat them?

 

[Noblejanobii]

I like how literally three out of four of these questions are about my berries.

why are you still trying to find your berries

Because I haven't found them!

what kind of berries have you lost

My berries!

Are you sure you lost your berries and didn't eat them?

If I did eat them then I still need to find new berries!

Mind telling us about your avatar? :3

So this was a gift from an artist friend of mine named Cloudpool (link in my sig) who is the artist of PMD: Stars Above. They've been drawing people's sonas for practice and what not lately. So they drew my pokesona, Shaylava (quilava/shaymin), but with the flower in pink, yellow, and blue since I'm pansexual and that's the pan flag pattern.

 

[moon]

Shaylava, cute idea. Do you also have a non-pokemon fursona?

 

[Noblejanobii]

Shaylava, cute idea. Do you also have a non-pokemon fursona?

I do! She's an otter! Her original artwork was gifted to be by the artist, Ellamred.

 

[Venonat in Space]

When did you get into art? Like how old were you? Also, any tips for beginner artists?

 

[Noblejanobii]

When did you get into art? Like how old were you? Also, any tips for beginner artists?

I've been drawing since I was really little but I didn't actually start taking it seriously until I was 18 or 19, as a freshman in college. So I kinda got in it pretty late in the game compared to some of the other artists in my community.

Practice practice practice. You only learn and get better at stuff if you practice. But make sure you're practicing the right stuff. Use references and study the fundamentals. It's not always fun but I didn't get better at drawing humans until I started regularly practicing their anatomy, and while my skills aren't the best, they're better than what they were because I've been taking the time to study things like anatomy. There's tons of resources online and don't be afraid to reach out to other artists for advice as well. That's where I first got my start on learning the basics.

So in short, study, use references, and practice what you learn!

 

[colours]

perhaps a silly question, but what got you so involved into politics?

 

[Bahamut]

Favorite berry?

 

[SupertrainerBaz]

whos the first person your knew had berries

 

[Noblejanobii]

whos the first person your knew had berries

I think it was my dad! He gave me blackberries when I was very little.

Favorite berry?

Probably blackberries but elderberries are pretty dang good too, especially in jam form.

perhaps a silly question, but what got you so involved into politics?

Not silly at all! This ended up being a semi long answer but the short version is I got involved with political programs in middle and high school that I really enjoyed. They taught me a lot about the process and also how people think and it was all just very interesting to see how people reacted to different decisions made the government.

That said it's a bit of a love hate relationship sometimes. ^^;

Spoiler:

I first got involved/interested when I participated in a program in middle school called Youth in Government. It was essentially a weekend long program where you make a bill and try to get it passed through a mock committee, house, and senate, then get signed by the "youth governor" into law. I really enjoyed it and stuck with it through high school, and even though I only ever had one bill get signed into law, it was researching topics like drunk driving, immigration, etc. and seeing how they impacted that got me really excited.

So I started working on political campaigns for local politicians and helping as a poll worker for primaries, midterms, and even the 2016 national election. I got to learn through going door to door and interviewing people for statistical purposes and other things what caused people to vote certain ways, and it was just a really interesting process. I also participated in a number of political oriented clubs like Model UN, Mock Trial, Speech and Debate, etc. and my senior year I won multiple awards in these clubs, which pushed me to take it on in college.

From there it was seeing how different decisions like the announcement of the travel ban, or the repealing of DACA, or the steel tariffs impacted my community, as well as several internships including two in DC that really just furthered my interest.

 

[Fleurdelis]

What happens when you eventually find your berries? What usertitle would come from it?

 

[Noblejanobii]

What happens when you eventually find your berries? What usertitle would come from it?

Well I'd have to switch to another vine reference if I ever find my berries! Maybe "Hi! Welcome to Chili's" or another classic.

 

[colours]

what are some lessons that:

a) you've personally learned after the outcome of the 2016 election and:
b) you feel the US as a whole should learn after the 2016 election

 

[Noblejanobii]

what are some lessons that:

a) you've personally learned after the outcome of the 2016 election and:
b) you feel the US as a whole should learn after the 2016 election

Oooh now these are some good questions.

A) I have learned a lot coming out of the 2016 election and in the years following. As much as I dislike him, I cannot deny that the Trump Administration has been a very interesting presidency to study. From the use of sociolinguistics to the economics of immigration and many other topics, there is so much I could unpack here. But to answer your question, I think the two things I realized coming right out of the gate of the 2016 election were the science behind political polling and the power of a good PR team. I'll give sorta in-depth explanations for both and put the TLDRs with them.

TLDR for Polling: Polling has grown largely more inaccurate over the years due to how people are surveyed. Numbers will almost always be off, the media bias sometimes making it worse. You can still consult polling numbers, but do so on sites with only slight bias, which you can figure out using Media Bias Fact Check.

Spoiler:

The first one is the easiest (and least controversial) of the two so we'll start with it. In sort, political polling is not nearly as accurate as everyone thinks, and both President Obama and President Trump's elections are great examples of that. I'll try to reference both in this explanation but I'll probably reference Trump more since I've actually actively studied his campaign. So, when a party is performing polls, they tend to use one of three different methods: Door to door, survey calls, and online polls. Each has their major downfalls that lead to polling numbers being rather inaccurate.

Door to door has the most potential for inaccuracies, since you can't poll people if they don't answer the door or send you away without answers. Same is somewhat true with phone calls, as if they don't answer then you can't survey them. But in addition, the selection process in itself skews things. See, your party affiliation is public record, so if you're affiliated with say, the Democrats, political strategists will be able to figure that out quite easily. And even if you're not required to align with a certain party like in my state, they can also see which elections you voted in, which means if you voted in the Republican primary, they'd know. So say I'm a political strategist for the Republican candidate Bob Smith, well then I'd want to survey people that have voted Republican in the past to see what issues are most important to them so I can formulate Mr. Smith's platform to best suit his potential future constituents. Specifically, I would select people who had voted in three of the last five elections, including midterms and primaries, because this means they're active voters. No need to poll Mrs. Dorian down the street if she hasn't voted in twenty years. Or at least, that's the thought process. This system is used for both Door to Door and Survey calls.

Here's the problem with this system though. In both Obama and Trump's elections, their victories were attributed, at least statistically, to a group of unsurveyed voters that caused polling to be inaccurate. In President Obama's case, it was African Americans who went largely unaccounted for. In President Trump's case, it was older Caucasians who hadn't voted for nearly 30 years. And while I can't really speak first hand about President Obama's voter base, in the lead up to the 2016 election I actually worked at the county elections office where people had to come to get registered to vote and I recall so many of them boasting about how they had not voted since Reagan so they needed to get their registrations renewed. These people are obviously NOT active voters and thus went unsurveyed by both parties.

Phone calls also have additional problems beyond people not answering you. Though the not answering is becoming more and more common thanks to caller ID. Having done cold calls myself, I also have figured out that people don't really like being called by political surveyors and tend to curse you out or hang up. Don't be too shocked about it though as your phone number is also public record once you register to vote, so if you get selected they will call. Another problem that's really only something that has been discussed in theory but is largely suspected to be another reason why 2016's numbers were so skewed is people lying on phone polls. While there's not a ton of concrete evidence for this (the nature of political science at its core), there are a lot of theories that because political surveyors call you on the phone and know who you are, people are more inclined to lie about a candidate if they think they're the more controversial choice, like with President Trump. This can make the few responses cold calls get unreliable as there is no way for us to know if you're lying.

Finally, online polls are probably the polls with the most accurate numbers, but they also have very distinct problems. For one thing, they're opt in. Obviously, in theory, all three methods require you to agree to take the survey, but the difference with online surveys is people have to take the initiative to take the surveys. You have to follow whatever link it is to answer the surveys. As a result, while they have more interactivity, you actually tend to see more extreme answers to questions since it's mostly the really passionate people who take the surveys, and they don't represent the majority of populations. And another problem is that depending on who is sending the survey out, the answers may be specifically worded in a way to purposely lead to skewed answers because they'll say stuff like "the lying liberals" or "the criminal immigrants", which discourages moderates or less extreme voters from actually answering.

All in all, while polls are great to use for reference stuff, they're growing largely more and more inaccurate. So when you're checking polling numbers, the best advice I can give there is to check what site you're getting your information from and then keep in mind that it may be a little or a lot off. Especially when we get down to only two candidates, you're not going to want to go to any news source with a large bias, since their numbers will definitely be skewed. Aim for a more moderate site, those with slight skews are okay but again just keep in mind their numbers might be a little off. Best way to check a site's leaning as well is to use the site Media Bias Fact Check.

TLDR for good PR Team: A good PR team knows how to manipulate both positive and negative news to make a candidate appeal to their voters, which is exactly what we've seen happening with President Trump and is highly suspected to be the reason he's so vocal on Twitter.

Spoiler:

So I'll preface by saying a good PR team just means that they're good at their job, not like morally good. That of course is always up for interpretation.

So I'll be candid and say Trump's PR team is one of the most skilled teams I've ever seen and studied. They are EXTREMELY good at what they do and this has only become increasingly clear post-election. They knew from the start who their target demographic was going to be, ie republicans who hadn't voted in at least four to eight years because they were displeased with the government, and they went after them HARD. Phone calls, TV ads, radio ads, billboards, etc. were all part of their plan.

But what is most interesting, and frightening, is their story weaving capabilities. They knew right from the get go that Trump's main demographic was going to be people who distrusted the government, and that was going to be one of the big reasons why they voted for Trump, because he wasn't from the establishment like Hillery or Bernie. So anytime some sort of scandal came out, like the locker room tape where he described grabbing women by their parts, they would spin the story in such a way that to his target demographic, it looked like a targeted attack. And it didn't take much prompting for Fox News and other conservative sources to run similar stories. Then, the email scandal for Hillary came out and dealt her a massive blow, and this was in large party because the Trump team preyed on that HARD, using it as evidence for further distrust. The release of that information is also suspected to have been timed as well, to give her as little time to recover as possible, though there's no official confirmation on that.

Even now they continue to work to desensitize people to his general demeanor. The main reason that man tweets so frequently is to get you used to seeing the utter nonsense of whatever he or a member of his political team (because spoiler alert most politicians don't run their own social media accounts) put out. They're doing this on purpose and hoping for one of two reactions, you either ignore it or share it. Doesn't matter if you support him or not, because the instant you share his tweet with anyone, you're spreading his message. We've all probably done it at some point. I know I have. But by doing that what happens is you increase the likelihood of his message reaching someone who does support him while also causing others to not take what he's saying seriously. Which, I can understand, because some of his tweets, like "covfefe", are just utter nonsense. But what happens is then is whenever he says something on TV or the radio, your brain automatically associates whatever preset notion you have of his words based on reading his Tweets and applies it to what he's saying. As a result, people don't taken his seriously at all, which allows him to get away with saying really racist and bigoted statements because we're just all so used to it by now.

And that's just a surface level analysis. This isn't even discussing moves like serving the Clemson football team McDonalds, their skills at dividing people, or looking at outrage marketing, which were and are strategic moves made by his PR team. It's just crazy how skilled his team is, because they're making everyone play right into his hands.

B) There's a lot that can be taken away from this election, as you just saw, but I think the most important thing that anyone should take away from this election is that your anger, rage, and intense feelings will be used against you. If there's one thing this administration has mastered, it's turning people against each other. Do not let them divide you. People can coexist with differing political views and have for thousands of years. Compromises can be achieved.

Also call your senators and representatives!! Just like the opt in online polling, only the most passionate people tend to call the offices of their congresspeople, so if you want them to reflect your views, then tell them. Even if you don't actually speak with the Congressman or woman themselves, they have a staff that will put your comment, concern, or complaint into a system that factors into every future decision or move of the politician. If you want them to impeach the president, then call and tell them that. If you want them to vote no on a climate change bill, tell them. Because what's happening right now is that the voices of the extremes are the loudest, which means that those in Congress act to reflect their views, which further divides the country.

But most importantly, like I said before, don't let yourselves get divided. Several political clubs on my campus tore themselves apart because the exec boards fed into the extremism, and such can be seen occurring across the country. We, as a society, are starting to lean into "if you're not totally with me then you're completely against me" mentality, which is very dangerous as it leaves no room for discussion or compromise.

People like Tucker Carlson have had people protesting at their homes or while at dinner because people disagree with their political views and people justify it by saying "they support Trump they deserve it." And that should not be okay or the way things are. Tucker Carlson wasn't even home for those protests, it was his wife and kids who were home, potentially terrified for their lives since I know I would be. You can't let political views let you forget that we are all people and that we can work together to achieve great things.

 

[Maedar]

What kind of berries? Strawberries? Blueberries? Blackberries? Raspberries? Cranberries?

:D

 

[Noblejanobii]

What kind of berries? Strawberries? Blueberries? Blackberries? Raspberries? Cranberries?

:D

Blackberries and raspberries both sound delicious!