#idk would commodified be the right word?

[aussie-bookworm]

Shut the fuck up that's not The Duck Cake from Bluey, that's The Duck Cake From The Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book.

You will never be her. Have some fucking respect

[dryococelas01]

Another reccomendation. I'm only 326/500 pages through this book but it's genuinely been great.

Adrian Tchaikovskys City of Last Chances.

It's essentially about a city occupied by a foreign power and the process of revolution in that city. It's about faith, both religious faith and faith in ideals. And fundamentally its about how you lose faith, how you lose fantasy. The process of disillusionment. At least those are the themes I've identified but there's quite a bit more.

It's got a lot of interesting things in it about how immigrant communities traditions are often exoticised and commodified by the culture they enter which I've been particularly enjoying. The immigrant community in the city its set in, the Allorwen, are very interestingly portrayed.

There's a wonderful character who's a brothel madam (that's the right term yes? For the head of a brothel) of a brothel that conjures daemons to serve their clients. And she notes how back in Allor she would have been respected for the skill at the craft she has, but now she has to use it for sex work and there's this feeling throughout her chapters of how degrading to the traditions she finds it (not that there's anything wrong with sex work). There's a beautiful moment in one of the chapters where she hires a coach that's being pulled by conjured demon horses and she notes how back in the day this horse would have been conjured for a hero by a witch in a fairy tale, and now look at it. Not the exact wording but I'm rambling and can't be bothered finding the paragraph.

It's just... wonderful so far.

There's also this wonderful character who's a student and she's so caught up in her ideals and ugh, idk how to describe it except its really good.

Also The Reproach is awesome - if the theme is disillusionment, the reproach could be said to represent the good side of that, the negative side of holding onto those idealised images of the world. Plus the chapters they go into it are so tense, I love it.

There's this amazing scene that I can't go into detail because it gets on the verge of spoilership, but a factory foreman goes to a factory because a conjured demon is refusing to work and has broken its bindings, and this guy is from the occupied city. And he tricks it and forces it into work again. And the feeling of self hatred in the guy, who recognises that he is oppressed and so is this daemon but they can't work together on this, that he is, as he puts it, "a collaborator in a larger war" is palpable. Its genuinely amazing and ugh, idk how to describe it further.

The magic in it is great, idk.

I love God in it. God is the name of a god seperate from the Christian God (confusingly for this discussion) but he's great. There's 2 pages where he reminisces about himself and another god called Ovrost that he had a rivalry with that fills me with so many feelings. Not my most eloquent description but still.

If anyone here reads it on my reccomendation or has already read it, feel free to comment or DM me, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Additionally, and this is a Spoiler so I'm gonna give a long break before I say it.

As of the current chapter, really well executed gay male romance! Idk how far the relationship will hold (kinda a heat of the moment thing) but so far it's great.

[youabandonedthem]

your blog is literally my favorite thing ever i hope one day i can ascend to the level youre on when it comes to fan content

thank yo i hope that the world view can be expressed and taught well through the posts etc and i know that you can ascend if you truly want to. It is not much really but a state and frame of mind.

I would also like to note your usage of the word "content" in regards to fan creations. I know it's easy to just say things and try to have a common understanding and i know it's not what you meant but unfortunately due to the restrictions of language we're limited to all these words that carry CONNOTATIONS. right. and what does the word "content" make you think of (in contrast to "work" or "art" or even "posts") .. tktock content creators. Content curation. Content filtering and content streams. It is an impersonal word used to describe simply what is THERE [on a webpage]. rather than describe someones personal creations as their art or their work it's just commodified content made to be "consumed" uncritically. it strips the individual works of artistic value. This is also why we have people saying that enjoying certain works is a problem that it's a "red flag" to like explorations of such things, the "content" is all it is, all you're doing by engaging at all with such a thing is "consuming" it. marvel movies are content as is everything made solely for clicks and hits. this is also why much of it explicitly presents its message with a complete lack of nuance and spoon feeds you morals and meanings. and anything that doesn't do this becomes "questionable content." i mean imagine if you went up to rene magrette and went hey dude i love your content. Imagine if you were like one of htem priests commissioning michelangelo and ewre like hey we've noticed your content and it's pretty good come paint the church. Do you see what im getting at and how ridiculous it is. (i am not comparing myself to these wonderful dead spirits amen) Art exists on its own and "content" exists in the context of meaningless likes and clicks and followers. i think that above all things art is a tool that is used to assert your vision onto the world and this is what i try to do . so what is being put out here on this blog IS of course being consciously exposed to the public and posting it means it DOES technically join a "content stream" as all social post sharing websites work. but most creations that people post here or anywhere else online is their personally motivated work and their art and joy. (unless they are an influencer idk.) so it is a little reductive to just call it "content"

I do not mean to admonish or single you out but we are in an era where all art is becoming treated as a commodity to be palatably sold to people and anti intellectualism is rising through the cracks as a result of this worldwide lack of critical thinking regarding art so please know what i mean. Thank you for the sweetness in your ask and you can rise up anywhere if you have awareness of these things and similar things

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

hi i sent the ask about wondering how the hc of jehan being nb began, and i’m not always so great with words, so i think it may have come off a lil bit wrong. i was asking bc i just keep seeing people portraying jehan in dresses and skirts and small and skinny and going “uwu my lil nb baby” and it just felt kind of wrong to me. i’m not arguing against the hc or anything i see absolutely nothing wrong with it i just felt like it was really wrong and i get really upset over these things cuz (1/2)

i’ve always struggled with my gender identity and i don’t really know who i am or where i fit and idk what i’m saying really but seeing things like that just make me so uncomfortable and they feel almost like someone came up and slapped me in the face themselves. tbh idk what i’m saying anymore but ya i just wanted to clear things up because i felt like i was a little harsh/ignorant with my original ask. (2/2)

So first things first: you weren’t harsh or arrogant, and especially when you are stepping into the waters of advocating for yourself it can feel really uncomfortable.  I am so proud of you for speaking up for yourself and how you feel represented.  Gender is such a difficult topic to grapple, and I think a lot of people who don’t comfortably identify within the binary find peace in accepting that gender is both a construct and a journey, and your answer and feelings may change throughout your life, and that’s okay.

What you describe here is a really complex topic: woobifying trans people is an enormous problem in the trans community (even the queer community, if we also want to consider the trend of commodifying “gay best friends” and other objectifying stereotypes), as is falling into the trap of often presenting nb people as looking a particular way or another (frequently as you describe: skinny and androgynous--nothing wrong with presenting this way, but the nb representation that does exist often weighs inordinately in this direction).  

I think another issue here is, though, that there is a common headcanon for Jehan’s appearance that exists entirely independent of eir gender identity, y’feel?  Jehan is frequently presented as nb and androgynous, but I’ve seen plenty of situations where ey’re still presented as a man...and look the same.  I think it’s hard to separate the character and the gender identity because, well, a character is a personality that we then assign labels to that we feel do or do not fit.  Were they real, it would be up to them to determine what labels they find accurate or inaccurate.  Unfortunately, neither Jehan nor Vicky are available to provide clarification in this particular case.

Consider Enjolras, or Grantaire, or Bahorel: most of the fandom have a pretty particular idea of how they look, right?  And that appearance often remains the same regardless of gender headcanons (for example, I HC that Bahorel is he/him nb, and I also HC that he looks like Jason Momoa: they’re not mutually exclusive).  Nonbinary in particular has extraordinary potential for diversity given that it’s any presentation that does not fall strictly into the narrow categories of “man” and “woman.”  

Regarding clothing: I think that also goes along with bucking gender norms.  One does not have to wear clothing traditionally reserved for one gender or the other to be nonbinary (read: you are still valid if you are AMAB and not interested in wearing skirts or dresses, or AFAB and want to continue to wear them), but it’s also not something off-limits.  It is also not something reserved for trans people: cis people who want to also frequently break these gender norms.  The example that comes to mind most immediately is this super-fly look, but also I want you to please consider that I personally currently live in a culture where men frequently have long hair and wear hot pink sarongs anytime that they’re not working in the fields, and no one would ever doubt their masculinity: gender is a cultural concept, as are the performative acts that represent it.  As such, I don’t see the portrayal of Jehan wearing a skirt or a dress as being inherently infantilizing or femininizing.

I agree that I would love to see more diversity in appearance and representation, and I agree that we as a society should be more cautious about how we discuss trans people and characters (I remember this being a major topic of discussion during Druck too).  I also believe, however, that people are allowed to present however they want, regardless of their gender identity.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey of self-discovery, and I invite you to please reach out to me if you ever want to discuss this further! 

[fille-lioncelle]

I want your opinion on smth: my friend says that Harry Styles is queerbating. I think he is cute and has an interesting taste in outfits, and that it's not him queerbaiting but what the music industry does, you know? Like go to the margins and repackage alternative culture to re sell. I still like him... It's not like he is Rita ora right? Idk you're smart andayou like him, whatwha you think?

Hi, anon!

Well, in short, I think your friend is wrong. But I’m going to go into a little more detail than that, if that’s alright!

For one - and I don’t know if you intended to say that - but the way you worded this, it seems to imply that you or your friend think that the way Harry dresses (on stage, I assume, but maybe also off) implies anything about his sexuality. (And deliberately falsely, at that.) That’s… not an entirely simplistic statement.

On the one hand, queer people can and do definitely dress in a way that is meant to signify/make obvious their sexuality sometimes. Butch lesbians might not want to look femme (ie the “expected/correct” version of female), and the fact that it’s considered “a lesbian look” can be kind of the point. And, historically, the way he dresses is undeniably influenced by the fashion/queer overlap.

On the other hand, femme lesbians definitely also exist. The same goes for every other sexuality. And we only really have easily recogniseable ways of dressing for the “typical”/”classical” sexualities - gay, lesbian, maybe straight. We have the cliché of the effeminate gay guy, the butch lesbian, and the hapless straight person.

And what about the bi and pan people? The ace people? The demi people? The ones questioning or simply “queer” with no other label? How do they dress to clearly signify their sexuality? Personally, while I think it’s totally a thing to lean into those clichés and use and reclaim them - the way someone dresses is in general in no way an indicator of their sexuality.

So, simply dressing a certain way would in no way be enough, in my opinion, to say that someone’s queer baiting.

But let’s look at everything else Harry does - the pride flags and the charities, the “I mess around with him / and I’m okay with it” in Medicine. Is that queer baiting?

The main problem I have with saying that Harry’s “queerbaiting” is that it feels a little like it’s not allowing him any agency. A piece of media can queerbait, because it is written a certain way deliberately. It can tease and tease and never deliver. “Queerbaiting” is a term used for fictional characters.

And, yes, a celebrity’s public persona or brand is also a carefully planned out thing, and not entirely unlike a fiction. But Harry is still a person. He is not a fictional character. Why does him dressing in glittery pink jackets, waving pride flags, and singing about messing around with guys have to mean he’s queerbaiting? Why can’t it simply be him expressing himself? Expressing his queerness?

Why do we assume that “Two Ghosts” is clearly about Taylor when he’s never said so? Why do we assume that any or all of his songs are personal, and about his actual experiences, but when it comes to queerness, he suddenly has to spell it out for us? It just seems like a bit of a double standard to demand and assume authenticity in all things - except this.

I know he hasn’t come out and said the words “I’m _____” (recently)*. But why is him doing all those things queerbaiting, and not simply being queer? By assuming that he’s straight, we’re assuming just as much as by assuming that he isn’t. Given recent developments (by which I mean Medicine, mostly), it seems to kinda make more sense to assume that he is queer than that he isn’t, no?

But even if he isn’t - so what? Why doesn’t he get to just dress how he wants? And kiss who he wants?

Big industries do commodify counter/alternative/sub cultures. But honestly I think they probably do that more by selling us every single thing with a sloppy rainbow on and calling it progressive, than by Harry Styles wearing some suits some designers made that no-fucking-one can afford. (Also, if they were trying to make some money off this queerbaiting, the argument could be made that it doesn’t seem like that’s the most solid business plan. Because as much as we like to pretend that being queer is “in” now and an easy way to make money or something, it’s not. Queer people are still being advised against being openly themselves because it might hurt their career. Queer films still struggle to get funding. Etc.)

I mean, I get it. His fans - especially the ones that come from being 1D fans - clearly want a queer star. More specifically a queer Harry. But just because they/we want that, and he seems to be giving it, somewhat, doesn’t mean it’s baiting. Harry on stage is a performance, of course. His behaviour isn’t 100% authentic. But that’s because he’s on stage. Performing. He’s a performer. It’s just what he does. That is literally his job! “My job is to entertain you, your job is to have a good time.”

And as for Rita Ora - I assume that refers to her song “Girls”? The one she co-wrote/sung/performed with at least two literal out queer girls? The one that generated so much controversy it forced her to come out verbally and definitively instead of just getting to live her life and sing about how sometimes she wants to kiss girls? (Kinda like that article did to Lee Pace a couple months ago?)

This is going to be a whole side excursion, bear with me.

I’ll admit I heard about that song because Hayley Kiyoko complained about it. And her points sounded reasonable. And to a certain extent still do. Same-sex attraction shouldn’t only be sexualised. Girls kissing girls shouldn’t be something that’s “a show for men”. But neither of those are really things the song does, imo. This song isn’t “I kissed a girl and I liked it / hope my boyfriend don’t mind it” 2.0 because kissing other girls doesn’t count right haha.

“Sometimes I just wanna kiss girls girls girls / red wine I just wanna kiss girls girls girls” is just… a statement about an evening on which red wine is drunk and she wants to kiss girls. You cannot possibly tell me that anyone gets trash-drunk on RED WINE and makes a drunken girl-kissing spectacle for random men of themselves. You drink red wine in COMPANY. With FOOD. With FRIENDS. (Usually.) You don’t go to a club and get drunk on red wine and try to lure in a guy with your homoerotic kissing display. Sometimes Rita is just wine-drunk and wants to kiss a cute girl.

And, damn. Like. Same. Sometimes I just wanna kiss girls, girls, girls. And I’m kinda over letting lesbians tell me when and how I’m allowed to say that. Sometimes I just wanna kiss girls, sometimes I just wanna kiss boys. Most of the time I don’t give a fuck about what gender you are.

Yes, same sex attraction is pure and sweet and all those things too, but that’s the thing. It is those things too. In that same vein, it is sexy too. It’s not Rita’s fault that porn has basically made “lesbian” a category of erotic ~entertainment~ for men to enjoy instad of a sexuality that has literally zero things to do with men.

Plus, I think it’s kinda unfair to compare Harry and Rita. One because the situations are so different - Medicine is arguably more about getting trashed and making out with people, and Harry wrote more of that than Rita did of Girls - and two because queer women and queer men do not share the same experience. They’re just… not the same thing.

But what’s true for both is that I think this idea that before you’re allowed to express your queerness, you have to first explicitly label and announce it is… not so good.

I understand where it’s coming from, because we all want people we can point to and go “this person is like me”. And we want to avoid ugly things like queerbaiting! But on the other hand, no one should have to sacrifice their privacy at the altar of activism, I don’t think. Singers/songwriters/celebrities do not owe anyone the details of their private life. They should be allowed to share what they want to share, and nothing more.

Also, by requiring a coming out before we “believe” anyone that they’re genuinely queer, even though they seem to strongly indicate they are (”sometimes I just wanna kiss girls, girls, girls”, “I mess around with him”), we reinforce the idea that straight is the default, and that any “deviation” needs to be clearly labelled in order to be valid.

tldr; the way Harry dresses is not, and cannot, queerbait, cause clothes don’t do that. Rita and Harry are two different situations and you can’t really compare them just like that. Nothing Harry has done has really re-packaged and sold queerness to the masses because… I don’t think he repackaged anything? And I don’t think he sold queerness either?

I hope this answered your question a little, and didn’t just confuse you more. Please do feel free to come back and ask follow-up things or just disagree with me!

(*I feel like there’s an old as fuck interview where Harry said “I think if I were bi I’d know” but he was also like 17/18/…. max 19 at the time and he could be forgiven for having thought that and then found out that, uh, he didn’t know, actually.)

[deveharrington]

I think David's family vacation was about damage control for his image. His tour isn't even sold out and they aren't big venues. It sure wouldn't hurt to be seen with Tea. At least he had some quality time with his kids instead of always being with someone that can't spell potatoes.

Disclaimer: all theories ahead.

1. I really really can’t imagine him doing something on that level just for publicity, or purposefully doing something that his kids don’t like/makes them uncomfortable/breaches their privacy, at least not for this purpose (PR? for the “tour”s ticket sales??) that hasn’t really been addressed in other ways that would be much more straightforward. Also, actually, I feel that there still seems to exist a separation between the identities of Family!Dave and Rockstar!Dave, I feel he is just that type to become different people for different audiences. 

Despite his current shit, I still think he wouldn’t do THAT. 

2. As for “quality time”… D has said things in the past about that, hasn’t he? But he’s also pretty much eaten every single word he ever said, hasn’t he? :l 

3. He is in a dreamworld: Also, he seems to believe that he is a “celebrity” who is above PR somehow ?? Lmao you never know with this dude. ????!!!?!!?! 

He is in a dreamworld 2: I’m saying he thinks he can live several separate lives and reap the benefits of all of them with no consequences :-)

He seems to not give a shit what people think, and I think this is a good characteristic, but David takes it too far. He has shown that he is flippant about the opinions of people WHO ACTUALLY MATTER is what I mean. Example: his children…

He is in a dreamworld 3: I could even believe that his kids don’t actually tell him how they truly feel about his current shit and David just believes that they’re being “supportive” (if he can fall for Scammer Brad Davidson’s lies, he can fall for anything…). Or if they are honest, and I hope they actually are, David also once said that he doesn’t ask for his kid’s opinions, and I really fucking hate that he said that but maybe I am just taking that statement out of context by bringing it up for this argument or maybe he was being sarcastic no fucking clue but anyways it is something to consider. Because even if it were sarcastic, I saw that as a red flag. I just see it as crude, flippant, meant to be “funny” but not funny at all - a typical “???” statement that comes out of his mouth and eventually leads to a sour truth somewhere down the line. And I’ve already asserted (but its just my opinion) that he actually does tell the truth when he jokes or uses sarcasm. Sorry for this tangent but what I mean…

… is that, hasn’t he demonstrated already that he can live different lives (evidence: just like he can get up on that stage and transform into… that… uhm creature(strike) persona that can flail around as it does)? 

How would pics of his kids cringing at paps help his image?

Also, I don’t see any posing, just awareness of the cameras. 

Under the cut: I don’t see any other effort being made to address the low ticket sales, and discussing how David seems to actually be doing the opposite of progressing creatively by…. wasting time on a new distraction: a “documentary”… and why does the guy need a documentary???? …Another gimmicky souvenir (DVD) for Scammer Brad to “sell”/shill??? lmao…..

thx anon, as for the “potatos” thing…. yeah :l………………………………….. :)

I don’t see any other effort being made to address the low ticket sales, example: no heightened promo since the initial announcement. And if there were, I would expect it to be music related. Why not take this time to make a music video, or put music on the radio, collaborate, or even just keep posting on social media where it would be easiest to just post whatever….??? I also think that people mostly separate his family role from his nonsensical-bullshit-“rockstar”-ego-audience-energy-siphoning-creature role and so far it looks like David is doing the same. It seemed like he always kept those two things separate (?? well he sings about Tea + his kids idk maybe the songwriting, his one contribution, comes from him but the rest….). 

How would pics of his kids cringing at paps motivate people to buy a ticket to his “concert”??? lmao.

And here’s the thing.. I actually suspect (and this is just my own perspective) that he might not actually be aware of any issues in terms of the “touring”!!! OR: if he has any questions (I don’t think he does lmao but if he did…), Scammer Brad just smoothes it out with bullshit, empty promises, new distractions/“projects” so as not to lose David’s faith. I think it would be in Scammer Brad’s best interests to do everything to assure him that its all smooth sailing, its just also hilarious that Scammer Brad literally can’t do a single thing in a professional or logical manner… including hiring actual professionals for specific tasks…….. LMAO wtffff…..

The theory in Point #3 just comes from an interesting parallel of David just being like “yah, somewhere down the line I believe BFD will be made someday somewhere a place for usssssss lalalala”. 

Going off of the point #3, in terms of distractions and new gimmicks: evidence: This “music” documentary… like… Don’t get me started on the idea of “music” documentary like… dude… why do you need a documentary?? LMAO. We know why you are doing this and the truth ain’t pretty!! This is a new level of “David’s mere presence is the gift alone”. But yeah Idk maybe they need to spin some gimmicky new merch (right beside the vinyls) or try to squeeze out more ways to commodify this “touring”. If it is just a documentary just for the sake of one then I still must laugh because… how many times has David said that he’s not a musician/singer/performer and thats fine but he’s also never demonstrated that he’s even wanted to improve, choreograph, or change what he does/how he expresses himself. What I mean is that, fair enough, what he does is fine and it is his right, but I’m talking about the dearth of any creative, artistic, innovative, even just progressive aspect to all of this that you know, would typically be the focus of any documentary on an actual artist (like, he writes the lyrics but doesn’t create the melodies/engineer the sound… I know that those processes can be separate but shouldn’t the actual documentary then be about his songwriting process and not about how much David is soooooo ~loved~ across the globe??? Like, I’m sorry to say it this way but I don’t see much else to the performative/“touring” aspect of all of this that would warrant a documentary… he’s never even made a music video… his music hasn’t even hit the radio…. its not like he’s created a stage persona?? wait, has he???? lmao…. come on, Dave.) 

To try to say it quickly lmao: (just my perspective) David clearly has no purpose even to his lyrics other than to sing about himself. He has no integrity behind anything he does. The point of a documentary would be to look behind the mask, the curtain but there is LITERALLY NOTHING THERE. AHHAHAAHAH they’re selling us nothing… and the sad thing is is that there is evidence that that has been done in the past!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But there IS a documentary warranted on how his very talented young band members create their music and persevere through David’s onstage performances without falling asleep. They are genuine artists and genuinely talented so here’s hoping that shining star David can allow them some precious seconds of face time on the documentary and I’m not talking about time spent talking about and aggrandizing David lmao….

But actually, this “documentary” move makes a lot of sense in terms of David’s history of you know… FLIP FLOPPING on his own words and being defiant of the labels others place on him/ he feels he is being subjected to while at the same time trying to squeeeeeeeze out as much as he can from those labels/the attention of others.

To conclude, It seems that David wants to separate family life from his work and thats good. To David’s credit, maybe I actually don’t see him as buying into his own “celebrity” “status” (at times..)… that is, until he sees an opportunity to use that “status” to get something he wants/needs to feed his ego (he acts like he might die if his ego ain’t nourished), but that is technically his right since he technically “earned” that “status” (its just my perspective, and my perspective includes the argument that he switches the goalposts a lot and doesn’t hold consistent to any sense of morals or character so… things can go both ways for him). Though I feel like he mainly owes that “status” to being at the right place at the right time, and he definitely owes his “status”/“success” to Gillian as well :-) I’m gonna end this response on THAT note lmao. 

[nia-official]

Just realized how I was making a conscious effort to word myself to avoid misgendering or using inappropriate pronouns for a stuffed sloth and I’m honestly so happy about that. I’m reworking language to be more inclusive for the people and things around me and i felt uncomfortable using the pronoun “it” to refer to a stuffed toy because it’s an animal toy and I don’t like using an inanimate pronoun on something that’s living even though the sloth in question isn’t actually living. Okay so probably I just haven’t gotten enough sleep but ALSO this is important to me because I don’t like it when people refer to animals of unknown gender is “it’s” when I’m pretty sure they would prefer to be gendered as “they/thems” which is GOOD that I’m constantly aware of that being important through the language i use but probably unnecessary because gender is a social construct and most animals probably don’t give a damn. I had a friend who preferred “it” as a pronoun. I think I still follow you. Hey. If you’re following me. Idk what your preferred pronouns are and tbh using “it” for you was kinda uncomfortable but i wanted to respect you but I also was worried that you weren’t seeing yourself as a real person with a valuable life. Maybe i was just projecting idk. Socrates. (Not a psychologist but still better than Freud) no auto correct don’t caps that name, shame on you. This is turning into a stream of consciousness, I haven’t done this in so long. I don’t even think I’ve had a conscious stream in so long. Must be the sleep deprivation/chronic insomnia. I’m gonna lay down and just POP like a grape under my own atmospheric conditions and fizzle out. Where was I. Socrates. Wasn’t he the one, hemlock? Sentenced to DIE by poisoning. (For... being gay????? No tell me I’m wrong, I’m definitely wrong. He was too smart. Too progressive. Right? Gay? No? Yes?) and isn’t hemlock poisoning like really super drawn out an painful? Like sheesh guys just give him a knife. Little stab it’s stab. Exanguination. What a way to go. Wow TRIGGER WARNING dni if you have suicidal ideation idk where that even came from that wasn’t me. I’m like poking it with a stick. Okay fine that was totally like leftovers from 5 years ago me. Fine 3 years ago. Or was it five? Idk I’m doing better now I’ve lost count. WHERE WAS IT. Oh yeah. HEMLOCK. Apparently hemlock tress are super common in [REDACTED] and I was also THE actual BEST in the class at tree identification. I remember sitting in that goddamn wooden forest surrounded by these allegedly poisonous trees thinking “how the hell do i get one of these bicces to kill me?” Okay yeah seriously do not read this if you still have suicidal ideation because if this is going where I think it’s going you do not want to go there. don’t worry it’s not that bad I’m a super healthy a-dult now. man I was literally SO confused by these goddamn trees. Like you are NOT TELLING ME you short, flat little pine-ass looking needles can kill me you’re a FUCKING EVERYGREEN. Like people drink actual tea from you??? (Disclaimer: i do not endorse this brand of tea making. Please only make wild tea if you are an experienced forager. There are a lot of things in the woods that can and will make you miserably sick and possibly DIE except possibly hEMLOCK TREES you false advertising sonova - anyway. I’m pretty sure I put one of those flat-pine looking twigs in my actual mouth, sunk my teeth into that evergreen foliage and thought to myself, this is so fucking stupid you are suicidal but you are not a FOOL. And I went down and googled that shit and for your infomation NO. Hemlock trees are NOT the same as poison hemplock, the plant which killlled Socrates. Bummer because i really wanted to die at the time and also Socrates was a bro dude. He was the real og philosopher. Definitely a fav. Not even problematic. Probably. Idk he was an old Greek man he was probably problematic. Misogynist. UNLIKE our poet Sappho who still makes me sad to this day because there are only fragments of her works remaining. And by fragments I mean literal fragments, that

Shit (wow I reached the max for a text block. Achievement achieved. ) what was i saying. Oh. Fragments, like that shit was was literally carved into stone slabs which did the fucking MOST and BOKE into PIECES. Some of which are LOST for EVER meaning we don’t even have complete poems to look at... and THAT GIRLBOSS IS STILL ICONIC. Those immortalized words despite being fragmented still resonated so powerfully with other wlw what we TOOK ON HER NAME. WE SAID CALL US BY Y OUR NAME. Fuck I’m tearing up. I’m getting literally emotional. I’m not even that attracted to girls because I’m like demisexual and don’t really feel sexual attraction and I’m half convinced my attraction to women is a learned behavior from trying to assert myself in a patriarchal society that commodified women and it’s so fucking sucking because that’s another reason I’m so freaking messed up about intimacy with men because i have visceral revulsion towards the concept of being a sexual commodity by the GROWN ASS MEN AROUND ME AS A CHILD. Fuck this shit was so prevalent y’all I was an little Asian girl in the whitest fucking whitey white town and let me tell you it was FETISHIZATION NATION. I m pretty sure I have actual memories blocked away and you know what i don’t even want them back. Fuck you Hydra can take them. WIPE ME. Just kidding, not trying to belittle the actual torture suffered by fictional character bucky Barnes.... how did we get here.

Anyway i have to go now. I’m going to be late for my massage

[marcofrsh]

word is bond

1. Flying: High af.  

The symbolic imagery in the video to Kendrick Lamar’s song “Alright” is on some REAL shit.  It has to do with contemporary black life in the USA.  here, the message is clear: fuk u hasa (Scarface reference), do what you will, because “we gon’ be alright.”

Daphne Brooks drops some knowledge on your face, right in between the eyes (right into your third eye, that is), about contemporary black pop music and its protesting ways.  With the recent coverage of extra judicial executions of black bodies by the American state, Brooks highlights the ways that black musics address this injustice and mobilize the peoples to protest the corruption of the criminal justice industry.  The target on the black body is REAL, the recent killings of children and black citizens by the state show this, and Lamar’s video is str8 woke about it.

2 things.  “Alright” is visually explicit and there is no doubt about its word: the police are killing us. Us being the “we” in “we gon’ be alright,” a black audience is being directly addressed here.  Second, the imagery also puts in some subversive work challenging ideas of racial stereotype/hierarchy. Two moments where this occurs are in the scene where Lamar et al. are in the car being carried by the 4 officers; and by the images of Lamar floating around.  

The first image reverses the master/slave narrative established in the American state.  Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock, and ab-soul, are seen in a car getting “2 lit.”  as the camera pans out, we see the car is not rolling on its wheels, but instead is being carried by 4 white police officers (who look like they are really struggling).  The car is transformed into what I found out is called a litter vehicle.

This type of transportation was used in the past by different cultures and was reserved for people with high status: kings and queens, emperors, the wealthy. The image in “alright” asserts the black man as king: an Afrocentric trope that runs throughout many hip hop artist’s visions, which in turn reverses the role of master and slave.

The other image of Lamar floating around like a “butterfly” is super interesting. Someone in class pointed out that in the beginning of this floating metaphor, where only Lamar’s feet are shown dangling, reflects the dangling feet of a lynched black body.  However, as we see later, Lamar is not lynched, but instead he is floating, freely.  The noose is not present and his feet are not dangling.  

Lamar is high af, a euphoric feeling that for the moment forgets about the social despair endured. A quick fix for the problems of a harsh reality.  Lamar is free, that is until officer fukkk boy shoots him down. of course, lamar’s wink at the end signifies that he, representing the black body/the black public, is “gon’ be alright.”  Protest music states that freedom is not a given, instead freedom must be fought for.

2.What’s up with your jersey bro?  

that ain’t no purple and gold LA Lakers jersey.  In fact it says Lekars. Lol. They misplaced the vowels bro.  world music is not the only way that “orientalist appropriation of local cultures” (Novak 607) takes place.  Reading Novak’s article made me laugh a lot because I remember the hilarious counterfeit things that were brought back from the Philippines when family members would go back home.  I remember having one of these ugly ass rip-off jerseys from the Philippines as a kid.  I wish I could find it.  It was a Chicago bulls jersey, except instead of the colours being red and black like the authentic jersey, the colours were purple, black, and some sort of weird pastel blue-green.  Wtf!   I hated wearing that shit to school.  My grandpa thought it was cool though because he kept on making me wear it.  it meant a lot to him I guess because, I guess, he didn’t think I could tell the difference.  He seemed prideful over it (just like the kid in the pic above), as if this piece of counterfeit material were authentic, which in turn, to him, probably symbolized a sign of wealth, and the feeling of being able to provide for your family the things that western society promoted as being valuable.  Having material things meant that you were living the dream.  it signified a feeling of belonging in a society where, historically, you were never really accepted.  The dream is that sad longing for belonging.  Of course, we can say that material things don’t matter, which is true, but to an underclass who never had anything, who were always looked down upon, who always felt the psychological illness of being different but wanting to be the same, who were far from the standards (educationally, economically, socially), the symbolic nature of having things might mean the world to them.  Is it right?  Idk.  But, sometimes all the underclass people have is the dream, surviving to try and actualize it, but not knowing that dreams rarely ever do come true.  Sometimes that dream is comforting when living the nightmare of economic deprivation and struggle.

But anyway, there’s a totally different point to my story about my off-coloured Chicago Bulls rip-off jersey, besides it being ugly and embarrassing.  Because my jersey was obviously fake, unlike the other kids who were getting jumped for their authentic shit, I was always avoided by this process of robbery.  Lol.  If only they knew authenticity is not a real thing.  

3.  Kulintang music is dope.  

David Novak mentions this instrument in his article “The Sublime Frequencies of New Old Media.”  He doesn’t say much about it other than it being obscure or weird.  And I question whether the idea in this article about world music 2.0 is not simply an oriental fetish as well as being the appropriation and commodification of it.  Either way, hearing the Kulintang for the first time, I say its fire.  Its sounds, its tempo, it draws a connection to the Afrobeat’s rebellious “faster […] and ruder tempo.”  

4. Dub-C:  so self-conscious.  

The idea of double consciousness was brought up a few times in this semester’s readings and is an important concept that helps aid in understanding the struggle with identity for the diasporic community of African American peoples. A dialect, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel might say, between 2 opposing identities/cultures. For blacks, then, this struggle is between being black, but living in a space where white identity is the norm, and where white identity is constituted as far superior than black identity/culture. This leads to either resistance by blacks, or more likely, at least in infant stages of repression, blacks finding a way to be a part of, or accepted by, the dominant culture/identity.

W.E.B. DuBois writes: the psychological conflict is a “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (The Souls of Black Folk).  It is being African and American and compromising neither side to identify as one or the other.  

No doubt, double consciousness is the result of the racialized slave trade and its dehumanizing, commodifying, and mechanizing treatment of the humans. Dub-Consc. can affect a lot of people who see standards and then try to measure themselves up to that standard, whether or not, those standards were originally created to give certain people advantage, while leaving others at a disadvantage.

5.Ye is conflicted.  

Looking at Kanye West’s behaviours throughout his career it is apparent that West exemplifies the psychological stress of being trapped by the feeling of double consciousness.  He’s the Kanye who once said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people!”  But he’s also the Kanye who wants to befriend Donald Trump, a racist, and says that he would’ve voted for Trump.  I argue that Ye’s confliction is the result of falling prey to capitalist ideology and seeing material wealth as a symbol of status, and therefore longing to be a part of some sort of elitist grouping of peoples.  In fact, Kanye has described in the past, and knows, this type of illness.          

In his song “All Falls Down,” Kanye West speaks about being a consumer of commodities and its psychological impact on the black community.  Specifically, he expresses the feeling of being “self-conscious,” the feeling of being unsure how to act, purchasing needless products to assimilate because you want to belong; West states: “We’ll buy a lot of clothes when we don’t really need em/ Things we buy to cover up what’s inside.”  He questions the desire for needless materials as a way “to cover up what’s inside:” “what’s inside” is the feeling of being different.  It is subjective struggle of trying to cope with being black in a racially structured America that continues to deny the human-ness of black bodies.  He further asserts, “[c]ause they make us hate our self and love they wealth,” which speaks about an internal colonization, a subjective colonization that looks for recognition from white America through purchasing items that are symbolic of status.  He concludes his criticism of material consumption with “[a]nd a white man get paid off of all of that” suggesting that while the black community struggles with recouping a displaced subjectivity, by trying to buy what they racially cannot possess –racial equality, it can only reiterate the unbalanced structures of class, and race, and gender as well.  

3rd Verse

No doubt, West’s song calls it like it is about commodity fetishes.  In fact, in the same third verse, Ye performs this psychological detriment.  Whereas his first eight bars speak about “self-doubt and insecurity” and the resulting commodity consumption, his last eight bars, split at exactly the half-way point, West contradicts his 8 bar jewels and switches to rejoicing materialism and embracing the feelings of financial empowerment.  He concludes with: “I got a problem with spending before I get it/ We all self-conscious I’m just the first to admit it.” Whatever West intends to do in his music, criticize or glorify materialism, it communicates the inner struggle of a black community, struggling with commodity consumption; “all falls down” is a reflection on the daily struggle of a black fractured identity attempting to navigate the dual realms of a contradicting self.

6. yah best Protect ya Neck kid.  

Joshua Clover (”Bob Dylan Didn’t Have to Sing About This”) mentions that in between the transition from black power rap to gangsta rap there were things going on within the hip hop genre that were neither specifically reduced to either forms of the dominant and emerging cultures of music.  He cites the laid-back and chilled hip hop group De La Soul as an example of the “counterculture” hip hop music that played the part of neither black nationalism nor “gangsta gangsta.”  But there were other groups out there doing interesting things with hip hop music and the Wu were on some ill sh*t (Wu Tang Clan, that is). 

The Wu gives its audience something really different.  It is still hip hop: there are still rhymes, and it still samples breakbeats, it loops it, and then adds layers to it while transitioning to different sequences where rappers hop in and out of. And it still expresses a unique culture. Now the Wu were genius in many accounts, but what is unique is the style and the sampling influencers.  Their style does not always rely on the jazz or funk residuals that would usually construct the hip hop beat, instead their style was a bit more grimey.  It is more hardcore, stripped-down, and grungy.  Its slow tempo, very basic, basement-dwelling, head-banging music.  

But what I am interested in is the sampling of sounds from old school Kung Fu movies. Their name comes from an old school Chinese movie.  But, I mean the connection is a little weird.  What is it about karate movies that haunts Rza?  Is there some sort of connection between these two diasporic identities of America?  Is there some sort of creative criticism going on, or some sort of cultural “promotion, constructive critique, and social commentary” (98), the kind of effect that appropriation or repurposing of old media can inspire, the kind of effect that Mark McCutcheon ponders about in “The dj as critic.”  Regardless, the Wu’s style is for sure hip hop, but grunge, mixed with black mafioso project-housing narratives, mixed with eastern philosophy/morality.  

7. word is bond.  

the #allLivesMatter people are the “disco sucks” people from Tim Lawrence’s article “In Defence of Disco (Again).” Lawrence points out how “disco sucks” represents a euphemism for gay bashing by right-wing heteronormative curmudgeon holes.  They would, in a cowardly way, mask their hatred for non-heteronormative peoples by reasoning their distaste for disco’s “superficiality” and “artificiality.”  However, as Judith Butler explains, sexuality is a performance, it is superficial, it is fake, in a sense, and gender and sexuality are cultural constructions.  There is nothing natural about sexuality, other than its formation by the always twisting and turning of life’s experiences.  

#allLivesMatter operates in the same way.  Just as “disco sucks” makes an illogical argument to defend its homophobia, #alllivesmatter creates a not-fully-thought-out-plan to defend its racism. These fukkk boys claim that all lives matter, yet they fail to stand along side those lives that are being murdered and treated as matter-less. These lives, of course, are the black lives that are being unreasonably targeted by a racist criminal justice system. #allLivesMatter tries to undermine #blacklivesmatter by taking away the context as to why black lives matter, which is clearly the long history of black oppression in a white supremacist USA.  #allLivesmatter is stupid af.  

8. Geeez.

Dexter Fowler, center-fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, made a comment about how the proposed travel ban would affect his family and how that would be “unfortunate.”  The response by Cardinal fans is just great: a display of nationalist and racist parrotism.  Imagine a room full of uncoordinated, unthinking, parrots repeating “shut up,” “just play ball,” or “go back to where you came from.”  Painfully annoying (check out the timeline here).  Fowler is American, to be sure, so he is already at “where he came from.”

One of the longer ill-reasoned attempts at justifying racism claimed that Fowler is property of the baseball team and the league and that he should, therefore, just shut up and not talk politics.  This reminded me of an article by Katherine McKittrick titled “Rebellion/Intention/Groove.”  As a method of dehumanization, McKittrick asserts, “the middle passage and plantation systems transformed […] the enslaved into units of labour” (82). Humans should not be reduced to propoerty.

Fowler may be being paid the big bucks, but it doesn’t mean that he is not human.  Employees are not property of their employers; and to silence a person’s right to speak is unconstitutional.  Are these cards fans against the constitution; are they not patriots of such laws that make America great?  Either way, it is clear that many Americans still maintain a master/slave mentality even if that mentality is to their own detriment, if they occupy low/middle class ranks.    

9. what goes up must come down. (the raid scene in Blow)

I remember that final raid sequence in Blow and it reminds me of a message in Frederick Jameson’s article “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.”  Here Jameson warns us of the euphoric “waning of affect” in postmodern society.  He states that this affect leaves people in a trance like state where we cant really see what is going on in our harsh reality.  This euphoria distracts us from being critical thinkers about the human condition.  One of these ways of we are uncritical is in the conversation between appearance and reality (60).  

Johnny Depp getting busted for the final time is a visual representation of the dissolution of the waning of affect in postmodern society.  As Depp returns from the washroom, he asks why his friends all look saddened and asks where his knife is.  After a few tense moments of silence, slowly looking at each of his comrades to understand what’s happening, Depp finally realizes that what is happening, and says “lets do it.”  

The slow motion raid, and his friends leaving him at the table is symbolic of the come down from that euphoric high.  a painful realization of "I m fucked" and "I shoulda, coulda, woulda" moment.  but then again, fuck "shoulda, coulda, woulda" and #FTP.  Obviously the high cant last forever, but as Richard Dyer asserts, this euphoria with its romantic ideals plays a part in the conversation between what is real and what appears to be real: “[w]hat I do believe is that the movement between banality and something ‘other’ than banality is an essential dialectic of society, a constant keeping open of a gap between what is and what could or should be” (197). In this case what could or should be is that everybody ought to have a piece of the pie. The world ain’t fair, so Johnny tried to make it fair.

10. chilled out afro-futurist machine music and sonic escapism.

MF Doom

Works Cited

Brooks, Daphne. “Second Coming: On Modern Protest Pop.” Artforum (Summer 2016)

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519–531

Clover, Joshua. “The Bourgeois and the Boulevard.” 1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This to Sing About This.  Berkeley: U of California P, 2009. 25-50.

Du, Bois W. E. B, and Brent H. Edwards. The Souls of Black Folk. Oxford [England: Oxford University Press, 2007. Internet resource.

Dyer, Richard. “In Defence of Disco.” 1979. New Formations 58 (2006): 101-108.

Eshun, Kodwo. More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction. New Edition. London: Verso, 2016.

Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” New Left Review 146 (1984): 53-92

Lawrence, Tim. “In Defence of Disco (Again).” New Formations 58 (2006): 128-46

McCutcheon, Mark. “The dj as Critic, ‘constructing a sort of argument.’” ESC: English Studies in Canada 41.4 (2015): 93-124.

McKittrick, Katharine. “Rebellion/Invention/Groove.” small axe 49 (2016): 79-91.

Novak, David. “Sublime Frequencies of Old Media.” Public Culture 23.3 (2011): 603-34

Olaniyan, Tejumola. “The Cosmopolitan Nativist: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and the Antinomies of Postcolonial Modernity.” Research in African Literatures 32.2 (2001): 76–89.