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https://blackgirlnerds.com/major-media-league-bridging-the-gap-for-content-creators/

Bryan Post is the CEO of Major Media League — a revolutionary social network for athletes to grow their brand, showcase their skills, and harness their entrepreneurial potential. As a college football athlete, Bryan didn’t always have the financial means to support himself, nor could he monetize his brand due to NCAA regulations. Even though he had the support of fans cheering him on, Bryan often found himself isolated in his journey to balance making a living and bringing home the victory

Fast forward to the passing of NIL laws in 2021– athletes finally gained the opportunity to profit off their brand and pursue partnerships that financially empower them. However, due to long-standing restrictions, these athletes are late to the influencer game. They also struggle to grow their social brand the right way.

Today, there remains a bigger problem for these social entrepreneurs.

Influencers have learned how to leverage these tools to influence and monetize their followers, but these platforms offer little to no value for the average young athlete. This growing inequity has led Major Media League to design a powerful platform focused on creating the next generation of athlepreneurs.

BGN had the exciting opportunity to interview Bryan Post and discuss how the Major Media League can bridge the gap for athletic influencers — especially, underrepresented Black athletes. Check out the exclusive interview below!

How did you discover that you wanted to be an entrepreneur? 

As far back as six years old, I was the kid sitting at the end of the block every Saturday morning to peddle lemonade. Thank God my parents never interfered with my money-making schemes. I always saw making money as a pathway to freedom. Not having to ask anyone for anything has always been important to me and that stayed with me as an adult.

Fresh out of graduate school, I got my first official job with the State of Texas. When I saw that first paycheck, the bottom of my stomach fell. I had a small family to take care of and college debt. 

That triggered a steady search for more pay. The problem was, after all of that education, I still didn’t understand money. Not only did my parents live from paycheck to paycheck, but schools didn’t teach about money. So I didn’t understand how the dollars added up, much less the taxes, but I knew how to work hard. 

Finally, after several jobs, I learned something else about myself: I have problems with authority! I didn’t like being told what to do by morons. Thankfully, I had a mentor in graduate school, Lawrence G. Anderson, who believed in me. He was the person who planted the seed that I could start my own business. I was 25 years old then. I’m now 49, and I haven’t looked back since.  

Throughout your entrepreneurial journey, you’ve had major successes. You’re one of America’s leading child behavior experts, a best-selling author, and now you’re taking on the sports world! What sparked the light bulb for the Major Media League? 

God has been good to me. I’ve always loved football — it was probably my first true love. It was all I ever wanted to do. I worked harder than anybody to earn a college scholarship, but then I realized really fast that I was still broke. One day I called my mom and asked if she could send me some money. I waited for a week for the mail to arrive. When I opened the envelope, there was $4 in it. Four one-dollar bills, not even a five! Even way back then, you couldn’t do much with $4. 

That memory has stuck with me for thirty years, and it was the founding thought for the Major Media League. When I left my small town, I had an entire community excited about me playing football in college. If I had the Major Media League, I could’ve easily leveraged my hard work to create a little support and financial freedom. 

Imagine if just 100 of your biggest fans decided to donate $5 per month to help you move forward. In return, you kept them entertained and informed about what you were up to in life. That’s $500 per month, which has all been created from the blood, sweat, and tears that went into becoming someone worthy of others being interested in and that’s just the beginning! Every athlete needs this opportunity.

What sets Major Media League apart and how can the brand empower Black athletes?

Kids who feel connected and supported are happier and, ultimately, will be more successful. Major Media League is a platform for athletic entertainment that teaches young athletes accountability, entrepreneurship, and skill mastery. 

We partner with masters of each sport to give our athletes the inside edge. This will create an additional layer of support for them because transitioning into adulthood is not for the weak of the heart. 

Playing sports while taking on the demands of life can be challenging. This is why we’re seeing a rise in young athletes struggling with mental health, especially in the Black community. 

As a stress and trauma expert for the past twenty years, I have a grasp on mental health challenges and we are leveraging this across the Major Media League to better support and empower athletes in their budding independence. Together, the world is a lot less scary than when we are divided. 

For young Black athletes who experience limitations in highlighting their athletic skills because of student debt or economic duress, the League will level the playing field. If you have a phone, then you can compete. If you can compete, then you can win scholarships and gain recognition.

We hear that you have some exciting developments, including the app that Major Media League will launch soon. Who can download the app and what will users be able to do on the platform?

So excited to launch our platform and we’re starting with softball as our first sport! Three-time US Olympic Softball Gold Medalist, Leah Amico, is our head ambassador. We’ve also partnered with two-time US Olympic Softball Gold Medalist and the first Black female softball Gold Medalist, Natasha Watley to introduce softball to inner city youth through the Natasha Watley Foundation.

We have an interactive platform for athletes, fans, parents, coaches, and brand partners. The athletes will compete as teams against one another in social media contests to win cool prizes and scholarships. 

Parents and fans will be able to patron their favorite athletes.

Coaches could create their own teams and challenges for their kids. 

Brands will be able to sponsor athletes and offer them sponsorship deals. 

We are creating an ecosphere that is athlete-centric and focused on growing kids towards independence, emotional intelligence, and social influence.

Phenomenal! Bryan, thank you so much for sharing your story with our audience. We can’t wait to see what’s in store at the Major Media League and how it will change young athletes’ lives.

Want to be one of the first notified when Major Media League’s app debuts? Visit their website to subscribe and follow them on Instagram (@MajorMediaLeague) for exciting updates!

https://blackgirlnerds.com/sara-zwangobani-is-marigold-brandyfoot-in-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/

Prime Video’s The Rings of Power is one of the most highly anticipated series this fall. The TV series is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy we know and love,set thousands of years before.

Australian actor Sara Zwangobani plays Marigold, who is a Harfoot. Tolkien lore describes the Harfoot as predecessors to Hobbits. BGN spoke with Ms. Zwangobani via Zoom in early August about the audition process for Rings of Power, how her theater background influences her work in television, and about her other career as a high school english teacher.

As a long time Lord of the Rings fan, I’m excited to see you on screen.

We are super excited to share it. I can’t actually believe that it’s nearly upon us because it’s been such a long journey. 

What was your audition process like?

For me, unlike for some of my poor castmates, the audition process was quite straightforward. I did a self tape early 2019 for Nazanin Boniadi’s character Bronwyn, sent that in, and didn’t hear anything back. I went on about my business. Then in October of 2019, I got another call for self tape for a different character. Funnily enough, that day I was just really busy with life and was thinking it just didn’t work out last time. Then I sort of kicked myself in my bottom and said, “No, Come on. Just just go and get the tape down.” I very quickly did the tape, sent it off, and went about my life. Late January of 2020, I was in Australia about to come back to Los Angeles. I had everything booked and was due to leave within a few days. I got a call asking me to be in New Zealand within three days to start work, and was on the show within two weeks. It’s amazing. I had so little time to think about it. It just all fell into place.

How does your theater background come into play when creating characters in the fantasy genre?

Theater training is incredibly useful for fantasy and science fiction because it’s such a heightened world that’s quite natural to a theatre actor. I have done quite a bit of Shakespeare, and all the voice training and the the work on the text, the thinking about the richness of language, all of that was immediately transferable to this show, particularly with Tolkien because it is so lyrical. It has so much depth, but you also need to make be able to make it seem natural. These people speak like this all the time. Theater training and voice work are so useful for this genre.

You’re also an English teacher, and I hear you still teach due to the teacher shortage Australia is experiencing. 

Yes, I often go back to teaching there because there is a teaching shortage. Just before this campaign, I did a contractor school at home. And some of the kids found out I was on this show, and they were like,”What are you doing here, Miss?” It makes me sound like a total good Samaritan, but I also do it because I just love teaching kids English. Communication, it’s the thing that makes the world go round. Really, doesn’t it? So yes, I am still teaching. I probably will do some even now after the show starts because I’ve got a little hiatus before I do another thing, a play. So yeah, I go back to school all the time.

You’re going to be popular. 

You know what? The status of being an actor in a show of this caliber only goes so far with teenagers. You’re popular for a minute, and then they’re like, “Hey, I’m more important because I’m seventeen.”

Is there any other character in the series that you thought was a juicy role you’d like to play?

Well, there’s actually a lot of them: Arondir, Ismael Cruz Cordova’s character; Owain Arthur’s Dwarf Prince Durin. But overall of course, I love my half-foot world. It’s become my world. But oh, I wouldn’t mind a crack at a crack at Cynthia Robinson’s character, Queen Míriel; she’s quite an incredible character.

And were you a fan of this series?

I was a big fan of the books, read them when I was very young, which started my love of fantasy. I’m sure that you’ve heard that I’m a big fantasy sci-fi nerd, which is why this is like a perfect marriage talking to Black Girl Nerds! When the Lord of the Rings movies came along they were like a Christmas present every year. I adored them. I was transported, and I felt like they were made by someone who really understood the books and wanted to do them justice. That’s not dissimilar in Rings of Power in terms of J.D. and Patrick and everyone involved in this project really wants to do justice to this world. I was talking to Rob Aramayo [Elrond] in London the other day, and for two hours we were talking about how much passion everybody has for this show.

Rings of Power is going to shift perspective for people who in the past weren’t visible in the Lord of the Rings films. There will be Black and Brown female action toys from this world! How does it feel to be able to leave that as a part of your legacy as an artist?

What you’re talking about resonates with me very much from my own childhood of growing up and loving fantasy, but finding very few faces that reflected back at me. I have a daughter who’s nearly eight, and I am so proud. I can’t wait for  her to see this. I’m so proud that she’s gonna get to watch it and see these faces of color. It’s just going to be there from the word go. With no explanation — it’s just we belong. That’s deeply important to me. At Comic Con, I tried not to get teary, but I had a girl come up to me, Anna Maria took a photo with her, who just said how much it meant to her. She talked about when she was a little girl and she just said this is so necessary for people of color to be reflected back at viewers. And she got teary and I got teary, and that moment reminded me of why we do this work. As storytellers we want people to feel that they belong and that these experiences are their experiences. We need to be there. It’s incredibly important.

What’s bringing you the most joy?

My daughter, my little Brown girl, just everything about her. She’s way better than me. She’s a massive improvement on the original model. And yes, she brings me joy every single day. She actually allows me to be a kid every single day. She’s my joy.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres Friday, September 2, 2022.

https://blacknerdproblems.com/get-in-the-gundam-everyone-the-witch-from-mercury-prologue-dropped/

When the first teaser for the latest installment of the long running franchise, Mobile Suit Gundam, was first shared five months ago, I was hooked immediately.

As the gentle piano medley slowly swelled into a full-blown triumphant theme, we saw the newest face of the franchise standing in front of her Gundam. Yes, in the forty plus years the franchise has been around, this was noted as the first time a woman would be the primary protagonist. But today, we’re not here to discuss the inherent imbalance of representation in traditionally “boy spaces.” We’re here primarily to talk about the fact that we have been blessed such that on August 31st, the “Prologue” episode of the series was made available on YouTube. Somehow, despite already being excited about the series, I am currently fawning over the 24 minutes of gorgeous animation that has been presented to me, and I’m now wishing for the entirety of September to simply vanish so it can be October.

The last mainline Mobile Suit Gundam Series was Iron-Blooded Orphans, which aired way back in 2015 through 2017 (which not so coincidentally also aired alongside a different Mecha anime that dealt with rising tensions between Earth and Mars with Aldnoah.Zero). And as much as the Gundam franchise is remembered for its giant robots fighting other giants, the franchise has always been anchored in deeply political roots, showing large scale conflict over limited resources between various factions with differing interests and how certain individuals get embroiled in the mess. Iron-Blooded Orphans was a brutal 50-episode run that showed the horrors of war and child soldiers doing their best to survive and be there for each other. And I oscillate between an elated ecstatic response and deep emotional distress to the fact that The Witch from Mercury is following suit.

The “PROLOGUE” episode opens with an unnamed woman in the cockpit of a Gundam running what appears to be a series of initialization checks. From the get, the crisp animation with Tron-esque lines and holo-displays as the dialog registers as a deeply orchestrated procedure, a careful technical duet between human and machine. When the start-up fails, the women piloting the Gundam takes off her mask, revealing a face that resembles the one in the poster, but isn’t quite right. And then a small child shows up and you know exactly where this is headed.

The “PROLOGUE” episode is a masterfully efficient episode of storytelling, immediately staging how as humanity endeavored to start starfaring they developed GUND technology as a stopgap measure for prolonged space habitation. Like many technological advancements, the technology was immediately co-opted for military purposes with the Gundam program. However, given that the strain of piloting Gundams was also effectively killing and maiming the pilots, there had been heated debates over the continued development. This tension is further heightened by increasing tensions between Earthens and Spacians.

They could have released the first five minutes of the episode alone and I would have already been sold. The biomechanical imagery they invoke is simply iconic and awe-inspiring, capturing the very spirit and hope of what we love about science fiction: picturing a world where the formerly impossible is now within arms-reach.

And just as quickly, we are reminded that the capitalist framework and the military industrial complex are still alive and well. As much as I adore my giant mechas, the fact remains that there are representations of literal war platforms and like in many mecha-centric series, there is a bodily price that needs to be paid when piloting machines.

Yet even with the context, The Witch from Mercury remains optimistic as young Eri bonds with the Gundam her mother and father have staked their livelihoods on, even going so far as claiming she’s the robot’s big sister. The entire crew of Ochs Earth’s space station outpost are clearly a large familial unit all endeavoring to make space accessible for more people. Which makes the inevitable, proverbial levee breaking all that more tragic when the Spacian government declares that the Gundam program needs to end immediately.

As a taste of what’s to come, the “PROLOGUE” presents a gamut of moral quandaries, ranging from discussions of bioethics, wartime protocols and responsibilities, and the purpose of space. And then it goes a step further by showing the natural consequences of factional struggle, the innocence of children during wartime, and parents making the biggest sacrifice they can in order to provide a glimmer of an opportunity for the aforementioned children. Thematically, the series is already running at full speed. And from an audiovisual experience, this is near transcendental. The animation and sound mixing is incredibly on point, and the expressions of the characters throughout the episode can absolutely gut you.

And in the midst of this grand interstellar conflict brewing, there’s so many smaller, quieter moments that hit home. Elnora’s prosthetic arm failing just as she’s about to the place the candle on Eri’s birthday cake.

The lead scientist explaining the importance of the latest Gundam model to her (in essence) granddaughter.

Eri putting aside her jealousy of the machine that takes her parents away from her for large swatches at time and asking if it likes cake.

This is truly Gundam at its finest. The deep dives into what necessitates technological innovation. The scathing critique on using force to impose a specific will. The lines that are crossed in pursuit of an ideal. The crisp, clean animation and fight scenes that make you clench your fists for a wide variety of reasons.

As a long-term fan of the genre, I was already excited, but this prologue has me unreasonably excited for the proper release. We have been given a glimpse into the origin story of Eri, and given the pedigree of the series, we are in for a modern odyssey.

And the best part is, if you don’t trust me, you can make your own evaluation as the prologue is readily on YouTube right now. I’ve somehow already managed to watch it twice, and I just want more.

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The post Get in the Gundam Everyone, ‘The Witch from Mercury – PROLOGUE’ Dropped appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

https://blacknerdproblems.com/twinn-the-disasters-at-warner-bros-discovery-and-dc/

The moves being made by Warner Bros. Discovery are being felt throughout the entire entertainment industry. Victoria and Keith are here to break down what’s happening and why. 

Hear about that and more on This Week in Nerd News.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Check out other episodes of TWINN here.

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The post TWINN: The Disasters at Warner Bros, Discovery, and DC appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.