Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂
Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂
This time it’s the proper November update 🙂
>Number One<
Nowhere but Nowhere
I have struggled this entire pandemic with the fact that I had no obligations so this is as much holiday as anything else and its limits are all self-imposed. I have always been good at self control, at self selection, at self imposition that at least when people write articles about how the quarantine feels like a liminal space I suddenly understand why I am always so unmoored by being alive.
>Number Two<
They’re Made to Make You Angry
It wasn’t difficult to spot that those viral videos of people pouring food all over their counter claiming this was “so much easier” than making a very easy recipe in a bowl were clearly made to get people angry but I guess that probably went over the heads (or at least the inflamed sensibilites) of plenty of people on my timeline as I kept seeing them for weeks. The internet is basically designed so that what you want is to get the most attetion and unfortunately humans are really keyed in on things that upset them hence, countertop “joke” accounts. However it is interesting to note that almost all these videos are designed by one man, a magician named Rick Lax. So that’s…a thing that happened. Personally I find articles about the manufacture of this stuff more interesting than the actual videos in which a person dumps perfectly good food on a counter as a “joke” which get emulated by 1000s of other people doing it for clout but it’s up to your personal taste or distaste as the situation may need.
>Number Three<
What is Friendship?
Mary McGillivray has less than 5000 subscribers to her YouTube channel where she only currently has four videos and a short posted but this one from five years ago about her digitally curated friendship is not just a love letter to friendship, to cultural exchange, or to the ways that we connect with other people that can be cultivated through this digital medium but also to early YouTube and the innovation and exploration that people do when they encounter new forms of technology. I just absolutely love everything about this little video and it destroys me to know it is buried in the bowels of CONTENT.
>Number Four<
Beautiful and Empty
I think more people are having discussions about this lately but this article is so good I implore you to just take 5 minutes to read it. This article is not about making all films X rated soft core porn but about we glamorize bodies on screen, bodies that are sculpted and molded but their purpose isn’t to be gazed or loved or even have fun, but to be control and to be destroyed and to destroy.
A body is no longer a holistic system. It is not the vehicle through which we experience joy and pleasure during our brief time in the land of the living. It is not a home to live in and be happy. It, too, is a collection of features: six pack, thigh gap, cum gutters. And these features exist not to make our lives more comfortable, but to increase the value of our assets.
>Number Five<
Slideshow of Hand
I like this article because it kind of runs counter to my feelings on the “Instagram Article” as Mary Retta calls it. Instagram info-graphics have brought a lot of people into the fold of activism and political visibility but my personal worry is that activism is the new cottage core, an ascetic to be put on like so many fast fashion pieces in your closet. This article posits that it helps bring people in on the ground floor and meet them where they are at but also keeps a level head that anyone can post on Instagram making it difficult in a different way from traditional media. I’ve come back to this article 2-3 times in the past few months so hopefully it gives you something to think about also.
Alright folks, that’s it for this month, see you next month!