About three months ago, I was having breakfast with Flip Thompson at Dawn Patrol (which I highly recommend) in Santa Barbara and we began talking about merging operations – what I do with ThemedReality and what he does with his social media campaign, The Flip. We both, in fact everyone involved with both, participate purely on a voluntary basis. We’ve helped each other out over the past year. I’ve provided content and suggestions for his campaign to use in videos. In return, he put me in touch with one of his presenters, Valerie Greene, and together we started collecting documentation and working with government officials in an effort to enact change at the Seaquarium and similar venues.

The outcome of the meeting was that I agreed to be website editor for The Flip, which will allow me to develop a blogging program that features the written contributions of many different people from various backgrounds and points of view. It also frees up time for both the behind-the-scenes advocacy and for my increasing workload as a paid journalist, which pays my bills.

Why now? For one, I’m tired of babysitting commenters on Facebook. Granted, the majority of my readers are intelligent, honest people, who ask reasonable questions if they don’t understand a post or concept, but the idiots, assholes, and trolls just had to ruin it for the good people. In addition to all the extra time spent monitoring comments, I ended up spending substantial time with the FBI discussing comments and emails from a reader that threatened the lives of government officials and others. So that was fun.

The biggest advantage is that this will create a one-stop shop for blogs, document access, and The Flip’s social media campaigns.

So what’s ahead?

1. This blog will continue to cover Seaquarium and related topics through January 16 (when I leave for Asia, and we have quite a few posts still leading up to that date), after which it will transition back to its original intent – to cover the attractions industry as a whole from an alternative viewpoint. I have articles on Disney’s racist hotel and the alien abduction theme park in China still to publish. A new Facebook page is already up for the new focus of the blog: https://www.facebook.com/ThemesRenewed
2. The current ThemedReality/Shadow Warriors Facebook page will be taken down at 5:00 pm PST January 16. It will be brought back online in February under a new name as an archival page.
3. When I return from Asia on January 24, I will begin blogging on www.thefliponline.com. Social media for The Flip will continue to be run by Flip Thompson and his team, though I will share breaking news on The Flip’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.
4. Valerie and I will continue our Shadow Warrior campaign with our colleagues, collecting documentation and speaking with various legislators, regulators, and law enforcement agencies. We dedicate our time out of our concern for the welfare of the animals and their caretakers, and expenses remain out of our own pockets. We are grateful to those of you that have donated to our fundraiser, and it will remain open until February 29, even though our efforts will continue far beyond that. Whatever funds have not been used for document procurement at that point, will be donated: https://fundrazr.com/getevidence?ref=ab_4Ck8Nf_ab_7TUmMl0CG9w7TUmMl0CG9w

So, to summarize:

This website will be transitioning back into being more generalized about attractions,

I’ve joined the team at The Flip, and the animal welfare blogging will take place on The Flip starting January 24. We’re revising the website now – www.thefliponline.com.

I’m very excited about this change and look forward to expanding the horizons.

Stay on ThemedReality for now, switch to The Flip on the 24th.