Practicing on an illustration of the prime minister's face, Thai skateboarders are showing support for a growing pro-democracy movement with defiant new designs rolled out at protests in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Rize-Style Skateboard owner Treewit "Chain" Boonkaweesilpn and a group of his friends from a small town outside the capital descended on the latest mass demonstration against Thailand's military-backed government carrying skateboards covered with graphics of hands smashing through a pile of tanks.
A flashy typescript calls for an end to "dictatorship" while popular hashtag #SaveThaiDemocracy sits on the nose of the deck, highlighting the important role social media, especially Twitter, has played in protests that have rattled the government since July. They also feature the three-finger salute from "The Hunger Games" movies, a symbol of resistance in Thailand since prime minister Prayut Chan-O-cha led a coup in 2014 and held onto power in flawed elections last year.
"Skating is our art, it's how we express our views on things like politics and how we practice our freedom of expression," Chain told VICE News ahead of the event at the city's democracy monument, which marks the anniversary of a 1973 student-led uprising that ushered in a brief period of openness in a country riven by a cycle of coups, street protests and multiple constitutions.
Practicing on an illustration of the Thai prime minister's face. Photo supplied
At the rally, they plan to offer free skate lessons, giving protesters the chance to learn how to pop ollies, carve and grind on a huge image of Prayut's face.
It's a bold stunt, especially after a smaller protest on Tuesday night led to a scuffle with police and twenty-one arrests as a royal motorcade carrying the country's powerful king passed nearby. The incident raised tensions ahead of Wednesday's bigger event, where crowds grew into late afternoon. But Chain and his team were undaunted.
"Skateboarding is a performance art. If something like gymnastics expresses beauty, then skateboarding is all about bravery. And bravery is important to political expression - it's what we need to fight against the fear that has been created in our minds by the elites," he said.
The new protest movement began with a group called Free Youth, whose demands called for the dissolution of parliament, the drafting of a new constitution and an end to the state harassment of Thai citizens. But the scope soon spread to include a range of societal issues, including LGBT rights, education and the once-taboo topic of the monarchy, which is legally shielded from criticism by royal defamation laws.
In a kingdom once known for its traditions, old certainties are under the microscope as Thai youth want to reshape their country according to a new set of values. Since the 2014 coup and national elections last year, in which senators handpicked by the former junta got to vote for prime minister, youth subcultures have been at the forefront of resistance.
Graffiti artists have satirized the suspicious wealth of generals. Rappers, punks and experimental techno DJs have used their music to blast dictatorship. And the must-have fashion item for the new generation of Thais is the political parody shirt, which itself has roots in skate clothing brands like X-Large, Freshjive and Fuct.
Practicing ahead of pro-democracy protests in Bangkok. Photo supplied
For Chain, the connection between the five-year period of outright military rule from 2014 to 2019 and the current youth rebellion is clear.
"I think it's the pressure kids got in school after the latest coup. They were forced to follow and recite the same old values made by the elites and it just didn't work," he says, referring to the "Twelve Core Values", which were pressed on the Thai education system by the military junta with the aim of instilling discipline, patriotism and love of monarchy in young Thais.
"Thai students have always been under a lot of pressure to begin with, so when the junta came and forced all this stuff on them, things got even worse," he added. "And now we have the internet, which can give us a glimpse of what things are like globally, and we see that it’s totally different from Thai schools."
On Sunday, police in Western Australia called off their search for the body of a 52-year-old surfer, two days after he was seen being attacked by a shark. This puts the year’s shark attack tally at six—the highest number of people killed in unprovoked attacks since 1934.
This number is well above Australia’s 50-year average of 1.02 deaths a year. Yet while fatalities are at an 86-year high, the number of unprovoked shark bites, 17, is more or less in line with the average over the past decade: meaning it’s not the number but rather the nature of the attacks that’s contributing to the uptick in deaths.
“In some of the cases this year it sounds like the shark hung around and bit more than once, which is unusual behaviour for great white sharks,” Dr Blake Chapman, a marine biologist who examined shark neuroscience for her PhD, told Guardian Australia. “[And] when they bite more than once it’s more likely to be fatal as there’s more blood loss.”
Dr Chapman noted that multiple bites could suggest the apex predators are starting to treat humans as prey. Another factor could be the weather.
The Bureau of Meteorology recently declared a La Niña weather event in Australia, which is typically associated with cooler sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific and warmer waters around much of the country’s northern waters. These water temperatures influence the migration patterns of certain fish—like salmon, for example—and so dictate the movement of the sharks that eat them—namely, great whites.
Several of this year’s victims were attacked by great white sharks—and as Dr Chapman points out, “We do tend to see little spikes in shark bites in La Niña.”
She also noted however, that details and data are relatively scarce, making it hard to determine with any real certainty why so many people in Australia have died from shark attacks this year.
In January, an experienced diver was killed by a shark in the waters off Western Australia; in April, a wildlife ranger was killed by one off the Great Barrier Reef. In June, a 60-year-old died from a shark in northern NSW; in July, a teenage surfer died from a shark bite at another beach in the region; and in September, a 46-year-old surfer died after being bitten while surfing near the Gold Coast in Queensland.
However, it’s worth pointing out that just because a lot of people have died this year, it doesn’t mean that shark attacks are on the rise.
As Dr Andrew Chin from James Cook University points out, the number of actual bites is the same as last year and less than 2019. “It’s just that unfortunately the bites this year have led to more fatalities.”
Lauri and Anni Vuohensilta have been crushing it. The Finnish couple began pulverizing random objects under a 150-ton hydraulic press at their family’s factory five years ago this month, carving out their own genre of “satisfying” internet videos and amassing more than 10 million followers across major social media platforms in the process.
On a video call, I interviewed the Vuohensiltas about what’s left to crush, why the channel appeals to so many people, Lauri’s delightful accent, the effects of the coronavirus on their hydraulic pressing, and how people who don’t have a hydraulic press can fulfill their human need for destruction.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
VICE: Congratulations on five years of pressing! You said on your celebratory Twitch stream from a few days ago that your favorite items to crush, Lauri, are steel pipes, because they're satisfying to watch and they aren't as dangerous. So what is the most dangerous thing you've ever crushed? Lauri:Ball bearings, yeah. So just the balls from the bearing. And those explode the small, smallest fragments. They fly one kilometer per second. So it's like, not healthy.
And Anni do you have a favorite item that you've crushed? Anni: Bowling balls. Those are best.
Those are great. For people who might not know exactly what hydraulic press is, could you explain it? Lauri: It's a machine that is really good on just crushing things. It uses hydraulic pump and piston to generate huge amounts of force. And it pushes against the table, and then you're gonna put whatever you want there between the table and the piston and it's going to get crushed.
OK, so you have crushed paper, molten steel, a tooth, soap, Play-Doh, steel pipes, Play-Doh in steel pipes, fruit, golf ball, toilet paper, toys, a whole collection of household items, and hundreds of other things. When I see people leaving suggestions in the comments of things for you to crush, you almost always have always already crushed them. So is there anything that you haven't crushed? Lauri: Gold bar. We have tried to get that for like one year now. Yeah, like at least one kilo gold. But it's not helping that the gold price is just getting higher and higher here. I think it's like $70,000 now per one kilogram, so yeah.
Yeah, that seems like it might be tricky. Have you ever crushed a diamond? Lauri: Yeah.
Ah OK, I missed that one. And it was crushed? Anni: Yeah. It's a really old video, the first one. Lauri: We have done nice diamond, and then raw diamonds later. Diamonds make really good press tools, but they have to be like grinded to right shape, to be able to withstand a lot of pressure. And they're still like really tiny, so then they're not super hard to crush with the big press.
What are the things the hydraulic press couldn't crush? Lauri: Yeah, lot of things, it’s like a function of the size and how hard is the material. For all the items there is size limit. And I have to say that the hardest things to crush are ceramic bearing balls. Those are really hard. I think it was like 20 millimeters was the largest we can crush. And then you can have one size of your fist and that would be probably like a thousand tons. And we have tried to like destroy them with like, giant hammer. We had shot them with rifles and everything and they just don't break. They are the hardest things to break with any method. I think it's like good combination—the material is really hard and then the ball shape is really strong.
So is the challenge for you guys now to think of new things to crush or think of different ways to crush them or finding new platforms to get your hydraulic press videos out? What are the challenges for keeping it fresh? Lauri: I would say that all of those. We are all the time coming up with the new tools and ways to crush. And then now we have both like a machine that pulls things, and we are fixing that so we can start to test how strong our chains, cables, stuff like that. And then of course the new platforms are always cool and like new video formats. TikTok been really good for us, and also Instagram reels. Anni: We have the biggest TikTok account in Finland.
Oh, congratulations. You have more than a million Instagram followers—Anni: 1.4 million in Instagram and 7 million in TikTok.
Nice! So you started on YouTube, and now you're on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitch, are there any other platforms? Anni: Facebook. Lauri: Yeah, Facebook. I have heard some rumors that they're going to launch monetization like a similar thing on YouTube. Finally in Finland at the end of this year.
Personally, I love the worms that are created when you smush certain material. Do you remember the first worms that you created? Anni: Actually the worm maker tool was my idea. Because I saw on Instagram, a clip where somebody had like potato ... Lauri: It’s like potato smasher, potato press, what do you call that kitchen tool? Anni: Yeah, the kitchen tool and slime. And then he pressed the slime through those holes. And I said, “Lauri, we need big version of this.” And Lauri was like, “Yes, we really need it.” Lauri: I fired up the design program on computer to make the plan. Anni: All kinds of worm tools are, I would say, the most popular thing.
Lauri: On TikTok and Instagram. And then on Youtube people like to see complicated and dangerous stuff.
Yeah. So you built the worm tool yourself? Lauri: Yeah, we build all the tools. If there is like sheet metal parts, then we order from a laser cutting company. But we design and machine all the tools.
So in the world of internet videos, the hydraulic press kind of combines the aspect of the “satisfying” videos like slime squishing with an aspect of the destruction videos, like, shooting guns and that stuff, into its own unique thing that's kind of in the middle. And to me, I think the hydraulic press videos kind of have the same plot as the pimple popping videos. There’s the anticipation, the tension, and there's the release. And so I'll say that for me personally, I can't watch the pimple popping videos because I think they're gross. But, they'revery popular, apparently. And so I was wondering if you've ever considered the similarities between the pimple popping videos and the hydraulic press. Anni [laughing]: I think, especially those worm makers, they are really similar. Lauri: Yeah, yeah.
In your recent Twitch stream, you were describing how you do the videos and how it's kind of too late to change up how you do them and you shared a really funny Finnish saying that my boyfriend and I have been laughing about and hope to work into our everyday lexicon. You said that in Finland “We have this saying that it's too late for farting when you have already shit yourself.” Lauri [laughing]: It goes better in Finnish, it’s more compact and flows better I think. Anni: Yeah.
I love it. But is there anything that you wish that you had done differently in the process, or anything you would have changed if you could have?Lauri: Surprisingly little. I think because we tried to keep YouTube a more complicated and dangerous stuff platform. So we waited really long before we started to make videos where we took like 100 Instagram clips, post them together, add some music and make a 10 minute YouTube video. And we did first in March, and those are super popular videos, and they bring a lot of new people in YouTube. So maybe that that's something that would be probably good idea to do even before. Anni: Yeah, some kind of combination videos.
So the press is 150 tons, is that right? Lauri: Yeah.
OK, so that's 300,000 pounds. So do you get up to 300,000 pounds? Lauri: Quite often. There is many materials, it's pretty easy to predict that, like, you can put this much paper there and it’s still going to explode. So it’s quite often maybe like a couple times a month when you use the full, full force. But with the worm makers, usually the tools break before that, so with the worm makers you can't go that far.
You crushed a wisdom tooth once—and the tooth was quite strong! Could you tell the story of how you acquired the tooth?
Anni [laughing]: It was my wisdom tooth. And I was really scared before the surgery. And I still say to them, that I really need those teeth.They took two teeth away and I think they got one of those like, apart, but one was like, in one piece. Lauri: So Anni meant they have to come out in one piece. Anni: Yeah, the dentist said, “Why do you need those?” Lauri: Yeah, and it was cool to get it in one piece because we made more money with video than the dentist bill was. So, free wisdom teeth removal!
You’ve said before that you think most children like to break stuff and it's kind of built inside every person—the need to destroy something. I agree completely, and I was wondering if you had any suggestions for what people who don't have a hydraulic press could do, how they could go about fulfilling their need to destroy stuff in their daily life. Lauri: That's actually a good question. What would be like easy and funny way? We always keep saying “don't try this at home.” Anni: I don't know. Lauri: I think just like taking up large hammer and hitting stuff if that’s satisfying. Anni: Yeah. Or maybe like, you know, the potato mash— Lauri: I think that is big let down after watching the press. Anni: Yeah, yeah but if you have slime you can try it. Lauri: I will put just some fruits on the table and go with the hammer. It's like good amount of mess and satisfying. Anni: Yeah, and really nice to clean. Lauri: Yeah. Yeah, that's also part of the process.
I wanted to ask about the cleaning process. I did see a video the other day of the hydraulic press getting cleaned, but who does the most cleaning of the press? Anni: [points to herself] Lauri: I think it's more even now. Before we used to do like, let's crush six things, and then it was like, "Hey, I'm going to go edit, have fun." Now we are doing so much content for like small clips. So it's going to be like, they're going to crush like four of the items in the Twitch stream. Anni [laughing]: Yeah. And now we don't live at the same property with the work, so you can't leave me anymore. Lauri: Yeah that’s true.
I was wondering how you decided to do the “OK Boomer” crushing. Did someone suggest that to you?
Anni: I think it was because I have watched so much TikTok, like for the last one year, and I think it was some TikTok thing that I saw there some “OK boomer.” Lauri: Yeah it was trending thing. Anni: Yeah it was a really trending thing. So we did it.
One of the things that I personally love about the press, and that I find validating or optimistic in a way, is that it shows that if you apply pressure to something, it will break. To go a little bit farther, I find it to be kind of like, good and even inspiring, a guiding principle for thinking about how the world works. Have you ever thought about this in the abstract? What you do think about it? Lauri: Yes, sometimes there's moments when you realize that when you press something and you'll see something new about materials or items, you realize how something worked. For example, with the steel pipes, it's the same idea on the railroad where the tracks end. There are like one meter long, really thick steel tubes. And if the train goes little bit too fast, and it can’t stop, then it's the end of the rails and the tubes, they're going to go in the same way that they do in a press.
Right, yeah. And to be more figurative, pressure is pressure—it's something people could apply in other areas. If people get together and apply enough pressure to something, then they can affect change in an institution, society or what have you. Is that too far out? Lauri: Yes, that's true. If you just add enough of anything to anything something is going to happen always. That’s true.
If you could take the hydraulic press and destroy one thing in the abstract, like one idea, what would you destroy? Lauri: That's really hard one. I would want to, like—I'm not sure is there any like one thing that I come up with. I would use my one magic pressing to squeeze out something like miracle technology that is going to save us. I would like to crush something so hard that it's going to make some kind of fusion power plant and generate endless power, something like that.
That’s a good one. Lauri: But we have been thinking more abstract things because every week we do something that anybody hasn’t done before and it's not going to run off there. And I have been thinking that if we do that for long enough we are going to end up coming up with some invention, maybe. If you do weird things you might come up with some new, like, realization about something or solve some problem or stuff like that.
Lauri, people seem to love your accent. (In a previous interview, Lauri said he and Anni had “talked about my accent and how it was going to be very funny thing on top of the press thing.”)What’s the story behind your accent? Lauri: It's just like general Finnish accent. How you pronounce different letters is completely different in Finnish and English for most of the letters. And also the structure of the language is completely different. I think nowadays most of the Formula One and rally drivers can speak a little bit better, but if you take any interview with a Finnish rally driver from the nineties it’s the same. In Finnish, this accent is called rally English. Because it used to be that most famous Finns in other countries are always the rally drivers and they talk in a funny way.
I also wanted to ask if anything has changed with coronavirus and if it has had any impact on your hydraulic press crushing. Lauri: It was interesting because on January, everybody was in Finland, like, it's inside, it doesn't affect us here. And we were like, it’s coming two months, we’re going to buy gas masks and everything. Anni: Yeah, we knew it’s coming. Lauri: And then before it came, we bought a new house and took quite large loan. And then after signing the papers, it took like two weeks and the whole world just stops. And we were like, “Uh oh, uh oh how’s it going to go?” And then we just decide that we’re going to do so much work and videos. And people just kept watching. Ad revenue on all platforms dropped off quite much. But then people started to watch twice as more. So it ends up like regular year. Anni: We moved to the new house two months ago. And this is in the countryside. So this is like really far away from coronavirus. Lauri: Yeah. Closest neighbor is half a kilometer. If it gets really bad we can go after everybody else has left work to film the press in the middle of the night so it doesn't matter how bad it gets, we can still get the videos out. The only thing is not sure is how much companies are going to advertise. Online sales are pretty strong and most of our customers are online companies. So i think it will be good.
And I do think that the hydraulic press specifically is kind of a perfect fit for this moment in time where everything and everyone is under this intense pressure and breaking down. I hope you guys keep making a lot of videos. Anni: I posted a TikTok video where there was like a doll head, and then they press crushed it. And everyone commented, like, “This is me this year.”
Lauri: Yeah but it was in March when quarantine started for most of the countries, we decided that we’re not going to do any corona-related content. We are going to keep it just fun things so it’s like place to have break from all the madness.
Yeah, an escape of a sort. Is there anything else you want to say about the hydraulic press or anything else? Anni: It has been a crazy five years. Lauri: One cool thing, I’m not sure did you catch it on the Twitch stream, but when we start this, Anni said that this is going to last half a year and I said this is going to last five years. And now after five years, my prediction is that it will last five more years. Anni: I don’t say six months anymore!
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A white woman accosted Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the wife of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, in a grocery store last weekend and called her a racial slur.
Fetterman posted a video from the incident on Twitter Sunday. It shows the woman pulling down her mask and telling Fetterman, “You’re a [n-word]” as Fetterman slowly pulls away in the parking lot.
The incident happened at an Aldi grocery store in Pittsburgh, Fetterman told CNN, “I ran to the local grocery store and was met by and verbally assaulted by this woman who repeatedly told me I do not belong here,” Fetterman wrote. “The confrontation continued into the parking lot where I was able to finally capture it after the crying winded down.”
The woman knew who Fetterman was, the lieutenant governor’s wife told CNN. “She called me a thief, she said, ‘There’s that [n-word] that Fetterman married," she said. The woman has been identified by Pennsylvania State Police, who are investigating, Fetterman told the New York Times.
Fetterman was born in Brazil and came to the United States with her family as an undocumented immigrant. She became a U.S. citizen in 2009 and is a longtime social justice advocate; she co-founded the food justice non-profit 412 Food Rescue and founded The Free Store, a department store of sorts with free groceries, clothing, and other items for people who need them.
“I’m a former DREAMer, I came as a young immigrant and my family lived undocumented for over a decade,” she told CNN. “Those were really scary times. If I had a knock at the door that I wasn’t expecting, it would fear that my family would be sent back to a country we fled due to violent conditions.”
Fetterman’s husband, John, is a former Democratic mayor of the Pittsburgh suburb of Braddock, and was elected lieutenant governor in 2018. He’s considering a run for United States Senate in 2022.
Gov. Tom Wolf tweeted his support of Gisele Barreto Fetterman on Monday.
“The ethnic intimidation and hate speech spewed at the Second Lady of Pennsylvania is shameful and unacceptable,” Wolf said, speaking on behalf of himself and his wife. “The Second Lady has my and Frances’s full support and gratitude for her tireless work to make Pennsylvania the diverse, inclusive place it is today, even in the face of such ignorance and adversity.”
Nicaraguan lawmakers are homing in on legislation that could muzzle foreign journalists and enable President Daniel Ortega to accelerate his regime’s clamp down on political dissent.
Members of the nation’s congress, which is controlled by loyalists to President Ortega, are close to passing two new laws that promise to severely limit freedom of speech.
“Nicaragua’s Congress has proposed ambiguous legislation that leaves ample room for authorities to criminalize independent media and journalists simply for doing their jobs,” said Natalie Southwick, Central and South American officer for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The first law targets the spread of false news online and would mandate prison time for those who violate it. The second would force non-governmental organizations and foreign press correspondents to register with the government so that their income can be tracked.
Congressional committees will review the bill and hold a vote in the coming days. If passed, the legislation will head to Ortega to be signed into law.
Cover: A man wears a mask reading "No to Censorship" during a demonstration in front of the National Assembly in Managua, on March 19, 2018. Credit should read INTI OCON/AFP via Getty Images.
The bill is the latest proposed limitation on freedoms two years into a wider crackdown on political adversaries and opposition figures in Nicaragua. Ortega was elected in 2007 and has remained in power by taking pages out of the late socialist president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian playbook.
Once an anti-government rebel himself, Ortega fought to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship in the 1970s as part of the Sandinista movement.
Nicaragua has experienced a slow motion breakdown in democratic institutions during Ortega’s term. Ortega has concentrated power in the executive, thrown out foreign diplomatic officials and adopted an increasingly authoritarian style of governance.
In April 2018, a pension reform triggered widespread unrest in the Central American nation of 6.5 million. Protestors called for Ortega’s resignation, and his government responded with oppressive tactics including beatings and extrajudicial killings, leaving at least 300 dead, according to Human Rights Watch.
Since then, Ortega’s government has thrown dozens of political opposition figures in jail and fabricated charges against them, claims the United States Treasury Department. The U.S. Treasury recently sanctioned Attorney General Ana Julia Guido and Ortega’s Chief of Staff Ortega Paul Herbert Oquist Kelley.
“The U.S. will continue to take the necessary steps to support the Nicaraguan people and pressure the Ortega regime to cease repression, respect human rights, and restore democracy to Nicaragua,” tweeted U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on October 9.
The European Union also voted to advance with sanctions if the anti-free speech legislation is passed.
“Ortega has to go. I don’t have any doubt about it. We have got to understand that he will exit much faster if we work together,” said opposition leader Tamara Dávila Rivas on October 9 as news of the sanctions hit.
“And once they’re gone, we also have to work together to give life back into every Nicaraguan out there.”
Life after Ortega, who has not responded to the new sanctions against Nicaragua, remains a distant prospect. Under his watch, legislation that limits democratic freedom appears to face little resistance. With or without the U.S. and European sanctions, members of congress will cast their vote in the coming days.
I was hoping you might be able to help me finally put to bed a long-running argument between me and my mother about the proper way to find a job. For almost as long as I’ve been job hunting, she has insisted that it’s a good idea to apply to places that aren’t actively hiring, just on the chance that they might begin hiring and pull your application off the stack.
This advice has never really sat well with me. I find applying for jobs fairly stressful, and my gut instinct has always been that it’s a waste of time and effort applying to places that aren’t actually hiring. At best, you would give a future hiring manager that many more outdated applications to sift through once a position actually opens up.
Am I in the right here, or does my mom know something I don’t? And if I am in the right, can you give me some arguments to help shut her down the next time she decides this is an argument we need to have again? I’ve been job searching again for the last few weeks, and it’s been going well, but I can tell she gets annoyed whenever I mention that there aren’t many new job listings in a given day. (For context, we’re sheltering together after my school closed down the dorms following Covid-19.)
There are some fields that operate this way—usually very small businesses—but most don’t.
Most places advertise their job vacancies if they want outside applicants. If they don’t post a job opening, it’s generally because they plan to hire internally or from their existing network, and the chances of you being the perfect fit for a job you don’t know about and which they haven’t described to you are pretty slim. And many companies, especially larger ones, aren’t even set up to accept applications that aren’t directed to a specific and current job opening.
And that stack of applications that your mom is picturing employers turning to when a position does open up? It usually doesn’t happen that way. Employers do keep applications on file because of record-keeping requirements, but it’s relatively uncommon for them to hunt through old applications for candidates rather than just advertising when a job opens up, especially if those candidates hadn’t applied for a specific role in the first place. Some employers will do it! But most don’t. You see it more frequently when someone has an unusual or hard-to-find skill set, in which case an employer will be more motivated to make sure they remember you the next time they need that skill... but if you’re not in that category, your chances are much lower.
Now, this doesn’t mean that your mom’s strategy never works. Occasionally it does! That’s why you’ll sometimes hear reports of people who found jobs this way. And if there’s a company that you’d really love to work for where you feel your qualifications would be especially well suited, by all means, go ahead and try it. But it shouldn’t be a major focus of your job search, because most of the time it’s just not going to pay off.
What’s more, on the relatively rare occasions that it does pay off, it’s often because the place that hires you doesn’t have great hiring practices: They’re going for what’s easiest—an application they already have—rather than ensuring that they’re hiring the best person for the job. That can be a sign of other problems; do you want to work with colleagues who were all hired because their applications were close by? That’s not always the case, of course. But it’s true enough of the time that it’s worth factoring into your approach.
It’s worth noting, though, that your mom didn’t make this advice up out of nowhere. It’s been floating out there for a while—in part, I believe, because it helps people feel like they have more control in their job searches. Career counselors and job search coaches want to be able to suggest strategies other than “respond to job postings” and this provides something else to recommend... despite the fact that the payoff is low.
But again, if you want to contact a handful of companies that aren’t hiring as a supplement to your main job search strategies, go for it. It won’t hurt you and, who knows, maybe you’ll happen to email at the perfect time with the perfect skill set. But you’re better off putting the majority of your time and energy into applying for jobs that you know for sure exist and are hiring.
Get more good advice from Alison Green atAsk a Manageror inher book. Do you have a pressing work-related question of your own? Submit it usingthis form.
With two songs currently on the Billboard Hot 100 and an online concert attended by nearly 1 million viewers over the weekend, K-pop group BTS continues to surge in popularity. In China, however, the band has garnered a different kind of attention than they're used to.
Outrage flooded the Chinese internet this week over remarks the band made about the Korean War, even drawing comments from a top Chinese official. But given the band's phenomenal success and positive global image, experts and loyal fans said that they weren't too worried about the backlash.
On Monday, New York-based organization The Korea Society awarded BTS its prestigious Van Fleet Award, which recognizes "distinguished Koreans and Americans for outstanding contributions to the promotion of U.S.-Korean relations."
"This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean War," said BTS leader RM in an acceptance speech, emphasizing the importance of world peace. "As members of the global community, we should build a deeper understanding and solidarity to be happier together. We will always remember the history of pain that our two nations shared together and the sacrifices of countless men and women."
The speech did not go over well on Chinese social media, incurring the wrath of some netizens who say the singer failed to acknowledge "wartime sacrifices" of Chinese soldiers, who fought on the side of North Korea.
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 and saw thousands upon thousands of North Korean troops storming into South Korea following intense border clashes. South Korean forces, with the support of the United Nations and United States troops, clashed with North Korean soldiers who were aided by China and the Soviet Union. The war unofficially ended in 1953 in an armistice but its devastating impact, which cost millions of lives and divided the Korean peninsula, is still felt today.
"The Korean War affected millions in China and North Korea too. How arrogant of BTS to assume that only their country's side should be acknowledged for a peace award," remarked one netizen on Chinese social media platform Weibo.
"We are proud of our soldiers who fought bravely in the war which still divides Korea today. To exclude China's sacrifices and efforts on the global stage is an insult to our entire country," read another comment from a Chinese netizen, which drew thousands of likes.
"Your career in China is over. Kiss your success goodbye."
Adding to the controversy, Chinese state media published stories saying that the band's speech "reflected a one-sided attitude" and "hurt fans." Even the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Deputy Director and spokesperson Zhao Li Jian weighed in on the backlash.
"We should learn from history, value love and peace, and promote friendship. These should be our common goals," Zhao said.
BTS, known to speak up about social issues like mental health, was alongside other award recipients like Korean War veterans credited for strengthening South Korea's relations with the U.S. through positive messages and promoting inclusion.
The band's agency Big Hit Entertainment did not immediately respond to questions from VICE News about the issue. But on Twitter, their fiercely loyal and vocal fan base, known as ARMY, mobilized and sprang into action.
"BTS is Korean. They will stand by their country and it's totally correct," tweeted one fan. Another quipped: "Still waiting for Kim Jong Un to get mad too because BTS didn't mourn North Korean sacrifices."
"How on earth was that an insult," tweeted one fan, in defense of their idols. "I literally have no idea why some Chinese people don't realize that it's unreasonable to ask the rest of the world to think from China's perspective."
Hong Kong democracy activist and politician Joshua Wong, often the target of mainland Chinese internet trolls, also got involved in the debate and expressed his support and solidarity with BTS.
In a series of tweets, he wrote: "Nothing could be more ridiculous when the award was given to those promoting #U.S.-#Korean relation, it's natural to only mention the two nations. In fact, the speech didn't even mention #China, nor anything against it, but nationalist trolls have already treated it as an insult."
The outrage and anger from Chinese netizens were also drowned out in South Korea, where many supported BTS.
On South Korea's biggest online portal Naver, users said the Chinese government and people overreacted to BTS' comments.
"It's ridiculous that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China criticizes singers from another country, and the people followed it blindly," one Naver user commented on an article about the issue. The comment now has over 4,000 likes.
Some Koreans also recalled an incident involving K-pop singer Lee Hyo-ri, who became the target of Chinese internet users in August and was accused of making "disrespectful" comments about Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. This, after Lee suggested using "Mao" as her stage name in a TV show, although the production team said that she was not actually referring to the late Chinese leader.
While calls for a BTS boycott grew in China, which wields significant spending power and great influence over entertainment and media markets, experts were not fazed by the recent controversy.
"One of the historical points that BTS has achieved is that they have become a K-pop group that can ignore the Chinese market," wrote prominent columnist Kim Do-hoon.
"From the get-go, they made the world market theirs [and reached] the level of having no need to bend their heads down on every word that censors culture nationalistically and patriotically."
Stanley Rosen, a political science and international relations professor from the University of Southern California, said that the controversy was "a non-issue" and would only affect BTS "in the short-run."
"Chinese favorability ratings have declined drastically and dramatically in South Korea for the past few years and this is one more example of why Chinese soft power is so weak in the East Asian countries," Rosen told VICE News.
"Given their immense success, it would be incredibly foolish for big-name companies to remove BTS from their websites and campaigns outside of China."
