A Little of This, A Little of That

Written by Smoke Signals | 01 July 2011

A Little of This, A Little of That
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2011

We're sure we don't have to call attention to the work that Vesperae does for us (and you) in every issue of Smoke Signals. But if you don't usually scroll down to check out her column, we urge you to do so this month. Her column focuses on the machinations and gyrations that most of us went through, to gather smoking fetish video before the advent of "real" smoking video and the internet. If you're from that era as we are, you'll certainly feel some nostalgia as you recognize many of the stories that Vesperae tells. Perhaps even more importantly, if you're too young to remember taping hours and hours of TV in hopes of gathering a few seconds of nice smoking --- you may gain a small measure of appreciation for how difficult it used to be for many people to satisfy their smoking fetish..

After Vesperae submitted her column, we exchanged a few emails about it - and a realization (of sorts) started to dawn. Regular readers of this column know that we've been trying for years to understand why so many people, particularly younger members of our community, believe that any material they find online is in the "public domain" and fair game for anyone to take and use anyway they'd like. (That's absolutely not true, by the way - legally or morally.)

But what we realized was that most people who are in their teens, 20s and even their early 30s --- never had to scavange tiny bits of movies or TV shows, never had to cut out cigarette ads from magazines, never had to find a way to pay for and receive a smoking fetish videotape in the mail without anyone ever knowing. Whenever they felt the urge, they just got online, and everything they could ever want was there for a mouse click. No muss, no fuss --- and, we believe, much less of an appreciation for what people had to go through in the very recent past ---meaning less of an appreciation for the rights of the people who created this incredible material that was so unimaginable to most of us, just 15-20 years ago.

But as we've said several times before, we're not fighting that fight anymore (except to defend our own copyrighted material). It's more of an interesting mental exercise to figure out why people's values and beliefs are so different. And this seems like at least one possiblity. In any event, we think you'll enjoy Vesperae's piece, either as a blast from the past or as a "wow, you guys really had to do that?" moment.

A few other pieces of lint from our pockets:

- We've alluded to this before, but things are happening quickly. Our servers are now operating on a new platform; combined with higher quality video from Tony P. and our R/X videographers, there's been what we believe is a huge improvement in the video quality at Smoke Signals Online. We'll have a new "outside" of the site (what's known as a "tour") shortly, to show off the difference; but if you check our our weekly sample clips (available at our the Smoke Signals preview site, among other places) we think you'll get an idea of how things are improving. And, of course, we'd really encourage you to sign up for a month to see the difference between what we used to be - and what we are now.

- If you're like us, little things (like seeing a movie with people smoking in a restaurant, for example) trigger lots of "I can't believe that's gone forever" moments. We had another one this past week, while making plans for one of our regular trips from Southern California back to Las Vegas. For years, we always looked forward to arriving back in Vegas, where people were still treated like adults and allowed to smoke in public. But it's now been several years since Las Vegas and Nevada jumped on the anti-smoking bandwagon. And what we realized - was that when we're getting ready to head over there, we no longer even think "can't wait for all the great sightings!" - even in Sin City, an atmosphere where smoking was prevalent is now one of those things that's gone forever.

- And that brings us to our final thought, which in some ways takes everything we've written about this month and ties it all together. We had one final "revelation" about the generational differences in our community and how quickly things can change. 15-20 years ago, in the early days of the net - smoking fetishists went out into the world to watch women smoke, and then got online to share and discuss their sightings.  These days, there really aren't many sightings in "real life." So people get don't get online to discuss women's smoking anymore; they get online to watch it. We're not sure anyone could have predicted that, just a decade ago.

Enjoy the July-August issue; and please, check out the improvements at Smoke Signals Online. You won't be sorry.

Moving Forward

Written by Smoke Signals | 30 April 2011

Moving Forward...
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - May - June 2011

Our movement, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century continues.

You may have noticed shiny new Facebook and Twitter icons on most of our sites. As you could guess from that, we're now on Facebook and Twitter. (Our readership is not only smart, it ranks among the highest readership of any smoking fetish publication, when it comes to deductive reasoning.

We've been posting and tweeting for about a month now; and while we didn't expect to reach thousands of people through the "social media" avenues, we've been pleased that we're reaching more than a few. We weren't the first to try the new avenues of communication, of course; several others, including Smoking Sweeties, were there ahead of us. But we hope we're contributing as much as any, when it comes to regular updates on our sites and shoots. It's actually the most immediate way to let people know what's new; we know that not everyone can take advantage, for privacy reasons - but it's still a nice new way to spread the news.

If the response continues to be good, we'll continue to increase our visibility on FB and Twitter. We hope that you'll join us there, as the smoking fetish community grows in many new ways.

In a similar vein, later this week we'll be unveiling a new, comprehensive page where you'll be able to find the very latest photo and video previews from all of the Smoke Signals Network sites - from our membership sites, to Smoking Flicks and the Smoking Clip Store, to the IRL sites, to our new tube. Watch for the announcement and bookmark the site; the previews will automatically update whenever there's a change on any of the sites. We think it's pretty cool. :)

We hope that many of you have noticed that much of the new material on Smoke Signals Online is now large-screen and high-definition; we're working toward having all of the material in high def. Soon, we'll also have a new look for Smoke Signals Online - to go along with the upgraded content.

And the long-awaited new "platform" for Smoking Flicks should be up and running very soon; it will eliminate the functional glitches people have encountered over the years - and also allow those of you on Macs to watch streaming movies as well.

We're looking forward to an exciting summer and fall at Smoke Signals - and we hope you'll let us know what you think as we continue to move forward.

And thanks for coming by to check out the May-June issue of Smoke Signals.