Hi everybody. So the first time I gave this presentation was about a year ago, and I've tweaked it a little bit since then. And when I gave it the first time, it was how to win friends and influence people in a 140 character count. And two days before I had to give the presentation, Twitter changed to 280. And it was changing everything on the fly. So I am hoping that Twitter has not done out in the last like 10 minutes and done something. So if they have, I can't adapt that quickly on the fly. So introduction was fantastic. My name is Laura Bern Cristiano, and I'm here because I really like to help people demystify social media. A lot of times people can feel overwhelmed by it. They're not sure how they should be using it or what's the right social media for them. And I really like to help people figure that one out. And before I get into it, I just wanna say a big thank you to the people who organized the camp, the volunteers, the sponsors without them. This just wouldn't be happening on any level. So just thank you to them. They put in a lot of work to make this go. The first thing I'd like to start out with is people very frequently will say to me, well, what social media should I be on? And that's a really loaded question. The answer is going to differ for every single person in this room and will differ for every single type of site that you're dealing with. There's no one-size-fits-all. I'm mostly gonna concentrate talking about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, but there are all other platforms out there and they all have their usages. I'm just picking the most popular ones here. And if you wanna continue the conversation into other types, I'd be totally happy to do that outside later, not a problem. In fact, one of the jokes I was telling people recently is sometimes businesses get on this kick of, we have to be on every single social media platform out there because we just do. And for reasons best known to them, the New York Times Stock Exchange decided they needed a Pinterest page. I don't know if they're doing Bull and Bear Brownie recipes on it. I'm not sure, but I'm not quite clear what kind of mileage they're getting out of that one. So not everything is right for everybody in every circumstance. So let's start out with a couple of basics. Number one is you have to have a picture. Even if the platform you're using is an Instagram, which frankly is the picture capital of social media, you still need to have a picture and I'll show you some reasons why. So these are coming from just industry experts. When people hear or read information, they're only likely to remember 10% of that information three days later. However, if that information is paired with a relevant image, people retain much of that information, 65% of that information three days later. Think about it yourself. If you see a commercial, you see an advertisement, you're much more likely to remember it versus hearing it on radio. There's a big difference. It's also on radio, why everybody puts something to a jingle is because people can remember a song better than they can just remember the words coming at them. So pictures are way, way more important. Secondly, your content, no matter what category you're putting it on, whether it's Twitter, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Instagram, whatever platform you're on, if there's an image, people are far more likely to share that with a friend because the image captivates. We've all heard that phrase if a picture paints a thousand words, it's absolutely true. So make sure that you're using those photos. And one of the biggies, and I'll show you a situation with this in a minute, is without a photo on Facebook, your content is seen by almost no one. But let's backtrack for a minute here and show you how this works. So here's a tweet set out by Publishers Weekly, industry expert in the publishing field, massive journal that lots of people read, huge Twitter following. So they put out a tweet that said Kamala Harris, the senator, was going to be publishing a memoir. 24 hours after they published it, eight people had retweeted it and 18 had hearted it. Same content on the San Francisco Chronicle, 15 minutes after it published, using a photo of Senator Harris. And guess where there a link went? Publishers Weekly article. So huge differentiation. People want to engage more when they see the photo. It's really easy just to go right on by it. If there's no photo there, that photo draws me in. Super, super, super important. It gets even more important when we're talking about Facebook. If you have a Facebook page and you put content up without a photo, it goes to almost none of your followers. Also super important on Facebook, order of operations is really important. Put up the photo, then do your text, then do your link. Order of operations, majorly, majorly important there. Because if you do it in a different order, what frequently happens is Facebook, their software basically thinks it's smarter than you are. And it will start hauling in photos from the link, which may or may not be what you want. It's also Facebook loves photos in their algorithm that people post natively to its site. Even if it's the same photo that's in the featured image of your article, Facebook really likes that photo to start off on their site. And you can see some of the differentiations. There are some really great tools on your WordPress site, plugins that you can use that will integrate social media and it'll post it on all sorts of platforms for you at the same time. There's some really great tools like that. One of the ones that I love is the plugin called the Social Network Autoposter, SNAP, is it's acronym. Great tool, but there is something extra you have to do on Facebook. I love it auto posting everywhere. It's great. The problem is is Facebook really likes content posted natively to Facebook. So what I usually do is I let it do its auto posting thing and then I go back maybe three hours later and say, in case you missed it and then I'll put up almost the exact same content. And you'll see a huge difference in engagement because Facebook really prefers things that are posted natively to Facebook. I have a really good example of it using the Facebook page for the viral website that I created called Twilight Lexicon. We had some information about San Diego Comic Con and things that were available at San Diego Comic Con. Over on the right side where the Funko Pop is we just let that article post up using just like I said, the plugin we were using at the time. And if you look down the bottom you can see it's engaged 32,000 people and it had 112 shares. And people are saying, glory be 32,000 people engaged with this, how are you not happy? Except three hours later when I posted pretty much the exact same content 84,000 people engaged with it with over one K shares. Huge difference. So definitely like I said that order of operations super important and there's ways of doing it both auto posting and then following up later. Sorry. What was the order again? Order of operations is picture first, then your text, then your link. Okay, so let's talk about our friend Twitter and our 280 character universe. Save that character count. There's a couple of ways that you can do it that are really ingenious. Number one is you can tag the photo with people's IDs rather than putting those ads in your tweet. And you can do it for up to 10. It can be people, it can be organizations. It is a huge character count saver and those people, those organizations all get a message that you have referenced to them. So super, super helpful. For example, I picked WordCamp US. Last year I was on the marketing team for WordCamp US and you can see we were trying to talk about all sorts of things. Here we had a Google Hangout that we were talking about featuring five speakers. Well, if I was trying to feature five speakers some of which have really long speaker names not like I don't love Raquel Langdonfield she has the world's longest Twitter name. It eats up a considerable amount of your character count and you couldn't get anything out there. Well, if you tagged the photo, you saved that problem. Another really good way of doing it is when you're thinking about your graphic put some of your information in your graphic put some of your details in there. You know, you still want it when you're writing it but that image can even give you more mileage. So think about how you can make it work in the long run for you. Here's another one. I think we're probably all heard this quote a million times, right? Brevity is the soul of wit. Well, here's some ways you can save character counts. So, whoopsie, am I in the wrong order? I am in the wrong, wait, I will go back, sorry. That's not my keyboard, I'm not as used to it. Here we go. So there are a couple ways, believe it or not you can save character counts. There are ways you can do it if you're on a Mac there are ways you can do it if you're on a Windows machine and if you're on a smartphone you can save these things over in like a notes app something like that to use in copy and paste. What happens is for example ellipses dot, dot, dot. If you actually type dot, dot, dot those are three characters. However, if you use the Mac the plus option semicolon or in Windows what's called an ASCII code which is alt and a series of numbers. Instead of going three characters, that's one character. And there's all other kinds of things too. An M dash which sometimes is three dashes it's one dash if you do it this way. These are all just a couple of really quick character counts and there's a link at the bottom where I got them and there's even more on there. My slides will be available after if you want all these resources. So I'll show you how this can come in really handy. So for example here let's take a quote from Matt Mullenweg who is the founder of WordPress. So here's a really good quote that Matt Mullenweg had about the WordPress project and how he feels about the software that he created and where he sees himself in this world. Great quote, right? I wonder if we can put that on Twitter. Ouch, we're over by one character. What are we going to do? However, if I use ellipses on an ASCII count and if I use an M dash instead of the three dashes now instead of being over by one, I'm under by two. So good, good character count savers. Okay, here's a big one. We're all getting older. I know that comes as a shock to every single human being in this room. One of these days we are very likely to need screen readers. I don't know about you all but I'm definitely wearing these glasses not just for up close but for far away. My name tag is a good example of this. I can't get it farther away from my neck to read the schedule. I have to take it off, I can't see this. We're all getting to a point where we're going to need help reading lots of things and that's going to include the internet. There are millions of people out there who access the internet using a screen reader and there are some ways that we can help those folks out and let's face it, like I said, we're all going to be there one day. So here's a couple ways we can do that. Number one, fill out the alt text. Now this can be true whether your image is on social media or you're posting it on your WordPress site. When you upload an image, you'll see a little box that hovers that says alt text. What that does is it lets you write in a description of the picture. So if somebody has trouble with their visions, they now have a couple of sentences that describe what's happening in the photo that's illustrating your point and their screen reader will read that out loud to them. Speaking of those screen readers, when you use hashtags, and this is one that I learned only a year ago, if it's lowercase, the screen reader tries to pronounce it versus if it's uppercase, it will say, for example, it will say hashtag WCUS versus the other one, it will say hashtag wookus. Do you know how dumb the screen reader sounds after it's talked about hashtag wookus for the second or third or fourth time? Think about it. The other one is camel case and that's when some of it's capitalized, some of it's lowercase and it's strung together by a big long word, that's what camel casing is. So for example, 21st century problems. A screen reader will read that hashtag as 21st century problems, which is a combination of different words in there. I don't even want to know what it would think of saying if it was strung altogether in lowercase. I'm not even sure I could come up with something pronounceable out of that. So definitely use camel case in your hashtags when possible, very, very helpful to the folks on the screen readers. The next one is don't go hashtag crazy in the middle of your text. Save your hashtags for the end or use your hashtags judiciously. I've started to see people get into this habit of going what I call hashtag happy. Suddenly it's all over the place. Only use the hashtag that are gonna get you mileage. So for example, I did a quote of myself using really bad hashtag usage and you can see, for example, it says unsolicited marketing advice, not everything in your tweet needs a hashtag, especially common nouns, it muddles your message, is rough to read. For more tips like this on effective social media, come to my presentations at and I labeled a couple places. Something like this, probably marketing might have had a benefit of a hashtag, but like tips didn't, hashtag didn't, advice didn't. Sometimes I've seen people hashtag the word blog. Do you know how many people have blogs? It's probably not gonna help you. So think about when you're hashtagging what is really gonna help people find you and as a generality, save it for the end. Sometimes you can throw it in the middle but as a generality, save it to the end, especially with the new 280 character count, you think more or less you can probably get there. The other one, and the contrast is so bad, I almost forgot about it, down the bottom, think about color contrast. I can't even really read that little pink. I see a lot of people typing things that aren't really great on the eyes. Think about it when you type it. If it's a dark background, you always want light letters and then vice versa. So always think about that when you have a site, what does it look like in an image? What does it look like on your own websites because it's not accessible to people to be able to read it? Okay, here's the next one. Be a good storyteller. This is super important for Instagram. Don't lose the future for a moment in the present.  They go away. Here's a problem. So these are pictures of the rail park in my neighborhood in Philadelphia. They've just repurposed these old train tracks to a park kind of like the High Line in New York if any of you have ever been to the High Line in New York City. So these old commercial rail yards, they've elevated it and they've turned it into bushes and cool benches and great places for people to hang out. Opening day, a part of the park weaves through Chinatown and they had kids from Chinatown using one of those like really big dragons. They led the opening parade followed by people in really colorful costumes from that community. And then also there was this award winning high school marching band that also was in the area. They came up behind. Then there's also an Afro-Caribbean community in the area and they were on their own drums leading the parade. And do you see any visual evidence of that anywhere on Instagram? You wanna know why? They did it all in stories. It's gone. They've lost their grand opening moment in history other than one photo, which wasn't the best photo ever, the best video ever of them cutting the ribbon. That's all that remains of that day in history on their social media. So Instagram stories are great, but balance it with what you wanna have last. You gotta think about that. Okay, so here's a great one. How do you look good on Instagram? For those of you who are my age, you understand the parody of I am not a designer, nor do I play one on TV. Everybody who's over 40 is laughing, everybody other 40 is going, what is she talking about? So here's the thing. I love Photoshop. I kind of know what looks good. If you wanted me to create something in scratch from Photoshop, that is the worst idea ever.  One of my favorites is a website called Canva, canva.com. What it contains are these amazing templates for every social media platform known out there to mankind, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, you name it, it's got a template that sizes for that. It has infographics, everything, and it's all drag drop technology. It's all right click and you can change the colors. It's fantastic stuff. And it is free, which is fantastic. They give you access to the site for free.  Over here on the, well, left or right, depending on your perspective. Is the Bonjour Paris? That's one of their free templates. It took me about five seconds to change dates down at the bottom and I had this gorgeous graphic that we used last year to congratulate WordCamp Europe on having their event in Paris. I look like I spent all day designing this. I spent 30 seconds changing a date. Right now on the WordCamp US Twitter, we're announcing who is speaking this year at the event. That template is literally made right on Canva and we just drag and drop people's photos into it. If I didn't have their grids, I would be like, oh gosh, I got to size this. I got to crop this. Is this the same size as this thing? I mean, I would be at this all day. This is maybe 45 seconds worth of work for us. Another company that I was helping out on their Facebook page is a company that makes hand knit stockings up in Vermont. Really cute little hand knit stockings.  I'm not a photographer. I can't photograph little adorable baby feet like that. They give you free photographs that you're allowed to have and you can utilize for your social media posting.  I drag and dropped items in there and I'm all set.  Most of their designs are for free, but they do have some that are paid. And if you want to use one of their paid items, they will charge you the overwhelming fee of one dollar per item that you want to use. So it's a great, great resource. Another great resource is a site called Pixabay, which is free photos for non-commercial use.  All right, you can't put the image on a t-shirt and go out and sell the t-shirts up on Zazzle or something, but you can use them on your social media accounts. You can use them on your blogs. Really great resource. And then another great resource, if you're wanting to find graphics and you're like, no, I really need to pay a little bit of money for something different. A site that I really like is 123RF, which stands for 123 Royalty Free. And it's a credit system. You pay so much money and you get X number of credits and then you apply them to different items that you want. And the credits are really great because what they do is any picture that's on there, the credits go up by the quality you need. So if you need to, I don't know, shrink wrap a bus or something, you're gonna pay a lot more than if you need a little 72 DPI photo to go on your website. A community theater that I work with each year, we usually buy $100 in credits just to get our graphics for the season. And most of the time we use maybe $50 worth. And then we have extra and they let you keep them. You don't lose them, so it's good. Okay, here's the thing that's really, really important. Branding across all your accounts. A lot of times people will maybe start on Facebook and then they'll get Twitter and then they'll wander over to Instagram or maybe they started their Facebook page 10 years ago and then five years into it they got Twitter and so on and so on. And what happens is that the names on all of those platforms are different. Also, over time, naving conventions and lengths have changed. So go back across all your accounts and try to make the match. The only account that annoyingly will not let you change and carry your followers is Instagram which is really, really frustrating.  There's no problem that it's very seamless. Not sure why Instagram wants to be annoying with it. So if you have to match Instagram and work from there. When you're able, camel case, it helps with readability of those accounts. Also try to keep your imagery as similar as possible across all of those accounts. So you're like, oh, I know this is them. This is their logo. These are their colors. I know who this is. So try to keep it really, really similar. I usually recommend that in the smaller circular or square photos on accounts, that's where your logo goes and then the bigger sweeping top image, you can be a little more creative with something that's on brand. But that tiny image, keep that to your logo across all platforms. Get rid of the extra characters on Facebook. If people had their Facebook pages created years ago, they used to throw this like number string out on the side of the Facebook page name and you had to get 50 followers and then after you got 50 followers, you could get rid of the gigantic number string. They stopped doing that about six years ago but a lot of people haven't gone back and gotten rid of like customized their names. So if you have one of those older pages, go back in and customize your name. You can do it. And if you don't know how, I will show you how out the hall afterwards. Also avoid confusing names. I won the t-shirt on this. The first time I used Twitter, it was Laura underscore underscore BC because Laura BC was taken, Laura single underscore BC was taken. So I thought I'd do two underscores. What happened? Nobody could find me because they were all tweeting the Laura BC single underscore person. So don't do that. The second name was the screen name that I had used when I first started the internet and everybody had screen names and Pelle Roja LJC seemed just perfectly sane to me except once again, nobody could find it. So I finally came up with what I have now which is New York or Laura, which everyone can remember. So come up with something memorable and if you need to change it, you can change it. I'll give you an example of a person who's incredibly hard to find on social media. Norman Reedus who plays Daryl on The Walking Dead any Walking Dead fans out there. His name on Twitter is Big Bald Head. It's super hard to find him because he created a website back in like 1999 to display his artwork when he was a starving struggling artist in New York. That was www Big Bald Head and he's kept it. He is the hardest human to find ever on social media platforms. So think about updating that look and keeping that branding the same. Here's another one that's a really cool idea and people don't think about this. Most of the time on your website you'll have like the little icons at the top and it'll be like Facebook, Twitter, whatever accounts you're on. Make sure that that information is in more than one place. Definitely across the top is awesome. On your contact page, aside from having your email or your contact form, whatever you have, also mention where you can be found on social media on your contact page. Also very helpful in the footer of your website and occasionally think about embedding your social media into one of your website posts. So here's an example from, as I said, a community theater that I work with. We're doing a show that is the sequel to Willy Wonka. How many of you have tried to upload like 20 something photos into a WordPress photo gallery? Have you wanted to go out for like coffee? Because it takes forever and then they're the wrong size and then you have to optimize them and it takes forever. Or you could just upload them to Facebook in about 35 seconds and then embed your Facebook gallery. And it's a good way then to get people, oh wait, they're on social media too. Let me follow them over there. It's a great way of doing that. You can also do this with Twitter. You can do this with Instagram. I mean, pick your platform. You can do this with just about anything. And it's a great way to get followers over there and you don't feel like you've wasted an entire morning uploading and sizing photos. Here's another good one. Get yourself a YouTube account. They're super easy to deal with, super, super easy. It's gotten way better over the last couple of years. If a picture paints a thousand words, a video paints 10K. What is the number one search engine? Google. What's the number two search engine? YouTube. Who owns YouTube? Google. They like each other. Get a YouTube channel. It helps Google find you. And again, that branding thing, keep the name consistent across everything. It works out well. Lots of people do short little videos for Facebook. If you're recording it on your smartphone, upload it to YouTube too. Just cross-platform it. Upload it in more than one location. It has lots and lots of benefits for you. Keep it short, keep it sweet, unless you're doing some sort of like top 10 countdown video, like three minutes. You don't want more than three minutes. People don't wanna be around for more than three minutes. Or unless it's like a live broadcast product reveal that's a different whole other kennel of fish. But keep it brief, keep it short. It really, really, really has benefits. People consume media on different channels, different ways. This is one way of helping people to find you. Here's another one. So like I said, I was gonna hit some highlights of places. Own it everywhere. Just about every other site there is that's out there will let you claim a space on that site if you're the business owner. And it depends business by business. Yelp, TripAdvisor, Foursquare, whatever is relevant to the business you're in. Go and claim your space. The one that absolutely everybody should claim is Google. And they have done so much in the last four months of changing that platform. You can do so many things right now. I just grabbed a screen cap of the Philadelphia Art Museums, the real famous one that Rocky ran up in, you know, beginning of the movie. They now have things aside from just being able to find your website, get directions.  You also now get calls to action. You can buy tickets. You can learn more. You can sign up now right before they even get to your page. You can just click an immediate call to action which is super, super relevant because we're all walking around with these things. So think about going out there, claiming your page.  And it is attached into the Google My Business now. Yes, it all interfaces into that. Yes, correct. Here's the other thing that I always tell people. Social media overall is never, ever, ever, ever, ever a place for now hear this. If you feel yourself going to do caps locks of rage on the keyboard, put it down, walk around the block, go away. It's a place to celebrate, congratulate and inform. I don't know anybody who ever felt good about doing now hear this on social media four hours later. Usually it's groveling that ensued four hours later. Controversies happen. Better to be out there and make a mistake and own that mistake than not to have the say in the conversation, okay? If you make a mistake, just apologize and not like a wimpy apology. Not like I'm sorry if I offended anybody, no. I am sorry, period. Stop it, I am sorry, okay? There's all sorts of ways of apologizing and I think the best way to do it usually is having a self-deprecating sense of humor unless it's something really, really serious and then just I am sorry we were wrong. That's easiest. As you can see, there's Cathay Pacific who had a typo on their plane. They on social media just had a very self-deprecating sense of humor about the fact that they typoed the name of their plane and they were now fixing it. So there's lots of ways of just, like I said, coming around it, humor and a self-deprecating sense of humor is probably the best way to go out it. And there you have it. So thank you for listening to me. You can find the slides. Give me 15 minutes after we're done and I'll upload these. I have an old version up there right now. You can find them on my website which is NewYorkerLaura.com and you can find me on pretty much any of the social media platforms that I participate on at New Yorker Laura. You'll find me there. So thank you very much. Anybody have any questions? Yes. You didn't mention Google Plus and I know nobody uses it. Yes. Google Plus, I actually kind of think it's funny. Google every so often creates something, do we remember Google Wave, anybody? Google gets on a kick of creating different things at different times that thinks it's gonna be the next best thing and sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. I will tell you what, the best thing that came out of Google Plus was Google Hangouts on Air which then morphed over to YouTube once they bought it and it's now very seamless to go live on YouTube then this convoluted mess that was Google Plus and Google Hangouts on Air. It's, Google is still there as Google. I mean there's, I don't think people use Google Plus like I said, other than maybe Google employees and even that is dying. There's like a whole set of internet memes out there on who uses Google Plus and it's very funny like that. I mean, you can but here's the thing, if your SEO is good enough in your articles anyway you should be getting it without doing that. I mean there's just generic, really good SEO of what writing your content is which is like a whole other topic in of itself. I mean you could have put it over there but at the end of the day how people Google you and what you Google for is more on your in-depth content and is it a 500 count article? Is it 1200, is it 1500 and then using keywords and having really good original content. So it does have use but you can post it there. I'm just not sure it has as much benefit of having your really good content to begin with. Yes, LinkedIn is awesome. LinkedIn is actually very business appropriate. I'll give you a really good example. I'll throw these slides up on SlideShare on LinkedIn and it will get a lot of traction when I put the right hashtagging and everything on it. So if you're talking very much business and focusing it on business.  But it's yeah, no, if you're trying to connect business to business and particularly I would say like service industries, things like that, nonprofits also. I think there's a lot of traction to be had over on LinkedIn. That's like a whole other business plan in of itself over on LinkedIn. Absolutely, yes. Oh, it absolutely is, without question. The impermanence level. So as Snapchat has it all starts to react to each other. Right. You didn't really come in Snapchat as this. You know, it's interesting too. I mean if anybody who tells you that they know what social media platform is gonna stick like five years from now. I think Facebook probably has legs but we're all still out there on Myspace, right? So anybody who tells you they know what the thing that's gonna be top of the charts five years from now. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think anybody's really got that kind of foresight. But you are right, it is coming as very much so a reaction to Snapchat. And I'm kind of wondering what kind of legs Snapchat has. I think at a certain point people kind of get tired of the filters and what have you. I mean it's fun, it's great but I'm just wondering it's cute for a moment but I think people kind of grow out of it. So that's my two cents on it. But who knows what it'll be, what it will morph into.   Not really, there's all kinds of things. So who knows? Yeah, I mean I've certainly used it as an extension of an event when I've done an event and I've had it to extend that brand at the event. I've used it as something fun for the people on site. I haven't seen it give traction for them to wanna come back to it like the next year. Like it's been a fun bonus perk for the people who are there. So that's, like I said, my own two cents on that one. Anybody else, yes? That would have been a grace use of them now. They just, and find it and repurpose it which would be great, yeah. Yeah, but you're right. You have to do the one extra step, you're right. And it is, yeah, well and the other option of it too is now people have to be willing to wait. I have to like go scroll up and go find that and go like it's not as organic as it could be. People have to be willing to like really take that extra step versus oh I could just flip, you know, scroll back quick. So yeah, that's a good point. Anybody else with a question? Okay, well thank you very much.


Well, most of you out there like quality products for a really, really good price, and a company everybody seems to know about, but we got to keep talking to them, is Monoprice. And I'm here with Danny Hernandez from Monoprice, and you're a product manager here, right? Yes, I am. So we're going to talk real geeky about cables. Cables are so exciting. So my favorite thing is introducing the world and everyone to new types of technology, new types of cables. One really cool type of cable I'd like to introduce everyone to is our Slimrun Cat 6 line. Okay, so Cat 6 is Ethernet, right? Yes. Okay, come on. How advanced can wires get? What's new? Well, these cables can get thinner and thinner. They can be more malleable, and they can save you a lot of space and time when it comes to setting up either a new server, a new home built home network, or whatever it may be. No more do you have to deal with big bulky wires and big bulky cables when you can work with new, better and thinner Ethernet cables? I absolutely literally did not know that there was advancements going on in Ethernet. I mean, Ethernet hasn't changed its look. The little number changes, Cat 5, Cat 5, Cat 6, but what do you guys have here? So what I have here is this is our new type of Slimrun Cat 6 Ethernet cables. This is a shielded solution. It's a very, very thin-gauge cable. It's Cat 6. Oh, it says Cat 7 on it. Oh, yeah, it says Cat 7. Oh, look, it advanced while we were in the booth. This is amazing. This is audio as well. So I'm holding onto this. So this is a more standard Ethernet cable we're used to, right? Yeah. Just so you guys can see, it's like half the diameter maybe. Maybe two-thirds of the diameter of a regular twisted pair Ethernet cable, right? Yeah, keep in mind this blue cable is also an unshielded cable. So there's no shielding on this. This is the standard thickness at which you would find a normal Cat 6 cable. As opposed to this is a shielded cable. So on top of the conductors, on top of the twisting, you're also getting that additional shielding with this cable. So it's a complete solution that is protected from EMI and RFI in a small Slim package. So those acronyms were electronic field interference? It's electromagnetic interference and radio interference. Radio interference. Okay, so we've all dealt with interference that's driven us nuts. So that's pretty neat. That's just in a small cable. Now, I was just blown away. They've got an Ethernet cable with the connector at a 90-degree angle. That's crazy talk. Yeah, right. Who knew that there could be exactly innovation when it comes to Ethernet cables? But yeah, we've got a lot of feedback from a lot of our customers asking for a right angle connector. And making a right angle connector isn't necessarily as easy as it would seem. Well, so everybody would have been doing it. Exactly. So it took us, the development of our Slim Run Cat 6 technology, to be able to implement a very compact, very neat solution. And it is very specific as to why we've done the angle in which we have. And it's a lot to do with the lights on a patch bay. We didn't want to necessarily block the lights that will either be on the top or the bottom of the Ethernet port. So we've made sure we did our homework and it's bending to the side. Even the connector, Steve Zoomin on this, even the connector, look how much thinner that is. Let's see if I can get them at the same distance. How much thinner that is than the standard Ethernet jack. That's crazy. So I don't quite understand. How did the wires get smaller? I mean, why weren't we just using smaller wires to start with? What changed? Well, so Monoprice, we are a cable company through and through. Our parent company is a very well-known cable manufacturer and we've adopted the technology that we've learned from our parent company and adopted a better machining process that allows us to be able to twist the pairs tighter, ultimately creating the same performance out of less copper and ultimately a lighter cable. So it allowed us to be able to get a much thinner cable that performs at the same standards as a standard Ethernet cable.  Yeah, that's exactly it. Well, I wouldn't have thought something as basic physical characteristics of twisting a wire could actually keep advancing, but that is pretty cool. Now, you've got some real pretty ones over here, right? Yeah, so these are the cables that we've launched. They're going on about two years now. These have been a huge hit for us at Monoprice. This is our standard Slim Run Cat 6A line. We offer these in multi-packs. You can purchase these in multi-packs of various colors, just like what is here in my hand. You can get them in multi-packs of single colors in either five packs, ten packs, or even 20 packs. So this is the easiest, simplest way of getting a lot of Ethernet cables for whenever you're doing your upgrade. All in the same color. All in the same color, or even multiple colors if you don't want to have to sit there and go. I thought Tyler told me a minute ago, you can't get a pack like this. It's all different colors. Oh, no. You can do... This is straight out. I don't know why. That just makes me really happy. It's got white and yellow and baby blue and black and gray. It just... I don't know. They're really nice looking. Yeah. It's so thin and so small. Just storing these when you put them away is going to be a lot nicer. Yeah. Okay. So this is... We're probably going to leave the realm of what normal humans need to learn about, but we're going to keep going because there's more fun stuff here. So HDMI cables are very, very thick and very heavy, but for those listening, I'm holding in my hand. How long is this? That's a 330-foot Slim Run AV HDR cable. This thing is... This is as thin as the Ethernet cables he was just showing me. We were kidding around with Tyler the sales guy earlier about you could do curls with a normal run like this, but this weighs nothing. I mean, this is unbelievably thin and unbelievably light. Yeah. We use a hybrid optical fiber technology with optical fiber transceivers to convert a standard copper electrical signal into an optical signal. So this is optical fiber not copper? It is. It's a hybrid. So there is a little bit of copper in that cable, and that's ultimately used to power the transceivers that are inside the cable, as well as used for traditional handshakes and timing used for the HDMI interface. So the chips are in these connectors, right? Yes, they are. In the HDMI connectors. So what about shielding on this? So the connectors themselves are fully shielded with a full metal jacket that protect ultimately the chip set and the transceiver technology that's built in. Beyond that, there is no shielding necessary because since it is an optical-based solution, it's not susceptible to the radio interference or the electromagnetic interference. Okay. Is that because the light stays collimated inside the optical fiber? Yeah, that's exactly right. So with that said, this is a great solution for when you have an environment where there's a lot of lighting, generators, a lot of power. Say you're using our CMP or plenum-rated cable, you can run it over ballasts in drop-down ceilings without having to worry about the image flickering on and off when the lights come on and off. Oh, right, right. I hate when that happens. By the way, I never knew that the video game Full Metal Jack was actually about shielded optical fiber cables. Of course it is. Who knew? Okay, but you guys are announcing something or coming to market with something else even cooler than this. I'm doing the Vanna White part here. So what have we got here? So continuing our tradition of innovation. We've launched the Slimrun AV cables about a year and a half, two years ago. That's the one we were just playing with. That's the one we were just playing with. And it's been hugely successful with our customers. So one of our biggest requests was to innovate and make the connectors smaller. So in the process, we've designed and implemented a removable connector on the HDMI side. He's just pulled the HDMI cable off of the optical cable and we've got, what is that? Is that micro? Yeah, that's micro HDMI. Explain why you'd want a smaller connector. Yeah, so you said you had to get smaller connectors. Why? Because ultimately, if you're running through a conduit or you're running it through a wall, it makes it significantly easier when you're working with a smaller connector. Okay, so the big bulky connector gets caught on everything, you can't get as many through, that sort of thing, right? Yeah, that's exactly it. It saves you man-hours of labor. Maybe even woman-hours. You never know. Or woman-hours, yeah. You don't know. It could happen, right? It ultimately saves you labor hours. Person-hours. Yeah, so that's the idea behind it and it makes it a lot easier. And then once you're done with the run, you have the option of adding our optional DVI connector. So he just pulled off of, again, now he's got the micro HDMI cable at one end and he just pulled off RS-232? No, this is DVI. Sorry, DVI. Yes, so this is a digital DVI connector. So on the fly you can hot-swap the connector to either be an HDMI or a DVI interface. That is crazy. This is going to light the world on fire. Get it? My pun? Get the lighting thing? Yeah. The light is the future, ultimately. I mean, just like with networking solutions, it's only reasonable to expand into the audio video space with the same technology. Very cool. Well, I've learned a lot today from you, Mandy. This is fantastic. And people can find your products at? Yeah. You can find our products at monoprice.com. And you should be able to find us anywhere. There you go. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.


In the meantime, the police command, surveillance, and ambush team today rescued Juan Hacmed Uzman, a 30-year-old member of the local vigilante group around Tipu Garage, federal housing estate, Lugbe area of the FCT. According to a statement signed by the command spokesperson, Josephine Ade, today, the victim got into an argument with a cleric, Malham, whose name is yet unknown from the same area. The heated argument degenerated into an outbreak of violence that led to the murder and setting ablaze of Ahmad Uzman by the enraged mob mobilized by the cleric, numbering about 200.


What's up guys today? We're going to be looking at what it was like to be a Yu-Gi-Oh collector in 2013 Seven years ago. So this is a video by old-school expert one of my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh youtubers He's a vintage guy. He's posted a lot of old-school openings and stuff like that So this is his binder from 2013. He quotes a lot of prices at the time Which is what made me like fascinated with this video I was like this is hilarious The prices are just so much different than now and they're just almost comically low at the time I guess they were not low obviously there was a lot different But I thought you guys would get a kick out of this seeing what it was like seven years ago with all of our Cards that are hundreds and thousands of dollars. Some of these are just crazy low So let's let's hop into it. Yeah, and he's recording vertically. He doesn't normally do that This just shows you how old the video is so the video is like that. I know You've probably never seen so many awesome old-school cards all in one collection and everything is first edition and everything's English It's all mint or near-mint condition. Most of it being mint The cool thing about this video is there's a lot of mint candy He is like mint condition rock art Did you don't really see those anymore because they've all been graded but in like 2013 people weren't grading much I guess there was a couple of people doing it But for the most part hardly anyone was grading Yu-Gi-Oh cards or grading sports cards, but not Yu-Gi-Oh So a lot of his stuff is like mint condition. Raw, which is really cool to see. Here's where it gets interesting Mechanical chaser, morphing jar, needle worm Royal decree, luminous soldier, tomb canis soldier, dv warrior, magic arm shield, and another mechanical chaser That's what I pulled out of my box These obviously the first four are the real rare ones Royal Decrees are up right now. It varies in price according to the ban list because it's a pretty useful card But this is around like 65-70 bucks right now That one isn't too crazy because it was as he said playable back then so 65-70 I think it's probably like 120 now or something like that. I'm not totally sure. I'll pop it up That's how I'm filming this video, which was 2013 late 2013 something like that So this stuff doesn't fluctuate too much because it's older collectible and it's pretty steady steady in 2013 but not now Morphing jar for mint ones are about 150 $150 for a mint morphing jar if you guys saw my top 10 most valuable cards check it out Morphing jar was my number one card at about $8,000 and a 10 so $150 then 8,000 now here. We've got some promo cards. We've got the three. He actually has the DDS promos DDS promos Those are the big ones obviously really rare all in general condition That's really hard to find hard to find in the sealed games, too I can tell you he didn't say the prices of those but I was interested to see what they were going for I think DDS blue eyes was always still kind of expensive got the exodia set first edition This is gone up a lot. There's one on eBay right now by the time this video gets posted It'll be gone, but it's at $265. That's the auction. It started it like a hundred bucks Mint condition first edition legend of blue eyes exodia set $265 that is a lot currently at this time according to him. It was a lot at 2013 now Good luck getting even one mint piece for $265. That's pretty crazy. I would say the whole set is worth 10 grand and 10s maybe something like that. It's a lot So first set exodia sets are pretty expensive these days and this one is mint had for a while paid $55 for it back in 2007 He paid $55 in 2007. So if we go back 13 years you're paying $55 for a set three first-ed L.O.B. Blue-Eye Three first-ed L.O.B. Blue-Eyes. Let's see if he says the price. These guys are getting really rare Really rare. They've shot up to about $50 $50 $50 those cards in 10 are like what? One sold for okay. This price was questionable because there was some shielding, but 85 grand $50 So whether they're 40 or 85 grand, whatever the whatever the real prices they were 50 back in 2013 These are all this is I call this my gem mint page because everything on here has been pulled from a pack It's packed fresh perfect nothing wrong with it That's most of the binder, but this one especially this page because I pulled almost all this stuff So we've got four red eyes for blue eyes and a monster reborn. It's all First edition I did not pull the monster. Unfortunately. Hey, we pulled a monster reborn This page is also kind of expensive. The dark magicians are almost about $40 net 40 bucks three Guy the fierce nights First step they're about there's still about ten bucks. That guy was ten dollars This guy mint condition ten dollars now. He's about two thousand and we got the Mix of metal raiders supers and LOP supers couple dark holes. That's three dark holes I'm willing to trade any of this stuff. Please can I trade you please? Please but I don't usually sell Not big on selling it because see that's that's the thing about back then when the prices were like five bucks ten bucks or whatever I wouldn't sell much either I think trading makes a lot more sense because if you're gonna sit like why sell something for five dollars You can trade it for another card you want because five dollars. You know, it's just not much So here we've got metal raiders stuff three-time lizards All the metal raiders stuff has actually gone up in price leave your guesses in the comments So what it went up to? So I'm pretty much you said some of school. I just have it around Eight to ten dollars eight to ten dollars guys summon skull first-edition mint was eight to ten dollars But time was it used to be like four five bucks now these are about ten ten these skulls were about eight That's how much I pay for each of these eight dollars go for Twenty twenty five dollars twenty twenty five. All right. We're getting up there eight dollars barrel dragons These have gone up to almost 30 bucks 30 bucks well, they must have been like playable. There's like more than someone's called three times. It's crazy It's really crazy. I don't know. Yes, there are more collectors now So obviously the supply cannot get any bigger so the demand had must have increased Economics 101 so we got three buster bladers three got an attack force and then first I called the haunted Well, I don't know why I say first to everything in here is first-ed Seats fire chain destruction I guess I just say it cuz like unlimited edition is just not worth nearly as much with this older stuff I want to know what the unlimited price is where I'm guessing like a buck 50 cents $2 because this stuff I'm some of it's like five to eight dollars some of the values. So we got three Dark paladins up here. These are the arid ones. I've told you guys about Pretty rare about 40 bucks each 40 bucks for corrected dark paladin So whether you believe that's a overhyped card or not 40 bucks was a good deal They were 40 bucks for a long time and then boom Now they're in PSA 10 like four or five grand something like that And XYZ dragon and XY dragon funny thing is this is like, you know, five or six bucks first-ed men And this is like three first edition XYZ dragon cannon three dollars. That's pretty cool I mean, it's not still not that expensive now, but first-edition magicians force ultra rare $3 another corrected Dark paladin if someone wants to let me know I'll take it. I'll take it. I'm gonna send him this I'll take it. So that's what it was like in 2013 if you were collecting old-school cards The cards were cheap. We're talking $40 dark paladin corrected art. We're talking $8 sum and skull first-edition men. I mean, it's just crazy Can you guys even imagine that like right now what you'd spend on one PSA card could buy you almost every card in his Binder which this binder at this point, you know, what was worth a few hundred bucks now It's like this if this same binder existed be worth tens of thousands, you know It's crazy just crazy to see what's happened with Yu-Gi-Oh Hope you guys enjoyed that if you did make sure you guys like the video and go ahead and check out old-school expert I'll link him down below because one this is his video to he has a great channel and then Don't need a third thing don't really need a third thing. Yeah, so that's it for this video guys. I'll see you guys later peace Dark bright


YouTube Super Bowl bound Eagles absolutely flood the Niners. I don't want to hear about injuries They should have brought more players to the field or they should have blocked a little bit better And then maybe their quarterbacks wouldn't get hurt But you know excuses everybody has them at the end of the day the Eagles dominated the Niners moving to the Super Bowl I'm excited about it. I was at the Niners game and Super Bowl can't lie. It's a little bit. It's a little bit tough for me to get to Super Bowl I'm looking at tickets are about forty five hundred dollars if they get to like thirty five hundred Possible, you know what would help if you guys hit that like button and comment that would help Put me in the Super Bowl. It really would I promise and I'll be there. I'll take pictures I'll post them on my IG my social medias. Make sure you guys check the description for those below But Eagles team team it's gotta be you know best team the NFC by far Eagles team team time. Let's take a look at the newest addition to the Eagles team team It's only going to get better with these new cards, but you guys see them right there. Jalen Mills, honestly One of my favorite players ever is Jalen Mills. I mean he was just a stud a seventh round pick Started a cornerback for four years left cornerback Which you guys know my real football sweats out there know the left cornerbacks always the better one Why because when a right-handed quarterback jobs back, that's where their body's facing More of their prime not necessarily their primary read, but that's where they're looking at first So that left corner back on your defense is definitely gonna be your number one corner I don't have the team team active right now all the way So but he will be 98 speed when I get 50 50 which I have in these videos So he has 98 speed with the full team team 99 man 99 zone six foot tall actually actually kind of cracked to be honest This whole team team is tough. Love Jalen Mills, man He earned every penny as a seventh round pick physical player won the Super Bowl with Jalen Mills I'm rocking Deep knockout on him with pick artists You guys know I play a lot of man-to-man the Eagles don't really have man archetype players So I don't have the same abilities I would on my real team But we're gonna make it work just cuz you know, they're so fast We're gonna run by Brian Dawkins with deep knockout Jalen Mills with deep knockout Carmichael with medium knockout and CJ Gj with deep knockout as well man coverage pick artists You guys know but I can't have pick artists on everybody cuz it costs money on everybody And we got a son Redick the should be defensive player of the year right here The son Redick and I believe he would have he will have 96 speed stud He's wrecked two games so far beat the Giants. He beat the Niners pretty much by himself We just got to put some respect on his son Redick He is one of those elite pass rushers like Von Miller like TJ Watt like Bolsa like Parsons He's in that group. All right. He's in that group. You guys are watching him dominate. He's in that group of pass rushers Offense pretty much the same. We got Randall. We got Devontae. We got AJ Brown We're gonna be running Zach Ertz and Dallas Goddard buyers are running back waiting for the Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hertz is going to change the Eagles team. Let me know if you guys think the Eagles would beat the Chiefs I know we're gonna talk about it this week and a half coming up right now But at the end of the day the advantage that the Eagles have on the Chiefs is that they're a physical football team They can run the ball on offense control the game a little bit more at the end of the day If you beat up that defense man at 13 fourth quarter, I think the Eagles will have an easier time on offense Then my home's in the boys dropping back to past 50 times the game. I hope so. Let's go Let me know what you guys think about a Super Bowl coming up. I'm excited. I mean, I like the Chiefs Love Andy Reed. He's a big part of my fan hood as a child as it was the coach of my team My home's is the man. Kelsey is the man. So Super excited about this game. It's gonna be awesome. This is the theme team. We've been crushing with them I'm almost on a limb to say this theme team is almost comp now boys So check out these games. I played with the team team as we're out here frying and you guys know You can watch every single night on Twitch. That link is below checking the chat Let me know you're from YouTube and check out these Eagles team team strict theme team games You know, that's all we respect strict three theme teams. I Don't think Matt Ryan can be it Maddie ice How raw masters slinger? I mean if you don't use fearless, you got a shot Lamar is a good quarterback I had him for a little bit. Why did I get rid of Lamar? hmm We're getting quad father right now. Jesus.  Are we serious right now? Oh? My Jesus dude. There's just no way that you really just ran that with no no fake. No nothing Reddick go get him reddick. Just can't throw that past. I got no that.  I just gotta dump it off, bro Rose this that good.  Dog like this is really killing me drop dog like And he snaps is so fast like Why am I not covering this dog? Like I swear. This is gonna be some other type of play Bro, this is the best play in the game It's quarterback draw the best play in the game, dude Dude, I honestly hate to just bump into somebody and just up can't play defense no more. I Hate it.   I hate it. Just the easiest lurk in the world I bump into somebody and I can't control my player at all Randall, oh Randall Oh, you're a lord. I mean dog.  I don't know how to stop this and audible this guy for all.  It really is. I like what the Reticus is getting thrown on the ground man. Gold line normal right here.   It's nobody blitz nobody attacked like nobody saw that Was a draw There we go just the same combo every player boys There you go hard grave good work kid Reggie why? Well, they don't see the quarterback, bro. They really don't see the quarterback. It literally is just run I this is OP like what the hell am I supposed to go like what am I supposed to call on this draw? Prodigy for a light.   This is how Well, that's like a free two yards. What are we doing right now? Steve young 13 carries 87 yards, bro I don't know.  I'm lost for words right now our grave. I wish you could do that against quarterback draw What is gotta do to stop quarterback draw is just insane right now. Oh my god, and that dude Did they just get ran by with ease? This is just miserable.   There's two minutes and 50 seconds left. That's good coms. I didn't see that up there I didn't see that good coms. I had no idea what's going on in the game. Honestly Like who don't even try to click on right there. Like what are we doing, man? Why is nobody blocking the linebacker? I have no idea to stop quarterback draw. I don't know Maybe I should put a spy. I'm gonna try that. Let's go reddit. Let's go reddit Let's go reddit. Oh my god Just had no faith in my zones covering a corner all right there, dude I mean, dude, how many times is this dude snapped and don't ball up in the air. Can we get a pick from the game, please? Let's go reddit.  Well, why do you hate the game, W? Look at these sh**.   That's where we'll be in what 10 days boys.  I hate it.   Why is my computer diving? I hate it.  My computer should never f**king dive for a tackle ever because that was the first play the game Bill's way to pay attention stupid sh** Well, it switched me to the wrong player because apparently you can't switch the players that are diving So because of that it switched me to a guy that wasn't diving a mile away And it was the only guy that could make the tackler slow him down for somebody else to make the tackle So here we are all cuz Jordan Poyer can't cover the guy running back Yo Randall is him, though. I can't dude Randall is actually cracked dude.  Come on, bro. Like you gotta jump that. Oh, yeah Reddick with another screamer. Let's go boys. Let's see. Jay. You're out there. I can't lie.  What are we doing that that works It's just like I dude.  I thought I would get a way better pass lead than that I can't lie to you. I thought I'd have a way better pass lead than what I just got on my team Bro just to sign that mother right now sign him sign him right now. I got a pass commit to cover a bubble Like what are we doing here boys? And that would make sense. It would make plenty of sense Yeah, I like that part of the game that I got a pass commit to cover a bubble makes perfect sense makes perfect sense Okay, but the problem is when you pass commit your defensive lines is quits So I'm S. O. L.  I one of the worst things about the game right there. There's no way That should be a drop I'm a good blocking boys. That's fabulous. God. What the man? They just like I hate this man. I swear to God.  Why we caught this dead standing in a box too long We got a seam to our red zone threat for a touchdown, but no a defense event just gets untouched Oh line just moved out of the way. Oh line just moved out of the way. Beautiful. Dude. That's just what we wanted Redic That's where I put a bruiser on No one read zone threat like matter dude. Remember them those times. Let's go hurts. You didn't catch that Wow, that's tough. That was tough scene. Huh boys? Dottie Goddard That's kids Bro, how many times y'all see me run slants and all right y'all got it kid make up everything. Yeah, I know you right Y'all heavy slurpers bro nuts. All right, gentlemen.  Good job, gentlemen. Good job, gentlemen Thank you about time doing door right to it eventually dude. That's your door right to it. Come on now GG GG GG Super Bowl champion in the world. Let's go


Today's quick tip is to put your phone to bed elsewhere. So you go to bed in one room and your phone goes to bed in another room. This is a helpful thing across the whole family. It's something that has revolutionized life in our household. So the idea might be to up a charging station and if light in our house, we sleep downstairs. It's an upside down house because of the view which is epic but strange that we're downstairs. Anyway, we sleep downstairs. The phones go to sleep upstairs on a charging station so all the phones are together upstairs out of the way. Now the reason why this makes a big difference is actually many fold. One, our phones emit blue light. You'll have heard this before. Our phones emit blue light and that kind of gets us ready for waking rather than ready for sleeping. So having access to our phone as we're trying to go to sleep actually kind of activates us. Also, some of the stuff that we're reading there might be stressing us out or getting us thinking. So it might be chatting to friends on social media or reading the news online. And these are not things that are conducive to sleep. Next is the fact that when we've got our phones, they are properly wired up to be totally addictive, particularly all the stuff on social media. We've got some of the best brains in the world sitting in Facebook HQ and Instagram HQ and Twitter HQ and all the other HQs going, how can we keep people engaged? How can we make them keep on watching the next video? I mean, Irene Klaxon, maybe you're watching this video in bed scrolling because you've come to the next video in the queue because of one of those brains. It's possible. Okay, so we are like wired to want to keep doing that and there are people trying to make sure that we don't put the phone down, that we keep engaging with the content because it's how they make that ad revenue and so on. So we are gonna get less sleep because we're just constantly scrolling and it can just make us feel rubbish. So we start putting our phones to bed in a totally different room. We had a bedtime for our phones. We like things to be structured in our house. What can I say? Mother who is autistic, child who is autistic, other family members who are, we have a range of needs between us, let's say, but we like things to be structured. So the phones have a bedtime. The phones go to bed in their charging station. We go to bed about an hour later and there's a nice little time in between. What I have found since doing this, I go to bed earlier. I get to sleep more quickly. I get into deep sleep more quickly, but also despite the fact I'm going to bed earlier and getting more sleep, I actually have about 40 minutes in the day when I get to read a proper old fashioned book, which I didn't really have time to do before. So I've read loads more, even though I'm getting more sleep and I don't miss any of the stuff. The reason we started doing this role was because we were trying to get the kids into good habits and I felt really, really hypocritical saying to them, well, you've got to put your phone to bed in a different room, but hey, here I am with mine. So I kind of joined in because it felt only fair and best decision ever. Consider it, it's great for your kids, great for you. I would love to hear if you've tried this, whether it's made a difference in your household too. Do leave a comment, let me know. Do you have any other kind of rules or guidance around use of devices or other stuff leading up to bedtime as well? Do comment, would love to hear. I hope that you found this a helpful idea. As ever, thank you for tuning in and thank you for all your support over the various social medias. If you would like to support my work creating content aimed more these days at parents and carers and other supporting adults of children, please consider heading to my Patreon page and signing up to support me there. I love creating this content but it's rarely commissioned so I'm trying to create a sustainable income to enable me to focus more and more time and create better and better content for you all. So thanks for your support.


Welcome to the battle city shadow lock the rules of this shadow game tournament are simple over the course of the next coming weeks Me and my friend rhyme style will be dueling each other with 12 pre-built decks inspired by the iconic anime characters featured in the Yu-Gi-Oh battle city art each duel will be a best of three format and will be deciding what decks We're going to use in each video by spinning a wheel with all of the characters listed on it The only catch being if you lose the duel with that character They're deleted from your wheel once you're out of characters you've officially lost the shadow lock So who will be left standing at the end of this series? I guess we'll just have to find out now Welcome back to the shadow games once again. We are ticking things off with the wheel Arcana was able to pull Kaiba out of his magical hat in the last episode. So that is another character down on rhyme's wheel I'm one character down myself rhyme. How you feel in episode four of the series right now We're both a little injured here, but not out of the game See at the only problem I have is I told you to draw better and you did that so why are you listening to me? Why can you only why can you only when we listen to my advice? Why can't you wanna know? Hey, man, cuz I bro, you're my coach.  Oh Bro, how many coin tosses have you actually won in this series? Oh, I don't I don't win coin tosses I mean nothing matters because you know we're letting God decide Yeah, I'm not I'm not taking this.  That's it That's it. That's all nice and easy nice and slow. That's it. That's all that's all I want to do I thank you very much. Well, then you never see what I'm playing right now I summon fate at a magna warrior. Not oh brother. You got my favorite character. No Merrick well, yes, it's good to introduce you Yep, I do happen to be Yep, Yami Merrick. Nice to meet you I'm a little bit worried low-key. I'd be lying to you if I told you I wasn't Yeah, when I die I'm taking a lot of damage for this I mean Dude, this is crazy.    Wait, you're you yes No Why did you do that because I know you got tribute monsters, bro I want you to stay bricked but I was you get the worst thing you kept doing to me was taking away my ability to tribute Monster wouldn't it be better to wait for me to summon a car first and then blow it up? No, no, no, I need you to keep playing these stupid level 4s, bro I'll just play the level 4 and then get beat so I can I can win I feel like that's a lot of resources of waste because I get my sub and out of the way I get a straw monster and now it's gone. Yeah, man. Well, I mean it is what it is, you know You're in a good position right now, so I guess it's the right play Next surely you of course I didn't I mean obviously I did not I'll play left arm offering, bro I regret it, but look I had to you're wrong What is every do open a God tool think about it? Well, I'm not thinking about it because I don't want to think about it But I will go ahead and get I guess I just get pot of breed, right? I mean, that's the only one that makes sense That's a good trade out in my opinion. That's a good place I mean look I'll get pot of greed, but I really need to hit something else Man, oh wait, I'll actually take I'll take jam breeding machine, which I'll play right now. I'll take that not bad Yeah, and like again, I said I don't want to leave you with any monsters So I'll go ahead and throw away my chance for fun Lucky for me my deck is literally just all normal monsters Please don't get another level for my hand you can My hand will fast and not put up my awkward, you know render next to it because this is exactly how I feel staring at This is cartoonish. I wonder what it is, man I know again my worst nightmare when I had Yu-Gi was just I could not keep monsters on the board I could not keep monsters on the board to save my life.  I'm going into battle. Okay slime token I can handle this only a thousand slime token. It's not time yet.  I really your face. I have seen a Doria Yeah, man, I guess I'll just I would have been smarter to put your slime into defense mode I don't think I can Or maybe I could have a bro jam breeding machine is actually Backfire What a jam breeding machine is much more of a backfire that I thought I can't get any of these guys to be face-up Oh You can have some in any mods except for slime tokens. I know You can't see it, but I quit I put on Millennium puzzle. Oh, yeah, you got a millennium puzzle on bro right now.  I didn't know I wouldn't be able to play any of my monsters I left out an important card What'd you leave out what you mean of the list or in your personal deck? We'll do it in the deck. Oh, okay. I don't feel for you as much then I had a dragon champion Isn't in the deck.  There's literally no more space, bro It's time to stop Time to stop Slime token be free Be free my slimes beat him up. What a way to win. Come on. Slime tokens go crazy. Come on. I have one I don't know what you're looking for. I have one more turn draw. Yes What I forgot I play polymerization. Oh, no. Oh, you got dark paladin Oh, yes I also in my hand have cursed a dragon summon school and guide a fierce night. Oh my god See, I told you that's the nightmare scenario and now I'll win the duel. You're not gonna win anything But I will be honest my my slimes are going in defense mode now. Actually, I misplayed. I will end my turn Okay, uh, Jim Breeding machine, please don't Yeah, I'm Breeding machine. I'm asking you not to oh, I could have I could have actually won I do I goof so bad. What did you do? I can still do it now. Actually, I know I can still win here Could you not depends on if you can stop you know what I should have done I know what I should have done, but I made a grave mistake.  Jim Breeding machine stopped reading That was already I need you understand. I played I Equipped this puzzle on me the second I equipped it is when I drew Buster Blader Oh, and Jim Breeding machine is a crazy backfire of the car man, right?  I hope basket weakness Oh my god We win on our videos, please Please bro, but I've never played Jim breeding session again. That's sucked. Oh My dear is me I went from drawing cursor dragon to summon school to guide the dragon The dragon knight or whatever and then I drew Buster Blader. Luckily cuz I got my polarization I was able to play dark Pelletim, but good Lord, bro I told you man. I was trying to lock you in a position where you were just breaking left Sadly drew Jack's night after I had a dark paladin in the field I want to know why I jam breeding machine myself.  Okay Oh So listen, I would have saved this for my own jam breeding machine, but I won't be playing that card So what is that suddenly?  I was gonna save this into I was gonna send us for the entire duel I was going to send us for the entire tool I'm just gonna I'm just gonna I'm just gonna play this and play This and that's about it. That's my turn. You're not gonna be a jam breeding machine No, no surprise even if I had the card I wouldn't play it. I hate that card now I don't even know how you would summon raw by the way. I don't even know how I would do that And I'm just gonna do this. That's fine. You're allowed to do that I think it's the same thing that happened with the odion duel There was rules that are a little bit different than the anime and that's why those decisions weren't thought when these decks were pre-made Bro, I was getting coo-hoo grand tiki elder. You're bold. Please strike him down. Oh, yeah I'm hoping oh is that it's not is it? It was It was attack mode.  It's not gonna happen. I'll be honest with you I need to make it so that you can't tribute that is I have to force that decision still to this day I'm going to go with that. I want to do this. I don't want to set this card I want to summon alpha that Magna warrior. That's not math. That's not math. That's not math You did not math it up at all. That's not math. Where is it? Oh, are you uh you uh lean lean me on it? You Got some for me there. Perhaps you know what? Oh, am I a genius thulist by the way? Am I a genius you? Kind of are for that am I a genius by the way? Am I just am I looking at my cards and seeing the future? Oh, no. Oh, no, he's using the new Dory effect to destroy big shield Gardner to get over his immense attack This is bad.  Oh, no, all right. I had my turn I'm mad because had I that was a misplay by the way something that if I was Dion.  Please bro. Please hard destruction. All right.  I don't like what just happened. Oh, what did I give you? What did I give you? What did I give you? Hmm? What did I give you? Well first I'm going to summon dark Giroid eroid eroid eroid, and I'll just make him lose attack I don't really care. He's not here. He's here for a good time. Not a long time And then I'll special summon using grand tiki elder and dark Giroid. No, I'm a beast. That's goddess. No way Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Oh, you are I am different bro grand beast. He's the grand tiki elder. Thank you for your sacrifice You are because now I have my dark mask beast. This was the fun card. I said there was a fun card And this is it draw. Oh, no. Oh, no, I just I just have to end my mask Oh, that's so bad. I control the masks I'm the oh, I do not want this out He's here. I'm going to play magical stone excavation. Wait, did I just mess up? No, I mean I guess that's okay, but I for I thought this was left arm offering I thought I was gonna get a hot of green. I'm gonna call it. Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was gonna be something crazy, man I'm just assuming the way you didn't react negatively that this is not a card to blow up So I'm just gonna set this face down and end my turn. What do I do here? How do I how do I out beast? I don't know.   Oh Shots I can deal with one but not the other Yeah, that is a wall and a half that is a wall and a half Kings night, huh? Yeah, it was a lie Okay, you definitely you definitely baited and switched me.  You're baiting and switching me a lot I'm scared. I'm low-key scared. I don't want to throw this cuz then I'll be tossed into the shadow Here's the question that why is your plane matter of fact fine if you didn't have to because I was going to oh No, because I was going to do something else But I got scared at the last second so I didn't and maybe I shouldn't have that fear But I I think a healthy amount of fear is fine.   It was legendary fiend. I played metal reflect slime because I was gonna go I guess I'll take sniper just because I can have a god I guess maybe I'll start stacking cards in my hand All right, well, you got if you got my I would have been screwed. I that the thing is I just didn't want to play into any potential hands Oh god, what do I do mass beast take out another one of his monsters? He has no monsters. I'm afraid of no This is the first time in the series where you're playing a guy. I played I'm intimately aware of his deck Oh brother.  It's tough, but you got to win on me. So you managed to we oh, it's over It's not actually over, but it probably could be because I just drew pot of greed Everybody's favorite Yes, I do yes, I do and also I'm just gonna go ahead and black pendant on a mass beast Why I don't know just to make him a little stronger. I guess It's a little terrible for you. I'm not even gonna lie No, it's even crazy is is you use deck doesn't even have a dark magic hurt Oh, no, it doesn't arcane is deck unironically was a better dark magician deck if you wanted to use dark magician Play what is your play? Did you draw another monster? I did I did I'm sick.  I'm keeping his legendary feet.  That's fine. Which what card you give me slifer. That's a fair trade You know what never much. Take me back Give it back. Well, that's one one. This is another good duel. We're going one one in the shadow games This is tough. Oh I think now we're actually cooking. I think now we are indeed and now Okay, all right, I'm going to draw as well. I'm going to This is a different I'm not I'm not laughing because it's an overall good hand I can't say that but I it could it's a hand that it under the right circumstances. It could be crazy First I'll start with a gating annoying and then dark room of nightmare Do you see now why I was laughing because if you don't stop vulgarian soon your life points are going to go down the Oh I mean, you could that's why that's why I'm saying it's not good.  Oh All right, you got me there Because I get burned each time a car takes Sharepoint takes the image of a car part effect. Yeah. No, you it was stuck in bogey. Yeah, bogey. Neon.  That was my overall plan. You got me I I'm mad that obnoxious Celtic guardians condo. Yeah, no, I'm glad that you flipped him up So I could fight him because that could have been that could have been a little problem. You know, what is this?  This is terrible. Oh wow if I start if I start drawing my Bricks Oh, don't let me get my don't let me get my my style on Don't let me get my my my masked beast out again Bro, please please Here comes them bricks. Here comes them bricks. Yes, actually. Oh, I don't like that. You keep setting stuff though That's quite scary. Hmm Okay, well, I can't play that yet So I guess I'll ironically I have both the pieces to my monster by the way Brandtiki elder and melted the four-faced beast, but obviously that doesn't matter if I don't have him So now you can't send the card at all, right? Yeah. No, I know I I foresaw that this could be a Coinkie-Dink for me. Yeah, now the card is gonna draw at some point.  Yeah, no, yeah, that's true All right, I will just set one card and pass. Okay. What is the point of this card?   Oh Marth, bro, it's you ease deck. What do you want to draw? Magic jammer or did you just go magic jam?  Oh Damn, well, why did I want that? I Didn't want that I will tribute my big shield. Oh, no For Jack's night, and I'm gonna punch you. It's not as bad as it could have been All right, I'm getting a little scared now. It's getting a little tight in here.   I'm going to get obnoxious Celtic guardian. That's I'm 1900 Oh, no, it's 1900 or more. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right So now what are you gonna do about it? The first time you tribute it and now your own monster stands between you and my life. I can't believe I just drew this card What did you draw? Yeah Need a judge to go over the duals. I need the judge to go over every single duals Yuki had in battle city No, I don't know he's just different bro, but you're different too. You got to win with this deck. Don't forget that All right, there's a chance Okay, that's fine bro, it's game over Yeah Interesting, bro, I hope you're ready for a crazy turn of events if you have the out for this I will be so impressed If you have the out for this I will be so impressed surely you don't have a god I'll tribute your two monsters. No, no shot. No shot meet lava golem. No shot That's an expensive investment. I know this is why I got a count of noxious Celtic guardian by the way Oh, but if you drop some in skull, that's the out. Oh, that's 1000 damage and then that's five 300 more damage Oh, no, all right attack. I'm going to punch.  My slime paint a thousand dollars. Yes, bro Okay, okay, okay, and you'll never get through me ever again. That's the problem is Celtic guardian is a problem How do I clear this all right? Well now you have a new problem hold his arms. Oh hold his arms back Now you can't even attack now. You're really out of a way. Did you read holding arms by chance? No, no You did not okay. Hey, what does it do? Oh? No, I Thought it was the ultimate Negated at all. I thought I was the ultimate.  I didn't even know this card could wait. What is part of it? Oh, Reed Why are you throwing right now? I can't read I Really wish I could have seen your face. I can't read on agreed Because when part of oh, I don't know it's a monster never mind. Yeah, I mean if you get a monster, bro I mean it's there in case you get what you got face down over there You got face down over there. It's ran a dora. Why did you not gain a thousand? I was flip summer Oh, cuz I flipped it. You didn't flip some of it. That's why it's okay. I pass Damn me Thankfully I do have a god It's not about out of you, bro, I was just I just I just needed the attack points to get over your thing That's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I can play through this. I just needed you to start taking chip damage again, man That's holy hell man.  I hate that. I can't read if I know no I have to do this by the way comes back to your field. Oh, no enjoy enjoy I can't literally read Burn just just for one more one more burn. What is this? What is this face down card? It's gone It's gotta be my favorite dual so far in a series Physically hurting man Because y'all a Merrick's deck is so good I know a spoiler alert for the series by the way You're going to win cuz you're gonna have Merrick's deck and I lost him to not being able to read That was the easiest win of all time and it's not a dot-oh loss without you Removing off your list, bro