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Sit down.

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WHAT WE OWE YASIIN BEY

LOOKING BACK AT THE INFLUENCE AND COMPLICATED LEGACY OF THE ARTIST ONCE KNOWN AS MOS DEF.

PHOTO BY JONATHAN MANNION FOR THE FADER.

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Destroy the idea that you have to be constantly working or grinding in order to be successful. Embrace the concept that rest, recovery, and reflection are essential parts of the progress towards a successful and ultimately happy life.

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RIP JUNIE MORRISON 

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We Need To Talk About PewDiePie

I’ve been waiting a couple of days for a YouTuber I follow - who posts daily - to upload his new video. He’s been talking about something new and different that he put together, and I’ve been excited to see what it is. When I didn’t see anything on his channel, I went to check his Twitter and was horrified. 

Instead of a link to a new video, I found a retweet of YouTube’s controversial “king.” 

“My Response,” was the name of the video in the PewDiePie tweet. “My statement about hate groups supporting me.” I sighed so loudly I woke up my dog.

YouTube has become somewhat of a comfort for me over the past year and a half or so. I’ve discovered some hilarious and creative people, and have been inspired myself to be more creative. I’ve picked up hobbies, learned new skills, and refined skills that I already had by watching YouTube, and on lazy days, I can always count on a series of videos to keep me occupied or help me fall asleep. But sometimes things get weird in the YouTube community, and it starts to drain all the fun. 

As with practically every part of the internet, you learn to avoid two major things on YouTube: comment sections and content that you don’t like/disagree with. I learned pretty early on that PewDiePie’s brand of humor was not for me. I had figured that he maintained such a large following for a reason, and decided to give him a try, but he failed to entertain me. Edgy, boundary-pushing humor stopped being funny to me when I was about 14. But entertaining me, specifically, wasn’t his job; I moved on to channels that did engage me, and I never looked back. 

His current “situation,” for lack of a better word, didn’t come as a surprise to me. He’s said some awful things in the past, and my response to hearing that he made anti-Semitic remarks was along the lines of “yeah, that sounds about right.” 

Obviously, I thought it was atrocious; how anybody in 2017 could possibly think making light of the historical genocide of a group of people was somehow acceptable - or, worse yet, humorous - was beyond me. But I wasn’t shocked when I heard who did it. I wasn’t even shocked when other YouTubers didn’t say anything - whether for or against the situation or PewDiePie himself, there was an overwhelming silence from the community.

But what did shock me was the amount - and the kind - of support he got today, particularly after posting that video.

The video’s description made me think Pewds was going to condemn those hate groups. He was going to maturely accept fault and acknowledge that losing his show and connection to Disney’s Maker Studios came as a consequence of his actions, and that would be that. Instead, what I made myself sit through was less of an apology or understanding of what he did wrong, and more of an instance of “sorry you were offended,” and condemning of the media.

Funnily enough, the video came on the same day our “fake news”-hating president tried to assure the press that he was the least anti-Semitic and least racist person he knew. 

Election night for me, like for many others, felt like the shock ending of a movie: dramatic and emotional, but, by all accounts, the results made no sense. In an effort to find comfort in a situation that led many to fear for the livelihoods of themselves and their loved ones, many of us flocked to social media, particularly Twitter, to express our disdain for what had just happened. What was this going to mean for journalists, who scramble to gather and distribute the truth in a time where the new leader of the country attacked them and their industry at every turn? What about women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, people who weren’t rich, people of different religions, people who fit into more than one of these identities? We were openly devastated, not because the person we voted for lost, but because someone unqualified and backed by groups like the actual KKK was elected as the face of the country. 

While most of us were on the same page - angry, terrified, desperate for someone to say “just kidding!” - there, of course, were those who didn’t share the same sentiment. I’m mature enough to know that not everyone shares the same political opinion; to paraphrase a quote from Obama from his farewell speech, we may disagree on our plan of action, but we can agree on what needs to be done for the good of everyone. But this was a different thing altogether; we weren’t just disagreeing on taxes, we were arguing about whether someone who talked about grabbing women by the genitals should be at the head of the discussions on reproductive rights; whether the guy who filed for four different bankruptcies should be in charge of the country’s finances; whether the guy backed by - I repeat - the very real KKK would listen to groups like BLM or condemn hateful acts by dangerous people like D*lann Roof.

But what really blew me away was the response from a YouTuber, who I used to consider a favorite of mine. In a (what appears to be deleted) series of tweets, he made comments on how those opposing the election results were just as intolerable as those people who supported the new president. In a rare move, I replied to one of his tweets, asking why we were expected to be okay with the results and the president’s supporters’ hateful actions surrounding the situation. I was extremely disappointed when he replied that “people hate on [him] all the time,” and that it didn’t stop him from persisting in his career because he didn’t “hate” them back. This was a grown man with a child, so I wasn’t going to explain to him that the “hate” he gets on YouTube is vastly different from the hate of discriminatory groups of people with political and systemic power to hold back and even harm the people that they hate. 

I had an idea of what he was doing - I know that maintaining a large fan base on such public platforms as YouTube comes with being careful not to alienate your fans by taking “extreme” stances on certain issues. I get it. But I expected someone whose “thing” is being nice and accepting of people would be more sympathetic to the fears of his followers.

Imagine my lack of surprise when I saw that this same YouTuber was speaking out in support of PewDiePie, laughing at headlines that he claimed pushed an “agenda” and telling publications to “learn humor.” It really made me wonder why they were so convinced that “the media” as a whole had it out for him. What would established publications have to gain from trying to tear him down? 

“I do strongly believe that you can joke about anything,” PDP says in his video. And I think this is part of the problem; you absolutely can not joke about everything. Everything is not a joke. It has nothing to do with differing senses of humor; some things are not okay to make light of. Period. Even in, for example, reclaiming slurs used against marginalized groups, that is only for marginalized groups to do; it’s the same concept that says non-black people are not allowed to say the “N-word.” These are not his jokes to make.

To carelessly say and display a phrase like “Death to all Jews” and say it’s just a joke is irresponsible, especially when you have a following as large as he does that contains young, impressionable kids, who can easily go to school the next day saying the same thing, joke or not. Both kids and adults who joke about things like that (remember fried chicken and watermelon jokes?) are normalizing hateful stereotypes and ideologies. But for some reason, he doesn’t seem to believe that this is something that happens.  

As far as I know, no one believes that he’s an actual real-life nazi. But in trying to push boundaries with distasteful “jokes,” he messed up big time, and it’s time for him, his fans, and his friends to realize that. The Wall Street Journal has no reason to “attack” him; they were reporting on his actions and how that affected his business, because they are, in fact, a publication that focuses on business. And while 48 Jewish community centers in the U.S. and Canada are receiving bomb threats, making hate speech into a joke is crossing a line. There is a bigger discussion that needs to be had beyond people and the media “hating on” successful YouTube personalities. Sitting idly by and keeping silent until your fave is “targeted,” to quote PewDiePie, “helps no one.”

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Supreme Court Case May Stop States That Still Execute the Mentally Disabled

The justices banned execution of mentally disabled people in 2002. Now they are poised to tell death penalty states that they really meant it.

Read more. [Image: Serge Melki/Flickr]

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Seth Rogen on Dementia at 55

On Wednesday, Seth Rogen gave impassioned testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee. The comedian and his wife Lauren Miller recently started a charity dedicated to Alzheimer’s education and research advocacy, Hilarity for Charity. Video of the ever-unassuming Rogen’s plea to support Alzheimer’s research resonated widely across the Internet, already having been viewed more than 3 million times on YouTube.

It’s not just that Rogen is a funny guy and that Alzheimer’s affects more than 5 million Americans, but also that a third of people fear dementia more than they do death. At odds with the massive public response to Rogen’s message, of the 18 members of the subcommittee, only two—Senators Tom Harkin and Jerry Moran—attended the hearing. “Not sure why only two senators were at the hearing,” Rogen tweeted. “Very symbolic of how the Government views Alzheimer’s. Seems to be a low priority.”

Read more.

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No, this map does not show what your state’s favorite band is.

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Photos from my most recent exhibit featuring Ignacio Quiles, Sierra Luella, MeloX, Ariana Perez, and Lizzy Okpo.

See the series in live space at Aloft Hotel Harlem, 2296 Frederick Douglass Blvd (8th Ave) between 123rd and 124th. On display until March 16th.

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Architecture Studio, a new set from Lego, comes with 1,210 white and translucent bricks. More notable is what it lacks: namely, instructions for any single thing you’re supposed to build with it. Instead, the kit is accompanied by a thick, 277-page guidebook filled with architectural concepts and building techniques alongside real world insights from prominent architecture studios from around the globe. In other words, this box o’ bricks is a little different. Where past Lego products might have had the happy ancillary effect of nurturing youngsters’ interest in architecture, here, that’s the entire point.

Seventy-three different kinds of bricks are included in the set. But bricks are easy to find. It’s the guidebook that’s truly new. Its pages offer accessible overviews of basic architectural concepts, along with illustrated exercises for exploring them in Lego form. Pages on negative space and interior sections, for example, encourage budding builders to think not only about how their miniature creations look from the outside but also in terms of what sorts of spaces they contain within them.

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Ceno EHC

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Watch Music Bring Back Memories for Alzheimer’s Patients

One day in 2006, New York social worker Dan Cohen realized that with today’s devices, all of his favorite music—he’s a fan of ’60s rock—is at his fingertips, but he might no longer be able to listen to it if he winds up in a nursing home when he’s older. When he called around to local assisted-living facilities, he found that none of them provided personal music players to their residents.

So, he began giving them iPods. Eventually, his project became Music & Memory, a nonprofit that helps seniors living in nursing homes get access to the songs of their youth.

Read more.

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the joke is that i can’t walk in heels

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Incredible Wet-plate Portraits by Jody Ake

Follow her on Facebook.

Only a couple days left until you can bridge the gap between your favorite Tumblr Artists and receive actual physical items from them! Click here to find out more!

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Dont trust Harvey Dent