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aredletterday · 5 years ago

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change da world. my final message

I believe it’s been about two months since the discourse surrounding Freemance vs. Freehoun started, though I don’t exactly have a great grasp on the passage of time right now. I’ve spoken on this a few times already. Many of my posts on this topic have been born out of deep frustration, and I even left Tumblr entirely for about a week to calm down and gather my thoughts. I’m going to try to lay out a coherent statement on the Freemance discourse and why it has completely changed how I interact with HL content.

I also know that at least one vocal anti-Freemance blog has me blocked, and there are probably many more (which I honestly don’t care about because I blocked many users myself today), which means this post will most likely fall on deaf ears. That’s fine. I just need to speak. EDIT: This also seems like a good opportunity to plug the Freemance charity zine that might be happening?

I was first exposed to Half-Life in late 2018, played the games for the first time in March 2019. So I’m certainly not an original member of the fandom, but I’m not “new” either, per se--at least, not relative to many of the people who have flooded in from the popularity of Half-Life But The AI Is Self-Aware.

It used to be so quiet around here. There was a new post in the tag maybe once every two or three days. When Half-Life: Alyx came out I had hoped it would revive older members of the fandom and maybe bring in some new ones, and it did--but was quickly overshadowed by the odd success of HLVRAI. I really can’t shy away anymore from the fact that I vehemently dislike most of the people in the HLVRAI fandom. I think a lot of these people are the ones who are starting and continuing unnecessary discourse because they’re young and don’t have anything better to do, or don’t know better (even though they should).

It is canon that Alyx was around four years old at the time of the Resonance Cascade. It is canon that Gordon was 27. It is canon that Alyx is 24 in Half-Life 2, and, get this, it is canon that Gordon is 27. During the gap between HL1 and HL2, Gordon was in a place that is outside of the normal flow of time, and, therefore, didn’t age at all during that time. This is supported by eli_greeting.ogg: “... My God, you haven't changed one iota! How do you do it?”

Because Alyx was a child while Gordon was working at Black Mesa, I commonly see anti-Freemance people using the idea that Gordon interacted with a young Alyx as a reason the ship is not viable. While this is definitely a valid headcanon to have, it’s just that, a headcanon. In al_imalyx.ogg, Alyx says, “... My father worked with you, back in Black Mesa. I'm sure you don't remember me though.” This would imply that Alyx was such a minor presence (if a presence at all) in Gordon’s life, he wouldn’t even have a reason to remember Eli having a daughter. It could even go as far as to imply that he barely knew Eli.

There is also a scene at the end of Half-Life: Alyx where Alyx sees the G-man and immediately mistakes him for Gordon. If she had met Gordon as a child, the fact that she can’t even remember what he looks or sounds like indicates it did not have any large impact on her. In fact, there are many instances in HL:A where Alyx speaks of Gordon like a complete stranger.

And, if you’ve played HL2 and the Episodes, you certainly remember many scenes with the Vances where Eli hints at the idea he would like to see Alyx and Gordon as a couple; several times throughout these games, Alyx also shows some degree of romantic interest in Gordon. I personally find this a strange and uncomfortable artifact of mid-2000s era heteronormativity, that’s something I’ll absolutely admit even as someone who ships Freemance. However, it’s something I think is worth pointing out.

So. Gordon isn’t a pedophile if he is characterized as being attracted to Alyx, because she’s a grown ass adult. Gordon isn’t preying on Alyx, because there’s no actual, canon basis for the idea that he was any more than vaguely aware of her existence before she was an adult.

It’s well within your right to dislike Freemance--I’ve met people before this who just had a distaste for it, it wasn’t their thing, and that’s okay. What I don’t appreciate is this campaign to get rid of all Freemance content because… you personally think it’s gross? Because you personally have decided based on fanon and not canon that it should not exist?

The thing I think that’s really bugged me more than the specific problem of Freemance is the wider implications of this discourse, one of which being the worrying amount of infantilization of Alyx. People have denied doing this, but will defend their anti-Freemance statements by saying they’re “protecting her,” when she’s a grown adult. She’s 24 and very clearly capable of taking care of herself--for Christ’s sake, she literally kills fascists. She spat in the fact of a dictator.

I also see a lot of people who hate Freemance turning around to ship Freehoun. Disclaimer: I love Freehoun. It’s up there equal with Freemance for me, I seriously adore the ship. The fact that it’s Freehoun isn’t what bothers me--it’s that people seem to look at a M/M ship of two white guys and go “this is progressive of me to ship,” but yet the M/F (notice how I don’t say “straight” because M/F couples aren’t inherently straight!) interracial ship is somehow gross, or heteronormative, or whatever other word has been thrown out there. Another thing I see is people casting Alyx entirely to the wayside in favor of Freehoun, or even going as far as to dislike her. That’s awfully familiar, isn’t it? The phenomenon of shippers hating a female character for “getting in the way” of their gay ship?

(Side note: I also am heavily bothered by the fact that I think a lot of new Freehoun shippers are coming over from shipping Benry/Gordon, and also the fact that a lot of people seem to think Barney and Benry are somehow the same, when they’re not, but I digress on that.)

The ongoing discourse has made being in the Half-Life fandom completely unbearable for me. I am tired. I can’t draw or write for it anymore. This was my favorite thing in the entire world, one of the only things keeping me going through quarantine, and now it’s just hardly worth bothering with. So this is most likely my final statement on this matter unless something drastic happens.

Freemance-critical and HLVRAI blogs will be blocked upon following me. I don’t care about being courteous anymore, I’m sick of interacting with you and gifting you my patience.

#ash rambles #freemance #ship discourse

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x-exo · 4 years ago

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*slides into your asks with a rose in my mouth* why hello, tis me!

Apologies for the long wait but your favorite long asks anon is here and OOF so much has happened. Let us break it down one by one lol

Monsta x our beans, welp we can officially say we are army wives for them because shownu is now at the military and just welp this feels weird lol. I lowkey forgot he was meant to enlist so when the news came out I went through so many emotions. Its why the latest comeback feels a bit bittersweet to me. It is their BEST for sure and for this year, I agree so to not see him perform right before he left is a bit sad. I don't blame him of course (if anyone does i am fish slapping you) but just a shame. I'm happy we do get content with him still? Seems pre-planned so that is nice!

Onto legends exo, fantastic comeback. I cannot stop listening to the album, its just bops full of bops to me. They broke so many records and I'm over here sipping my tea because fudge yes. It isn't a full member comeback, 2 of the members featured in the comeback are off playing call of duty and they still did THAT. While having lay properly in the comeback!? (Or at least some form, better than tempo era!) Kyungsoo my beloved, the man that can swoon you off your feet, his proper solo album. Omg I am just in love? The album feels like a Playlist that you hear while taking a walk or on a raodtrip? I love it, I just love everything about this with how much thought was given. It makes me feel warm and I'm so proud of him (I think he even got a first win) but sadly xiumin got the it shall not be named virus D: I feel so bad and I can only hope he gets better! It makes me worried because I keep seeing more and more idols getting sick and I can't help but wonder why don't the kpop entertainment just put a pause with stuff? Of course that is VERY unrealistic, I am aware that is naive for me to think but its just so idk how to word it properly (my English brain is not working I am sorry) I cannot help the feeling of while I get people are being safe and yes we need to still live like normal beings, is it worth risking idols health just for some entertainment? Idk how to explain my thoughts properly but maybe I hope I made sense!!

Onto svt! That is perfectly fine to not vibe with a comeback! I will admit, I didn't fully vibe with this comeback and it shocked me because every comeback was a hit to me. Even fear, left and right or homerun where I know many fans were split on, I liked but RTL was a grower. For me, listening to it without watching the mv, helped it alot and it is a song I like. Is it their best? No I don't think so but it is alright to say "hey I didn't bop to this, not my cup of tea" (imo I blame the mv? The mv REALLY didn't do the song justice at all, I am sorry if I sound like a fake fan but this mv Just is bad in all aspects. Sure we have some pretty shots but like it just doesn't fit at all?) So if anything listening to the song or wishing the live performances does it better. Seeing the choreography amps the song up more, cannot go wrong with their dancing. As for the rest of the songs, I admit game boy is my top favorite? Idk if it is because I am a gaming nerd and found all the production of the song so creative but yeah. We can wait for the next comeback! Svt always have something up their sleeves, plus we do have their music projects to look forward too (I wonder when we will get one? Seeing as RTL promotions stopped) some positive news with the boys is they resigned like a year before their contract ends and I'm a bit emotional :') I'm excited to see the boys future projects. We did have caratland recently! Did you watch it if I may ask? We did get in the soop confirmation so I'm excited to watch that, the boys deserve that nice break (even if it was filmed for a show fjsbsns)

Ok I think that is it for kpop updates? XD I do hope life has been treating you kindly! Life has been a bit all over the place sadly so I hope it wasn't like that for you as well! Until next time my bean!

hii!!!! omg sorry for the late reply i've been pretty busy these days 🙈

indeed so much has happened! and much more since you sent this ask omg!!

our shownu is at war *looks into the distance* *wipes away tear* *sighs* by now I got used to enlistment news (see what happens when you stan 2nd and 3rd gen groups) but STILL [[IT HURT]] when they uploaded the monchannel videos of his goodbye day like ????? what kind of twisted mind diuhdfuihdifuhs but the boys were all so cute and soft but they seemed so sad they didn't want to let go of their super leader :(( I hope he's learning lots and making new friends (and also we've got our international super spy yoo kihyun giving us small updates on him every now and then so everything's fine!). Yeah I totally get you it felt empty without him this comeback and at first it didn't really clicked with me but when the enlistment news came out i understood he had to take care of his health and thoroughly check on his eye sight in order to be 100% ready for the military so it made sense he had to be absent :( everything was so close (the comeback and enlistment) that I'm sure there was no other way for doing it I'm pretty sure he couldn't maybe postpone the enlistment day any further

onto exo! my ksoo my soft boi my romantic boi 🥺 his album is so him SO HIM i can't explain it bur it's just HIM you know it's the type of album you'd play on loop on a summer afternoon when you've taken your papers and paints outside in the garden to paint a bit with the warm soft breeze moving the trees lightly 🤧 and he signs in English and SPANISH (he did it for me) my multilingual king he's a native. Also I've been watching Honeymoon Tavern with Jongin these days and OMG i could d word for him really (if you haven's watched it go do it when you have time) he's SO SOFT and SO CUTE and he works as a waiter and a wedding planner and helps with the room preparations and is also a tour guide and he's just so cute so happy al the time the way he interacts with everyone is so 🥺🤧😭 onto more serious stuff now: yeah i was so worried about minseok catching covid omg but i'm glad he went through it with our any major complication and the rest of the boys are safe too! I guess the industry doesn't stop bc that would mean a huge loss of thousands and thousands of dollars/won/etc so as long as the gov doesn't prohibit going out or gathering like at the beginning of the pandemic, they'll keep on going with the idols' schedules otherwise the industry would just shut down having no way of earning money to sustain all the companies and idols.

as for seventeen! yeah i like the songs too! the mv sure ruined rtl and listening to it without watching it has really helped it grow on me more but still it feels kind of meh to me idk i really like anyone i think it's my favourite from the album. AND NOW WE'VE GOT A COMEBACK IN OCTOBER!!!! yayyyyy i can't wait they seem to be preparing very diligently (i hope they release a sexy bop) it's a shame junhao aren't gonna be present for this comeback but i'm soooooo happy they have the opportunity to visit their families again omg they have spent 2 whole years without seeing them in the flesh they must be so happy to get back to them again!!! it's so funny seeing them be bored at the quarantine hotel and doing lives every day duhdfiudhfiuh i hope it passes quickly and they can see their loved ones finally! and I did watch Caratland!! omg the unit switch song was the best thing ever hhu doing lilili yabbay and not being able to stop laughing idfuhdifuhs perf team doing chocolate and owning it????? hello??? performance team more like main vocal team wow! and the vocal team being a complete mess during check in lmaooo i loved it! In The Soop has finally started!!! I love these kind of "normal life" concepts I love seeing the boys being themselves cooking and relaxing I've watched the first and second eps as of today and also few clips from the third and omg mingyu and jeonghan drowning in the pond dfuhidfhidfs lmao they're so dumb i love them 🤣 i'm glad they could go away for a few days and spend time together away from their hectic schedules!

I hope you're well now and if not hang in there it'll all pass soon enough! 🥰💕 bye bye!!

p.s.: I got your request for the svt this or that gifset and i promise i’ll do it one day i just don’t feel like giffing these days dhbduusi i’m out of energy

#ask #my super nice lovely anon

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jimimn · 4 years ago

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HI ITS ME WHO'S NOT OVER JJK BLONDE SELFIE AND WILL NEVER BE -💫

HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO <33333333

HONESTLY ITS THE WAY YOH SAY SUCH NICE THINGS AND I DISAPPEAR FOR DAYS ON END BECAUSE INCONSISTENCY BLEEDS INTO EVERY CORNER OF MY LIFE FNEKALKD BUT I'M GETTING DONE WITH MY FIRST LEG OF EXAMS ON MONDAY SO YAY TO THAT!! OKAY I THINK WE'LL MOVE SLOWLY WITH BABY STEPS JUNGKOOK DROPPED SOME SELCAS JIMIN DROPPED SOME SELCAS IN THE WORDS OF THE LEGENDARY JEON JUNGKOOK ALL WE NEED NOW IS "together..BAM!" (THAT'S LITERALLY ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOMENTS EVER THE WAY HE SAYS IT 🤧)

YES IN THIS HOUSE WE SCREAM OVER JIMIN'S DISRESPECT HE IS THE PARAGON OF A MULTI-FACETED MAN THAT HAS US WRAPPED AROUND HIS FINGER. THE AUDACITY 😤

CHANEL X JIMIN LETS MAKE IT HAPPEN AND OMG THAT SELFIE THAT DROPPED?? SIR???? WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?? I MEAN YES BH SAID LET'S DROP SELFIES IN BULK BUT THAT ONE PICTURE OF HIM IN BLACK(GREY? I DONT KNOW FHSKKAJF) WITH THE SHIRTS UNBUTTONED!!! THEM COLLARBONES ARE FREE AND THEY'RE THRIVING IN THE OPEN IN THAT ONE. ALSO HIS LIPS ARE SO PRETTY. OH GOD LITERALLY HE HAS THAT COCKY SMIRK ON HIS FACE WHEN HE KNOWS HE DOES HOT BOY SHIT LIKE SHUT UP OK YOU CANT DO THAT JAIL FOR U NDNSLSKAJJW

SUCH A FUCKING TEASE THATS RIGHT!! EVEN STRAIGHT MEN?? BRO LIKE HOW DO YOU HAVE ALL GENDERS JUST TRIPPING OVER THEMSELVES FOR YOU IT'S INSANE AND OMG MISS SHIVI HAVE YOU SEEN THAT ONE CLIP IN WHICH JIMIN HOLDS HIS GAZE WITH THESE MEN WHO LOOK AT HIM (i think it was bon voyage?) and when they cross each other he JUST SMIRKS AND RUNS HIS HAND THROUGH HIS HAIR LIKE YEAH OK ALEXA PLAY I'M SEXY AND I KNOW IT. AND YES I'LL LISTEN TO EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY ANYTIME 💗💗

12PM KST IS THE HOLY HOUR I TELL YOU ALTHOUGH I REMEMBER WAITING THE NIGHT BEFORE BE CAME OUT WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO COME AND BH WAS JUST LIKE "yea...no" OMG THAT'S AWESOME YOUR COUSIN'S VISITING YOU

HHFJDOSO YEAH IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE THEY DID THE JUMP ALTHOUGHHHH I'M POSITIVE THEY'LL DO SMTH COOL LIKE THAT IN THEIR CONCERTS BECAUSE THEIR PERFORMANCE QUALITY IS JUST.. THROUGH THE ROOF IT'S CRAZY!! WHEN THE PERFORM WINGS?? LIKE HOLY SHIT NO CHOREO NO POSITIONS JUST BTS RUNNING AROUND THE STAGE MAKING THE CROWD GO FERAL I LOVE EVERY WINGS PERFORMANCE SO MUCH MY SEROTONIN LEVELS ARE ALWAYS AT A HIGH THEN. OOHH MY GODDD BS&T IS REALLY THAT BITCH!!!! WHO'S DOING IT LIKE HER TODAY NO ONE IS EXACTLY. AND NOOOO I TOTALLY GET IT WE THINK ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH THAT ACCIDENT HAS THE SAME EFFECT ON ME. IF ONLY YOU'D TOLD ME THEN IN 2016 THAT THAT ACCIDENT WAS THE START OF SO MANY I'D BE PREPARED FOR EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWED (see: him basically stripping himself that one serendipity performance. holy shit.)

FOR REAL THO CHRISTMAS LOVE DROPPED OUT OF NOWHERE AND DO YOU REMEMBER JIMIN SAYINF uUH iM nOt wORkInG oN a SoLo SoNg aT ThE mOmEnT heHe LIKE ALL MEN DO IS LIE OK AT THIS POINT. BYE. YES TAEHYUNG DID WARN US BUT ARMYS (LIKE MYSELF) PUT THEIR CLOWN WIGS ON AND THOUGHT IT WAS KTH1 LMAO. OMG I HOPE YOU DON'T SLEEP THROUGH ANY OF THEIR UPCOMING SONG RELEASES BUT I'M SURE IT'S THE BEST FEELING TO WAKE UP TO CHECK YOUR NOTIFS AND SEE "Big Hit Labels" BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE FIREEE. DUDE SERIOUSLY I NEED JIMIN TO GO LIVE AGAIN (although we've been well fed by namjoon for now🤧😌💗) LIKE THAT ONE YT LIVE WHERE HE SAID "O...M...G" SHUT UP STOP BEING SO CUTE I'M DHJSWLIFJWKALS

LMAO OKAY YEAH THAT'S VALID YOUR BLOG THEME IS BASICALLY ✨jimin✨ AND I LOVE THAT IT REALLY GRAVITATED ME AND YOUR URL OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDD YOUR BRAINNN 💆‍♀️💆‍♀️💆‍♀️💆‍♀️💆‍♀️

YES YES YES JIMIN IS SO PERFECT AND THE SOCK DOODLESSS 😭😭😭 oooo so when did you get into giffing? how did you start? BROOOOO YOUR URL'S ORIGIN STORY. I LOVE IT WOW YES IT'S DEFINITELY GOT THE REQUIRED ✨pazzaz✨

NOOO OMG THIS URL IS YOUR BRAND LIKE YOU'RE A LEGEND ON ARMYBLR I LOVE IT SO MUCH. BUT STILL!! IT'S YOUR CHOICE AT THE END 💖

OMG QUARANTINE DID IT'S ONE GOOD JOB AND GOT YOU INTO BANGTAN YAY. OMG YOU AND MISS LIFEGOESMON ARE FRIENDSS??? LEGENDS INTERACTING THIS IS SO COOL. LMAO THE PARADIGM SHIFT YOU MUST'VE FELT FROM LISTENING TO STAY GOLD (WHICH BTW THE MV...THE LITERAL CUTEST OH GOD THE LITTLE DOG AND JIMIN'S LITTLE SMILES DHSJAOWO) TO THEN GOING TO BST IN WHICH JIMIN IS BASICALLY STRIPPING AND JUNGKOOK IS UPSIDE DOWN LMAOOO. YES BS&T HAS EVERYONE HOOKED THE POWERRRR. YOU FALLING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WITH YOUR FRIEND'S ASSISTANCE OH GOD THIS IS SO CUTE 💓 EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM 🥺🥺🥺

AAAAH OKAY MY STORY ISN'T AS INTERESTING AS YOURS IS BUT IN 2016 BASICALLY ALL I KNEW OF KPOP WAS GANGNAM STYLE AND WASNT WILLING TO CUANGE THAT PERCEPTION (FOOL BEHAVIOUR I TELL YOU) AND WAS TOO BUSY OBSESSING OVER ONE DIRECTION'S REUNION AND SO ONE NIGHT (THE NIGHT BEFORE JIMIN'S BIRTHDAY 🤧🤧) I JUST STUMBLED UPON THEIR BS&T TEARS MV AND I HEARD IT AND I WAS LIKE OMG!! THIS IS THAT SUPER ADDICTIVE SONG THAT I'D HEARD SOMEWHERE AND IT JUST SPIRALLED FROM THERE I REMEMBER SEEING JIMIN AND BEING LIKE 👀👀👀👀 WHO IS HE I LIKE HIM AND JUST HIS AURA DREW ME IN SOOO MUCH AND WHEN I WAS GETTING INTO THEM I REMEMBER WRITING THEIR NAMES IN MY NOTES TO SEE IF I COULD REMEMBER 🤧 AND I STILL HAVE THAT NOTE FROM 4+ YEARS AGO 💓 AND YEAH BASICALLY SEEING THEM DO ALL THE MUSIC SHOWS AND STUFF AT THE TIME WAS SO COOOL AND MIND YOU BH DIDN'T HAVE SUBS FOR BANGTAN BOMBS THEN SO WENT ON THESE SKETCHY DAILYMOTION TYPE SITES LOOKING FOR ALL THE CONTENT I COULD CHURN OUT LMAO

AND YES!! COURTESY OF YOU I DID WATCH SOME RUN EPS!! I WATCHED THEIR CANADA ONES SPEAKING OF WHICH I LOOOVE THAT PART WHERE THEY'RE DOING THAT SONG GUESSING THING IN THE MORNING AND JIMIN SAYS "are you cold?" 🥺🥺 TO TAE AND HUGS HIM URRHRHEHSJSJSH AND I ALSO SAW THE ONES WITH THE PUPPIES GODDDDD I LOVE THE PUPPIES ONE SO MUCH LITERALLY JUNGKOOK AND HIS DOG (MIRI?) OH MY GOD THAT LIL FLUFFER AND ADAM IS MY ICON WITH HOW HE JUST DID HIS OWN THING LMAO.

BUT ANYWAY!! DO YOU HAVE A FAVE ERA?? LIKE DO YOU EVER LOOK AT THEM AND GO "Damn I wish I was a fan then" BECAUSE HONESTLY I WISH I HAD STANNED THEM IN THEIR DOPE ERA BUT I DON'T THINK I WOULD HAVE SURVIVED JIMIN THEN DHKSOWID-💫

FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME!!!!!!! ITS OKAY!!!!!!!! I TOTALLY TOTALLY UNDERSTAND!!!!! AND YAYYYYY CONGRATS I HOPE THE FIRST LEG OF EXAMS WENT WELL <333333 AND OH MY GOD you’re gonna make me cry with the together baam goddddddd same one of my fave moments and jimin’s giggles after that 😭😭😭😭 my babies <3 :((((

that..... black suit selca....... that opened button...... like open one more dear sir who’s stopping you... just do it <33333 YEAH he totally needs to shut up with his i know im hot side it just kills me every single time 😭😭😭😭😭

LISTEN THAT BV3 MOMENT S H O O K ME OKAY????? THOSE GUYS LOOKED AT HIM AND HE WAS SO FUCKING SMUG ABOUT IT (AND HE SHOULD BE) AND THE WAY HE LICKED HIS LIPS AND RAN HIS HANDS THROUGH HIS HAIR????? LIKE HE KNOWS HE HAS EVERY SINGLE PERSON; NO MATTER WHAT GENDER; WRAPPED AROUND HIS LIL PINKY LIKE THAT???????

OH MY GOD ME TOO I LOVEEEEEEEEEEE THE WINGS STAGE AND WATCHING THEM HAVE SO MUCH FUN IS JUST SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND I ALSO ABSOLUTELY LOVVVEEE THEIR ENERGY DURING THE SY TOUR MEDLEY WITH IDOL AND BAEPSAE AND FIRE AND DOPE ZSXDFGFCHGVJBHJN THEY JUST LOSE THEMSELVES IN THE CROWD AND THE MUSIC AND ITS JUST SO FUCKING SURREAL TO WATCH HOW MUCH THEY ENJOY DOING WHAT THEY DO!!!!! kinda makes me want to find that happiness and passion in whatever i do in my professional life <3 and LISTEN jimin said the break the soul commentary THAT HE COULD DO SERENDIPITY SHIRTLESS TOO. THE AUDACITY. HE SAID THAT WITH HIS WHOLE CHEST.

YOU KNWO WHAT I THINK JIMIN WON’T GIVE US A HINT BEFORE DROPPING PJM1. HE’LL JUST DROP IT ONE FINE DAY OUT OF NOWHERE LIKE HE DROPPED PROMISE AND CHRISTMAS LOVE (i wasn’t here when he dropped promise but i read that on twitter sdfghjkl) AND NO PLS NO I DO N O T WANT TO SLEEP THROUGH JJK1 OR KTH1 OR PJM1 OR KSJ1 OR NAMGI MIXTAPE 3 OR HOBI MIXTAPE 2 OR ANYTHING BASICALLY YOU GET IT i had slept through dynamite cb because i had NO CLUE that they were gonna drop it at 1pm kst rather than 12 am kst. i was under the impression that since they dropped all the teaser pictures and the teaser itself as 12 am kst, the mv will drop at 12 am kst too. and I woke up like two hours after the mv dropped (which was almost noon my time) and i felt like A FUCKING FOOL AND I JUST 😭😭😭😭 NEVER WANT TO FEEL LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN 😭😭😭

AND YES BABIE NEEDS TO COME LIVE SOON PLS I MISS HIM SO FUCKING MUCH :((((( AND HIS O...M.....G HAD MADE ME FUCKING SOBBBBBBBBBBB his yt live god he looked sooooooo fluffy with his hair and his tiny hands and his puppy eyes and soft voice im just so 😭😭😭😭😭😭

NO NONNONONONO PLEASE IM NO LEGEND DON’T SAY THAT IM EMBARRASSED im just a normal fangirl who makes okayish gifs 😭😭 and ok yes so i started giffing LONNNGGGGGG time back on a different public fan forum from my country but i never knew the right process and stuff so obviously the gifs were shitty lmao BUT ANYWAY i got into gifmaking PROPERLY this in july last year and obviously struggled a lot in the beginning because i didn’t know shit about colouring and stuff lmao but i kept practicing and even though im not perfect rn i do think that i got better. i love giffing tho. its such a nice creative outlet and whenever i gif the boys it brings me so much happiness :( <33

AND YES ASDFGHJKL ME AND HER ARE FRIENDS SINCE A VERY LONG TIME SDFGHJK LIKE LONG BEFORE BOTH OF US GOT INTO BTS SDFGHJ and ah yes the whiplash lmaooooooo and you’re right god the stay gold mv is SO FUCKING PRETTY THE COLOURS IN THAT ENTIRE MV HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AND JIMIN AND TAE AND JOON WITH THE DOGGO JUST EVERYTHING SDFGHJK <3333333 AND BS&T DUDE I GIFFED THE MV YESTERDAY AND IM 💀💀💀💀💀 (like i just giffed jimin from the mv but i did watch the whole thing 5647589 times <333333) AND GUESS WHAT!!!!!! I WAS A LILLY SINGH FAN (IDK IF YOU KNOW HER SHE’S A YOUTUBER) BACK IN 2016 AND PEOPLE BACK THEN HAD REQUESTED HER TO REACT TO BS&T MV AND I HAD WATCHED HER REACTION VIDEO AND (although it didn’t stick with me back then because i was a fucking fool) I DID SOMEHOW REMEMBERED THE JIN AND STATUE KISSING MOMENT AND WHEN IN 2020 I SAW THE MV AND SAW THE KISSING MOMENT MY BRAIN JUST!!!!!!!!!!! I WAS LIKE HOLY SHIT I HAVE SEEN THIS BEFORE SOMEWHERE AND THEN I REMEMBERED I HAD SEEN THIS IN THE REACTION VIDEO LMAOOOOO i wish i hadn’t been a fool and gotten into them back then :((((

AH NO OMG YOUR STORY IS SOOOOOOO CUTEEEEEEEEEE ATLEAST YOU WEREN’T A FOOL LIKE ME TO NOT GET ATTRACTED TO BS&T THE FIRST TIME OF SEEING IT!!!! I WANNA HIT MY 2016 SELF LIKE DAMN YOU YOU FOOLISH ASSHOLE AND yes omg how did y’all do the subs thing damnnnnn i can’t imagine

AND YES THE CANADA RUN EPIS ARE LOOOVVVEEEE and that vmin moment plsssssss i cry everytime 😭😭😭😭😭 it is just so soft and innocent and tae’s little smile after jimin just turns around and hugs him 😔😔😔😔 i love soulmates 😔😔😔😔 AND MIRI YES OMG EVERYONE WAS SO IMPRESSED BY THE LITTLE CUTIE AND THE WAY JUNGKOOK JUST KEPT ADORING HER THROUGHOUT MADE ME SO SO SOFTTTT and bro adam is me. i am like that. lazy and un-motivated AF. although if i were a dog and jin were to be my owner i would listen to him so well and jump on him every chance i’d get 😌😌😌

GOD YES RED HAIR DOPE ERA JIMIN 💀 BABIE BUT MAKE IT SEXY 🥵🥵 AND OMG YESDGFHG MY FAVE ERA IS HYYH. ORANGE HAIRED JIMIN. PLS. HE’S EVERYTHING. I WISH I HAD GOTTEN INTO THEM DURING THAT. LIKE THAT ERA IS ..... SOMEHOW SO FUCKING WILD AND STILL SO ASSURING AND CALMING ????? KEEPS ME ROOTED LIKE IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN DFGHJKL AND WINGS TOO DAMN I WISH I WAS HERE TO LIVE ALL THOSE AMAZING ERAS. but even though i wish i had gotten into them earlier... i think i found them when i needed them the most. I was going through a very difficult time last year and they somehow they made me feel so fucking safe and at home that the connection was instant. honestly i’ve never stanned or felt a connection with any celebrity as strong as the one i feel with bangtan. its like... they don’t know i exist but they still know EXACTLY what im feeling and what to say or do at that time to make me feel comforted. Its weird god but its true :((( SORRY I GOT EMO I JUST LOVE THEM A LOT SDFGHJKL

#anonymous #replied #💫

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waterparchive · 5 years ago

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Sex, Spongebob and sweaty hands: Inside the wild world of Waterparks fanfiction

By Marianne Eloise

Waterparks have a devout and imaginative fanbase – so asking them for fanfiction might seem like a recipe for chaos. But that's exactly what vocalist Awsten Knight has done with his podcast, Slumber Party

(May 1, 2020)

When I call Waterparks frontman Awsten Knight at 1pm, he hasn’t been awake for long. Since we spoke in February, the pandemic has changed things for everyone. Unsurprisingly, he’s a little less busy than usual.

Despite a familiar-sounding “descent into madness”, Knight’s getting through quarantine the same way as all of us: jigsaw puzzles, Animal Crossing and weighing up subscribing to streaming services. “It feels so wasteful. I was like, man, am I buying a fourth streaming thing? Per month? That seems irresponsible. Eh, fuck it. I’m home,” he laughs.

He’s also been doing DIY – namely deciding where to put his vision boards: “My place is very spacious and clean and the walls are white. I get nervous about putting too many things on the wall.”

Meanwhile, many of Waterparks' fans have been keeping themselves occupied with the latest season of Awsten’s podcast, Slumber Party. The premise is as ingenious as it is cringeworthy: Awsten and his friend Travis Riddle read out Waterparks fanfiction and rate it.

Travis, who Awsten calls a “grammar dude”, is a writer and editor with the credentials to give thorough feedback. Now in its third season, the podcast’s submissions are often erotic, making for awkward reading for its star. Even the PG ones make him shudder: “It’s literally Waterparks fanfiction. That is so gross and weird!” he laughs.

Awsten was innocent to the concept entirely until 2015, when he naively tweeted, 'I hope someday someone writes weird sexual fanfic about me and SpongeBob. That's what I want. These are my goals.'

“Someone wrote the most graphic thing about Spongebob in half an hour, and I was like – ‘never mind!’ That was my intro into fanfic,” he says.

Awsten’s fans often struggle with boundaries, and it seems counterintuitive for him to dip his toe into the murky pool of fanfic. But the idea originally came from him and Travis wanting to do something together: “The very first idea was to read the fanfiction and then talk about it and the validity of it and whether or not it could happen – which usually it couldn’t,” he laughs.

The current season was recorded last year, which Awsten is grateful for: “It’s already a struggle to keep your head right at home, he says. "If I had to read fanfiction all day, I wouldn’t be good!”

For season three, they’ve moved up in the world from Awsten’s bedroom to a set-up in a suite with a fireplace in Beverly Hills. He’s proud of the show’s quality, but ever the perfectionist, he’s looking to ramp it up: “I want to be like, on a horse in the next one,” he suggests – before adding that there’s the matter of financing a fleet of horses to think about. We brainstorm ways to get his Patreon subscribers to pay for it: “We will say your name while we’re on the horse and send you a video!”

He’s laughing, but there’s every chance he might go for it.

I ask Awsten whether he has a favourite submission. “No. Fanfic sucks, I hate it all, it’s all bad, I have no favourites,” he jokes, adding that what he does have is a handful of very least things he's received.

“There’s one where it was me but from every era with all these different colours of hair and then we all fuck each other," he says. "It was really weird. I hated that. I hate all the gross ones where they go over the top."

But his least favourite genre is slash, wherein he and his bandmates hook up: “There’s a lot of weird ones where Geoff and I are banging. I don’t like the ones where Geoff and I are banging, because he has sweaty hands in real life. If I’m getting hurt or Geoff is getting sweaty with his hands on me, then I don’t like those.”

There is something he can stand, though, which is stories with a paranormal twist. “They’ve had demonic stuff happen, there have been fairies, there have been magical horses. There have been a few possessions. They definitely get weird with it.” He adds that this season, they’re leaning into the paranormal with a spooky episode. “The ones that stick with me, the ones I like the most, are the paranormal ones. The haunted ones. There’s an episode in this season that’s not out yet where it’s all the scary ones and we turn out the lights and make it spooky”.

While some of his dedicated fans can be aggressive, many of them are creative in their adoration. Opening the floodgates to reams of fanfiction seems like a recipe for chaos. At first, Awsten and Travis sourced the stories themselves, but after creating an inbox for the podcast, they noticed a shift in the content. “In the next season when they knew they could submit stories, it was a skyrocket of insane, nasty stuff. They were just trying to be shocking so they could get on. We let a few of them go, but not all, because we didn’t want it all to be like: ‘and THEN he put his dick in a pencil sharpener!’”

In recent months, Awsten has been trying to stay offline, both to mitigate the negativity and avoid internalising too much input on his music: “If you tweeted or made songs or art or whatever for your most sensitive followers, you would have the most shitty, bland work ever,” he says. "That’s another reason to just stay away and focus on the reason they’re supposed to be there in the first place – which is what you make.

"Some people say they’ll like it either way, and I’m like, on the off chance they hate it, I want it to at least be something I really love, so I can be like, well, I like it.”

There’s one band in particular whose approach to focusing on their own goals Awsten admires: “Sometimes I wonder if certain things will get liked more in the future. Like the way when Folie à Deux, the Fall Out Boy album, came out, everyone just fucking hated it, but it’s so good,” he says. “But they don’t look back on their past like it’s their glory days, they’re moving forward and I love that. It would be so easy for them to spoon feed people Cork Tree over and over, but if they had done that, where would they be right now? It doesn’t feel trend-chasing, and I really appreciate that.”

He’s quick, however, to not draw too many comparisons: “We’re definitely not Fall Out Boy level so we’re not big enough to be hated that much,” he laughs.

Even when he’s not reading their fanfiction, Awsten has to manage his band’s relationship with a passionate fandom who often express their obsession inappropriately. When he’s so often on the receiving end of adoration, it’s easy to forget that he’s a fan himself. One upcoming episode of Slumber Party, which Awsten calls his “most difficult” to film, will feature Joel Madden of Good Charlotte.

“It’s not cute, because we always have fanfiction of the guests," he says. "It was the weirdest thing ever. I respect him so much. Trying to get him to read that, I was like...uhh.” His discomfort is genuine, and he jokes that whenever someone he admires follows him, he gets “self-conscious” and posts less dumb stuff.

It’s a gentle reminder that no matter how many fans someone has, they’re likely also a fan of someone they admire in a way that makes them feel awkward – it’s just a matter of whether they choose to log off or write fanfiction about it.

Stream Awsten and Travis’s Slumber Party podcast on Patreon

#awsten knight #awsten waterparks #awsten interview #awsten and travis slumber party #slumber podcast

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jelmersdojo-blog · 5 years ago

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(4/16/2020) lonely times

eh, hi?

let’s start with the roughest transition into a body text ever, me not offering you any explanations as to why this blog even exists, by saying: this week has been... very interesting and very fucking confusing and i just really want to talk about myself, so i will. no one’s stopping me.

a lot of stuff has happened.

i guess times are crazy anyways, so the lord probably decided to just give me some extra tasks to struggle with, because i’m bored anyways and working on yourself is probably more productive than working on (i probably shouldn’t even call it working on) perfecting the skill of digesting your social media feeds in an slower pace than usual, so you don’t rush through your content too fast. in the end, you do need that content during a day of quarantining, so it’s better to stretch it out, right?

i don’t know, is it?

not that being addicted to social media right now is a crime, though. i think it’s fair to spend this scary and lonely time in an unproductive manner. i mean, there’s way too much pressure on being productive in daily life in the first place, so i’m completely fine with the concept of taking this period of quarantining for relaxation and sitting on my ass. i need the rest, a lot of people need the rest, and if you’re in the position to take that rest now and you feel like you need it, please do! don’t feel guilty, not everyone of us has to be a gym rat or a book worm. that’d be kinda boring, not gonna lie. i also just dated a gym rat and it did not truly work out between us unfortunately, so i’m not the biggest fan of fitness right now. not that i have ever been, to be frank. it makes me insecure and i really just don’t enjoy it anyways, so i don’t see why i would.

but okay, i’m drifting off a bit there. this week, i went through a break-up, which i don’t want to get into too deeply at all, since a break-up involves two parties and i don’t want to throw dirt on his name by selectively portraying my views here. in the end, i was the one to break up, because it didn’t work between us (it hadn’t worked for a long time) and i didn’t get out of the relationship what i needed. i chose for myself there, which has given me a lot of peace the past two days. i wish him the best, i truly do, and i hope he finds someone else who suits him better. i will refrain from dating from sometime, because i don’t think i need a man right now. i want to be happy on my own! :)

i will probably get into this stuff deeper later, when the dust has settled and i can look back on this event more objectively, but this was my first relationship ever and i have learned a lot from the experience.

god, relationships are so difficult!!

they probably shouldn’t be that difficult during the first few months, though. but still, love is confusing. learning what love is and how it feels is even more upsetting and puzzling, and then learning how to love yourself while loving someone else is the next challenge. another challenge is learning how to notice when you’re loving someone else too much. i’m still thinking about how much i changed during the time we were together and how different i feel now. cutting the ties was hard, really hard, but it’s now a day or two later and i feel relieved and happy with myself.

in the end, i’m convinced that i did what was right for both of us. i feel like myself again and am proud of myself for making that decision. it makes me feel like an adult, even though i still see myself (i’m 19) as a little boy.

i’m always shocked by how often growing-up and coming of age feels like an invisible force pushing you around a darkened room. there’s so much stuff to discover on your own, so many firsts that you have to go through from time to time, and having my first heartbreak is now something i can cross of that list, alongside with living on twenty euros for two weeks and some other budget and stress-related things that i don’t even want to sum up. even though those things are often difficult to get through, sometimes it’s good to scrape the bottom of the barrel and be confronted with reality. and even then, i’m still in a position of immense privilege, which is an important sidenote to add.

let’s end this entry here. it’s getting a bit late now and i think it’s time to open my laptop again and stare at youtube for a good sixty minutes. you know what i said about being productive: we don’t know her (for now)!

i guess i’ll come back later this week to make a list of things that get me through this era of social-distancing and to share some more thoughts about... things. i will try to be as transparent as possible, share as much about how i feel as i can, as i think it’s a good way for me to process my emotions and thoughts and i think it could help others to feel less lonely as well.

i also think we need more men who are open about mental health and other “taboos”. if i can contribute in any of kind of way, even in the slightest way, i do really want to. i wish i knew men who were open about those things during my childhood and teenage years. i could have used that. a lot.

sleep well <3

#blog #growing-up #quarantine #love

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independentartistbuzz · 5 years ago

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INDIE 5-0: 5 QUESTIONS WITH MUNK DUANE

Boston based Recording Artist, Producer and Film Composer Munk Duane has a style deeply rooted in late 60s and early 70s Soul and Pop, with unapologetic nods to legends such as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Prince and Stevie Wonder, crafting a sonic atmosphere that is traditional in inception and modern in execution. Channeling spirits of the past and filtering them through a 21st century aesthetic, Munk manifests an evolution by daring to experiment in hybrids.

We got together with him to ask some questions and talk about his most recent release Sweet Tooth.

1.) You are an extremely versatile, charismatic and unique artist, with your sound rooted in the early 60s/ 70s Soul and Pop. How long did it take you to hone in on your style and sound, and what advice do you have for other artists who are trying to figure it out?

Why thank you! I've been a fan of Motown since I was a kid, especially around the era of Marvin Gaye's album " What's Going On" and "Talking Book" through the "Songs In the Key Of Life" period of Stevie Wonder. This is when these artists stepped into a more musically ambitious and socially aware light. Prince was my number one influence from the time I was a teen. The final piece of the "Soul puzzle" that defined me though was a chance meeting with Jame Brown. When I was about 16, I was walking out of a music conference in New York with my Father. A limo was just pulling up. A man and his entourage emerged and he made a beeline for me. I was holding a notebook that I used for the conference and I'm sure he thought I was coming toward him for an autograph. The man gingerly steps up to me, grabs the notebook out of my hand with a huge, warm Cheshire Cat smile on his face, and says something to me I can't quite make out. I looked down and saw that he had written what he had just said. "God loves you. James Brown". I was completely naive as to who he was at this point, still being young and inexperienced. After he walked away, I looked at my Dad, speechless and puzzled. He gave me the old Italian Father "slap upside the back of my head" and said "you have no idea what just happened, do you? That was The Godfather of Soul, James Brown". After this encounter, I dove headlong into his discography, learned that he was one of the main influences of MY main influence, and completely fell in love with Soul, R&B and Funk. As far as advice to anyone trying to figure out what their sonic identity is, I would simply ask "What is the music that made you want to make music?". After my third album, I became super busy writing on spec for television. I was good at fast, high-quality, turn-arounds and capturing the vibe of established artists that these productions didn't have the budget for, without sounding like a knock-off. In TV, you generally have to respond to these creative briefs from Music Supervisors and Publishers in less than 24 hours, so developing a methodology to crank out content super fast is critical for any reasonable success in spec licensing placements. After several years, I wanted to get back to focusing on my next release as an artist but when I sat down to write, I was horrified to find that my mind was completely blank. Without a creative brief and the parameters of "who I needed to sound like" and the ungodly deadlines, I discovered that I had forgotten who "I" was as an artist. After several false starts that included a complete album that I shelved upon completion because it was miles from who I actually am, I stopped writing altogether and just took some time to try and remember why I got into this in the first place. Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" lead me back to my musical genesis. The emersion of Alt R&B, born of Neo-Soul and artists like Anderson .Paak, Childish Gambino and Leon Bridges were sign posts telling me that the music closest to my heart never went away and continues to evolve. Just be who you are with no apologies or trend-chasing. 2.) Your single, "Dangerous" was inspired by your battle with COVID-19 in March. Tell us more about the virus, and how you were able to overcome it and still release music.

COVID kicked my ass. I contracted it in the early wave when the medical community still did not know what they were dealing with. I saw two doctors via telemedicine, and one in person, who ALL told me I didn't have it, so of course I didn't quarantine from my family and transmitted it to my wife and kids. It wasn't until antibody tests became available months later that I had a positive confirmation. It took me 6 weeks to shake the worst of the symptoms from radical temperature shifts, extreme fatigue, uncontrollable coughing to the point where I couldn't speak without a fit, loss of smell and taste and finally labored breathing like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I was still compromised for a few weeks after the worst of the symptoms had subsided (I still ran out of breath quickly and my limbs were like jelly). Probably 8-10 weeks in total. I was completely untreated, and was left with whatever my body's natural ability to fight it was. Thank goodness we're a little smarter about it now but it's still scary as hell. The ONLY good thing as a result was getting to be at home in my studio for so much time, due to the cancellation of gigs. Losing the income was painful but having an extended period to write and record whatever I wanted to was a gift. As I started to feel well enough, I began to write my thoughts in lyric form about the false narratives we were being fed at the time. As I was the sickest I'd ever been in my life, our President was telling anyone who would listen that COVID was a hoax. "Dangerous" began to write itself. In the span of a few weeks I had it completed and wanted to release it while the message was still timely. 3.) Your newest release "Sweet Tooth" is such a smooth track, tell us about the writing/ recording process.

Thank you. This was around the time that the remaster of Prince's "Sign O The Times" was about to drop, along with 63 unreleased songs from his vault. That album is an inspirational mile marker for me and I simply wanted to write an homage to my hero. It was not my intention to copy him as much as capture the way he could make you feel and reinterpret that feeling through the filter of my own capabilities and taste. I set out to let an infectious, clean and quirky groove drive the shape of the song. More often than not, I write "backwards" compared to the school of traditional songwriting. Instead of starting with chords, lyrics and melody, I sometimes start with groove, bass and vibe. If that excites me enough to flesh it out into a song, the piece will survive. It's not a hard and fast rule as much as a bi-product of beginning my musical experience as a bass player. I need to feel it in my bones first. The rhythm has to make me want to tell a story. It comes from a primal place. On "Sweet Tooth" the rhythm led me to the synth layers and sound design which took me further down the road to that odd, falsetto chorus hook with the violin pluck in the stops. I was just allowing my eccentricity full reign. That verse melody and those harmonies fell directly in line afterward. From a Production standpoint, I was channeling a bit of Danger Mouse into FINNEAS to explore how much articulation and sonic separation I could create in the sound palette for this one. 4.) You've had some tracks that are centered around some heavier topics, but with this latest record, you took more of a fun and flirty turn, tell us about the inspiration behind it.

The last thing I want to be is a "one trick pony". The human condition is a spectrum of feelings and experiences. I could change the vibe of each song sonically but if I stayed in the same lyrical wheelhouse all the time, it would have the opposite of the intended effect. Yeah, I could be in my "Shame Against The Machine" mode very easily, but I'm super self-aware of becoming preachy, predictable and one dimensional. All work and no play makes Munk a dull boy. 5.) Your music has had some incredible placements, like The 70th Annual Tony Awards, NCIS, Hawaii Five- O, and so much more. What is on the "Munk Duane - 5 Year Goals" List?

As much work that is behind me, I'm convinced my best work is still ahead. I'm taking in so much of the exponential advancements in music technology and it's blowing my creative mind wide open with possibilities. It's like going from a box of 4 Crayolas to a box of 120. I feel like infinite opportunities lie ahead if I'm bold enough, and there aren't enough hours in the day to explore them all, and this is coming from a guy who stays up until 3 or 4am creating until he slumps over the console. Given all of that, I want to continue to diversify. I've had the honor this past year to contribute music to groundbreaking technology by Bose for a new earbud designed to help those with sleep disorders. This required a lot of research, exercising both my Right and Left brain. I want more of that, for sure. I'll be working on more Film Scoring projects. Getting a taste of my first Hollywood Red Carpet experience as a Composer was pretty intoxicating and yeah, if I'm being honest, I want more of that too. Occasional celebration and acknowledgement of accomplishments is something I need to work on more. I'm really bad at it and hard on myself. I'm enamoured with the return of the Title Sequence as a work of art unto itself. Work done by studios like Perception (The Black Panther, Thor: Ragnorok) and Prologue (Star Trek: Discovery, American Horror Story) inspire me as much as any recording artist does. I'm exploring ways to crack my way into that world as a Composer. Producing other artists is also in the plan, as is a full length album for myself in 2021. I'm focused on continuing to will my way into the general awareness of the music and film industries, new fans and anyone that will honor me with a listen.

Listen to Sweet Tooth: https://open.spotify.com/track/4Q7KYh1gaKRoHolohoJQhF?si=OjGIsu2YSEOQk4byVwCYxg

Connect with Munk Duane via:

https://www.munkduane.com/

https://www.instagram.com/munkduane

https://www.youtube.com/munkduane

https://www.facebook.com/munkduane

#munk duane #indie music #new music #interview #music blog #music review

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kentonramsey · 5 years ago

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This Month’s Theme Is [Awkward Silence]

Exciting news! We’ve launched MR Think Tank, a digital braintrust we want *you* to be part of. We’re kicking it off with a survey that will help us get to know you better, so we can keep making stuff you love. In exchange, you’ll receive exclusive content and other fun things. Interested? Sign up by taking the survey!

I’ve started keeping the world’s simplest diary in quarantine. It’s inspired in part by the Susan Sontag book I’m “reading,” a collection of the “Notes on Camp”-writer’s journals and notebooks kept between the years 1964-1980. When I pulled it out from the middle of my “to read,” pile I imagined it would be a more classic sort of literary diary—the kind with polished prose that seems like it was written by candlelight itself. Instead, it’s a chaotic bowerbird’s nest of random thoughts, memories, and realizations, which, it turns out, is much better for me right now. The very pages of this book seem to have ADD—and, well, so do I.

I’m keeping my diary because, well, George Saunders told me to, but also because I’m afraid that if I don’t make an effort to differentiate the days in my memory, they will cease to differentiate themselves. It’s a very unfussy affair—my notes are housed in a Google Doc called “CV Diary.” Here’s a sample week.

April 11, Sat:

Groceries

April 12, Sun:

Distanced walk with Matt’s parents at Art Omi

April 13, Mon:

Rainy & windy

April 14, Tues:

Lunch with Haley (Google Hangout) PM walk, complained to Bennett about a variety of things over the phone

April 15, Weds:

Morning run 1 year at MR!

April 16, Thurs:

Stayed up till 2 am listening to new Fiona album Felt really good to indulge in collective excitement about something

April 17, Fri:

Went on a morning run so I could time the “running up that hill” lyrics in the new Fiona album to literally running up a hill. Worth the effort

April 18, Sat:

April 19, Sun:

Made eggplant parm literally all day Cursing Claire Saffitz in a good-natured way

Some days I write more, but never anything even approaching a paragraph. Other days, I don’t write anything, which sometimes leads to multi-day stretches of nothingness that I will go back and fill in after consulting my Google calendar, text messages, and camera roll for hints about how exactly I spent that time.

I can’t believe it’s been an entire month since I told you there would be no official April theme, and nearly everyone in the comments responded with a “yep, that checks out.” At that time, on April 1st—April Fools Day, if you can believe it—I didn’t even consider that I’d be writing the same thing again on May 1st. But of course I am!

Things have changed though, even if the message is essentially the same. On April 1st—an era that my diary informs me entailed “fluffy coffee x2” and “skipping therapy”—many of us were still getting into the rhythm of things. Today, both the pervasive fear of how bad this would get and the novelty of a new indoor life has faded slightly, but new concerns and interests (culinary, sartorial, and otherwise) have emerged in their place. I’m back on May 1st, not to tell you what’s coming, but to ask you what you need now.

Styling ideas that bring Spring indoors? Recipes that make good use of leftovers? New skincare tips? Good excuses to play with makeup again? Silly-ass articles about the Sauce Man du jour or an update on the animals who’ve gone wild?

Let us know what you want to see right now and we’ll get to making it.

Photos by Louisiana Mei Gelpi.

The post This Month’s Theme Is [Awkward Silence] appeared first on Man Repeller.

This Month’s Theme Is [Awkward Silence] published first on https://normaltimepiecesshop.tumblr.com/ This Month’s Theme Is [Awkward Silence] published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

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wanderingtravelographer · 5 years ago

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We are living in interesting times. Our daily routines and structures as we know them have changed in a matter of hours and days as governments around the world have imposed quarantines and travel restrictions. The things we took for granted, like seeing friends, going to the gym, visiting galleries and museums, eating and drinking at cafes and restaurants are not daily realities anymore as the majority of people are home-bound in self-isolation and quarantine.

It is especially strange to me, as I am part of a generation which has no direct memory and experience of major international wars or disasters. Yes, major things happened while I was alive, like the Syrian war and the Great Recession in 2008, but they were either far away, distant headlines, or I was too young to actually notice what went on globally and was more interested in what new film was coming out. Now, I am being directly confronted with something I cannot simply ignore or turn notifications off for, as my life as I have known it for the past 20 or so years has completely changed, if only for a few weeks or months.

The virus is a threat to my health, yes, but what I find myself more anxious about is the widespread fear and xenophobia amongst people, something I have only witnessed in sporadic, isolated incidents, or read about in history books up to this point. Now I hear stories of some friends being refused water in customs because they ‘look too Asian’ and ‘might infect other people’ with the virus; I sense the fear of elderly people as they walk past me on the largely deserted streets, peeking out at me nervously from underneath their scarves; I see long queues for supermarkets and empty shelves because people are stocking up on canned food, eggs, and toilet rolls in panic, even though there are no shortages of these things.

And I am not saying we should not be wary of the virus. Fear is a natural response to the unknown, and we have evolved, as humans, to fear change and external threats. The virus is especially disorienting because we cannot rely on our senses to alert us on its whereabouts – we cannot see, hear, or smell this danger. We know it is there because we were educated about how viruses, bacteria, and microorganisms function. But we need to remember that we were also educated about hygiene, soap, and disinfectants, and how these discoveries helped to progress medical care, significantly lower infant mortality, and curb death rates.

Whilst it is natural to feel fear in the current situation, we should not let it control us. As humans we have some degree of choice as to how we react to situations, and we have the power to influence our own thoughts and actions.

Yuval Noah Harari managed to summarise two choices we, as a collective species, need to make: ‘The first is between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment. The second is between nationalist isolation and global solidarity.’.

When we think and act our of fear, it is easy to control our minds, and to give up freedom and privacy for the feeling of safety. But this can blind us to the fact that we don’t need to give up the rights our ancestors fought for for centuries to feel safe. We can foster a sense of safety by remaining connected to each other by talking to friends and family, by being aware of the risks and implications of going outside, and by learning how to regulate and handle the spread of the virus. Viruses don’t respect national borders, and whilst these man-made boundaries can help manage citizens more effectively by breaking them up into smaller populations, they can also develop an alarming sense of the ‘Other’ – someone who, in reality, is not much different from us.

It is simultaneously reassuring and heartwarming to see similar scenes play out around the world. People cheering and clapping to acknowledge the hard work of doctors and nurses from their balconies, windows, and porches. Creative, funny memes and videos making fun of the circumstances. Spontaneous outbursts of playfullness, like a woman in a supermarket line the other day, who sang the Hokey-Pokey at the top of her lungs to raise the spirits of her fellow shoppers.

I want to add another choice we need to make in our current circumstances, and that is the choice of how we perceive time. On the one hand, we can see the world grounding to a halt as a nuisance. Businesses operate less efficiently than usual as people navigate the world of working from home, exciting events and holidays are cancelled, our activities as to what we can do with all this extra time are limited to things you can do within the four walls of your home, and, if you are lucky, a garden or a nearby park.

On the other hand, we can see this time as a much-needed gift. It is a resource many of us complain of having too little of, a resource we always run out of, something we always wish we had more of and something we sometimes wish we could spend in different ways. And for the first time, we are simply being given more of it. Even if you are working from home, you are saving commuting time, or of you are used to working from home, you cannot do the variety of things you used to be able to do. But this can be a good thing on a personal and global level.

On a personal level, you can choose how you divide and spend your time. Maybe you can finally finish reading those books which have been collecting dust on your shelf for months on end, or you can go through the list of movies you wanted to watch but kept putting off, or you can pick up a new hobby which has been at the back of your mind for weeks but you were too tired or busy to try previously. And instead of going to cafes, galleries, clubs, and cinemas you can go outside and enjoy nature without any artificial stimuli. I feel like families are spending more time together as well, as I see more parents than ever at the park with their children, something which was perhaps more common in the pre-Internet era.

But the Covid-19 crisis is also buying us time globally, in terms of climate change. We are all aware that the current economic system and our habits as consumers is detrimental to our planet to say the least, and that we cannot continue living at the same pace if we want Earth to remain habitable for future generations of life. And now, as non-essential work places are brought to a standstill and travel is restricted in an unprecedented way, carbon dioxide levels are plummeting, and laws about the trade and consumption of wildlife are being rewritten. We are finally, as a species, forced to pause and reflect on our behaviour and how it is affecting our home. Whilst there are many people comparing the responses to the virus with the lack of similar response to the climate crisis, to me they are part of the same message.

The current state of our world is strange, and somewhat scary, but it is also a lesson on what makes us human. We are being given several choices about how we behave ourselves, choices which will have implications and repercussions for generations to come. We are also being given the most precious resource in the world – time.

…

Top three interesting articles about the situation which don’t depress me, and which informed this post:

Yuval Noah Harari: The World After Coronavirus https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75

Coronavirus: ‘Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief

A letter to the UK from Italy: this is what we know about your future

Thoughts – Gift of Time We are living in interesting times. Our daily routines and structures as we know them have changed in a matter of hours and days as governments around the world have imposed quarantines and travel restrictions.

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daylflay · 5 years ago

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It’s Always Darkest

Before the Dawn

“It’s always darkest before the dawn”; that’s how the old adage goes. Having said that, it’s currently pretty difficult for most of us to see past the dark. COVID-19 continues to spread (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-argentina/argentina-announces-mandatory-quarantine-to-curb-coronavirus-idUSKBN216446), the economy inexorably spirals downward (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/echoes-of-the-great-depression-us-economy-could-post-biggest-contraction-ever-2020-03-19), and my home state of California has just been put into lockdown (https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/03/19/newsom-orders-all-40m-californians-to-stay-home-in-nations-strictest-state-lockdown-1268248). The world is currently facing a crisis the scale of which arguably hasn’t been seen since said world was at war with itself, and for some, at least in America, that crisis started in 2016 when our current president was elected; for others, it started back during the 2007/2008 financial crisis; regardless of when the crisis started, the only path forward starts with labor.

During the early 20th century, when industry was changing the nature of then-modern life, global conflict’s grisly violence shocked sensibilities, and the meaning of life in Western culture started being questioned by the masses, a group of writers/artists known as the Modernists rose to the occasion and attempted to encapsulate the malaise and spiritual unease of their milieu. Poets like Edward Arlington Robinson chose to focus on the cynicism of the moment, as portrayed in his poem, Richard Cory. At the end of Robinson’s poem, the titular Richard Cory commits suicide: “And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.” I’m personally a highly cynical individual, and can very much understand Robinson’s disposition, but in this particular moment of ours, amidst a pandemic, I believe there’s much merit in the antithesis of my usual misanthropy; I think it’s optimism that gets us through this, not the other way around, and that will take work in our current social climate. Ezra Pound was another Modernist, and famously cynical, but he did have a somewhat famous catchphrase that I think is helpful in spite of his problematic nature: “Make it new”. Though neither Robinson nor Pound achieved the success they desired via their poetry, both economically and otherwise, until their latter years, they still labored on and continued writing, because they understood the importance of what they were creating; they understood that the moment in which they lived demanded their sacrifice. In our current moment of crisis, when nothing is certain and everyone’s on edge, we have to take our usual misplaced hatred and diametric opposition towards each other and work towards transforming it all into something else; we have to make it new.

The New

The idea of making something new can result in positive and negative developments, and Brooke Erin Duffy delves into some of the latter in The romance of work: Gender and aspirational labour in the digital culture industries. In Duffy’s article, she rallies against a new form of exploitative labor unique to the digital era: “While critical discourses of precarity and instability offer a decidedly bleak view of the contemporary labor market, individualist appeals to passion and entrepreneurialism temporally reroute employment concerns. That is, affective mantras like ‘Do What You Love’ shift workers’ focus from the present to the future, dangling the prospect of a career where labour and leisure harmoniously coexist. This illusory coexistence is well suited to descriptions of work in the culture industries, widely understood as environments where low pay and long hours are a tradeoff for creative autonomy”. I think Duffy’s ultimately correct in her assessments, but this present moment of ours compels me to momentarily disregard the nefarious implications of the modern labor market. I think that if you’re able to create entertaining content for people during this dark period of time, and you get to “do what you love” while doing so, then you’re providing a mutually beneficial service when people need such a thing most. It’s during moments like these that the best in people can shine through the ominous haze, and the individuals I’m tracking are (mostly) no exception. For the most part, the people I’m paying attention to are already professionally involved in media to some degree, so they’re not vying for employment on the same level the individuals Duffy refers to in her article are, but that makes their intent clearer to an extent.

Rick Wilson always makes attempts to simultaneously espouse his ideology while humorously attacking individuals on Twitter, but he’s also been posting a lot of entertaining memes/gifs recently. Just today (3/19/20), he posted two of them within a couple of hours of one another: One was a gif pulled from a South Park episode, which itself was a reference to the film The Human Centipede, and it read, “I wonder if Hannity likes the cuttlefish or the vanilla pudding.”; the other was an image of Donald Trump in a Star Trek costume, and it read, “Glad we have a space force instead of a pandemic response team”. Rick was not being incredibly nice to either Sean Hannity or Donald Trump, but the overtly humorous images are bound to brighten the days of folks that are rightfully upset with both Hannity and Trump for their respective roles in exacerbating the current crisis.

Mehdi Hasan is generally a solemn tweeter, which is sensible considering that his occupation as a journalist entails that he maintain a certain sobriety when communicating anything to the public. Mehdi’s approach to producing sunnier-than-usual content today involved (somewhat) praising a man he loathes, and bestowing loving and kind thoughts upon his children: In a tweet directed at Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Mehdi tweeted a link to a Clickhole (a humor/satire website) article whose headline read, “Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point”; in another of Mehdi’s heartfelt tweets of the day, only a minute separated from the prior tweet, Mehdi responds to a tweet by Time magazine editor Anand Giridharadas that read, ‘What have you watched, read, or heard in this strange, dark time that has given you comfort and joy?’, to which Mehdi says, “My kids”. It’s a nice moment from Mehdi, and a reminder of what’s important during times like these.

Like with most things in life, women, relative to men, have to deal with additional complications attached to their actions online, and that unfortunately remains true even when it comes to them trying to do moral and selfless things. In The Unwanted Labour Of Social Media: Women Of Colour Call Out Culture As Venture Community Management, Lisa Nakamura, like Brooke Duffy criticizes exploitative digital labor practices, especially germane to women: “Digital labour is ‘difficult to conceptualise’ because the internet creates new styles of labour: it not only traffics far more in the immaterial, it is also arrayed along new axes of production, new forms of compensation, and new forms of gendering and racialisation. It is this kind of labour that interests me. I am specifically interested in the hidden and often-stigmatised and dangerous labour performed by women of colour, queer and trans people, and racial minorities who call out, educate, protest, and design around toxic social environments in digital media.” All of the women I’m following fall into at least one of the aforementioned social/cultural categories, i.e., they’re all women of color, and one of them is trans. These women, even while being entertaining are still politically conscious, and just by existing on Twitter are making a statement while simultaneously making themselves vulnerable. Having said that, they still persist in generating entertaining content for everyone’s sake despite it all.

Patti Harrison is trans and Vietnamese, and doesn’t hide either from her 100,000-strong Twitter following, so she’s someone whose very public existence is a powerful declaration of pride in of itself. On March 15th, and also today (3/19), Patti shared how she was spending her isolated time at home, in typically candid form: (3/15) “I am playing @AbzuGame right now on PS4 & it is really good also I am high and online! Love the websites on here. This tweet go viral now!”; (3/19) “Uh oh…craft alert…I hand-painted these @Margiela tabi boots. And Per @tweetrajouhari I added an awful foot tattoo of Elsa from Frozen.” Patti, by simply sharing the details of her seemingly enjoyable time at home, invited her Twitter feed into her life, and she was happy to do so, which must’ve made a plethora of her followers feel markedly less alone with such a vibrant personality keeping them company virtually.

Kashana Cauley is a black woman, who, like Patti, has upwards of 100,000 followers, which inevitably results in some negative attention, but she tweets on regardless. Kashana hasn’t been very active on Twitter recently, but when she does tweet, she makes it count, as evidenced by this tweet from March 15th: “Ask not what staying home on the couch can do for you, but what staying home on the couch can do for your country.” That tweet of hers was liked by over 100,000 people, which exceeds her follower count. The amount of people that it reached, and the amount of people who interacted with it, is astounding, and the amount of humor and joy she surely brought to those lives, even if just for a moment, is commensurately astounding.

Candace Owens, unlike the aforementioned women, is not exactly one to diffuse joy; in fact Candace loves doing the exact opposite. Her presence on Twitter is almost exclusively designed to anger people and start fights, which is why I’m so shocked that even she is attempting to lighten up the mood during this somber period of time. This is a tweet of hers from today (3/19): “I wanted to do panic buying, but then I checked my account. Turns out I can only afford to panic…#CoronavirusHumor…Lighten up folks.” If even Candace is willing to perform humorously in favor of the greater good, as opposed to inflaming tensions with her usual provocative rhetoric, then I have hope for the dawn.

The Dawn

In Of Modern Poetry, Wallace Stevens communicates the spirit of Ezra Pound’s directive to “make it new”: “The poem of the mind is the act of finding what will suffice. It has not always had to find: The scene was set; it repeated what was in the script. Then the theatre was changed.” Our global theatre has officially changed, and each and every one of us has a responsibility to work towards finding what will suffice in this maelstrom of ever-changing circumstances. For me, that means working on a script for a movie that has zero chance of actually existing (which means that I have zero chance of profiting off of any of this), because I’m just hoping that it makes someone out there smile.

In my last blog post, I imagined what a contemporary addition to George A. Romero’s living dead cinematic universe might look like. Personally, the act of simply thinking and writing about this silly, hypothetical project has brought me some sense of joy during all of this, and that’s saying a lot for someone as typically nihilistic as myself. I’m going to add to said hypothetical entry in Romero’s saga, entitled Gen-Z, with a speech delivered towards the end of the “film”. This speech is delivered by a Communications student at the university in Fullerton, California in which the living dead outbreak originated. A number of the university’s students have barricaded themselves in the campus, and are about to engage in a last stand against the hordes of living dead. Their survival is unlikely, so they’ve decided to gather one last time in an attempt to rouse one another before their climactic battle.

This is the speech that the student delivers: “I remember my first official day on this campus vividly, but not fondly. It was the first day of the Fall ’18 semester, and I guess classes just let out because I saw what felt like thousands of people suddenly rush across campus. It was like the running of the Titans, and I was wearing orange. Or the running of the dead, and I was alive, as the case may be. College was never part of my plan, so I had never toured any university campuses, and I did not know what to expect. I kind of freaked out and started questioning all of my decisions, like: Why did I decide to attend a school with 40,000 students if I don’t even like small groups of people? And why did I major in Human Communication Studies if I don’t even like myself? It was overwhelming to me that I could be surrounded by people, yet feel so alone. Then I walked over to my first class, and I saw some of the same faces that I’m looking at today. Everything can be overwhelming when you feel like you’re alone, but what I started to learn that very first day, and what this major continues to teach me, is that I am not alone; none of us are. I have not had the pleasure of knowing everyone on this campus, but we have all walked this path together despite that: We have all been stressed out because of Finals, we have all battled personal demons, and zombies, we have all lived life with its many complexities, and we did it all together on this campus. To this day, I still do not like myself all that much, but that’s okay, because none of this is really about me; it’s about all of you. Look to your right, and to your left, and in front of you, and maybe behind you; that is why we do what we do; we fight alongside each other, for each other. In this era of social media, divisiveness, and the living dead, nothing is more important than empathy, and that is the core tenet of our work here. We have been trained to understand each other, and that means that it is incumbent upon us to help mend our fractured communities; our fractured country; our fractured world. It is going to be a lot of work, but it’s work worth doing, because we’re not just doing it for ourselves. As Zac Efron once said in the 2006 hit film, High School Musical: ‘We’re all in this together.’ Rest in peace, Zac, this one’s for you. Now let’s go kill some fucking zombies!”

#Rick Wilson #Mehdi Hasan #Patti Harrison #kashanacauley #candace owens #coronavirus #covidー19 #earobinson #ezra pound #wallace stevens #highschoolmusical #zac efron #california #georgearomero #livingdead #zombies

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ckcker · 5 years ago

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Spit-Take’s Last Squirt

I look down at the parking lot of the apartment complex, I briefly think the back of a woman’s head walking away from me is the front of a hot guy walking towards me. I hear a deadbolt unlock and turn and am invited inside. Crossing the threshold of Rob’s apartment door sinks a throttled prick through my body akin to stumbling into a rusty and bubble-wrapped metal spike apparently for sale in an antique store. Even as the top door hinge passes by my temple as a snubbed showbiz air kiss there is a flash in my mind of something, unrelated to the physical apartment and also a thing I will never be able to remove, that asks to keep my focus in two places at once. Between these two places, the feet and the head spitroast me with their perverse negotiations. My initial trauma is at this point overused as a topic and let’s agree boring to think about; my mind starts to suggest trauma spinoffs instead. I am given a glass of water by Rob but then ask for a beer as, without asking, my memory gifts me excruciating yet kinkily edited content of my attempts to recover. One of the best ways to come back from a nervous breakdown, I decided in the aftermath of that notable moment, is to do it very very quickly, ‘few solutions are as correct as speed-processing a massive landmark shift in the perception of reality,’ I had soothed myself in the aftermath. I was hoping for something shittier than an IPA, I drink the IPA and turn, I notice the back of what I believe is an old woman’s head and body resting on the couch.

After my ˹survivable event˼ it was typical for all of the dying to retire inward. I believed I could bring back my life in the same way that people made jokes about being dead inside to prepare for the end of the world. Alright, the remodeling of total defeat into pragmatic quarantine. Enough disaster movies had passed, everyone notices catastrophes have entertainment value, I would walk past and look in the glass reflection of a recently opened Thai street food spot run by white ex-skaters, I evaluated my drilled in face and greyed out options, my de-emphasized terror: maybe even I could be entertaining. My original twist on the concept of recovering was to imagine my strength and ability as limitless. To decide I could pre-understand the well-flung implications of my situation, of a mind unable to cope with learning all of the things that are possible. I wanted to turbo-ravel a lights out unraveling; the poet who wanted to be a cop. I turn to Rob and say nothing about the apparently older woman, he also says nothing about her, asks, “what kind of music do you like?” before playing an Ace of Base song and I don’t have to answer. The woman seems to be activated. Her limbs slide against her torso and she turns to look around the room, then briefly at us but again at the room, then one certain spot on the wall to the right of where we are standing where she settles and says “hi” in a warble expelled as a foehn.

I return the hi and am introduced to Gail. I thought of all my failed solutions. For instance, attending several satellite Occupy Wall Street protests, where discussions of income inequality and widespread mobilization were annotated with shouts, why is there fluoride in our water and end the fed. One important takeaway involved a large man yelling along to the song being played on the sound system, “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me,” for two repetitions of the lyric before realizing no one else would join him and vanishing into embarrassed aerosol. A successful protest fixates on a way for everyone to feel more or less the same emotion at a coordinated moment. A successful protest is very sharply art directed and does not relish the display of rehearsed outrage. The foot I thought I’d taken out of my ass and put through the door had somehow ended up in some other ass. Feel it for the first time again. Though people will regularly re-watch movies only waiting for their favorite lines to be said, it seems they rarely stop to consider protest tactics they have seen before. I thought I had the patience, the dedication for such things, I tapped out naturally and in gas form. “She needed a place to stay for a bit,” Rob tells me, Gail says nothing but smiles lightly, looking at us in some awesome combo of salivating for a response and indifferent to the fact of being trapped behind twenty successive panes of stained glass. Tchah, the experience of watching an ancient demon fail an eight week long beginner’s course on improv. “I see,” I conclude, Gail’s expression remains the same. “Wow…’Beautiful Life’ is such a good song,” Rob says. The song moves to the front. I say, “Yes, I do love ‘Beautiful Life.’”

I had tried walks and not just sometimes but many walks. Down the city cul-de-sac at a certain time. Listening to wordless music, this one some sort of ambient dramatization of Eurydice’s botched escape from the underworld, a repetitive melancholy chunnel. Then a rotation: it becomes Britney from an era when pop turned us around an axis both blingy and higgedly-piggedly-nigh-fucky-wucky, gently increasing the healing concept with each exacting flail, that there may be a consolation for all problems leading up to and including the end of the world. The consolation was dancing all night. Of course the time of my walks was twilight. Fried mindsets gave the music much power as a narrative soundtrack; as I looked at a single branch of a very tall tree overhead and caught in sunset and streetlight, jiggled evocatively by wind, and heard a sort of coincidental despair-organized belch from the buckled gut of the mp3, I attempted to speed things up by trying to lose my mind all of the way. This did not work, I had to stay somewhere in between.

I went on more walks alone but never too far from my amazing bed. It was crucial to be within 30 walking minutes of somewhere unsurveilled where I could lay down and catalogue mysterious headaches, as mysterious headaches had rightfully been selected as the center of my world. The speed of losing a mind is incredibly hard to measure. Gail also listens to ‘Beautiful Life’ and clearly does not know what it is, I don’t feel familiar enough with Rob to confront the question of how they know each other, I try:

“Are you two related?”

“No no no, haha,” Rob’s voice enters an excited tone. Gail emerges a glacial grin that, even as it forms one of the most approachable configurations able to be realized on a face, still seems misdirected from the hook of a comforting social cue, “no, I met Gail at a bar last night. At Tina’s. She just needs a place to stay for a little. She just moved back here.” “I spent many years in Lawrence, with my family,” Gail says.

“I see.”

Context clues point to homeless, I ache to know much more, Rob twirls around with unbridled pizazz. He puts his two arms straight out towards me, “what would — ohhh!!” He retracts his arms. “I was going to ask if you wanted something to drink.” Gail rests, “but you already have a beer,” and here he must have felt the panic to entertain away a social gaffe by immediately giving a clear-cut logical explanation, “my mind has been wiped away this week. So much molly… Well… good.”

“Yes.”

“Yes INDEED hunny. This past weekend just about mummified me, I’ve been in a sarcophagus all WEEK, did you do anything fun?”

“Umm.”

I remembered then I was trying to stop using umm. I was coaching myself to be quite fearless and brave when entering sentences. The CEO of a major newspaper-then-media company once said, before filming a segment for an in-house spot on the company’s approach to advertising its newly launched free weekly targeting 23-35 y/o young professionals, ‘I’m not an umm guy.’ This dialogue, delivered to the video director who was reminding the CEO to look straight in the camera and avoid using expressions like “umm” and “uhh” since they communicated unpreparedness, nerves or insecurity, revealed in its choppy severity a set of verbal and body language constraints that likely this man thought of all the time in order to conjure his short and long term goals. Likely he thought of them almost as much as I thought about mysterious headaches. I had been hired to help craft services for the shoot and spent much of the time sitting against a wall print of a famous basketball player, staring at the glass-walled office and elevators meant to enhance, via the perspective of ‘more space’ given by such architecture, a tech-oriented workplace for the media-damaged graduates. See-thru offices offer more natural light, the young people of the era seem to enjoy a certain kind of light. Another two-day job to float me, and an opportunity to rebuild a stomach for being outside of my incredible room. “I stayed in on Saturday,” then I pause before continuing, “I watched a movie. A documentary,” which I had watched for 17 minutes before moving to my window to observe the parking lot for 45 minutes, followed by bed.

Rob seems uncomfortable with this idea, “you should come out with us this weekend. There’s some stuff going on. Maybe you can come to this super fun party, it’s a queer party. In fact it’s a conspiracy theory-themed queer party.” Gail moves her left forefinger a splanch. “It’s really funny! And good music, people dress up, it’s called……….Femmetrails” there is a pause of expectation which I do not know how to meet and which is ignored “it’s really funny and lots of dancing. My friend Blake hosts it. But in drag. And, guess what his drag name is” I try to remember: was it a parking lot I observed, or a man in his early 40s masturbating within a fingerprint-shrouded computer screen “Georgia SORROWS. Gail’s going to come!” Gail has stopped grinning and seems to be unreachable for the length of a square breath before a small shift in her sitting style punctures the proto-gargoyle droop. “Yes I am going to come” she confirms. “Yes and you should too,” it appears Rob is attached to the idea. I clean out my lower mouth with my tongue, with mouth closed. “That would be, maybe” this seems to be enough of an answer for everyone.

Rob sits on the ground, I begin to prepare my body to also sit on the ground. It had been a meat lover’s pizza approach to self-healing. Kava tea from the pharmacy chain, sugar abstinence, performative meditation, I slipped into nonsensical jogging regimens, coffee abstinence, I walked gently in frozen empty parking lots, I didn’t touch anyone for a full year, “my balls are lost halls,” short term CBT and do-it-yourself biofeedback, waiting for hyperventilation so I could write about it, and all this supported by typical means: substantial daily hard alcohol acceptances and fearless ibuprofen stuffings. And to heal oneself completely, one must never enlighten others to the full extent of the problem and the drenched map of half-solutions being applied, regularly, in secret. Yes, I had as much spiritual discipline as a teen in an Intro to Photo class taking b&w photos of homeless people on the street. I sit down at least four feet away from Rob and twelve from Gail, who in the meantime it has been discovered does not know the story of Amanda Bynes’ breakdown. She also does not know who Amanda Bynes is. Neither Rob nor I have any interest in making that clear. The super gonorrheic minutiae that line and then bedazzle the mental process of a terrified person do not enter conversations as smoothly as quotes from 23 year old cult TV shows canceled after two seasons. Not a shock, only a condition that makes the thoughts turn ever more crunched, ever more specific and internally bound, glowing with unpopular culture.

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Art F City: We Went to Frieze, Part Two: Pussy Hat Show Flops, Anti-War Hard On Holds Up

Frieze entrance

Yesterday we discussed the overall look and feel of Frieze and concluded that this iteration of the fair is far superior to previous years. Lots of lively inventive work and short on the kind of soulless work in a frame that can make these events so tedious. Today we take a deep dive into a lot of the art we saw. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

Anton Kern, Installation view.

Paddy: A booth full of a-list artist work, but none of it looked like crap they had left over from an old show. The lighthearted Nicole Eisenman statue heads with peace necklaces look like simplified characters derived from the Simpsons. The Anne Collier photograph to the left pictures a woman’s eye and a lone tear on her cheek. I felt uncomfortable viewing this work—like I was staring at a stranger crying on the subway platform.

Michael: I didn’t realize these sculptures were Nicole Eisenman until you pointed them out to me! I had no idea she made 3D work, and I actually think they’re better than many of her paintings, which may have fallen into a bit of a rut on account of how prolific she is. At times some can feel a little formulaic to me, like her mark making and form language become muddled by a desire to read as both illustration-like and painterly. Sometimes the result is a painting that feels like dated graphic design. The sculptures don’t have that problem. It’s funny how often that happens with painters—I almost always think they make the best sculptors.

Tala Madani, “The Emblem,” Oil on linen, 2017.

Don’t get me wrong: There’s plenty of painterly, illustration-like 2D work I like. And this year, Frieze had a plethora of examples. Yesterday, I mentioned that Tala Madani painting at David Kordansky Gallery of the naked man crawling away from the viewer. There’s something so fluid yet awkwardly descriptive about the way the figure is rendered with an economy of wet strokes, utterly other from the alien “landscape” he’s crawling across—which is dry brushed and looks like silkscreen ink. There’s a logic to the difference in textures between the organic and inorganic that’s so simple yet rewarding.

Paddy: I also thought there was a good showing of sculptural paintings. For example, there were a bunch of small Llyn Foulkes paintings at Spruth Magers that resemble those on view at the New Museum a couple years ago that stand out. Most of these are the repurposed second hand store paintings he collages and builds up their surface, but there was also a Mickey Mouse painting. Foulkes sees Disney as the root of all evil, so sometimes the political message of work veers into dopiness, but the sheer technical virtuosity of these works gives them a faux-naive feel. In other words, the simplistic message seems important to understanding the paintings.

Left: Kiki Kogelnik, “Express”, 1972, oil and acrylic on canvas. Right: Kiki Kogelnik, “Untitled (Still life with hand), 1964, enamel and india ink on paper. Simone Subal Gallery.

Paddy: This booth of Kiki Kogelnik paintings falls into the trend of wacky figuration we identified yesterday in part one of our post. Kogelnik is considered to be Austrian’s most important pop artist, though like many pop-artists, she sometimes disputed the label.

The majority of the works in this booth come from her “Women” series, which pictured women as they were portrayed in commercial advertising. Knowing this made me wonder if the current trend of figuration might be informed by similar interests. Millennials are likely to be influenced by Instagram and Facebook, but the end result is similar—pictures of people looking happy.

Jeppe Hein, “Please Participate”, 2015, Neon Tubes, transformers, 303 Gallery

Michael: I don’t think I have ever had such a visceral immediate reaction of hatred to an artwork as this one. Is this like a parody of bad inspirational meme decor? What the hell is “SVING” and why do I need to do it after yoga?

Paddy: It’s so bad. This work was centered in the vortex of bad text art at the back of the fair and at some point, I think both of us had ended up walking in circles trying to figure out how to escape the area. It needs to be quarantined for the protection of fair visitors.

The best Jeppe Hein works I’ve seen take a jab at the “white cube” while simultaneously evoking the universal. Olafur Eliasson and Dan Graham are often cited in reference to Hein, and when his works fail, typically it’s because they are retreading well worn territory of 70’s art making. This cringe-worthy work fails in the same way an Eliasson might fail—striving for a universal by offering up prescriptive verbs associated with being content and self-aware. The problem, of course, is that it removes all the day to day bullshit that all this self-care is meant to deal with. It’s so simplistic a message it’s offensive.

Michael: This is what I imagine would hang over the reclaimed wood counter at the gluten-free macaron bakery that opens to signify a neighborhood has gentrified to the point of being uninhabitable to all but the least self-aware. Or, in 10 years, their genetically engineered dogs with self-cleaning hair.

Karl Holmqvist “untitled” at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

Michael: Gavin Brown’s Enterprise’s blindingly-bright booth is a bit of a head scratcher. It’s dominated by these massive Karl Holmqvist marker paintings with phrases like “HUG A HIPPIE; IT’S ALL THAT” and “HUG A HOE; HE’LL LIKE IT!” I’m not sure what to make of this and I am not sure anyone else did either—including the gallery staff, who at times seemed almost embarrassed by the booth?

Paddy: This is reminding me how little of the text art on view succeeded. Are these paintings supposed to thwart identity stereotypes and preach a message of acceptance? I assume these paintings are made with marker as a gesture to the protest signs we’re all spending our weekends making now. Fair enough, but they don’t translate well to an art fair environment. Protest signs are democratic by nature—these are just vessels for the uber rich to park their money.

Michael: It’s a shame these dwarfed Verne Dawson’s recent series of small oil paintings. Each of them is a bleak scene of low income quasi-rural-quasi-suburban sprawl. At first glance they seem to reference pastoral romantic landscape painting. Then it becomes apparent that all is not right: there’s a subtly acerbic clash of colors, the brushstrokes feel violent and unresolved, and the landscape is marred by highways and hastily-painted trailers. They’re a little hard to look at despite the fact that they’re great paintings. They feel very of this era—I think they reflect the unease (guilt? horror? sociological curiosity? alienation?) with which “our America” has been forced to look at “other America” since the election.

Paddy: While I agree this booth is a head scratcher, I actually think think those Dawson paintings held their own against the Holmqvist—no small feat considering the difference in scale. (Dawson’s paintings were no more than 18 inches wide while Holmqvist had an entire installation.) We both drew a lot of out of those Dawson works—but the other works in the booth, a series of crude renderings of Japanese homes received virtually no attention from us. I had to look up the photos to remember what they looked like, I have no image of the label and can’t find them anywhere else online. Those were the works that were forgettable—as is evidenced by the fact that we forgot them.

Cheim & Read, “Pink”, installation view.

Jenny Holzer, Truism on a marble bench

Paddy: In honor of the Women’s March and the sea of pink hats, Cheim & Read put together a booth of works defined by the color. I support the impulse here, but the result is a clear miss. For one, at first glance, the booth looks like a boutique outfitted for spring. Very little in this booth looks like it’s worth the money they’re charging for it. For another, the text based works they had available—all by Jenny Holzer—either suffer from sentimentality or were simply too aggressively weird for viewers to feel anything but awkward. (I’m speaking specifically here of Holtzer’s tattoos, which contained messages like “I find her squatting on her heels and this opens her so I get her from below” paired with “I have the blood jelly”.) I overheard a sales consultant hilariously straining to spin Holtzer’s truism on a bench positively. “This one— “It is in your self interest to find a way to be very tender”—[pause] is a more uplifting message.” She smiled awkwardly.

Michael: So many of the Holzer tattoos left even me (notoriously immune to the gross-out) feeling icky. There’s lots of references to sex acts with questionable levels of consent, predatory stalking, menstrual shame, violence, and death… these deserved a much more seriously curated booth of feminist work beyond the “everything is like, totally millennial pink!” theme here. Of course, Louise Bourgeois’s fleshy bas relief of giant nipples was the booth’s stand-out highlight. Hung at head-level, they suggest the adult viewer could just open wide and get a squirt of breast milk, which is both funny and disgusting. Cheim & Reid missed a curatorial opportunity here. Starting with Holzer’s tattoo pieces and the Bourgeois, they could have seized on the body horror aspect of Trump (“Grab em by the pussy,” etc…) and run with that as a curatorial thread rather than fuzzy pink hats. This is actually an almost offensively reductivist approach to contextualizing feminist art.

Paddy: I totally agree with you. The whole point of this booth is to activate people against the misogyny of the Trump administration. Pink isn’t a concept—it’s a color. It’s unsurprising then that most of the work felt neutered.

(Left to Right) Ha Chong-Hyun, “Conjunction 01-2-8,” oil on hemp cloth, 2001; Chung Sang-Hwa, “Untitled 88-7-28,” acrylic on canvas 1988; and Park Seo-Bo, “Ecriture No. 68-78-79-81,” pencil and oil on hemp cloth, 1968.

Michael: At the other end of the color spectrum (or rather, off it), New York’s Tina Kim Gallery teamed up with Seoul’s Kukje Gallery to present a booth heavy with the big names of Dansaekhwa (a movement of monochromatic abstraction that arose in postwar Korea). I’m fascinated by Dansaekhwa for a few reasons. The use of cheap materials, emphasis on non-objective “labor,” and resistance to “beauty” makes the work feel like a bit of a sneaky protest against South Korea’s brutal 1970s dictatorship. I love the idea of seemingly inoffensive abstraction as a subtle rebellion against authoritarianism (how very different from Ray Bradbury’s vision of the art world in Fahrenheit 451!). The genre’s prisoner-number-like titles and dreary palette contribute to the dystopic vibe.

Ha Chong-Hyun, “Conjunction 15-150,” oil on hemp cloth, 2015 and “Conjuction 14-135,” oil on hemp cloth, 2014.

And seemingly, the art market loves Dansaekhwa too (there have been countless retrospectives on the movement at commercial galleries in recent years). It makes sense: everyone wants an excuse to frame collector-friendly abstraction with a good guilt-free backstory, particularly if it exists just outside the Western art history canon. I was a little taken aback by how many of the Ha Chong-Hyun works were from the 21st Century (I’m sure his older work’s been snapped up by collectors by now) and how it didn’t feel at all out of place with his peers’ work from decades ago. I like the idea that these artists (now quite elderly) have kept up this somber practice for longer than I’ve been alive and now they’re finally getting recognition (and seriously big paychecks) outside of a small-ish Seoul scene.

Yan Pei-Ming, “President-elect Trump,” 2017. At Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Michael: Speaking of anti-authoritarian impasto monochrome paintings, pussy-grabbing, body horror, and protest booths, I feel we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Yan Pei-Ming’s horrifying portrait of Trump (one of the few on-the-nose political works we liked). This is America, directed by David Cronenberg.

Paddy: We can’t escape Trump—not even on an island art fair for the rich.

Gerd Stern, “Hard On for Peace,” 1963 at Carl Solway Gallery.

Michael: Actually, this is my favorite political work. In the Spotlight section of solo booths, Carl Solway Gallery had a really nice Gerd Stern retrospective with this “Hard On for Piece” slightly tucked away in a corner. I laughed out loud when I saw this, because it’s such a direct way of messaging desire—even for a goal as noble as the anti-war movement.

When one of the people working the booth noticed me taking a picture, he remarked “Pretty impressive, eh?” and seemed to imply that the sculpture was a cast of the artist’s actual erection, gesturing across the booth towards the real, live, in-the-flesh Gerd Stern. The artist, for his part, just shrugged “What can I say? I was a younger man in the 1960s!”

from Art F City http://ift.tt/2q8D6Mt via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Art F City

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kentonramsey · 5 years ago

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160 People on Exactly How to Date Online Right Now

In partnership with Bumble.

10% of proceeds from Man Repeller’s partnership with Bumble will be donated to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which answers calls, chats, and texts from those affected by relationship abuse and supports survivors, their friends, and family members 24/7/365 throughout the U.S. and its territories.

A friend texted me a few weeks ago with a salient theory: “Once we’re allowed to go on dates again, I feel like it’s going to be the greatest time to be single in American history.” His optimism was energizing, as was the suggestion that we might be a part of something historic, something akin to the repeal of prohibition. As the weeks in quarantine add up, my initial survey investigating who’s swiping on dating apps right now already feels like a relic from a bygone era. In need of an update on the state of dating swiping affairs, we’ve partnered with Bumble to take the pulse on how Bumblers are Bumbling a month or so into isolation. Who’s dressing up on top and wearing sweatpants on the bottom? Whose moms keep sneaking up behind them on their Video Chat dates? Who’s doing a design-agency-caliber rebrand of their profile?

You know what’s better than texting your friends for dating advice (sorry, friends)? Surveying the greater MR community on their Bumble shenanigans, and gleaning all sorts of intel in the process (tried-and-true opening lines chief among them). And for the cherry on top: a few MR readers annotated their Bumble profiles, walking us through their thought process like a celebrity home tour.

In the logical chronology of how modern courtship unfolds, read on below for: Pie charts aplenty! Annotated Bumble profiles and first date outfit ideas! Giggle-inducing stories during our global gossip shortage, as my friend Starling called it! Polar opposite predictions for dating’s future! And then, whether you’re looking for connection or banter, pick me up around seven in the comment section?

Table of Contents

Step I. Refresh Your Profile

Step II. Craft Your First Move

Step III. Make Your First Impression

Step IV. Soul Search

Step V. Pivot to Video

Step VI. Pick Your Outfit

Step VII. Plan Your Date

Step VIII. Debrief With Friends

Step VIIII. Look Into Your Crystal Ball

Embrace the self-portraiture boom

— “Updated my pictures, had more time to take bomb selfies.” — “I added some photos post-quarantine-hair-dye!”

A new chapter for your autobiography

— “I changed the bio to: ‘ out of quarantine snacks plz send help’” — “New bio, to indicate I am also sealed in my house but looking to speak to other humans who are fun.” — “My bio: ‘I’m super passionate about socializing which is why I’ve already gotten in contact with your blood relatives and turns out I could potentially be your type.’” — “My bio is now: ‘Keeping my social distance.’ And I changed a few photos.”

Widening or narrowing the radius

— “I’m with my parents, so I updated my location.” — “I haven’t updated my profile, but I put my friends who didn’t leave NYC in charge of managing my profile. I retreated back to my hometown in MA… and do not wish to match with anyone here.” — “Changed my preferences (I’m not anonymous in my hometown… and I’m definitely not out).”

A tip straight from the source: using three or more profile photos increases your chance of matching on Bumble by 31%.

Canned as a sardine

— “The gif with the bear saying hello with his paw.” — “‘You come here often?’” — “‘If your name is Junior, and you’re really handsome, c’mon raise your hand.’” — “I just type out the guy’s name with an exclamation point.” — “‘I’m gonna be honest, I don’t plan on leaving my house anytime soon, I’m just really bored.’” — “The recipient’s name and exclamation points !!!!” — “‘Will exchange home-brewed mead for fly-fishing tips.’”

Flattery (the sincerest form of flattery)

— “‘You look really sturdy.’” — “I use a really genuine compliment, honestly. I feel like guys don’t get those a lot.” — “Congratulations on being the most attractive person I’ve matched with.”

Intellectual curiosity with a question mark

— “‘What’s your favorite quarantine snack?”” — “‘If you had a free afternoon (no quarantine), no obligations, no traffic, and $50 in your pocket, what would you do?’” — “‘If you could road-trip anywhere in the world, where would it be?’” — “‘Hey what’s your dog’s name!’” — “‘Do you believe in ghosts?’” — “‘What’s the most interesting thing you’ve done this week?’” — “I ask about their go-to album during quarantine.” — “‘If you were a shoe, what shoe would you be?’”

Bespoke as an Italian suit

— “I typically look for something in the profile of the person that I matched with that is either unique or strikes me as a bit strange and I’ll ask them about it.” — “I’ll ask a question about one of their pictures. If they’re playing an instrument, I’ll ask what kind of music they like, if it’s an obvious touristy picture (example: them at the Colosseum) I’ll ask when they visited and if they liked it.” — “Something related to their linked Spotify.” — “It’s usually based on their profile. I’m a custom gal.”

A tip from Bumble: the bold among us can send an Audio Message to your match instead of text.

I’m funnier than a standup special

— “I’m a laugh and a half.” — “That I’m fun and can banter.”

I contain multitudes

— “I’m multifaceted with a big personality.” — “I’m a collage of a human being. Also, that I am a successful woman, and I will not tolerate someone who will talk down upon me.”

I know exactly what I want

— “I like a very specific radio show that I hope some man out there also likes.” — “I want happiness, no drama, a creative thinker, and someone with a sense of humour.”

They should manage their expectations

— “I’m probably taller than them.” — “I am (and this should be) uncomplicated. — “That my love for Jeff Goldblum will never match any kind of love for you.” — “That I‘m hot, fun, and need to be fed constantly.” — “I mean business.” — “I’m looking for something real.” — “I am cute and like pizza.”

A tip from Bumble: add the Virtual Dating badge to let your match know you’re down to date from home.

Crisis management, considered

— “It’s interesting to see how people react to a crisis. It says a lot about a person.” — “I need someone I can prepare to be locked away with for months on end with no external contacts.” — “Petty things don’t matter, just make me laugh.” — “Being around my parents during this makes me realize what I do and do not want.” — “It is more important to me that he be actively working on his health and wellness (physical, mental, emotional).” — “I am definitely more curious now about how people spend their spare time. Something I probably would have never thought too much about before the pandemic. Obviously it’s nice to know hobbies and such, something I would have liked to know before, but what is occurring now helps you understand the various ways people are dealing with this. It’s an odd social experiment and distraction that I am definitely enjoying!” — “I’ve always thought about who I want to go into an apocalypse situation with.”

Dealbreakers, reconsidered

— “It all feels a bit pointless right now, so I’m more open.” — “I feel like I’m not limiting myself as much—usually location (especially in a city without a car) plays a role, but right now it’s not a factor and maybe it never needed to be! I also definitely am paying more attention to the men that are taking this seriously.”

Opportunities for self-reflection, seized

— “It’s given me an interesting break to think about my ‘need’ for another person. When relationship progression is off the table for a while, the stakes are lower and you can just enjoy talking to people.” — “More interested in companionship.” — “More long-term vision.”

A tip from Bumble: you can now expand your Distance radius to the entire country.

The smooth move

— “I bring up a heated topic and then I say, ‘Actually it’d be easier to explain over Video Chat.’ Usually, they want to debate so badly that they agree.” — “I say: ‘It’s a long story! Let’s Video Chat and I’ll tell you.’”

Weave your dulcet tones into conversation

— “We texted for three full weeks. Then I asked, ‘Have you wondered yet if I have a super weird voice that would make all this texting kinda pointless?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, it would be kinda weird? But if you have like a Darth Vader voice, I’m into that.’” — “Say: ‘Hey, wanna hear my voice?’” — “Send Audio Notes first.”

A personal touch

— “I sent an iMessage hand-drawn note saying: ‘Do you want to go on a Video Chat date? Check: yes or no.’”

Make the second move

— “I think just ask! Worst that’s going to happen is they will say no!” — “I say something like, ‘So usually I’d want to go on a date with you, but how about a Video Chat for now?’” — “It’s video time, baby face.” — “The Bumble video call feature is great. When I’m tired of texting someone, I ask them if they want to go on a video d8.” — “Discuss plans for the next few days and then suggest an early evening drink.” — “He initiated. He was like, ‘[This place] is normally where we would go on a date… Grab some wine and let’s pretend?’” — “Just ask.”

A tip from Bumble: try Voice Calling within the app if you aren’t ready to exchange numbers or take it to the Video Chat level.

Fast casual

— “I don’t really think virtual dates are real dates but hangs, so I would just wear what I wear when I FaceTime a friend.” — “I wore a sweatshirt, he did too.” — “Nice sweats.” — “Simple T-shirt and leggings—we both know what we’re getting into at this point in quarantine.”

Half-dressed is more

— “Cashmere jumper or silk pajamas so I look luxe, but like I’ve not made too much of an effort.” — “A black camisole with a cozy sweater and gold hoop earrings. Sweatpants or pajama pants on the bottom. ” — “A cute top with sweatpants.” — “There’s a particular importance to what I wear on top, as that’s what will be seen on camera. The bottom is less important as it will be hidden, however there’s always a risk should I be asked to stand (to prove my height or maybe to do a pirouette), so I would refrain from choosing pajamas or any grungy sweatpants.” — “A cute sweater.” — “An outfit I wore before one of my virtual dates: a white Casablanca T-shirt and a dark blue V-neck cashmere jumper by Massimo Dutti. I wanted something comfortable and real. Nothing formal but presentable. I wanted to make the other participant feel comfortable and help us get over the usual initial awkwardness.” — “A bit of makeup.”

The YOLO approach

— “We decided to dress up in black tie—I wore a black velvet dress, diamanté earrings and socks! On another one I’d probably wear a nice top and jeans.”

A tip from MR: never underestimate the power of the flounciest sleeve in your closet.

Drinks or dinner? Beverages or edibles?

— “He made me a virtual oat-milk cappuccino. Going as far as buying oat milk the day before because he knew I was plant-based. Chivalry is not dead, ladies!” — “It went well! We just chatted with a cup of tea.” — “We had a beer together while chatting and played some games on Houseparty.” — “It was fun! We had dinner together and laughed about it being a cheap date.” — “We just talked and had drinks, it was nice towards the end when we got on some good topics of conversation, it probably wasn’t any more weird than a normal first date.” — “First, I take an edible… I wait 45 minutes… then I just let it happen.”

A game plan

— “The first was less awkward than I expected, and we talked for four hours straight. We had planned to do a Paint-With-Bob-Ross date, but the conversation ended up being engaging enough that we didn’t get to that part. ” — “It was the best: We played different types of games like ‘Would You Rather’ or ‘Never Have I Ever.’” — “It went well! We watched a movie beforehand so we would have something to talk about, but we ended up chatting about books and politics and our lives more.” — “Just talked, pretty good, a little weird but we both rolled with the punches.”

Digitally native dates

— “I had already met the person for a drink right before this all started, and so I had their number from that. We were joking about when a second date would happen and decided to watch a movie with Netflix Party and FaceTime first. It was really fun!!”

An efficient system

— “They’ve really run the gamut— it’s actually a great way to screen people and not have to waste hours and money out at a bar with someone you’re 0% into.” — “I did virtual dates before lockdown. They’re usually successful and consist of chatting.”

A tip from Bumble: challenge your match to a game of virtual chess, or compare astrological charts.

— “I made a group chat of all my Bumble matches, and they tried to get me to make a bracket of who was my favorite. We read a bedtime story as a group. Good times.” — “Swiped right on a guy two years ago, and we were supposed to go on a date. We never did, but we recently matched again, and I asked him how the past two years have been.” — “The date I went ‘on,’ he got very drunk and accidentally spilt red wine all over his bed and his snoozing dog. My mum also walked in halfway through and ended up introducing herself to my date.” — “A guy kept asking me to come over and I wouldn’t due to social distancing. He agreed to sell me his Switch so we could meet. Then he made a meme for me.” — “One match got stick-and-poke tattoos on his toes that said ‘on vacation’ one letter for each toe. ” — “I matched with my crush from work who I was too shy to talk to, and now we talk everyday. :)“ — “I’ve become really good friends with a guy who I’ve only FaceTimed with. We now have a little book club for the two of us. The relationship started out with some virtual sexting and has somehow morphed into a friendship.” — “I watched this guy I’ve been talking to take a shower, haha.” — “Feels like high school again, venting to an almost complete stranger about how much our parents are driving us wild. Hello, 2006.”

A tip from MR: write a review of your date in haiku.

Hands off!

— “Wild and cautious all at the same time.” — “More conscious about germs!”

Cuffing season!

— “People (read: me) will be more interested in relationships vs. dating around.” — “People are going to be really ready for relationships since we’ve been alone for so long.” — “I think disasters make people want to be connected—thinking about your own mortality will usually push your life forward—so I think people may want to be connecting more overall on an emotional level.”

Frenzy!

— “People are gonna be all over each other.” — “I want to have as much sex as I can for a year then start looking for something real again.” — “I think there will be a whole lot of new singles that broke up because of either long-distance, quarantine edition, or being too close to each other all the time.” — “A massive boom—five dates a week with a different person each night. Got so much to catch up on! (Friends first tho obvs.)” — “Everyone is just going to have a lot of pent-up sexual energy and frustration that I think people are going to make their matches now and then it’ll seamlessly transition to the physical aspect when this is over.” — “People are going to be so excited to go on real dates! Coffee shops and happy hours will be full, museums will be teeming with people, and I think we’ll all be a little better at communicating.” — “I think people are really going to value physical intimacy and the human touch. And just being in someone’s presence—it’s shocking how comforting it is.” — “It’s about to get WILD and I cannot freaking wait. I have a date lined up in person once this is over, so I already feel like I accomplished something cool to look forward to.” — “We are all going to be horny and even more socially inept than before.” — “Optimistic—I imagine lots of new singles, and a renewed enthusiasm for bars, dancing, and actually going places.” — “People will be dating like crazy after—I don’t want to be locked in isolation alone again.” — “Buzzing!”

A tip from Bumble: there are certain times of day when Bumble is booming. Might we suggest setting a calendar reminder and sauntering into the app in the early evening?

Graphics by Lorenza Centi.

The post 160 People on Exactly How to Date Online Right Now appeared first on Man Repeller.

160 People on Exactly How to Date Online Right Now published first on https://normaltimepiecesshop.tumblr.com/ 160 People on Exactly How to Date Online Right Now published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

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kentonramsey · 5 years ago

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The Emotional Evolution of Quarantine, as Told by My Instagram Bookmarks

Until two and a half weeks ago, my “saved” folder on Instagram told the indisputable tale of someone planning a wedding. It overflowed with images of long tables lined with colorful flower arrangements, bridal looks from old runway shows, hair #inspo, vintage stamps, registry fodder, no-makeup makeup, invitation suites, and candid shots of newlyweds obscured by a shower of petals. The last thing I bookmarked before the phrase “social distancing” became more commonplace than “hello” was a photo from a reception at a vineyard in Virginia: The couple set up a shelved trellis stacked with glasses in different shades of blue, so guests could serve themselves cold lemonade from an aesthetically pleasing dispenser.

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A post shared by Carats & Cake (@caratsandcake) on Mar 13, 2020 at 5:35pm PDT

The same day I saved it, I received an email from a friend confirming that her dinner party was still happening as planned the next evening, unless that was crazy? Everyone assured her it wasn’t, that it would be fine, because at this point, fine was honestly how things felt. Our offices had declared working from home “optional” but not mandatory, restaurants remained open for business, face masks were rare–and besides, it was a small group, only eight people, minimal risk. So we all showed up, toting bottles of red wine as thank-you gifts, deciding we probably shouldn’t hug and teasing each other about it. It was one of those truly perfect nights when everyone gets just the right amount of drunk, when there’s enough bolognese to have seconds, when the suggestion of playing a game after dinner sounds genuinely appealing.

Like the wedding photos in my saved folder, this evening feels like a relic of another era. I’ve seen tongue-in-cheek tweets referring to the time before coronavirus as “beforetimes,” which is less humorous than it is appropriately dramatic. The distinction between then and now is stark to the point of seeming fictional, like some trick of the memory. My only evidence that I’m not losing it completely is the tangible line of demarcation that divides the wedding photos from what I started bookmarking next: memes. Corona memes, to be precise.

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the sacred texts @chillblinton

A post shared by Shitheadsteve (@shitheadsteve) on Mar 18, 2020 at 8:50am PDT

If I were attempting to psychoanalyze our collective processing of the bizarre experience that is sudden isolation via social media–which I suppose, to some extent, I am–I would call the influx of corona-related memes and jokes the “denial” phase. Denial that we were grieving the loss of our old routines, and with them, the assurance that it was safe to exit our apartments, much less eat dinner with friends. Band-Aids though they may have been, the jokes were still entertaining: Venn diagrams about chillin at home, pleas for Apple’s screen time reports to be suspended, spot-on comparisons to Russian Doll, alignment charts, hand-washing quips… I bookmarked them by the dozen, each one an artifact of the mounting effort it took to maintain a sense of levity.

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A post shared by Good News (@tanksgoodnews) on Mar 25, 2020 at 3:20pm PDT

But news of the virus and its impact evolved rapidly, and with it, my instinct about what variety of content was worth memorializing and revisiting. As quickly as quarantine transformed from possibility to inevitability, many iterations of corona-related humor shifted from uplifting to unsettling. So instead, I bookmarked a photo of a man holding up a sign at a hospital window thanking the emergency room doctors for saving his wife, a clip of Hoda breaking into tears on the Today Show after a conversation with a football player who donated $5 million to coronavirus relief in Louisiana, a video of nurses taking a quick yoga break, a video of someone leaving toilet paper and hand sanitizer for people making deliveries, a PSA about businesses collecting donations to help feed those in need so I could remember to contribute later–any sliver of content that made me feel less alone in my spirals of anxious uncertainty, anything to feel connected to something bigger than the confines of my apartment that I know I’m deeply fortunate to live and work in right now.

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A post shared by Heidi – Apples Under My Bed (@heidiapples) on Mar 29, 2020 at 4:16pm PDT

I’m not sure what the whims of my saved folder will call for next during this strange time, but based on the recipe for bright, creamy corn pasta I just bookmarked, I have a hunch it’s likely to be cooking-related. I rarely cooked before all of this happened, but it is slowly becoming less of a chore born of necessity and more of a pleasure born of the desire to delimit the end of each day with something tangible, something nourishing. I scroll through the “explore” tab on Instagram and pause every time I see a photo that looks edible. I fantasize about baking a large casserole in the oven and freezing the leftovers. I squeezed sausage out of their casings for the first time last weekend, and it felt more meditative than anything I’d done in days.

For now, like many aspects of life as we knew it, my wedding planning is in limbo. I can’t get my dress fitted until the seamstresses who are making it can safely return to work. I can’t meet with the rector and organist at the church where the ceremony is supposed to take place. I might have to postpone the event altogether. I know these problems are minuscule in the grand scheme of what is happening right now–trivial, even–but they’re also a glimmer of what awaits in the aftertimes: celebrating together. Dressing up. Dancing outside. Sharing dessert out of the same bowl, all the sweeter because we had to wait.

Graphics by Lorenza Centi.

The post The Emotional Evolution of Quarantine, as Told by My Instagram Bookmarks appeared first on Man Repeller.

The Emotional Evolution of Quarantine, as Told by My Instagram Bookmarks published first on https://normaltimepiecesshop.tumblr.com/ The Emotional Evolution of Quarantine, as Told by My Instagram Bookmarks published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

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