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kojinnie · 4 years ago

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AOT Characters’ Modern Jobs Headcanon; The Vets Edition!

The jobs that The Vets would have in modern!au, their workplace antics and their back story. There might be some inaccuracies when describing the job as obviously I don’t work at these industries to know its intricacies. Most of the jobs are office jobs. Enjoyyyy!

My Masterlist .::. Pt. II: Zeke Yeager’s Modern Jobs Headcanon

Most recent work: Dream Me Home (Before Shiganshina) | reader x erwin smith

A/N: I really need to finish a presentation deck due tonight for an early morning meeting tomorrow but of course, this comes first hahaha

erwin!

A/N: Basically lawyer!erwin is the way to go, innit?

He's in his 40s, so he may have a settled career

He came from a white-collar, middle-class family. So he wasn’t silverspoon-fed, but his parents had enough money to put him through good school

Got a scholarship to go to one of the nation’s finest law schools

Kept it lowkey in college’s social circle, graduated with summa cum laude, developed a strong academic relation with his professor, and got recommended for an internship at top law firm at the capital city

Starting his career as a corporate lawyer, but then built his expertise as white-collar crime attorney

In his early 30s, he represented a union suing against conglomerate corporation in a big case that had national coverage, from then on he began to know his calling

Expanding his portfolio and became well-known for defending workers, consumers and civilians against corporate fraud scheme

Currently doing a lot of pro-bono cases for deprived victims of big corporate fraud. You would see him frequently gracing your local newspaper we love us some socialist king

On the side, he often writes for law journal and fills in as guest professor at local universities for summer courses

Established his own law firm with some of his partners, specializing in white collar crime and labor & employment law

He’s damn accomplished, but never really had any time for self-indulgence. Even after he becomes a household name in the country, with tens of attorneys working under him, his employees would still see him working on New Year’s Eve

He was always attentive to his employees, though. Although he has a very strict, borderline no-life work ethics, he never forces his employees to follow his habit, in fact he despises when his employees works on holidays and can be seen blaming himself for it a bit of a hypocrite but thats ok

He still takes metro to work. He prefers a very lowkey, ordinary lifestyle because he fears if he shows any knack for indulgence, he will be susceptible to gratification from potential enemies or crooked politicians

Definitely a sight to see at the workplace, for he's tall and always oozes a sense of authority in the way he speaks and carries himself generally

His emotional intelligence is top-notch, you would never meet someone who is able to be very objective and calculating, while being kind and compassionate at the same time

His fellow attorneys put a lot for respect for him, and hundreds of applicants come to his considerably small firm every week, because a lot of aspiring attorney find him inspiring to work with

He wasn’t oblivious to his shiny reputation, but he’s trying his hardest to not let the compliments get to his head. Sometimes he doesn’t give himself enough credit for it

Was approached by one of the political party’s committee to run for local senate, but turned it down

basically he’s perfect if you like a man who’s never home for christmas

Hange!

A/N: Ok ok, I really wanna see Paleontologist!Hange because it has always been my fave dream job, but I want Hange to be out and about with people so here it is

Hange is the type to be incredibly good at one thing, that she will dedicate her whole life for that pursuit, but will be awfully oblivious to a whole lot of things (not intentional of course, they just have a very limited attention span) (they wouldn’t know who kanye west is or what tiktok is)

Like Erwin, they came from a middle-class family. While Erwin’s parents might have been teachers, accountants or other common profession, Hange came from a family of academician and researchers

Hange studied Human Geography at uni, but later found passion specifically in its relation to industrialization and urban development

Hange aims to advocate for a better living condition for workforce, and nearby inhabitants of industrialized city detroit would be a beautiful city if only they let hange designed it

Hange is a professor at university, where they also led a non-profit research think-thank that also serves as pressure group for better government policy.

The university that Hange teaches in, is also the uni where Erwin teaches in summer. They’re close-knitted colleagues as they share similar passion. Erwin relies on Hange a lot for some intellectual insights to help his cases

Hange is relentless in their cause, you may find Hange everywhere! From street protest to a hearing in the government court. They are passionate and will do anything for the cause they believe in

Hange was once hired by the government as an independent consultant for a new housing project, but left because they grew to be frustrated by the government’s bureaucracy and their outward reluctance to follow Hange's recommendation

Hange spends a lot of time overseas, consulting and advocating development in newly industrialized countries

On Hange’s birthday, her fellow researchers surprised them with a ‘pampering day’ where they took them to an optometrist because Hange had been complaining about their eyesight for a YEAR that gave them a lot of migraines, but was always either too busy or too lazy to go

Hange never really considers themselves as working, because they enjoy their job very much. Hange likes to spend months observing a community, talking to people for hours, and trying their best in understanding their problem

Out of so many great qualities that Hange has as a researcher that meets different set of people everyday, prejudice or preconceived judgment is completely absent in Hange’s demeanor and perspective

Hange doesn’t get a lot of free-time, even if they do, they’d wander around the city to do a little observation. But when the weather’s bad and they’re stuck at home with their pet lizard, they would logged into Quora to answer random internet questions

They’re an avid writer for National Geographic, and one time Hange won a pitch to make a documentary about an industrial city project they were working on

After the docu-series got broadcasted, Hange gained a small but passionate and loyal fans on the internet. You could even find a subreddit dedicated for Hange’s works

for real I want to be Hange. I want to have that kind of passion in life

levi!

A/N: I spent a lot of times thinking about Levi’s job in modern!au. Because here’s the thing, either we adopt his unfortunate childhood into its modern!au equivalent, or let’s just recreate his whole upbringing. But I think his personality stems from a specific things he experienced during childhood, so let’s not dismiss that.

Levi came from a struggling working class family. I reckon his parents might have had worked multiple jobs to sustain their living expense. Unfortunately they both passed away when Levi was very little, and left little to no inheritance

Levi’s parents were not close to their extended family, so when they died, Levi was admitted to the system and had to brace several foster families who didn’t really pay attention to him

Little Levi had come to realize that life’s all about survival and so he had been able to fend on for himself since very young age, he never asked for things

His uncle, Kenny, finally won custody over Levi when he was in elementary. Kenny made money from small-scale racketeering here and there. Levi never asked what he did for living, as long as he got food to eat and tuition paid off

Kenny was emotionally absent, but he loved spending time with the oddly quiet little child, teaching him a lot of crafts, from carpentering to how to flay pig’s skin

Levi didn’t really care about getting into college, and thought that he’d probably end up working for his uncle, so he put his bare minimum throughout school, although he was really good with numbers, especially in math, accounting and finance

One time in high school, Levi’s teacher asked him to sign up for the olympiad team, Levi turned it down because he thought that was a rich kid thing

He didn’t even apply for college, and worked odd jobs after high school. Probably working as cashiers or assistant to retail shop’s owner for couple of years, enough for him to afford a cheap studio apartment on his own

One of his bosses came to acknowledge Levi’s talent, and trusted him to handle the company’s accounting

By sheer luck, the company hit it big, and Levi found himself running the day-to-day accounting of mid-sized business with over 300 employees

He made good money already without a college degree, but with a new-found confidence Levi applied for uni, where he chose to study accounting (of course)

Although he was confident with his skills, he understood he needed to widen his horizon and network -- thus uni

Levi was one of the oldest members of his cohort in uni, but graduated with highest distinction

After graduating, with his skills and experience, it wasn’t hard for Levi to score a job at top accounting firm

There, he discovered an interest for forensic accounting, where through audits, analysis and investigation, he basically finds out if a company is doing fraud and embezzlement or not

This is where he came to know and get acquainted with Erwin and Hange (yippie they’re together again)

The firm he works for was assigned to investigate the finances of a troublesome company that had been sued by its workers for a jeopardizing working condition. Erwin was on the case, and Levi helped him with evidences for legal proceeding.

By chance, Erwin introduced Levi to Hange. At first, Levi would find Hange annoying and overtly energized, but after learning the things they have done, Levi grew to appreciate Hange’s passion (and secretly wants to have more of his positive outlook)

Levi is fucking good his job. In short amount of time, he could get a really ideal position in the office. He was almost foolproof, finding even the tiniest bit of discrepancy in his audit. He’d get assigned to the big league case/project.

Although really good at his job, he’s not a social person, especially in his office. He couldn’t understand the lavish lifestyle that finance and banking people often lead. He will only show up to office party if it is really necessary for him to show up (usually to receive some kind of informal awards for, again, being so fucking good)

He leads a no-bullshit attitude at the office, largely because of his background. He is a self-made man, and is not easy to impress by some young executives from posh school that talk bigger than they can chew

His cold, seemingly dismissive attitude gained him a reputation of being scary, when actually he is very considerate

One of the things he enjoys doing is to actually teach, he really likes when a new kid at the office come to him with none of that pretentious, big talk, and really asks for his guidance. He would love to teach you a thing or two

He would frequently check on his mentee, just to keep up with their development

And he doesn’t take credit too. When his mentee makes a milestone, he believes it’s 100% your work

If you’re his mentee, he probably doesn’t give a crap about your personal life, so don’t expect him to make small talk about that (and don’t ask him about his personal life either). But he really cares about your skill and career development

Same with Erwin, he leads a very ordinary lifestyle. He doesn’t go out often and would rather reading detective novel with his cat on the couch

He likes to spend Sunday at Uncle Kenny’s house, because he finds himself worried about the old man very often. They became close as Levi grew

Overall, Levi is a really kind and caring person if you know how not to push his button

#aot #snk #aot headcanons #snk headcanons #aot modern au #levi ackerman #hange zoë #erwin smith #modern headcanon #lawyer erwin smith #professor hange zoe #accountant levi ackerman #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #kojin writes

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nevermindirah · 4 years ago

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I've been drafting and redrafting this meta post for weeks now. It's about to be 5781 and my country that was founded on settler colonial genocide and slavery and a deeply flawed but fierce attachment to democracy might go full dictatorship in about 6 weeks and it's time for me to post this thing.

All our immortals are warriors, all have been traumatized by war. But only three of them died their first deaths as soldiers in imperial armies. This fandom has already produced gallons of meta on Nicky dealing with his shit, because Joe would not fuck with an unapologetic Crusader. But there's very rich stuff in Booker and Nile's experiences and the parallels and distinctions between them.

Nile was 11 when her dad was killed in action - that was 2005, meaning she and her dad both died in the same war that George W Bush started in very tenuous response to 9/11. Sure, Nile's dad could have died in either Iraq or Afghanistan, or in a training accident or in an off-the-books mission we won't know about for a hundred more years, but he died in the War on Terror all the same. I had to look it up to be sure because Obama "drew down" the Afghanistan war in his second term, but nope, we're still in this fucking thing that never should've happened in the first place. The US war in Afghanistan just turned 19 years old. A lot of real-life Americans have experiences like the Freemans, parents and children both dying in the same war we shouldn't be in.

I know a lot of people like Nile who join the US military not just because it's the only realistic way for them to pay for college or afford decent healthcare, but also because they have a family history of military service that's a genuine source of pride. Military service has been a way for Americans of color to be accepted by white Americans as "true Americans" - from today's Dreamers who Obama promised would earn protection from deportation by enlisting, to Filipino veterans of WW2 earning US citizenship that Congress then denied them for several decades, to slaves "earning" their freedom through service in the Union Army and in the Continental Army before it. As if freedom is a thing one should have to earn. Lots of Black Americans have the last name Freeman for lots of different escaping-slavery reasons, but it's possible that this specific reason is how Nile got her last name.

Dying in a war you know your country chose to instigate unnecessarily and that maybe you believe it shouldn't be waging is a very particular kind of trauma. It is a much deeper trauma when your military service, and your father's, and maybe generations of your ancestors', is a source of pride and access to resources for you but your sacrifice is nearly meaningless to the white supremacist system that deploys you. That kind of cognitive dissonance encourages a person to ignore their own feelings just so they can function. How do you wake up in the morning, how do you risk your life every day, how do you *kill other people* in a war that shouldn't be happening and that you shouldn't have to serve in just so that your country sees you as human?

We see Nile do her best to be a kind and well-mannered invader. Depending on your experience with US imperialism, Nile giving candy to kids and reminding her squad to be respectful is either heartwarming or very disturbing propaganda. We also see Nile clutching her cross necklace and praying. From the second Christianity arrived on this land it's been a tool of white supremacist assimilation and control, but like military service, it's a fucked-up but genuine source of pride and access to resources for many Americans whose pre-Columbian ancestors were not Christian, and it's a powerful source of comfort and resilience. This Jew who's had a lot of Spanish Inquisition nightmares would like to say for the record that it's not Jesus's fault that his big name fans are such shitty people.

Nile is a good person trying to do her best in a fucked-up world. "Her best" just radically changed. Her access to information on just how fucked up the world is has also just radically changed, because everything's so fucked up a person needs a lot of time to learn about it all and not only does she have centuries but she won't have to spend that time worrying about rent and healthcare and taxes, and because she now has Joe and Nicky and Andy's stories, and because she now has Copley's inside scoop on just what the fuck the CIA has been up to. Like, I want a fic where Copley tells Nile what was really behind the brass's decisions that led to her experiences on the ground in Afghanistan, that led to her father's death, but also I Do Not Want That.

Nile was 19 when Alicia Garza posted on Facebook that Black Lives Matter. She grew up in Chicago well before white people on Twitter were saying maybe police violence against Black people is a problem. She knows this is a deeply fucked up country, and she put on her Marine uniform and deployed with her team of mostly fellow women of color, and maybe she and Dizzy and Jay marched in the streets between deployments, maybe they texted each other when a white manarchist at a protest sneered at one of them for being a Marine. Nile's been busy surviving, and she knows some shit and she's seen some shit but she hasn't had much time to think about what it all means. Now she's got time. And Joe, Nicky, and Andy are willing to listen. (Is Copley willing to listen? I could see that going either way.)

Booker might also be willing to listen. The brilliant idea of cleaning up the rat Frenchman so that Nile can have millennia of emotional support and orgasms sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, and holy shit do Booker and Nile have a lot of shared life experience as pawns of imperial wars. Obviously Booker is white and a man and that makes a very big difference. (Though G-d help me, Booker could be Jewish and France was knocking its Jews around like ping-pong balls in the 18th-19th centuries. Jewish Booker wouldn't make him any less white but it does add a shit ton of depth of common experience: military service as a way for your country to see you as a full member of society who matters, because who you are means that's not guaranteed.)

Booker was hanged for desertion from the army Napoleon sent to invade Russia as part of his quest to control all of Europe. We learn in the comics / this YouTube video that Booker was on his way to prison for forgery when he was offered military service instead of jail time. While we don't know how he felt about the choice beyond that he did choose soldier over inmate, it's unlikely he thought invading Russia was a great idea, given he tried to desert because Napoleon like a true imperialist dumbass didn't plan for how he was going to feed his army or keep them from freezing to death in fucking Russian winter.

I find it very interesting that the French Empire was at its largest right before invading Russia and fell apart completely within a few years. My country has been falling the fuck apart for a while now - see aforementioned War on Terror, growing extremes of economic stratification in the richest country in the world, abject refusal to meaningfully deal with climate change that US-based corporations hold the lion's share of blame for - but between Trump's abject refusal to meaningfully deal with the coronavirus and strong likelihood that he'll refuse to leave office even if a certain pathetic moderate I will hold my nose and vote for does manage to earn a majority of votes, ~y~i~k~e~s.

Our only immortals who have never known a world before modernity and nationalism happen to have been born of wars that were the beginning of the end for the imperialist democracies that raised them, and I think in the centuries to come that's going to give them some very interesting shit to talk about.

Nile's a Young Millennial, a digital native born in the United States after the collapse of the USSR left her country as the world's only superpower. She's used to a pace of technological change that human brains are not evolved to handle.

Napoleon trying to make all of Europe into the French Empire was a leading cause of the growth of European nationalism and the establishment of liberal democracies both in Europe and in many places that Europeans had colonized. Booker's first war produced the only geopolitical world order Nile has ever known and I just have so many feelings ok. Nile the art history nerd is probably not aware of this, and why would she be? This humble meta author is, like Nile, a product of US public schools, and all they taught me about world history was Ancient Greece/Rome/Egypt/Mesopotamia and then World War 2. Being raised in The World's Only Superpower is WEIRD.

Nile the Young Millennial is used to the devastating volume of bad news the internet makes possible. But she has absolutely no concept of a world where the United States of America is not The World's Only Superpower. In order to get up in the morning and put on her gear and point guns at civilians in Afghanistan, she can only let herself think so much about whether that American exceptionalism thing is a good idea.

She's about to spend many, many years where the only people who she can truly trust are people who are older than not only her country but the IDEA of countries.

She's got time, and she's got a lot of new information at her disposal. But there comes a point where my obsession with her friendship and eventual very hot sex life with Booker just isn't about sex at all. Nile needs someone to talk to about the United States who Gets It. Booker the rat Frenchman coerced into Napoleon's army, and Copley the Black dual citizen of the US and UK who's retired from a CIA career that he half understands as deeply problematic but half still believes in hence his mind-bogglingly stupid partnership with Merrick, are the only people on the planet Nile can talk to honestly about, and really be understood in, all the thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes of her experience as a US Marine.

And one more thing before I go get ready for Rosh Hashanah: Orientalism was a defining element of the Crusades and that legacy is painfully clear in current US-led Western military activity in Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, you name it. Turns out memoirs by French veterans of the Napoleonic Wars are full of Orientalist language about Russia as well. I am maybe/definitely writing a fic where Booker spends his exile reading critical race theory and decolonial feminism and trauma studies monographs because he can't be honest with a therapist but maybe he can heal this way and become the team therapist his own damn self. I just really need him to read Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and then go down on Nile, ok?

#nile freeman #tog meta #book of nile #sebastien le livre #the old guard #mine #us imperialism #european imperialism #jewish things #antiblackness #police violence #orientalism

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paullicino · 3 years ago

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On the Internet

Taken from, and thus generously funded by, my Patreon. The above image via ExtraFabulousComics.

Do you have a flashlight nearby? A lamp, or other light source? Keep it to hand, it might become relevant for something, something I’d like to demonstrate later. The demonstration is simple and entirely voluntary, the flashlight is not essential. It works just as well as a thought experiment in your head.

Meanwhile, I’m going to write about the internet on the internet. Because that’s what we all do these days, isn’t it?

---

I still remember the excitement of our first explorations online. It was a kind of hidden, secret space of unknown dimensions when we found it as young adults. A weird sort of Narnia. A modem meant you could open this door to an entirely different place full of entirely different people obeying entirely different rules. You had to find ways of telling one another about what you’d found this week, either the next time you were together in person, via an email or, God forbid, by printing out a webpage. Twenty-five years ago, the internet was a collection of imperfect search engines (crawlers) taking you to out-of-the-way websites that were as likely to have been made by someone just like you as they were to belong to some major company or organisation. Its mess was egalitarian. It was a decentralised place full of curious corners and sudden surprises. It wasn’t somewhere we logged on to with an expectation of finding the familiar. It was a place of discovery.

It wasn’t simply that the tech wasn’t as good as it is nowadays. That much is obvious. It was the fumbling newness of the place. It was a primordial soup, we were all blobs and we blobbed around together, testing out the water.

It was a tremendously international space. It was easy to stumble across websites in other languages, to find places that weren’t for you, that were never created with you in mind, and at the very edges of these places their owners and their users might just blend together. Spill over, even. Everyone was from everywhere and they were all mingling, uncontrolled. It was liberating. It was mind-expanding.

The internet was exciting, it was new, it was unfamiliar. It was a place to learn. It was a place without an agenda.

It was also a place to be different. Niche interests found their audiences and young people could be united by what they enjoyed, not marginalised. There was no need to fit in when the place didn’t even fit together properly. For those of us bullied, bored, or worse in tiny homogenous hometowns, isolated or upset by the toxic social dynamics and popularity contests that school can create, it offered little judgement about what you should want or who you should be. It was a place to be genuine.

I still remember the end of the 1990s, too. It was a decade of growth and change not just for a young generation, but for the wider world we were learning about. There was a peace deal in Northern Ireland, there was optimism in the media and there was a coming millennium that was supposed to be defined by technology and communication, the internet at its forefront. I was not a young man who could identify with very much of this optimism, but I was at least a young man looking forward to change, who could be accepted as who I was on the internet and who could be excited about what it represented. I’d never tried to be anyone else, even though being different rarely works out when you’re young, but now I knew for sure that I didn’t need to.

As my friends and I grew, so did the internet, and it became a place where we could share more about ourselves, where we could play together and where we found a bunch of ways of keeping in touch whenever we were apart. It became a tool to help me work, that kickstarted my career as a writer, as well as an ever-widening window on the world. It wasn’t yet too corporate, its websites and its tools not yet too monolithic.

I remember some of that early sharing. I remember talking to total strangers, a world away, about some part of my life or theirs. I remember talking to one internet friend of many years, who I never met, about British and American spelling. And about spelling in general. I remember they told me they weren’t sure how to spell a particular word and I said they could look it up in but a moment, since they were online there and then. “I can’t be bothered,” they replied, and that frustrated me so much.

The 90s passed and on September 11th 2001 whatever vision there was for the coming century was erased. The course of world events shifted immediately and dramatically. Never before had mass murder been so visible and so immediate. I remember talking not about how different the world was going to be, but that we had no idea how big a difference this would even make. In a very short space of time, it felt as if the world became not only so much more cruel and so much more cynical, but also so much more divided. I remember the weeks and months after those terror attacks as being my first experience of seeing people sharply divided in their politics, divided enough to be extremely angry, extremely offended, by the many suggestions of what should be done next. It set the scene.

As the decade continued, technology and communication certainly did change us. More of us were using the internet not only to talk, but for more and more of our everyday tasks. We were also sharing ourselves, too, in ways more personal and profound, and there was so much to know. I read a blog post by a Black woman from the American South describing the ways she had to bring up her son to interact with the wider world, how angry he was about it, how unfair it all was. I read updates from those caught in the civil war in Myanmar, talking about what they claimed the news didn’t show. I read about the realities of the rapid growth in Dubai, the working conditions and pollution. I read diary entries by people surviving the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, weeks without power and wondering when help would come. I read about the world in a way I’d never been able to before.

More than ever, the internet was a library of lives.

The first trip overseas I took by myself was all planned, booked and executed with the help of the internet. I flew to Chicago, in the United States, and I stayed in the most average hotel in the most average neighbourhood and it was wonderful. I heard real cicadas for the first time and walked through concrete valleys between towering skyscrapers that my tiny mind couldn’t process. In the evenings, I watched a plethora of American news, which was only ever about America, and that frustrated me so much.

The first interview I ever conducted with someone who wasn’t making a video game was with the writer Mil Millington. The interviews I really wanted to do were about people, their experiences, what they liked and why they do the things they do. Mil Millington was the perfect subject because we had both written about games, we both understood the reach of the internet and we were both interested in what the future of this medium would be. He had recently scored a book deal and written his first novel, Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, based on his semi-autobiographical, tongue-in-cheek blog of the same name, listing comic domestic disagreements. I asked him what it was like to share all of his personal life online and he told me that, actually, he didn’t:

“I'm, honestly, almost obsessively private. It's just the way I write that, for some reason, if I say, 'Margret won't let me watch a film in peace,' causes people to think, 'My God! Mil's laying his whole life bare!'”

And then I realised that he had, of course, chosen to share all the things that he had. And carefully. It didn’t mean that those things were less honest, less real or less interesting, but he had been doing what all of us writers do: picking his words and his moments. We should all get to share on our own terms.

I liked his honesty. He wasn’t trying to prop up any persona.

---

A little after this time, I was asked on a date by a conservative American woman who I met in my first year at university in London. We saw each other a few times and stayed in touch when she returned to California. A couple of years later, the American Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin spoke about “death panels” run by Britain’s National Health Service. Online, I expressed my annoyance and anger both at Palin just making things up, as well as at the volume of people who seemed to simply accept her words. My former date said that Palin was allowed to “express her opinion” and I didn’t know how to begin to explain, to an adult in her mid 20s, the difference between fact and opinion, or that she could check such things in a moment, since she was online. That frustrated me so much.

This discussion played out over a relatively new website called Facebook, which had become an invaluable way to connect with my fellow students. I had feared being alone at university, lost in a big city, but the opposite had happened. As soon as we all finished our first year of studies and were hurried out of our student residences, we scattered across the capital and the closeness I had taken for granted was suddenly lost. But Facebook became a directory of friendship, another library of lives. In its early days, I made jokes about people oversharing, or using the site to attract attention, but this wasn’t any different to how some of us might behave anywhere else. It wasn’t such a big deal. That’s just humans.

And anyway, I like to share. My whole life, I’ve enjoyed sharing things I think are important because I feel like it helps me make genuine connections, express myself and feel useful. I saw the internet becoming another way of doing this, another way to be genuine. The younger me had played in bands and held dreams of reaching other people through music, in awe of those moments when an audience sings an artist’s lyrics back to them. I still wanted that, that connection, or some version of it.

On the ever-growing internet, we could all share ourselves more. It could become a new medium for acceptance and understanding. What a glorious future it promised.

---

In time, I adopted all of the social media platforms that I use because I enjoy human connection and I think one of the fundamental traits of people is that they can be so interesting. They do stuff, they make things, they go places, they inspire and they pull humour out of the most difficult of situations like a conjurer tugging an elephant from a beanie. I’d like to be able to do those things. Some days I can barely make a pancake.

Social media allowed me to make and share even more, and now I was sharing things with two people at dinner, ten people at a party or a hundred people online. The number mattered less than the creation’s ability to connect, because it all helped me figure people out and it helped me figure myself out. It helped me figure everything out so that, perhaps one day, I might also learn the trick that lets you tug an elephant out of a beanie. I would be able to say to people “Ah yes, you start with the trunk,” or “Surprisingly, you pull from the tail.” Then they could pass that on. Social media seemed particularly good for this, a way for us to all enrich one another.

In 2008, a series of devastating terrorist attacks erupted across Mumbai. Many of the events were documented in real-time by both journalists and locals using Twitter, which made the site seem to me to be an invaluable new perspective on current events. By the start of the next decade, the Arab Spring saw a broad uprising across North Africa, with thousands of people united in protest by the unifying power of social media. It felt like these tools could change our world forever.

Some other things happened as that decade wound down.

A woman on Twitter made a poor joke about AIDS and Africa before boarding a flight, only to find that, by the time she had landed, her words had been shared around the world many millions of times. A woman in England was caught on camera putting a cat in a bin, the footage of which went viral and received such an overwhelmingly furious reaction that one national newspaper asked, only half-joking, if she was the most evil woman in Britain. These events were shared, discussed and dissected with a comparable passion and level of investment as the terrorist attacks and the Arab Spring. On the internet, a cat in a bin was becoming as important as terrorists in a hotel.

I flexed some cynical opinions. We all had opinions by then (though still not the same as facts), because it was increasingly difficult not to get swept up in things like these as and when they happened. They were everywhere, echoed and repeated, with a kind of mentality of momentum. Countless people changed their profile pictures to something green in support of protesters in Iran, or added a flag to support victims of terror in France. They signed internet petitions demanding Something Be Done, though it wasn’t always clear where these petitions would be delivered or how they would compel someone to act. None of these protesters or victims were in any way saved, protected or enabled by a person on the other side of the planet clicking their mouse like this, but if a million other people did it, those metrics created a validity of their own.

I think I remember the late 2000s as the time that I really began to feel different about these things. But by then, I was too bought in. It had already gone from a habit to a dependency.

Year by year, the internet had become less egalitarian. Monolithic sites and spaces were increasingly the center of the experience, whether hubs like MSN and Yahoo, social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, or popular news outlets. We found ourselves in the same places, over and over, and we relied on these for our new discoveries. While social media in particular pitched itself as something that put us all on the same level, behind the scenes levers were already being pulled to shape and to manipulate what was shown and shared.

(That’s okay, people told me. Turn on this feature, or adjust these options, and you get to pull your own levers. That’ll undo everything. You still get to share on your own terms.)

These sites had swelled to envelop us, going from making themselves exciting to making themselves essential. We no longer went online, we were online, always, and we left more and more of ourselves there even when we were away from our screens. Social media allowed you to collect everything together, becoming a place where you could simultaneously read updates from your friends, your parents, Leonardo Di Caprio, the Prime Minister, your favourite newspaper and your favourite sports team. All in a moment and all competing for your attention. Sites like Google and YouTube started to track and understand the preferences of their users, delivering to them more of what they wanted, working hard to grab and to keep their attention. You liked that dog, that topic, that politician? Here’s another.

Here’s another, again.

I was pulling levers all the time, frantically now, like someone operating locks and gates to try and dam an ever more overwhelming flow. My social media sites had changed from something that I used to something I had to manage. Not only were we all carefully curating who we broadcast to and when, lest we offend an employer or shock a relative, we also found ourselves trying to coordinate and customise them, because if we didn’t they would do this for us. They began to choose what to show us, based on what they believed we cared about, they began to offer us things, based on who they believed we were. They even began to mess with time, giving us information and updates out of chronological order. All of these were changes we often had to undo or at least be mindful of, if we even knew about them. If we wanted to. And if we knew how.

If we didn’t, our reality might shift.

---

I still remember the excitement of our first explorations online. My first favourite website was Snopes, which was then a collection of myths and urban legends, most of them debunked. In the late 90s, bullshit chainletter emails would bounce around the internet with stories about how some Russian scientists had drilled their way to hell, or how a new computer virus had come out, or how Coca Cola dissolved human teeth. Sometimes, the strangest of stories really were true, or at least partially so, but most of them were trash. Thanks to Snopes, you could check such things in a moment. I loved that about the internet.

On September 11th 2001, almost twenty years ago now, it was difficult to disagree about what we saw happening right in front of our eyes. Nevertheless, there were a few people afterward who insisted that a plane had not hit the Pentagon, that the towers had been deliberately demolished, that some more mysterious sequence of events had transpired. They lurked in the darkest corners of the internet, much as they had always existed on any other margins in any other mediums. The rest of us could get on with our lives.

I grew up playing games and then, later, I became someone who analysed, critiqued and even designed them. One of the most powerful and important things I learned through games is that so much in life is based around systems and the longer a system is around for, the better we become at manipulating it. When a game has been around for a long time, we find many different ways to play it and sometimes we have to adjust the rules of the game to account for this. The rules for chess that we have today have seen many adjustments and revisions. The same is true for football. It is also true for our laws and for our systems of government. We have to modify these things in part because times change, but also in part because they are being abused and exploited, subverted in ways their designers never imagined.

Or simply used as optimally as possible.

It’s 2021 and the internet monoliths that we have begun to take for granted, that have surged like the rising oceans to engulf our lives and to carry us along their currents, are constantly being used in ways their designers never imagined. Two years ago, we thought the biggest problem we had with social media and internet monoliths was their subversion to manipulate elections, with great armies of bots and fake profiles being created and directed faster than the people who owned social media sites being able to prevent this. This presence could bring amplification and validity to anyone or to anything. “Learn the algorithm,” was the key to success online. Use a site or social media platform in a particular way and it will elevate you further. Elevate your work. Or your truth. Or just you.

Now, more than a year and a half into a pandemic that defines our generation, the areas of the internet with which we’ve become most familiar and most comfortable, those which we began to pour our lives and identity into, are not only places where elections were subverted, they’re places where the difference between life and death are considered a matter of opinion, where science and fact can be openly ridiculed, where conspiracies about September 11th are tiny in comparison. For some time now they’ve already been well-worn battlefields, public arenas within which opinion and force of will often carry more weight than evidence and reason, but now the consequences of doubling down on a belief are undeniably the difference between living and dying.

More important, for some people, is the difference between right and wrong. Not so much being right, but being seen being right, can give you validity, clout, value. I think we’ve reached the point where dying while being seen as right can matter more than living and admitting a mistake.

The flow of the internet, all those locks and gates opened by algorithms or AI or other people’s decisions that may simply have been motivated by a desire to give us what we like, have made it more difficult than ever to find things that go against the current, or to grasp something we can be sure is objective or straightforward.

One part of me believes that we can no longer look things up in a moment any more, because we have to second-guess every other thing we find. As a journalist and researcher, I never feel secure with what I find on the internet now and I dig, I verify and I compare, still coming away unsure, often worried I will publish something glaringly incorrect. A different part of me, a more dramatic part, sometimes wonders which things are even real.

I suppose anything is real if you can get away with it. If nobody ever notices.

---

There’s another aspect to all this, the aspect that makes me the most uncomfortable. The aspect I least enjoy discussing, but which I have to if I can fully explain myself.

Living alongside the internet, I’ve watched as some of us pull all those levers simply to control the flow as best we can, to keep ourselves afloat, but others have viewed this experience differently. They’ve seen it as a challenge, as another system they can manipulate. It’s an opportunity for them to choose how they present themselves. The more levers they pull, the greater their ability to do so. The more time they invest, the greater the result.

If you take your flashlight, lamp or light source and point it toward an object, you can easily affect the size and the shape of the shadows it will cast. Under your control, those shadows can lengthen or deepen, they can sweep and distort. A light up close can cast a gigantic shadow across a far wall, perhaps a sharp one or perhaps one fuzzy and undefined. Try it. See what you can make. The more you do it, the more tricks you can learn.

All of us try to present our best selves and all of us have our different selves, too. Forty years before I ever went online, the sociologist Erving Goffman published The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, a book about how we behave differently in different contexts. It’s natural for us to speak to our family in a different way to how we speak to our best friend, or to our colleagues, or to a crowd we might be addressing in a speech. It’s not necessarily disingenuous, it’s merely a part of the human experience. But impression management, as Goffman called it, is also a matter of degrees. Some people are more invested than others. If given the tools to perform more effective impression management, more levers they can pull, they will engage even further.

I have flexed a few cynical opinions in my life (at least as many as three, the stats suggest) but, at the same time, I think I have to admit that I have also been very naïve about people. I tend to take many of them on face value and assume they are genuine. Many of us are, perhaps even most of us. But I’ve come to know both that this isn’t always the case and that, given the opportunity, some people will use every tool at their disposal to shape a false version of themselves. We’ve found ourselves in an era where this is more possible than ever. It’s no longer simply within the purview of politicians and PR firms, it’s within reach of every one of us and all we need to do is put in the time and energy. The reward can be ever greater popularity, ever more validation

And I’m so tired of seeing this.

Over the past half decade or so, I have seen the internet and its many systems gamed more than ever. Gamed for political gain, gamed for personal gain and gamed to create images, personalities and that god-awful golem of hollow and lifeless artifice that is brand. Now a person can be a product, a new kind of commodity in this ever more opaque ecosystem.

The nausea and unhappiness I feel from all this is more than the simple declaration that I’m not a brand, I’m a person. It’s the discovery that other people, sometimes people I’ve known, really are a brand now. Their time, their energy, their life is now invested in shaping and maintaining that image, that brand, perhaps even at the expense of other pursuits. And with the right manipulations, the right tugging of the correct levers, they can perpetuate that, build that and further gain the affirmations and validations they need to prove to themselves that what they have created is as solid and as true and as real as anything else. And how would we know any different?

The ocean is not so far from my home. It’s not unusual to walk the beach or the seawall and see people engaged in impromptu photoshoots, dressed in their very best, expertly presented and shot with long lenses. A friend told me that most of these shoots are for the purpose of enriching dating profiles, that there’s an increasing feeling of expectation, a sense that everyone must present their very best selves, simply because everyone else now does so. To be on a dating site is to feel engaged in an ever-escalating competition for time and attention, to need to package oneself as the best possible product.

I don’t at all object to the idea of dating sites, but I could never get comfortable with them and I used to feel like I was browsing a human meat market, that it was all too easy for me to make judgements about people I didn’t know and then cast them aside. I felt, again, like people had become products and this was a system and a process I did not want to be part of. You can game it, people tried to tell me. There are ways to make it work better for you, it just takes a little time. I didn’t want to know.

The more time you spend trying to engage with things that aren’t genuine, the less you have for what is real.

When I use the internet these days it’s with an increasing sense of discomfort and disquiet. I find myself already on the lookout for the artificial. I second-guess people as much as I do information. I’m all too aware of the constructed persona and the deliberate framing, of that angling of a light to cast a particular shadow. In a few cases, this isn’t an abstract concern and social media in particular can be a place where I watch people I know are starkly different to the image they project be celebrated for the false façade they maintain, a façade that can be further reinforced by popularity and prominence. I see harmful and unhealthy people championed even in spite of their actions, because they have managed to engineer support and validation, or using the popularity and affirmation they have gained to push opinion over fact. The disingenuous and the distorted tie together like a greasy braid, each one reinforcing the other, and it’s no wonder falsehoods can spread so far, whether false representations or false information. I would say that sometimes I almost feel like I’m back at school, amongst the same gossip and garbage, but this is far worse than any of the toxic social dynamics and popularity contests that school ever created, and now it comes with measurable metrics in the form of likes, follows, retweets or subscriptions.

I’m sure, at this point, this is a common experience and common concern for most of us, and we are each finding our own ways to handle it.

Or not. For me, the experience is deeply unpleasant.

While drafting this I idly wondered if we could somehow develop a new version of Snopes for human beings. A demystifier of people, something that reveals each person’s private Picture of Dorian Gray, which grows ever more warped as they reinforce their persona ever more. But I’m sure even that would be gamed and subverted before too long.

I'm so, so tired of trying to work out who is real.

---

The internet monoliths I move between in my daily life all have one thing in common. Google, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook, Patreon and so many others are all based in the same place: the United States. They are towering. They overwhelm the rest of the internet. The levers that many of these pull, controlling currents and flow, are being operated in the United States. The politics, existential crises and cultural interests of that country are disproportionately represented and, while I care very much about the United States, I also want to hear about the rest of the world. I want to hear about where I live, and yet even that feels like it comes second. Yes, I am pulling all the levers that are supposed to make this happen. No, it isn’t entirely successful. I am using a paddle against a tsunami.

Once the bias is there, the snowball effect perpetuates. So often, whether I choose to or not, I am in that motel room watching a plethora of American news again, or its modern equivalent. It frustrates me so much. Most of us Westerners essentially live in America some of the time now, if we spend any period online. That’s where our presence and our attention are pointed.

Before publishing this essay, I changed every mention of “torch” to “flashlight” because I felt I had to cater to an internet that sees the first word only as a burning chunk of wood, not as a British battery-powered light source.

The internet doesn’t feel like the world any more. It hasn’t for a long time.

---

I can’t abandon the internet of today. I need it for work. I need it to promote the things I create. I need it to keep in touch with people. I’m not different or special, only someone too bought in as well, my use also going from a habit to a dependency. But it has almost entirely stopped being a place of delight and discovery. It has lost any sense of being egalitarian. So much less is new, so much less is unfamiliar. So much more has an agenda.

Algorithms, metrics and social media have quantified and gamified everything, encouraging competitiveness and narcissism. Public spaces have become arenas and arenas encourage performance. In an attention economy, the outrageous and the overblown mean a cat in a bin can have the same profile and presence as terrorists in a hotel. In spaces that now mix our friends, our parents, Leonardo Di Caprio, the Prime Minister, our favourite newspapers and our favourite sports teams, people we know and love are elevated or relegated according to how interesting an algorithm has decided they are, pushing them to the fore or pulling them from your view. “People on Twitter are the first to know,” says the social network that prides itself on immediacy more than integrity or fact-checking. Misinformation abounds. As the line between person and brand has smudged between all recognition, corporations insert themselves into and between everything else we try to examine. Surrounded by banner ads, the conflicts of polarised culture generate enormous revenue for monolithic American tech companies. As we fight, push our narratives, construct our personas or compete in the race to prove we are the most woke, we all make @Jack richer, or provide Zuck with more of our personal data.

I also find myself reminded of what Octavia Butler called “simple peck-order bullying,” the hierarchical behaviour where people want to, and now can, elevate themselves above others, according to identities they've built for themselves, to push their ideas, push their image, push their sense of superiority or push their opinions so hard that they can reshape them into facts. Anything is possible with enough pulling of enough levers. And now more people have more of those levers. And some of them love to pull and then push, pull and then push.

I don’t like what the internet has turned into, nor what it has turned people into.

So what now?

---

This was an essay inspired by an essay, inspired by an essay, which is always how it goes. Creativity is theft and anyone who says otherwise is only trying to distract you as they secretly shake you down. The eternal question that writers (or anyone creative) is supposed to dread is “Where do you get your ideas?” Because we aren’t supposed to know. But we do know. We get them from everyone else. We thieve them.

Ideas are pickpocketed from the people we pass in twisting evening alleyways, during the briefest moments of darkness and distraction. They’re caught with nets as they flutter with all the freedom of sweet springtime naivete. They’re spied upon from tremendous distances through the jealous lenses of sparkling telescopes. Nothing is truly ours and anyone wringing their words into a desperate defence of some unique capacity for originality ex nihilo is either deceptive or deluded.

(Avoid them. You’re likely their next target.)

This essay was heavily inspired by Lucy Bellwood reflecting on Nicole Brinkley. Both have written nuanced examinations of social media (focusing on Twitter) that I think you should make the time to read, but I’ll try and sum up the main thing I have taken from their writing in one line:

Social media is extremely bad, in a multitude of ways and for many complex reasons, and it is okay to leave it.

This is in so small part my interpretation, coloured by a particular belief I hold, that being that social media is extremely bad, in a multitude of ways and for many complex reasons, and it is okay to leave it. You can probably see why I approve.

There’s more to it than that. Brinkley talks about Twitter essentially breaking the way the Young Adult literature scene works, which to me is one facet of a dangerously seductive diamond that repeats many different stories of damage done by how we’ve used and gamed the internet. Her wonderful conclusion is that “These days it’s okay to not be sure what Twitter is for. We can stop going there until we figure it out.” And I so desperately wish I could stop going on the internet until I could figure out what it is for now, too. I wish it wasn’t essential. But it is, broken as it may be, breaking things as it may be.

While I don’t think leaving it is an option for me, I am using so much of it less. I have to. Social media, a place where I am shown arguments and controversy over the lives of people I care about, has become somewhere for me to hurriedly hurl out a quick update or two before I flee, escaping before I come across something, or even someone, that will make me sad. Any search box is a cause for scepticism, prompting me to analyse the results it gives and try a dozen different ways to find the same thing, just in case. Even Snopes is now a running commentary on the (American) news cycle. The best I can do whenever I think something fundamental to our society is unhealthy is to participate in that thing as little as possible. I know this limits my reach, limits my relevance and limits my success, but I also know that this makes me less unhappy and allows me to continue to feel genuine. Like I am still myself. Like I am still real. It may be apparent that my mental health has taken a few hits over the last couple of years. It doesn’t need to take any more.

I am not only unsure what Twitter is for, I am unsure what the whole internet is for.

---

There is no conclusion to this essay. It is supposed to be six thousand words of open-ended reflection. The past year or so has sometimes been a huge struggle for me and it really is true that some days I can barely make a pancake. Work has been difficult, writing has been difficult and maintaining regular Patreon updates has been difficult, with this piece being a huge challenge to finish. I think I’ve tried to make the best of things, as well as present an honest but still positive face to the world. I have piles of tasks to get through and I tackle what I can, with what feels like so much competing for my attention. At the same time, I can’t opt out of the systems I live and work inside of, much as I can’t stop paying rent or putting food in my mouth, because individuals can't kick a habit society has become dependent upon. I think the best thing I can do right now is be truthful about all that, try to remain as genuine as I can and continue to step away from what makes me uncomfortable, giving myself some distance from the things that make me unhappy.

That doesn’t mean I’m disappearing (I’m still checking in on social media, streaming on Twitch and so on), nor does it mean this change or this philosophy is forever, nor does it mean that things can’t improve. But it does mean I’m changing a few things about myself, my habits and my preferences. And it does mean I have a working, temporary, if unsatisfactory answer to the question “So what now?”

It is: “We’ll see.”

---

A big thanks to my Patreon community for the links I’m adding here, post-publication.

The first is How sex censorship killed the internet we love, on Endgadget, about controlling the internet in all sorts of ways and about what might be considered explicit (apparently a condom might be explicit).

Then there’s The internet Is Rotting, from the Atlantic, about bits of the internet that are disappearing and the loss of information that comes with it, as well as information that is overwritten and altered. We are keeping less than you might think.

Finally, The web began dying in 2014, here’s how, by André Staltz, talks about the growing prominence of big corporations (all American), what their priorities are, and what online things (services) they may bring to you.

#Patreon #America #Erving Goffman #September 11th #persona #social media #the internet #writing

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greatfay · 4 years ago

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since ur answering asks and shit can u explain what u meant by generational differences in communication

Damn it’s like 2015 tumblr when my inbox used to be WET. So if you’re talking about the controversial opinions post, YES, like I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that generational divides aren’t real (because they aren’t, they’re arbitrary) and distract us from real problems and yes they paint past generations as collectively bigoted when Civil Rights protestors in the 60s (who are in their 70s and 80s now) are mirrors to BLM protestors today, who could be of any age, but the most vocal and famous (at least online, especially irt to the founders, like Patrisse Cullors who is 37.

But how we communicate is sooooo different. I really point to the Internet and Social Media as a major influence in how younger millennials (more Tom Hollands and less Seth Rogans—see even there, I feel like there are two different types of Millennials) and Gen Zrs/Zoomers and even Generation Alpha behave and communicate. We live in a world where we grew up either knowing right out the gate or discovering the hard way that what we say and do has permanence, the kind of permanence that prior generations have never experienced until today. The dumb things kids have been saying since forever can now follow them... forever. We have an inherent understanding of how online spaces work. Compare that to, idk, let’s say you posted on your Facebook (for the first time in 18 months) “All these big and bad grown ass Senators going after actual child Greta Gerwig lol ok, you’re so brave for attacking a CHILD over climate change” and then your aunt, who’s turning “forty-fifteen” in May replies to your post with “So happy to see my passionate niece! Much love from us, hope you’re doing well. Paul is doing great, waiting on his screening results. Tell your mom I said we miss her, we need to get together, we forgive her for last Christmas.”

Like... ok there’s a lot going on there, but your hypothetical aunt is oversharing on a publicly accessible post. And even with the most strict of privacy settings, she’s oversharing where your other Facebook friends (which may include classmates, coworkers, etc.) can see. But she’s saying things that would only be appropriate in a 1-on-1 conversation. This Aunt doesn’t have an understanding of such boundaries, she’s not as technologically literate and hasn’t grown up in a world of Virtual Space, she still gets most of her news from TV, she trusts what a reporter on Channel 4 will read off a script more than what actual video footage of an incident might reveal on Twitter, and she has no clue that she’s been sharing her location data with every post she makes.

There’s such a huge difference. I think it even affects how we experience and express stress and frustration. I think growing up partially in online spaces has made me more accustomed to conflict and consequence-free arguing than someone who never had to worry about that. I’ve been exposed so much to harassment and bullying, triangulating and echo chambers in forums and threads, and vastly opposing point of views at such an early age that it’s had an effect on how I see the world. Compare this to a customer I helped two weeks ago who was looking for a specific type of supplement for children. I found it for her, I handed her exactly what she was looking for, even though her description of the product actually matched several different products; to make sure I’d done my job thoroughly and that she leaves happy and satisfied and doesn’t bother me again, I then show her more products that match her description so that she knows she has options. And she proceeds to freak out, saying “NO, NO, I’M LOOKING FOR [X] AND IT HAS TO BE [XYZ]” and when I say freak out, she looked stressed and PANICKED. And being a retail employee wears you down bit by bit, and add COVID on top of it and little shit like this makes you snap, sometimes. So I have to cut her off like “Why are you screaming and freaking out, jfc you’re holding what you said you wanted. It’s in your hands. I gave you what you wanted, I’m just showing you more things.”

That customer is not an exception, she’s not a unique case. She’s representative of a frightening percentage of her generation, the kids who watched Grease and The Breakfast Club and Ghost in theaters when they were originally released. This is how they communicate and process information. She could not, for some reason, register that her need had been fulfilled, and defaulted to an extreme emotional response when given new and different information.

I’ve yet to deal with someone younger than 35 act the same way, the exceptions being the kids of very wealthy people at my new job who reek of privilege I gag when they walk in—but even they are like *shrugs* “ok whatever” and understanding when there’s something I can’t do for them.

Me: “sorry, we are totally out of that one in your size, but I can order it for you, it’s 2-3 day shipping at no cost to you and we ship it straight to your house”

A rich, white, attractive 22-year-old who’s had access to organic food, a rigorous dermatologist, and financial security since she was born: “mmm... sure, I’ll order it”

A 47-year-old of any socioeconomic background, of any race, in the same situation: “AHHHHHHHHHHH”

I just think it’s crazy how three generations of kids and young adults raised in a world where everything moves so much faster, where knowledge and entertainment and communication can be gathered so much faster, are often so much more polite and patient and understanding. Yesterday I told an older man (mid-50s) whose native tongue is the same as mine, as clearly and succinct as possible, that what he’s looking for is “in aisle 4.” He proceeded to repeat back, “Aisle 7?” four time before I dropped everything to show him what he needed in aisle 4, despite his insistence that he didn’t need me to walk him there. 4 and 7 sound nothing alike in English. There’s just something going on up there 🧠 that’s different.

Oh, other generational divides!!! We have different approaches to labor and working. Totally different! I’m a “young” millennial where I’m almost Gen Z, and I’ve noticed an awful trend among my demographic where people actually brag about working 90 hour work weeks. Or brag about how they skip breaks and live on-call to get the job done for “the hustle” like this “hustle, become a millionaire by 30″ culture that’s dominated these kids, idk where tf that came from. Like why are you proud of being a wage slave, getting taken advantage of by your millionaire/billionaire overlords. Compare this to my mother’s generation (she’s a borderline Genius X’er, she and her best friend were a year too young to watch Grease when it came out and had a random older woman buy tickets for her; she went to Prince concerts, took photos of him, then sold the photos on buttons at school, that’s her culture and teenage experience), where she’s insistent on her rights and entitlements as an employee, and these things she instilled me: “whatchu mean they didn’t schedule a break for you and you’re working 12 hrs today? oh no, you’re off, don’t answer your phone cuz you are NOT available!” There are Gen X’ers who entered the workforce at a time that America was drifting toward this corporate world, with more strictly defined regulations, roles, and understandings of labor rights (and also, let’s talk about how the 80s there was so much more attention on workplace harassment, misogyny and gender divides in wage gaps, etc. etc... not that much has changed, but at least it was talked about!). There are young people today who are taken advantage of because they aren’t as informed or don’t feel as secure and valuable enough to claim what belongs to them.

At the same time, those generations (Gen X and older) have a different viewpoint of hierarchies in the workplace and respect irt our direct supervisors. That’s how you get this blurring of boundaries between Work Life and one’s Personal Life that leads to common tropes in media written by their generations, where oh no! I’m having my boss over for dinner and the roast beef is still defrosting :O is such a “relatable thing” for them... meanwhile us younger generations are like I don’t even like that you know where I live, and if I see your 2017 Honda Civic pass my place one day, we’re going to have a problem. I think older generations have a different relationship with the word “Respect” than we do. Like, my grandma, who’s turning 87 (?) this year, and the other seniors in my area, they have a different concept of honor and an expectation of professional boundaries that I, and my mom and her generation, just don’t see (so then there’s something in common with Gen X’ers and the rest of us.) My dad grew up in a world where talking and acting like George Bailey and knocking on someone’s door with a big smile could get you a job, a job that could pay for college and rent no problem. My mom grew up in a world that demanded more prestige, where cover letters and references could get you into some cushy jobs if you’re persistent and ballsy enough. And I grew up in a world where potential employers literally don’t see your face when you apply unless they lurk on any social media profiles you have publicly available and they hold all the cards, and you need all those CVs and reference letters just to make minimum wage... so I feel like I am powerless in the face of such employers.

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coeurdastronaute · 5 years ago

Text

Kiwi 11

Previously on Kiwi

Nothing could have been more welcomed than the spring. And not the beginning of the spring, but rather the full blown, wonderful, lush and verdant, alive and living, blooming and warm and sunshine afternoons. It brought about the feeling of new and completeness, of happiness that wasn’t hardfought.

“Give. Me. The cookie!” Lexa yelled and she plodded her way through the park, hands up and jagged, like the monster she was portraying.

Tiny legs waddled through the grass, squealing with delight as the auntie teased and tripped over herself, flummoxing her way around in the sunshine and grass. But laid flat on her stomach, morally defeated the monster watched the little bare feet approach and giggle before poking her cheek.

“Aunt Lexie?”

“GrrrRRrrr.”

“No, no bad.”

“Please?” Lexa asks, tilting her head to the side as she squints, hair messy and obstructing much of her view. “Pretty please?”

“No more bad.”

Not even two yet, her nephew was precocious and she had a soft spot for his tiny shirts and socks and dimples and hair and snores. Their tour came with a nanny now, and she was okay with it because he was the best way to spend a few hours detoxing from the blitz of traveling around the world.

“You’ll share with me please?” she asked, sounding a little sad and sticking out her bottom lip.

A piece of cookie was fed to her as a little boy squatted near her, gently feeding as if she were an animal in a petting zoo. She wasn’t sure how to explain to someone how much moments like this saved her life. How stale animal crackers and tiny fingers who pet her head and told her no more bad as the sunshine drifted in between the waving branches of the trees in the park as everyone spoke French around them and her sister lounged on the blanket, rocking her foot to the imaginary beat of the afternoon harmonies.

“We have to head back to the hotel soon,” the adult explained as she turned a page and caught sight of her watch. “Indra scheduled a meeting.”

“It’s our off day.”

“I don’t think we actually have those.”

“I can’t hear you, I’m napping.”

“You’re less cooperative than a toddler, just so you know.”

“I already knew.”

“I’m going to tell Clarke.”

“She knows too.”

Lexa smiled to herself and pressed her face into the soft blades of grass while her nephew plopped down near her, still rubbing her hair gently, making more of a mess of it than usual. Nothing was going to get accomplished today, not with spring around them and hopeful enough to distract from the tiredness of the second half of the tour and the start of festival season.

“She’s coming along soon, huh?”

“Just over a week,” Lexa smiled and closed her eyes. “Dublin.”

“Ah, the city of love. If only we went on tour and hit the actual City of Love… Oh, wait…”

“She had to wrap up her internship and then promised to come on vacation and see some of Europe with us.”

“You say us, like Clarke is going to be hanging out with me and the kiddo.”

“Sometimes,” Lexa shrugged. “If you want to see her and stuff.”

“I’d like to get to know her, if you’ll keep her around.”

On the grass, Lexa stretched and basked in a little bit of sunshine. She savored the feeing of the dirt and the grass and the toddler that threw himself onto her stomach while her sister hinted at getting to know her girlfriend.

“Can you remind me not to do anymore tours ever again?”

“I would, but you’ve already got the workings of another album in the works,” Anya squinted and tossed her book down.

“No, I refuse. I’m taking a vacation.”

“You say that now.”

“I haven’t taken a proper vacation in like six years.”

“What about rehab?”

Lexa scoffed and furrowed, rolling her eyes at the idea that she had any sort of fun while pulling the toxins from her body. That the inability to move from her bed, that the shaking and the sick and the ache and the pain-- none of it was a vacation in any form. But Lexa used it. She savored the pain, even when it was enough to make her want to kill herself, because it was her cosmic retribution for everything else she did to her sister.

But she would never say it was a vacation.

“If that’s what a woman’s gotta do to get a break, I guess I’m due.”

“I’ll kill you myself next time.”

“I might take you up on that.”

The siblings smiled at each other. Lexa smiled as she felt a tiny head nuzzle under her neck. It was perfect, and Lexa was getting good at appreciating these things.

XXXXXXXXXX

There weren’t so much jitters anymore as there had been before. From time to time, Lexa would feeling a little more amped up than normal when putting on for a particularly raucous crowd. But in the tedium of such a long tour, the almost day-to-day schedule didn’t really get her up in arms anymore.

But there was a ritual to it all. Most of her day was perfectly coordinate by her manager and a publicist and an entire corporate army of people whose sole job it was to make her bband a success, and as she got older and sober, she realized how good they were at it, and how easy her life could become if she let it.

And what no one seemed to point out, or at least not that she could remember, was that if she listened and was receptive and prompt, her days led to more free time. It was an actual wonder to see it function as it should.

The nerves came slowly, and though they never reached the former, paralyzing level, they still grew the closer it got. Lexa took the edge off with stretching and playing video games before the meet and greets, and between that and the set, she read and kept quiet, to herself, away from people. She was about to be pelted with thousands of voices, and having none was her permanent pre-detox.

Sometimes, she watched the opener, proud of their growth. Sometimes she called Clarke, depending on the time zone.

Mostly, Lexa sat in her green room and waited, itched, ahed to play. The nerves came from an eagerness to wreck herself on stage.

“Can we skip the hand squeezing after tonight?” Lexa asked as Indra swept into the green room, eyes fixed pointedly on her phone screen as she typed some response. “I went for a run yesterday and I need to recover.”

“Where’s Anya?”

“You can just tell me, you don’t have to wait for Anya.”

“She’s nicer to me; she doesn’t ask for ridiculous favors like avoiding wealthy and famous and connected people who play your records.”

“Not to your face,” the guitarist grumbled.

“How kind of her. But this is something I need her help with.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“I don’t know,” she shook her head and shoved her phone in her pocket. “I think… This is a tough... “

To many, they wouldn’t see how much Indra cared about the two sisters. They were her bounce back to the big times. She discovered them, brought them up, showed them the ropes, kept them as safe as she could. She celebrated the highs, the hits, the shows, and she was there for the lows, for the rehab, for the relapse. She lived for them, giving up all other clients, traveling with them part-time. She was protective because they were her’s.

“You’re going to have Anya tell me whatever news you’re about to break?”

“Yes,” Indra nodded, earning a smile.

“Coward.”

“You could be nicer to me-- I’m letting your girlfriend come along for a few weeks.”

“You like Clarke.”

“I do, which makes this a little more difficult.”

“I’ve never seen you have difficulties telling me anything before. This must be bad. Did we get dropped from the label? Am I under arrest? Embarrassing pictures leaking? My porn history hacked?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Indra sighed, mentally making a note to have all internet-capable devices double checked. “This is more of something that I want to prepare you for, but I’m trying to be considerate of your sobriety.”

“Oh, yikes,” Lexa furrowed and turned around, facing her friend who looked like she struggled with these words more than ever before. “Well, I’m in a good place. I’ve been working the meetings. Honestly, I can handle anything.”

“Tonight there’s-- Well… What I mean is the... “ she took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Where is Anya?”

“Probably changing the kid. She likes to put him down before our shows. I told you to ban him from the tour. The whole lot of them. Anya and the kid and the husband, exhausting.”

“Costia is coming to the show tonight.”

The name hurt. It hit her like a ton of bricks. In any string of words put together in the world, she never imagined that Indra would put those words together.

“Weird. She hates my shows.”

“She’s promoting a movie she’s in for a second, and she’ll be in town. She knows it’ll generate buzz and rumors.”

“You’ve spoken to her publicist then?” Lexa nodded to herself, keeping it all business. That would help, she convinced herself.

“I did. It… it didn’t go well. We basically got the message that it’s happening no matter what, and we should prepare, and there’s no stopping it.”

“Couldn’t you just ban her?”

“And then the story is about how you’re still hung up on her. If she comes here, it’s her that’s hung up on you.”

“Is she?”

She hadn’t meant to sound interested, and she wasn’t actually. She hadn’t thought about Costia in a long time, but suddenly she had to think about her, and that was hard. Awkwardly, her agent shifted and took a deep breath, strongly disliking this conversation.

“I mean, who wouldn't be?”

“Don’t manage me.”

“It was a good line though, wasn’t it?” Indra offered a small grin.

“I don’t care. Do I have to see her?” The manager pursed her lips and Lexa groaned. “I need to call Clarke before this hits the waves.”

“Want to hit a meeting after all of this? I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Hey, you almost ready to go on?” Anya stuck her head into the room.

“Oh, now you show up,” Indra shook her head and brushed past her.

“What’s her problem?”

Lexa just shook her head and turned back toward the mirror.

XXXXXXXXXX

The sweat was just starting to cool on her neck when her sister stalked toward her, and Lexa knew she was in trouble, even if she didn’t know what for just yet. The euphoria wouldn’t go away. She was still on that high and the stadium was still changing her name despite the encore and there really weren’t drugs that could compete with something like that, even with Anya’s angry face.

“So that’s why you switched up the set list for the encore.”

Hands on her hips, she stopped in front of her sister, blocking her off from the rest of the world, cornered and toweling the sweat off of her neck and forehead.

“Thought we could just do a few different songs tonight,” Lexa shrugged.

“Indra should have told me. You should have told me.”

“Why? It’s just a normal night.”

“That dumb bitch got you hooked--”

“Okay, hold on. You can’t blame her for my actions. Costia didn’t--”

“Don’t defend her!” Anya yelled.

Lexa had seen her sister mad. She’d made her mad from time to time, believe it or not. She was good at it, but it was never real anger, never this real kind of bite to her words that she currently was exhibiting. This wasn’t a time to reason with her or nitpick word choice.

In all honesty, Lexa just wanted the night to end.

Her legs were sore, her brain was a little distracted, and she knew she was gong to wake up to very stupid rumors. But she’d be one day closer to her girlfriend arriving. She smiled, thinking about Tinder’s numbers.

“You’ll be with me. We’ll do the stupid hand shaking and after party thing, and be on our way. I’m fine, by the way.”

“You changed the songs.”

“Yeah.”

She looked guilty at the admission as her sister sized up the result of the news.

“You played her song.”

“The only songs I play are mine.”

It was a lie, but her sister didn’t push.

“We’ll do a meeting tomorrow. Two if you want.”

“Can we just take it hour by hour. I’m honestly fine. I don’t want to think about it too much.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you.”

“Does Clarke know?” Anya ventured, softening slightly.

“Yeah, I called her before we went on. That was an awkward conversation.”

“What did you say? Hey, my ex is here and I have to see her for very stupid and very commercial reasons?”

“Basically, but with a lot of ‘please don’t be mad at me’s thrown in for good measure.”

Anya smiled and put her arm over her sister’s shoulders before steering her toward the dressing room.

“You should send her flowers tomorrow.”

“Already ordered.”

“Thata girl. I knew you were trainable.”

XXXXXXXX

It wasn’t hard to see Costia, and that was the hard part. She was beautiful. She was still beautiful. She would always be beautiful. It wasn’t hard to be in the same room as her because she was light and airy, she was wind and wild and illuminating to anyone that came within her orbit. She was intoxicating so that nothing made sense and you did things you normally wouldn’t do, but it was okay, because she had the capacity to see you and believe in you and make you believe in yourself. She was effervescent, and Lexa hated that word because no one was ever actually effervescent-- except for Costia.

She wasn’t a bad person, contrary to what Anya might think. In fact, often she was a very good person who held doors for strangers and was the type to discreetly tell you there was food in your mouth before following it up with a compliment about your shoes and the next thing you knew, you were best friends and it was a week later and you didn’t know how you got to St. Tropez.

It wasn’t hard to see Costia-- it was actual torture.

Costia smelled like coke in Barbados. She tasted like lines off tanned thighs. She looked like two yellow pills and a tab on a tongue. She was a numbness that made Lexa itch like she hadn’t itched before and she wondered if she was still in love with her.

And all of this happened in a room full of people who had no idea.

The niceties of the party were done and the evening stretched. Anya kept an eye on her sister and Lexa was grateful for it. She needed it, she realized; not because she was afraid of doing anything, but just that she was very afraid of being alone.

“I recognize that look,” Costia whispered as she slipped beside Lexa, weaving through the crowd to find her alone in a corner.

“I don’t have looks.”

“You are desperately planning your escape.”

“Just trying to find my sister,” Lexa disagreed, avoiding looking at her.

If she glanced, she would have seen her shoulders, bare and sun-kissed. She would have seen the familiar slope of her nose and the stupid little scar on the corner of her jaw that she felt very self-conscious about despite it being half an inch and unnoticeable to anyone who wasn’t intimately-- Nope. She wouldn’t glance.

Her palms were sweaty, and she gripped the glass of water tighter in her hand.

“You look good, by the way. I don’t think I told you that. We didn’t really get a chance to chat, though I imagine that’s by Indra’s design.”

“She’s good at her job.”

Costia chuckled and Lexa felt her throat close.

“I followed your lead. Clean for 4 months.”

“That’s really good. You look,” Lexa gulped and looked at her ex, cursory and strictly for show. “You look good.”

“Thank you, for doing this, for coming tonight,” Costia offered, taking the chance of meeting Lexa’s eyes finally to be earnest and grateful. “I know it’s stupid, but our paths crossed and we need all the publicity we can for this movie. It’s stupid--’ She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and Lexa died.

“It’s not. I’m proud you’re branching out. I wasn’t going to do anything else tonight anyway.”

She got sized up with that comment and she felt it. Deep amber eyes searched her face and plump lips curled up the faintest amount. Only someone acquainted with those lips would see it and appreciate.

Lexa looked away immediately before taking a sip of her water.

“We should get out of here and catch up.”

If only Anya were around. Or Clarke.

Clarke.

Fuck.

Lexa took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearing all of the noise and the memories.

“I promised my sister I wouldn’t leave without her. We have a show tomorrow, and this tour has been crazy. I’m running again and I ran yesterday but I want to do it again tomorrow.”

“That was about six excuses rolled into one.”

“I think the most important of all might be Clarke. I promised her I’d behave myself.”

“You don’t trust me?”

It was the look. The same look she had before every wonderful thing that happened during their relationship. The look that Costia got before mischief was afoot-- before she tackled Lexa into bed, before she tossed her book aside and crawled into her lap, before she told her to ignore her phone and spend the weekend in a cabin.

“No. I don’t.”

She laughed and shook her head.

“That’s fair. I’ve been fairly untrustworthy in the past.”

“You can say that.”

They were quiet for a moment and Anya caught Lexa’s eye from across the room and did her best to make her way over for the rescue.

“So. Clarke. That’s an interesting name. How’d you meet?”

“Tinder.”

“Wow. I wouldn’t have taken you for a dating app user.”

“I’m not. It was for a radio interview game… almost a year ago, actually,” Lexa smiled to her chest as she recounted it.

“How’s she doing with the whole,” she waved her hands in Lexa’s direction. “Rockstar thing.”

“Anya doesn’t let me call myself that.”

“It’s still true.”

“She’s good. She’s... “ Lexa paused and smiled, unsure of how to describe her present versus the haze of memories she’d buried and been forced to excavate in the past fifteen minutes. “She’s sturdy. She’s steady. She’s gorgeous and funny and strong. She finds me impressive for the things I’m proud of being and she’s not bothered by the things everyone else latches onto. She’s a photographer. And messy but in a neat way-- like her mess isn’t unwieldy. It’s perfect. She’s like breathing, you know? When you sit at the bottom of the pool and then get a big gulp of air. That’s what she feels like.”

Speechless, Costia stared at her ex as she realized she’d said many words. She recounted it all in her own head and felt each syllable like a knife creating small slits across her skin.

“Wow. Where can I get one of those?”

Lexa blushed to the tips of her ears and smiled, embarrassed and awkward as she sipped a little more.

“Sorry, I just… I don’t get to talk about her much on the road.”

“No, no… it was refreshing,” the model lied. “Have you written her songs yet?”

“No.”

It was Lexa’s turn to lie, though she didn’t consider it such. Not when she hadn’t published or really polished anything worthwhile.

“That’s surprising. Did you tell her you were going to see me?”

“Yeah, I called her before I went on tonight.”

“How’d she feel?”

“Not great. But she understood.”

“Sounds too good to be true.”

“She’s… yeah. I don’t know. She’s my favorite person on the planet, honestly.”

Before Costia could ask anything else, Anya was able to disentangle herself from the group that accumulated and found her sister.

“I think you gave the reporters more than enough time together,” Anya muttered, disinterested in anything from Costia. “Ready to head out?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Lexa nodded. “It was great to catch up. I’d say let’s do it again, but I have a feeling our sponsors might say no.”

“Or your girlfriend.”

“Clarke?” Anya scoffed. “Nah. She’s too graceful to say something like that. But I will. I think we can say this was enough catching up for a century.”

Costia nodded and looked back at Lexa who didn’t disagree with her sister, though she shook her head and tried to soften the blow.

“That’s not true,” Lexa feigned politeness. “It really was good to see you, and I’m glad you’re doing so well.”

Costia leaned forward and hugged her ex. Lexa only used one arm and pulled away as quickly as possible.

“You too, Lex,” she smiled. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, I hope so.”

“I could go without it,” Anya interrupted.

With a nod, Costia made her way back into the party and Lexa looked at her sister before earning a disapproving glance.

“We were just catching up. She’s clean, and I know how hard it is sometimes.”

“You looked chummy.”

“We actually were just chumming it up.”

“She lives in a room behind a door that you don’t want to reopen. Leave her there, Lex.”

“I am.”

“Good.”

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undergroundmusicmachine · 4 years ago

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Explaining Music: Underground Contemporary Music

Weirdcore is a music genre and an aesthetic art. Its origins aren't clear as the music genre isn’t defined by specific instruments or tempo, but by tone and visuals. This is similar to vaporwave, which leads me to believe weirdcore to have derived in some way from said genre. Vaporwave has more identifiable origins, its believed it originated in early 2010s and popularised largely by Macintosh plus - floral shoppe. Like weirdcore, vaporwave is characterized by the use of digital effects and nostalgic aesthetics.

During the 2010s people grew increasingly cynical about corporal work and mainstream topics as corporations became more family friendly and powerful. Vaporwave is a reflection of that. In contemporary music like vaporwave and weirdcore, we see themes of nostalgia and derealisation. This could be influenced by the growth in media, internet and video games in our lives. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that after spending the whole night watching memes on Instagram you might feel detached from reality. To clarify, this isn’t a criticism of the media or its use, but its common and it likely influenced younger generations and the music they choose to make/ listen to. This age of internet combined with the cynical personalities many artists have, has resulted in an age of music meant to confuse and shock. This is reminiscent of psychedelic music.

As you might be able to tell by the last paragraph, music evolves and branches out over time. There are many factors to the way music evolves which make it very unpredictable. In the case of weirdcore, my guess is that it stems from growing non conformity in society. The fight against racism, homophobia, transphobia and generally xenophobia. This created the idea that media and morals should embrace change and differences. In turn, this means there are many more young musicians experimenting and trying to find new, unheard sounds as we’ve grown up being taught to do so in other aspects of life. You can also see this in memes for example.

Memes are like inside jokes which millions of people can laugh at, which sounds counter intuitive until you consider that many of them grow in a small community in iFunny. I believe the weird part of weirdcore comes from this. Weirdcore is not for everyone. It's specifically targeted towards people who are most open to uniqueness and strangeness: Teens and young adults. Memes are a satire of everything. There’s likely little to no subjects which haven’t been memed about. Although some might not become popular. This makes them cynical by default.

I believe weirdcore and other Gen Z/ Millennial underground music come from these main pillars of culture:

The way we’ve grown up used to feelings of derealization induced by work and media, the fact many of us strive to be open minded and different, the cynical culture of many countries responsible for most music distribution and influences from different old genres of music for nostalgia.

As I see it, this is what underground music has been since the 20th century. These main points can be attributed to almost any contemporary genre and medium. Like dreampop/core, weirdcore/pop, electronic speedcore/shitcore, lowercase, vapor/synthwave. Some big influences to these would be Gorillaz, Macintosh Plus, the less known Passenger of Shit, Jack Stauber, Beach House, Tiktok/Youtube and many more.

In my opinion recent underground music has become based on:

cynicism/ shock, unique instrumentation/ sound effects, a somewhat ethereal tone and aesthetics, nostalgic sounds

I’m interested in exploring and discovering more genres like this. I enjoy the way they convey a shared feeling between much of our generation without trying to. It's music about a whole generation of people. And this is coming from the instrumentation. The lyrics are a whole different subject which I’m not as confident about as they vary a lot more from artist to artist. I’m open to hearing about similar genres of music in the sense of being modern and unique sounding, which would be a nice way to find artists to talk about and genres to analyse.

#weirdcore #dreamcore #analysis #21st century art #weirdmusic #culture #music #aestheitcs

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qtakesams · 4 years ago

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When Life Goes On, Go with It

Two years ago this month, I moved to Edgewater, Maryland, to complete a summer internship with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. SERC, as we call it, is a branch of the Smithsonian Institution that specializes in climate, coastal, terrestrial, and various other types of sciences. Their campus is an hour east of Washington, D.C. They own hundreds of acres of land, on which they house their laboratories and fields.

It was just after my sophomore year of college ended. As with many underclassmen years, mine was turbulent. I endured a drastic shift in my social circle which had, even if temporarily, left me feeling stranded on a campus I was still learning about. I’d had a rough spring semester, finding a lack of motivation to complete any assignment.

Most undergrads face that year: the one where nothing feels right, and each path feels like a dead-end. I had applied for a SERC internship on a bit of a whim. Entering college, I’d seen myself as a fiction writer and editor, planning to end up in a corporate publishing house. Sophomore had shown me I desired other things, and I applied for SERC’s science writing internship completely unsure if I’d actually like the work. What if I didn’t? What if it felt worse than the previous semester? What would I do if I couldn’t bounce back?

All of this, I decided, would be worth the risk. When I got an email from the internship’s advisor in March, offering me the position, I accepted it. The rest, as some might say, is history.

SERC is a hard place to find until you’ve visited a few times. The brown sign is easily skipped by the eyes. Coming from the west, you approach SERC on the left side of the road. Immediately, you forget that you’re technically in the suburbs, less than thirty miles from the epicenter of political heat in America. After a few turns, you arrive at the gate. When SERC is publicly open, you drive on through. When you’re an intern coming back from the bar at night, you have to swipe your ID card. You drive a few more turns, watching closely for deer, before that final right turn that drops you into the parking lot of the intern dorms and the labs.

I fell in love with SERC within days of my arrival. There were the intimidating factors of the place: fellow interns at Ivy Leagues and respected colleges, scientific labs into which the government itself funded millions, no meal plan, and the stick shift vehicle I would drive all summer. I was terrified when my mom drove away. I explored the floor of my building, admiring the kitchen, perusing the book selection. By eleven, I was in bed. I was tried from traveling, but more so, I didn’t know what to do. I’d briefly interacted with the other intern already on my floor, but I didn’t know him well enough to go say hi. There were four interns moved in below my floor, but I hadn’t seen any of them yet. I suddenly seemed wildly out of my element, though I had felt comfortable at SERC the moment I drove through the gate.

Of course, I grew happier at SERC. The happiest I’d been in years. Within weeks, I made strong friends, adjusted to my job, and began to close my GPS when driving to the store.

My work felt good. The articles I wrote and the media I created reached thousands of people, many of which gave positive comments. My words were reaching people, and the people were responding.

I was raised by a scientist, but more importantly, by well-educated, empathetic people. Loving my planet was part of the gig when I was growing up. In high school, I began to see where my privilege in this education existed. My friends at school didn’t seem to care about the things I’d be taught to care about. Water consumption, electricity, knowing the landscape on which your house is built. I knew important moments in history, and how they affected me. I had early knowledge of politics, to the point where I knew who George Bush was before his presidency ended (when I was 10). Ignorance and empathy tend to go hand-in-hand, mostly because ignorance leads to apathy. We’ve seen this cause-and-effect equation hold catastrophic, deadly consequences in 2020.

When I arrived at SERC, it didn’t slip by me that I suddenly had access to information that most people only dream about. Many of us are ignorant (I remain ignorant to 99.9% of what happens on this Earth) by circumstance, not by choice. Accessibility is one of our biggest problems of a global society attempting to function in a digital, climate change-riddled world. Sixty percent of the globe now has Internet access, but that leaves 3.08 billion people without the knowledge they need to protect themselves from the setbacks of climate change. Most of those people, as it would turn out, are terribly affected most by war, poverty, hunger, climate, social injustice, etc. These things intertwine and cause one another. Not always, but often.

My position at SERC gifted me access to science occurring in real-time. When the Pandemic would hit a year later, it would be surprising but not shocking. On a planet where politics and science are brothers, and the population is soaring too high to properly maintain, containing a spreadable virus is like trying to hold a cup of water in your bare hands. Sooner or later, it’s going to slip between the cracks and go everywhere. If it slips far enough, you’ll never find a towel strong enough to collect it all.

In March of 2020, when I moved home to isolate, I knew the rest of college was trashed. Not my degree, necessarily, but the experience of college. I would lose that experience in its normalcy, and therefore the skills which develop from that normalcy.

I did soon realize, however, that we are not always fortunate enough to do something about mass-casualties or problems. There’s not always an answer, straightforward or not. When there is one, you should grab it with both hands.

That summer of 2020, I decided I wanted to pursue a master’s degree after college. Higher education is not unknown in my family; we boast high degrees from prestigious universities. I am the opposite of a First-Generation student (one of my great-grandparents also had a master’s degree). Graduate school had already been on my mind when I started college, but I didn’t know what for. An MFA in fiction had felt the most logical to my teenage self in 2017, but by 2018, that felt out the window. What I had realized by the summer of 2020 was that, in the midst of the chaos and absurdity, was that I could in fact do something about what was going on. I can’t solve climate change, or house the homeless, or save every polar bear, or even eradicate a virus, but I can help in my own way. On some level, I can do something about the many crises. This, in itself, is “doing something”.

Science writing is a polarizing subject, of this I have been aware my entire life. Unfortunately, we’ve made science political, though politics are generally opinion (with strong empathy) and science is fact. It’s a tough, competitive field, but so is everything else. If you want to “make it” in this world, you have to willingly shed blood, tears, and probably sweat profusely. As I watched the COVID cases skyrocket simultaneously to the people I knew who cared not to stay home, I could tell something was off. People weren’t listening. If they were, it was usually to the ignorant voices on television.

I could feel my cheeks burning as I watched the Johns Hopkins map. It seemed cruel that we, as a society, could do that to ourselves. That we could allow this virus to spread and kill, but also that we had put ourselves in this position. I had already been envisioning myself as a science writer every day since my time at SERC had begun. Finally reckoning with the knowledge that not everybody is a scientist, nor cares to be one, was the icing on the cake. I couldn’t fix it all, but I could offer my help. So, I would.

When I began this blog two years ago, it was solely for abroad purposes. It was a fabulous way to let anybody who cared know what I was experiencing and how I was handling those experiences. Studying abroad, no matter how or where or how long, is difficult. Studying in general, for any length of time on any subject, is mindboggling tedious. I give kudos to my friends and family who have any advanced, foreign, or nontraditional education.

What I discovered after I began writing blog posts and sharing my thoughts is that there’s always more to the story than the words on the page. That’s why I’ve added to this blog in the year and a half since my abroad semester ended; there is always more to tell.

In a few weeks, I begin my master’s degree at Northwestern University in Chicago. My degree is in journalism, with a specialization in Science and Health reporting. I’m nervous to my core, as I am with any new adventure. I just graduated college last weekend, so my emotions are running wild. Yet, I have a feeling I’m about to finally be where I’ve wanted to be for years. I love words. I love messing with them, shaping them, using them to fit whatever project I want. I also love science. I love knowing what is happening around me, and why and how it is. Combining them already feels like a dream come true, so I’m sure the next year will feel magical.

The classes of 2020 and 2021 are probably the most resilient in history. A Pandemic, racial and social injustice, wildfires, remote learning, wifi issues. We’ve seen it all, and it’s made us stronger every day.

I think I’ve worn this blog out for this phase of life. My thoughts on what I’ve talked about here are valid and important, but they don’t exist alone. For somebody who’s pretty much been writing since she could hold a pencil, I hate journaling. I’ve tried so many times, and never succeeded, with the exception of this blog. That said, it gave me an incredibly strong, consistent manner of getting my thoughts on the page, for which I am endlessly grateful. If you’ve kept reading my thoughts and words, you should know I’m endlessly grateful for you, too.

All of this is saying that, whether you’re ready or not, life keeps going. Life can be cruel, it can be challenging, it can be beautiful. No matter what, it keeps going. As my friend Ferris once said, if you don’t stop and look around from time to time, you could miss it. So much changed so drastically in the last year. I’m still processing it. I might always be processing it. Most importantly, I think, is that I’ve learned to flow with it wherever it goes. It’s harder sometimes than other, but the result is usually worth the grind.

You might read my stuff in the Times once day, or (my personal favorite dream) National Geographic. I don’t know honestly know where I’m going, but I’m okay with that because I do know that I’m on my way. I’m still going. When life continues, you should go, too. You never quite know where the climb will lead, but you do know that the view will be great.

#study abroad #science writing #thoughts #media #graduate school #graduate student #class of 2021

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licheninsect · 4 years ago

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America and USG

Someone sent me an email with some patriotic stuff. At first I considered replying only with a JPEG of a Viking shaman standing between a pair of huge, phallic gilded fasces. (How did someone not get a better picture of that?) But the response came out in a short “ELI5” style that I thought might be useful.

My political testament

America is a country. USG is the sovereign corporation, or regime, that owns the country. More people need to learn to see this distinction clearly and frankly.

I love the country although frankly I think it needs a lot of work. But it’s a classic property. It’s the ‘68 Mustang of countries. Most people can’t even begin to imagine the things you could do with the place. A Mustang chassis with a Tesla powertrain…

I think the regime needs to go wherever Sun Microsystems went—or maybe Czechoslovakia. Or the Protectorate of England. Or even Theranos. I’m done with it and I don’t see how anyone else could be otherwise. I will continue to meticulously comply with all its rules, orders and commands, of course, as should everyone else.

No regime is forever and every regime is best retired according to its own principles. Thomas Jefferson had a cool line:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

(Of course, Jefferson was a racist. We’ve learned a lot about the “paradox of tolerance” since then. As for Happiness, here’s what’s most likely to effect it: Fentanyl.)

I have no problem with USG’s employees, who are generally wonderful and need to be treated well, or its fans, who are sick in the head but will recover as soon as the toxin is withdrawn. There are a lot of both and they are mostly great people—as individuals.

My friends keep begging me to flee to Israel. I’m like: I don't think I’m in much danger right now. Also, Israel is a foreign country. Israel is a country for Jews and I’m not even a real Jew, my wife is 100% shiksa and my son looks like a Hitler Youth poster, and not only can I not speak the language, I can’t even read the goddamn language. (But let’s see how I feel once I’ve read the new regime’s 20,000-word security bill.)

Neighbors: America is my country. I will flee when they chase me out. The Internet is also my country. I will flee when they kick me off it. (I won’t even use the distributed social network I invented!)

But it is only America that I love. I feel absolutely no emotional connection to USG. Not only do I not love it, I don’t even hate it—though I do feel, purely as a scientific proposition, that America would blossom like a rose if the Chesapeake watershed was ecologically restored as seen in that great classic of the silver screen, Logan’s Run.

It is easy for me to feel the difference between America and USG, because I grew up inside USG. My dad was in the Senior Foreign Service, my mom worked for Joe Romm on climate policy at DOE, my stepdad was on Biden’s staff in the 80s.

As a Foreign Service brat, you see USG without America. Almost no one gets to see that. It’s a great parallax. But I think more Americans are starting to get the distinction.

Isn’t it amazing, by the way, that the great temple of our democracy which that foul mob of lawless and irresponsible hooligans defiled—dumping someone else’s tea into the harbor is not who we are—is… about as democratic as the Supreme Soviet?

Specifically: it has the incumbency rate of the late Bourbons, a seniority system that would get Chernenko hard, and the popularity of Idi Amin Dada. And standing behind it is the whole legislative branch, miscalled the “executive branch,” with its permanent civil service—as permanent as anything in the USSR.

I grew up in the Cold War. I took it seriously, especially the nuclear holocaust thing. But in the end, did East and West turn out to be all that different?

#mencius moldbug #curtis yarvin #gray mirror

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violetsystems · 4 years ago

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#personal

I’m not in a terrible mood this week although I am completely exhausted with everything. Home is great when you have internet. Not so great when people try to disrupt it by setting up service on top of your address. People can be terrible communicators especially when they are focusing only on themselves. We live in isolated times I understand. The idea that people ‘project’ all the information you need is incredibly exhausting to have to read into all the time. Especially when no one bothers to read what you project back. I often wonder if it will get exponentially worse when people feel safer returning to a public facing world. I’ve been public facing throughout all of this and for many years prior. You can’t travel the world alone and develop some sort of toughness. The real trick is being able to turn your defenses on and off. It’s a reflex. Like how in one breath I can tell somebody to fuck off then turn my head and help a kitten from the sidewalk. If it were called acting then I would have a job already. I often have to look back at how I’ve grown over time to figure out the headspace. I’ve always been sort of awkward. Mostly because I was sensitive to what others thought of me. I’ve always been bullied as long as I can really remember. I grew up in an Irish Catholic suburb filled with white people, white pride and whiter drug problems than they cared to admit to. Most of my friends were losers and rejects. I kept to myself and listened to hip hop on a broken yellow sony walkman. People would call me the n word every morning on my way to school proudly claiming I was going to hell. I was a shy and nerve racked honors student. I grew up an only child who wrote poetry and science fiction. I played pen and paper role playing games by myself because nobody shared the same interests. At times, the friend groups that I did find had group agendas that dwarfed my social needs. This never really changed. I spent most of the last ten years revisiting this sort of solitude. I travelled Korea, Japan and China by myself. I stayed in hostels in group situations where I still felt uncomfortable. I developed skills to talk to people. I met a lot of weird people. I met a lot of nice people too. In Seoul particularly, I found a normal that I’d never really understood before. I’d go out and actually do things with people I didn’t know. I went to a guitar cafe once in a basement in a small neighborhood called Hyehwa. The group was myself, a hostel owner, a soccer fan from Dalian, and a random guest. We sat in silence as a small old man played “Goodbye to Romance” on a small guitar as silent Pink Floyd concert footage played out on the tv behind him. I escaped to Korea for a long time. I’d go every six months for two to three weeks on vacation. At the time I had the vacation from my job to use with impunity. If I stayed home in the states, people would follow me. I realized this later when I switched my trips to New York. My boss and my CIO would stop at nothing to contact me on my vacation to write emails they couldn’t formulate. Ask questions about things they already knew the answer to. Looking back on it, there are so many times people made my life miserable enough to make me quit. I never really got the message because I’ve been so bullied over my life that I learned to ignore it. My CIO famously cornered me in a hall once and asked what was wrong. He told me point blank I didn’t have a good poker face. I replied I wasn’t aware we were gambling. It was so subtle I don’t think he understood I wasn’t bluffing. I lost that hand six months later when he fired me over video chat. Nine months later I’m dead to an entire twenty years of friendships and professional connections. If I don’t look surprised or scared, it must be the poker face I’ve been working on.

This is to say I understand or process none of anything that has happened to me anymore. It hurts beyond hurting. And I’ve become an expert at dealing with it all alone and in silence. So much so that people follow me around like lost puppies thinking I can offer them clarity. Or treat me like a practice dummy in their attempt to haphazardly attack the real problems in society. I’ve never been so tired, done and particularly bored with everything until now. And yet the bitterness never really gets me anywhere except physically sick and depressed. Throughout all of this as the situation in society starts to worsen, I see people looking to me for leadership or guidance. This is often without even asking or having consent. They think I’m part of some revolution that they’ve never asked about. Nobody has ever asked my name. They just know me as the guy they see around all the time. That I’m some wise and silent protector of things when I’m just some regular person suffering just like everybody else. If you really added it all up and put these chapters I write together, you’d see an alarming trend. That for whatever movement people include me in, I’m expected to fight all of this alone. And me knowing full well how well movements and revolutions have left me completely insignificant and invisible after the things I have done is disheartening. People enjoy getting a reaction. Pushing all the buttons every time you step outside your door. Sometimes it’s a hundred yards before someone starts trouble. Sometimes it’s the minute you step outside either porch you share with your neighbors. The lack of dignity and respect is something I deserve because of my supposed position of power. America is like that. There is so little to go around that everything is a Hunger Games glorification. Classes need to provoke each other not identities. And yet we measure each other’s value by our differences and not our common strengths. America has always been a paradox in this way. The magical chaos of Anarchy that allows everyone to be free at the expense of others. The real way to be free in America is money. And money locks us out from the dialogue more often than not. It’s a great narrative that people can start their own businesses here in America when all the contract work is locked behind corporate recruiters, headhunters with signing bonuses and worse. That somehow at the end of a pandemic I’ve survived almost completely alone in I’m supposed to give in at the end. It’s like the clown in It gnashing it’s teeth as it shrinks into a harmless baby. I feel a bit sorry for America right now. And yet that clown has become less menacing to me and has been forced to feed on others. After all I’ve seen and been through I have no luxury to be afraid of anything or anyone. I have completely lost my innocence in that respect. And the face I put on for society when I walk out the door is one of stone. It is futile to expect that anyone can engage me with respect, humility and courage. Nobody can ever say my name. I have not heard my name spoken in forever by people I know well. I hear it spoke when I get Korean food down the street. My neighbors simply tell things to me. Or give me a longing glance like I’m supposed to read their mind, their agenda and trust their nosy intentions of being there at exactly the right time. We’re all in this together. We’re all connected. And yet after all of this I’ve realized no matter how well and good that may seem, it’s a liability to be social without a proper level of respect for your right to be human. Acting like the neighborhood secret police is not revolutionary. Acting like I owe anybody anything in this city after what IT has put me through is subliminal torture. I’ve told it like it is more than often about my life here in America. So much so that it echoes around the globe at this point as an anomaly. Is it really true that this guy clearly does not give a fuck about what anybody thinks of him? Yes. This is how I stay the fuck alive out here. I need you to understand just how desperate that sounds. Then I need people to realize that the only thing I’m desperate for is to be left alone at this point.

The reason I’m invisible to many people is that I’m not worth shit. We are all technically not worth shit. This might be news to all of you who read these. Because I generally feel the most care from people on this platform. I’m baffled by my own thoughts on this. How a click can mean more than the world to me than a bunch of people in real life shouting or glaring at me with hidden intentions. A glare and a hidden message on the internet is most likely spam. A glare in the streets with a knowing look is basically an invitation to fraud for me at this point. If you’ve seen me all over the place maybe you should ask my name or introduce yourself. And yet in Nazi Germany, you wonder if the secret police felt the same. The overall effect of having people follow, watch and keep tabs on you has this lofty narrative. Don’t you feel important now that secretly you are being watched? Don’t you feel special? I have travelled all over the world by myself at this point. I paid off the credit card bills to prove it. Do you think I don’t know what it is like to be surveilled and followed? Do you think in an era where white people actively target people and hurt them I feel any safer than anyone else? I am appalled at what I’ve heard in the news. And yet it is always the same root. White extremism. White culture. White people. Power abused. Defenseless broken down worthless trash in rebellion. Poor me for having a bad day. In my admonishment of my mother’s call for information for Ancestry dot com, we had a conversation about family. There are huge segments of my family I stay away from. My cousin who I have not spoken to for years lives out west. I learned last night that he sells guns for a living. My mom told me a story of his father who was an avid gun supporter. My parents approached him about being godparents. He replied that he would only accept on one condition. That when I came of age he would teach me how to shoot a gun like a real man. I’ve never touched a gun in my life. I’m a registered conscientious objector. I swing a hammer in game more often than not though I’m known to creep around with a sniper rifle in Cyberpunk. That’s a fucking game. My cousin is out there somewhere at a gun show with a Trump flag and an internet connection just like every other right wing troll on the internet. And I have to deal with the Fallout just the same. Everyone bangs away at their status messages and twitter feeds and accomplishes more of the same. Fear. It froths over. It never goes away. It burns into hatred. It becomes a righteous cause for which to stand behind. My rights to be free. As if holding a gun protects you. As if wasting your prayers on causing harm to others really heals the world. As if playing power and mind games on people you don’t know is somehow an act of liberation. As if boring me the fuck to death with how cool you think you are by thinking you on anywhere near my fucking level helps my situation. I have a right to be exhausting with all this performative bullshit. And yet the world keeps upping the ante. Like we’re in some high stakes Hunger games casino and the reward is your freedom at the expense of others. We are not all in this together until we can look each other in the eye and understand the cause of each other’s pain. The pain is that we do not communicate like human beings. We skitter and prey upon each other like animals. Animals remember when you feed and protect them. Humans are worse. If I know one thing about Planet of the Apes is that not even Mark Wahlberg can save you now. Just let me exist outside the dome and forget I’m somebody important. I’ve got my own life and loves I have to protect. You don’t know what I go through daily to honor that. And that secret is nobody’s business but mine. Since there are no jobs left in America, I’ll settle for that one. I don’t need a letter of recommendation. I write one every week. Yeah we all float down here. You’ll float too. Better than sinking. <3 Tim

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yamamuragaku · 5 years ago

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Excerpt: Novel IDOLiSH7 Ainana Academy

Novel: Sasaki Teiko

Character Draft/Illustrator: Tanemura Arina

Original Work: Bandai Namco Online

In the darkness, a phantom flower bloomed.

It was a digital art flower projected on a jet black wall as if ink was painted on it. In a space where there was nothing, a speck of emerald green light suddenly flashed. Shining young buds quickly spread, leaves flourished, and at the tips, seven flower buds--fleeting like the moonlight--grew.

As the flower buds grew, each took on a different color and soft flower petals gently unraveled.

Here was the recording studio of a web-distributed program.

The ones filming were the members of the budding idol group, IDOLiSH7.

It was the recording of the final episode of the mini drama "Ainana Academy".

"Ainana Academy" was a drama in which Yamato, who planned to control the school, joined with Sougo and Iori to confront Nagi, Riku, and Tamaki.

Bright lights were lit simultaneously. The camera crew was on standby.

At the cue to start shooting, against a background of faintly lit digital art flowers, Nanase Riku, dressed as a cheerleader in a white chouran with the sleeves tied with a red ribbon, raised his voice.

"I hate the darkness! I hate your darkness! That's why with the power of love, I will burn away all your hatred! I will not forgive you--"

A gentle and honest voice resounded throughout the studio.

At that moment, a warm and pleasant atmosphere spread all through the studio.

No fragments of hatred could be felt from the way Riku crisply shouted, nor his direct gaze. Instead, Riku was making puppy dog eyes.

Confronting Riku was Ousaka Sougo, who was wearing a cape like a vampire, and Nikaidou Yamato, playing a doctor in a white coat, whose face relaxed.

"...Sorry, Riku. I don't really feel hated by you. It feels like I'm actually being forgiven,"

Told Yamato, who was fiddling with the stethoscope hanging around his neck.

"Um."

"If you say it with more contempt, onii-san might feel it."

"Uh...um."

Yotsuba Tamaki, who was waiting behind Riku, snorted.

Riku stared at Tamaki who just made fun of him. Tamaki, a current high school student, looked really good wearing a uniform casually and stylishly.

He looked back at Riku and as if a switch was flicked, Tamaki began roaring with laughter.

Standing to the side, Izumi Iori made a face like he swallowed a bug. Iori was properly wearing a uniform buttoned all the way to the top, with glasses as accessories. Iori pushed up the bridge of the glasses with his fingertips, and sighed heavily.

However, the director could not be heard saying "cut." In other words, filming continued.

"I-I will not forgive you!!"

Quickly turning towards Yamato and Sougo, Riku said his lines once more, for good measure.

Right in the middle between Riku and Yamato, Izumi Mitsuki who was tied up and sitting with an apron on, looked over Riku with a nervous expression. Next to him was Rokuya Nagi, holding a glow stick and wearing a happi. Nagi crouched down, untied Mitsuki, and stood up.

"OH! Riku. Hatred doesn't suit us. Even if your partner is the leader of darkness. When our weapon is ready, you'll feel not hatred, but love. So, Riku--"

Nagi informed with a smile. Hair of gold and eyes of blue. Anyone would be fascinated by the beauty of Nagi, who came from a small country in Northern Europe.

"Let us sing."

"What?! A song?!"

Riku batted his big eyes.

"Yes. Because we are IDOLiSH7. Come on, music!!"

Nagi snapped his fingers.

Music began playing.

While they were acting out the mini drama, in the background, a paradise of digital art flowers started playing, each bud blooming.

"...I didn't hear anything. About this."

Riku opened his mouth flabbergastingly. It seemed that not only Riku but the other members besides Nagi didn't know to sing there.

Mitsuki was the first one to suddenly run off. He raised his hand in front of the camera,

"Does each person have a mic?"

And signaled to the staff. The members each picked up the mics prepared by the staff.

They automatically settled into their positions.

The intro ended, and Riku's singing voice resonated in the mic. His overwhelming singing ability and rich singing voice enveloped the entire studio.

At first there was a bit of confusion, but once Riku began to sing, everything was clear.

A sparkling singing voice that would drive away the darkness burst out, and Nagi said, "Good job," and gave a thumbs up with a smile, and took his turn.

While Sougo waved his jet black cloak, he made a careful step.

Mitsuki's petite body jumped according to the music, exciting the staff.

Tamaki's dynamic dancing drew everyone's gaze.

Yamato looked at Tamaki's dancing, and showed a daring smile.

The appearance of Yamato, who was twirling the stethoscope while casually singing, immediately conveyed that, "Come to think of it, this is a scene from a mini drama."

He made a gesture like he was acting in a play, and while singing and dancing, Yamato’s presence overpowered Riku and Nagi. Iori immediately reacted to Yamato's acting, and he forced his way in front of Yamato to support Riku. Yamato was instantly impressed with the ad-lib and smiled faintly.

The director's "cut" still could not be heard.

The studio was dyed in IDOLiSH7's color.

IDOLiSH7 was asked to appear on a web-distributed program two months ago.

The first member who heard about this was Iori, who heard it from Takanashi Tsumugi--a manager belonging to the talent agency, Takanashi Production.

Although Iori was an idol, he had confidence in his analytical ability, and assisted Tsumugi a lot. However, that Iori took on the role of Tsumugi's brain was a secret to everyone. There was fear as a current high school student, whether other members might show resistance to the youngest among IDOLiSH7 leading the group.

"A web-distributed program...?"

"Yes."

As idols, IDOLiSH7 was a bud that just sprouted. With hidden sparkling and shining energy, they are absolutely "real idols", but they're still rather unknown to the general public.

As for the reason they haven't made their break yet, it was obvious to Iori. They had too little exposure.

If you listened to their songs and saw their dancing, you would become a fan. That was the only ability and charm they held. However, there were almost no TV programs that invited the rookie idols IDOLiSH7.

During this time, an offer arrived at the agency for a variety program that would be distributed online, rather than on TV.

"That's right. I think it may be good to try this,"

Iori said, checking the terms of the request. However, Tsumugi made a surprised face.

"Eh? Really? But before, didn't you say you had a concern about doing online programs?"

While Iori discussed IDOLiSH7's future development with Tsumugi, she recalled what he formerly expressed.

"Yes. I said that. We are an idol group that attracted attention from online videos. The assumption that we are familiar with online distribution is correct. But..."

Because of an accident, IDOLiSH7 had to sing outdoors during a storm, and a video of that went viral and drew them a lot of attention.

Idols of the Internet age. The video circulated among people who liked and favorited it on social media. Spread without corporate promotion, the radiance of a new and fresh group called IDOLiSH7. That was one of our weapons, Iori thought.

But at the same time, he understood that this precarious position was a double-edged sword.

"On the other hand, if we rely too much on online distribution, there's a possibility we may develop an unwanted reputation. If I may say this freely--I don't want us to become 'cheap idols.'"

"Cheap...idols...?"

"Yes. It's a really subtle balance...but with one misstep, cheap idols will fail. Now is an era where anyone can post online. Amateurs can get popular by posting videos online, and they collaborate with companies to make videos. In that context, we must think of what it means to be professional idols. It isn't just about increasing exposure."

Tsumugi listened with a despondent face. Although Iori wasn't mad about Tsumugi's management, he sometimes caused her to make this kind of face. Her chest hurt a little.

"But...I think it's fine!! IDOLiSH7's singing and dancing are not cheap. You're the real deal. You're true idols. I know for a fact. I believe when people see you, they'll definitely understand!"

Tsumugi looked discouraged, but as soon as she bit her lip and took a deep breath, and her big eyes moistened, she turned to Iori and declared this.

Iori, taken aback, gulped. Because she said this with a puppy dog face without calculation--manager is scary.

"Of course,"

He replied immediately. Because Iori himself "knew" that IDOLiSH7 was the real deal.

The idol group that ran before them--TRIGGER--wasn't strong in variety.

Therefore, it was a good strategy to target the areas in which TRIGGER was weak.

Also--.

"This time, the web-distributed program seems to have a tight budget at this stage, so we need to tackle the project sharply. As for the film editor, a freelancer is better than a well-known one, but..."

He looked over the proposal, and checked the names of the staff along with the plan.

Before, Iori saw one of the names of the people involved with the filming in an interview online.

The name came up in a question about "interesting people lately" in the globally active, up-and-coming digital art group, Y-Classic.

He was a student who attracted attention in the art world for the stylish video he created as a hobby, which spread by word of mouth and became famous.

"I watched the video he made. In addition to his skill, his excellent way of showing the theme, the beautiful imagery, the quick tempo, and how it made you laugh, was understandably popular. If we find that kind of fresh talent and attract him to our program--isn't it okay to entrust ourselves to him?

Tsumugi stared in wonder and muttered, "I didn't know. There was someone like that in the staff."

"Our greatest weapon is Nanase-san's singing. If they hear our singing and see our dancing, the viewers will definitely understand that we are the real deal. Finally, if we make a corner showing our singing and dancing, along with the main point of the proposal, the mini drama ‘Ainana Academy’, I think the staff will surely challenge it and make something interesting. This job seems worthwhile."

"Understood. Then, I'll take accept this job!!"

Tsumugi responded energetically.

Five days later, the script for the drama arrived at the agency. A job for all the members of IDOLiSH7.

Within the group, MEZZO" already formed as a two-person unit, and Tamaki and Sougo had their CD debut, so their workload would further increase. Their responsibilities would grow, but even so, the two in MEZZO" were overjoyed.

In the first place, Tamaki and Sougo didn't have the slightest intention of only doing MEZZO". Rather, for the sake of debuting with IDOLiSH7 as seven people, they had been working hard to cut through as the advance guard, and clear a path.

It wasn't lip service; they were seriously acting with those intentions. Therefore, when the manager wanted to focus on IDOLiSH7's management and business, MEZZO" had a lot of work where it was just them alone.

At a small and weak agency, idols were being produced. They couldn't buy a car for exclusive use yet, so the two people in MEZZO" moved around by train. For the time being, they hid their faces with sunglasses and hats, and moved with their idol switch off. Even so, people who notice will notice, but they haven't yet experienced someone overbearingly talking to them and causing a racket.

However, Tamaki was disappointed in hearing "there's still quite a ways."

Tamaki stepped into the highly exposed entertainment world because he wanted to find his missing little sister. He had not revealed this reason to others yet, but he thought he always wanted to be more famous. He wanted to appear on TV a lot more. It would be good if his sister saw his existence.

Tamaki had his head in the clouds while he was riding the train with Sougo. They were sitting next to each other on an uncrowded seat. To the public, MEZZO" got along very well, but the truth was entirely different.

"Tamaki-kun, did you properly read the script?"

Sougo took the script out of his bag, and began reading it. It was also Sougo who put effort into remembering their travel times. He was serious. He was the type of person who thought what you ought to do today, you should accomplish today. It didn’t mean he was not serious. He always kept his eyes on the ball, which was why he was now only thinking of their next job.

"I'll do it later,"

He brusquely responded. Sougo slightly lowered the corners of his eyes.

It was unknown how many times it had been repeated.

The two have had similar back-and-forths many times.

Sougo looks very kind, and spoke with a gentle tone. With an atmosphere like warm spring sunshine, Sougo was basically always gentle and kind.

However--sometimes Sougo gave instructive guidance to only Tamaki. Tamaki was displeased with this.

"Since it's a job for the seven of us, we must do our best. We discussed this when the job came in earlier. The recording is the day after tomorrow. If we filmed separately, it would look unnatural, so we're doing it on a day when everyone can gather together."

It always felt like this. Sougo just gave Tamaki a lecture.

"Okay."

"To match our schedules, the staff hurriedly booked a studio. Everyone suddenly had to memorize their lines, and they were even individually practicing in the dorm."

"Soo-chan, did Mikkii tell you to be so loud?"

It was a mini drama about a school. Sougo was cast as a hot-blooded teacher.

Sougo was worried about how to act hot-blooded, so he consulted Mitsuki about various things. According to Mitsuki's advice, Sougo tried waking up the sleeping Yamato with a loud voice and took him along running, loudly interrupted Nagi who was proclaiming his love for ‘Magical Girl★Magical Kokona’, confirmed the schedule, and earnestly asked, "For the next job I want to raise my level of enthusiasm, so please watch ‘Magi★Kona’ with me. I will use it as a reference." Even if Nagi wasn't asked, he was always devoted to spreading the word of "Kokona's splendor". When Nagi realized, he had Sougo sitting in seiza in front of him while reciting "Kokona Love", while Sougo nodded with a serious expression vowing to "study a lot".

"What was that, practice?"

Sougo nodded with a troubled face at being seriously asked this..

"It was practice."

"It was noisy."

"...."

"Last night, Soo-chan was so loud, I lost motivation."

Sougo, deeply serious about "creating a hot-blooded role", approached Mitsuki for a consultation. At Mitsuki's advice, he gently laughed, said "I'll try," and straightened his posture. Afterwards was a rare scene of Sougo loudly waking up Yamato.

Sougo boldly challenged Yamato who easily brushes those things aside, and yelled from the pit of his stomach. Sougo did not usually raise his voice like this.

Yamato dodged with a, "Sou, are you drunk? Don't run around, sleep next to onii-san," and it ended in failure.

Mitsuki laughed at Sougo's failure and said, "Don't mind." Sougo replied "yes" with a serious look on his face. Riku, Nagi, and even Iori surrounded Sougo and let out a laugh at the gap between the endeavoring Sougo and the everyday Sougo,

At everyone's smiling faces, Sougo said, "Being hot-blooded is tough," and showed a bashful smile.

However, Tamaki could not laugh.

The inside of his chest felt prickly and unpleasant and hurt a bit.

When Sougo was around people other than Tamaki, he always gently laughed like a flower swaying in the spring wind. He did not get mad at anything Mitsuki said, and acted earnestly in accordance with Mitsuki's suggestions.

Sougo did not consult Tamaki, among other things. He did not rely on Tamaki.

Even though he knew he was unreliable, Tamaki still did not like it.

"Is that so. Sorry. So that I don't bother you, Tamaki-kun, I'll quietly practice in my room starting tonight,"

Sougo said with a troubled face.

He was bewildered by the apology. However, that wasn't it, thought Tamaki. Tamaki didn't want Sougo to apologize to him. But he also didn't intend to complain.

Even though he didn't say it was a nuisance--.

Did he mean to sound that way?

Sougo was good at extracting unpleasant words from Tamaki.

Tamaki got depressed at telling him to throw away his blunt words.

Sougo also got depressed being told that.

The two in MEZZO" were not good friends in the slightest.

Once again, the inside of Tamaki's chest prickled.

Sougo hid away the beaming smile he showed everyone from Tamaki, and the shutter in his heart made a loud sound and fell with a clatter. He pushed aside the feeling of "Today's smiles are out of stock. The store is closing now."

Sougo began reading the script fervently. Tamaki still felt like he wanted to say something, but he was irritated and without saying anything, he firmly pulled down the brim of his hat and closed his eyes.

So then, the recording of the web-distributed program started.

In the studio, each person was reading the script which was prior distributed, and Yamato who was wearing a costume, asked Riku,

"As I thought, isn't this look tight for onii-san? Wearing a high school uniform after all this time at the age 22 feels too much like a punishment."

One corner of the program was a mini drama--"Ainana Academy".

Somehow, Yamato was forced to wear a high school uniform. He wore a navy blazer, red necktie, and white button-up shirt.

"The size seems right. Yamato-san, it's a perfect fit. Where is it tight?"

Riku answered Yamato with a straight face, and looked over Yamato's school uniform from the front to the back.

Yamato didn't know what expression to make at being thoroughly examined, and looked to the sky.

Riku spontaneously burst out. Even if he explained his reason to Riku, he would not understand. Yamato pushed his glasses up and muttered.

"Mitsu, Sou, and even Nagi get to play teachers, so why am I playing a student..."

"Ah, I also thought something was strange. I wonder why I'm playing the youngest character. It feels weird that Iori and Tamaki are playing my senpais."

Yamato tilted his neck at Riku who was wearing the same school uniform.

"Oh. Rikkun is my kouhai?"

Tamaki, who was wearing a school uniform, asked Riku with the sense that he "just found out."

"Yeah. That's right."

"Oh."

"Yotsuba-san, incidentally I'm playing your classmate,"

Iori confirmed with Tamaki.

"Really? Okay."

Iori was also in a school uniform. He wore an armband that said "Student President" on his sleeve, and blackish green glasses. They were the type of frames that would look uncool depending on the person who wore them, but they fit Iori's fresh and neat look very well.

"Tamaki-kun.... You read the script properly?"

Sougo heard the conversation, and asked Tamaki worriedly.

Sougo wore a cool blue three-piece suit. The necktie was tied in a small knot, and he wore thin frame glasses. With silvery-green glasses adorning his serious-looking features, Sougo looked sharper than usual.

"Yeah."

"Not just read it, did you properly memorize the lines?"

Iori asked Tamaki to confirm again.

Sougo stared worriedly at the silent Tamaki. Tamaki, who was sensitive to people's emotions like an animal, noticed that Sougo was feeling anxious, and his chest prickled.

"Yeah."

Again, he made an uneasy face. Tamaki just made Sougo worry about him.

Mitsuki nonchalantly cut through the silent, awkward atmosphere formed between the two in MEZZO".

"Sougo's just like a teacher. Although he isn't hot-blooded. So math teacher-ish! If you were a calm and kind teacher, you'd be fine without having to practice for the role!"

Sougo made a troubled face at these embarrassing words.

"Mikkii is better than Soo-chan as a teacher"

Tamaki said softly.

"Really? Well, I'm also a teacher though. Of home economics"

Mitsuki's role as a teacher did not seem bad at all. He was wearing a necktie, but instead of a jacket, he wore a traditional knit sweater.

"...So why am I a student? Even if I wear a school uniform, I don't know whether I look like a student, so onii-san is really worried"

Yamato grumbled again. He was not seriously convinced.

"OH! Now that you say that, I am also really, really worried whether I look like a teacher! My elegance naturally flows out. My unparalleled beauty can't be thought of as of this world. I'm troubled about how to look like an ordinary teacher. There's no reality where such a beautiful teacher is in this school, so will any viewers complain?"

Nagi put his index finger against his cheek, and with a worried face, let out a sigh.

Was his wide-collared white shirt silk?

The sheen was clearly different from everyone else's shirts. There was no tie, and there was the impression that the suit was not ready-made, but an exquisite brand.

"Nagi's confidence is always impressive,"

Mitsuki had a distant look.

Nagi was pondering about something.

"It's fine because sometimes there are really beautiful and cool teachers,"

Riku said with sparkling eyes.

"It's fine if Nagi doesn't speak,"

Mitsuki continued.

"Really? But Mitsuki, I have dialogue too."

"Isn't it fine if you don't add OH or HEY to your lines, and avoid ad-libs and winks?"

Mitsuki sheepishly replied as if he had misgivings.

"But my role is a special English lecturer. 'OH' is in my lines."

"...OH......"

Mitsuki let out an "OH" from the bottom of his heart. Yamato laughed at the same time. Iori crossed his arms and furrowed his brows. Tamaki's expression did not change at all, while Sougo made a bewildered face. Riku grinned.

A girl ran towards them from the crowd of staff who were staring at them from a distance.

"...Um, excuse me. Can I take your picture? I want to take a group photo of you behind the scenes, and upload it to my blog for publicity."

"Yeah. ...It's fine, right? Manager?"

Mitsuki looked around, and asked for confirmation from Tsumugi who was talking to the staff.

After getting Tsumugi's approval, the costumed members of IDOLiSH7 turned toward the camera and smiled for the group photo.

On the other side of the camera, "kyaaa" could be heard from the women in the staff.

Nagi winked at the women.

Filming began. It was a scene where Riku, a transfer student who was late on his first day of school, was running to school with bread in his mouth.

Riku was running.

He was running--with a loaf of bread in his mouth.

Naturally a loaf of bread was not something you could just hold in your mouth, so he supported it with his hands while darting his eyes about. Looking like a small animal frantically putting food that's too big in its mouth, he put on a serious expression and filled up with motivation to run.

Everyone watching became rowdy. Even Tamaki, who was in a bad mood, burst into laughter.

"...Why is he running with a loaf of bread in his mouth? Is it this kind of scene?"

Sougo said incredulously.

"Sorry, it was my fault. It said in the script that it was a scene where he runs with bread in his mouth, so I bought some freshly baked bread,"

Mitsuki said.

Since it was freshly baked bread, it was not sliced.

"I thought about cutting it later, but I forgot.... It unexpectedly became an interesting scene..."

It won't block Riku's throat, right...?

In a sense different from being worried over his acting, all the members watched over Riku anxiously.

As Riku ran with bread in his mouth, he bumped into Iori at the street corner.

It was a clichéd opening scene.

Iori who was waiting across the street corner according to the script, looked considerably distressed at Riku's appearance, who was running at full speed with "a loaf of bread in his mouth."

Forgetting to act, Iori lost his bearings, made a surprised face, and came to a halt, and then Riku crashed into him.

Even though Iori tried to stop Riku who was protecting the bread, from falling, he bounced back, got his foot stepped on, and he pulled Riku towards his chest to support him.

The bread was sandwiched between them, and his face became mixed with astonishment and worry. Iori said,

"Isn't it dangerous? Why were you running with bread in your mouth without looking ahead? You--"

They were lines from the script.

"S-so...sorry."

Iori apologized to Riku, but they were positioned much closer to each other than it stated in the script, and although it wasn't a scene where they hugged, it looked like they were hugging.

In a panic, they suddenly let go of their hands. The chain of events reflected the odd innocence of a fastidious youth in the throes of puberty, and all the members watching the filming let out an "oh."

"Cut!! That was a good scene. Yup. You two were also good. It was different from the script, but your ad-lib was definitely effective. Let's go there. One take."

The director, in a good mood, clapped his hands.

#idolish7 #novel #translation #excerpt

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