Messy Blogging in an Internet Wasteland

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I just completed my first year in my PhD program, and I’m back at home in my parents’ house visiting for a few weeks before I go do summer research/language acquisition in South America. The novelty of eating your mother’s food and not having to pay for anything gets old very quickly, especially when none of your friends – high school or college friends – live in your hometown to help you blow money on chili cheese fries or underwear deals.

I have been reminiscing about those times, my adolescence and early college years, as I sit around and figure out what to do with my time. A friend recommended doing absolutely the opposite of productivity culture: something she terms passionate culture. What did I love to do without guilt, shame, and mental self-mutilation before I became consumed in “how to adult” as an aspiring (and now current) grad student? What was I so actively passionate about that I had multiple lives, not just one as a student? Can I do these things again?

The irony is that my passion for things I loved to do in my adolescence was primarily due to having a similar lack of access to the people and things I wanted to be in conversation with. If I couldn’t access a zine, I would make it. If my mom wouldn’t let me develop my own wardrobe, I could visit fashion blogs and see what I liked and didn’t like. If I couldn’t watch the latest indie or art house films, I would check out their predecessors and influences through the public library and interlibrary loan. I could talk to other folks around the world on LiveJournal and tumblr about black women, feminisms, diasporic melancholy, food packaging design, and 90s Björk remixes and Blur b-sides.

I’ve been re-reading old blog posts that friends and folks i used to follow wrote back in 2013 and before. Julia’s post on the internet and presence stand’s out to me: she identifies the earlier moments, like i outlined above, where sharing yourself on internet platforms didn’t feel too stressful or performative. In the age of apps, streaming, and microblogs/140 characters or less with reduced privacy rights, the internet moves at extremely fast rate. In the age of think pieces, there is less time to reflect, digest, and sit. Curated lives on Facebook and Instagram are full of clickbaity photos, links, and statuses designed for viral appeal. You cannot even browse social network websites a la Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest without an algorithm “suggesting” content to you. Is there any possible way to craft a presence online in such a climate (or era)? Can I even go back to recapturing the spirit I felt as an adolescent online?

I don’t think so. For one, we can’t turn the clock back to a time where we knew less than we do now. But secondly, the internet from 2000 to 2012 was not peachy keen either. LiveJournal and Xanga accounts (blogs and communities) wielded influence similar to web celebrities and personalities now on Twitter and Instagram. In fact, some of those current folks actually came out of the LJ/Flickr years.They wanted to be like the folks they idealized on fashion communities on LJ and fandom rings on blogger, and this new moment has brought them the opportunity to become that. Yes, there weren’t think pieces or countless selfies, but there were the time period’s equivalents. We’re in a kind of neoliberal internet.

Having said that, there were blogs and internet presences that were just anonymous time capsules. Not explicitly meant to capture an audience or wield influence; but to just share what they wanted to the world, whoever would listen, or to no one in particular. I think this is what Julia was speaking to in her post.  The non-curated, messy, typo-ridden, slice of life posts mostly did not have the buzz of “make this viral” all over them; it could be a quiet contribution to knowing the intimate details of someone’s mostly mundane life. Through the quick death and rebirth of memes and vines, the mundane is obscured from view, and maybe isn’t even around because it’s not [socially] profitable.

But then, don’t we have to ask ourselves what we do these things for? If we want to return to slice of life writing, why don’t we just do that? I don’t mean to suggest that an individualist, run against the current approach is the way to turn the tide; the tide is here to stay until a possible internet 3.0 (or the internet ending, somehow). But what do you like to do, who do you imagine are the folks that you will share or not share it with (your audience), and how will you proceed? Do you have the will to proceed? I had to wrestle with this question through a different medium, with regards to academic writing and research. Would I write what I wanted to write, or what I anticipated people wanted me to write? Would I write for myself and people I wanted to be in conversation with, or the folks who I thought I needed to cater to? It was painful to acknowledge that I had even internalized a lot of the behaviors I thought I was above, but eventually I realized I would lose my joy, confidence, and self-respect if I didn’t do the work I wanted to do. So I made it work for me, regardless of whose eyes settled onto the page.

That is the way I also want to approach the rest of my loves. I cannot go back to the past but I can cultivate an outlook that informed the reason why I loved my passions in the past: I gave myself the permission to be messy, non-linear, and curious. Maybe that’s how you get into something again, or at least learn to relax into yourself and leisure.

Supplementary:
* On Self-Respect by Joan Didion

Moodboard: Indefinite

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PS, let me back up really quickly and say that I had it in my mind, i had put it out to the universe as a known fact, I was like ‘universe, I’m gonna write this book before I turn 25.’ In my head that was the truth. It hadn’t happened yet, but it was truth as far as I was concerned. I don’t know how this is going to happen, but this is gonna happen. I feel like that’s kind of the person I have been, somebody who’s like ‘this is my passion, this is what I want, and it is done, because I say it is is done.’ – Virgie Tovar

“My will is mine…I shall not make it soft for you.” – Aeschylus

tumblr personal post #1

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I found some of my old sketchbooks in my parents’ basement. I went through them, held a fondness for some of the drawings, and then put them in the recycling bin.

I resolved to purchase a sketchbook sometime to use when I’m in Champaign. I also bought some bath bombs from Lush and a very fruity-smelling candle.

Some of my friends passed away last week, and some of my friends are receiving death threats. My will to work and produce was broken. I was so angry; I have been so angry.

Today, I was less angry. I had more hope when I heard my cousin and my brother discuss their interests in critical race theory, feminist and queer theory, and afrofuturism.

For the first time, I experienced a good day. Sometimes hearing and seeing the nostalgic things help you remember who you are. I think I’ll get back to being myself sooner.

 

The Uniform

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To be called beautiful is thought to name something essential to women’s character and concerns. (In contrast to men—whose essence is to be strong, or effective, or competent.) It does not take someone in the throes of advanced feminist awareness to perceive that the way women are taught to be involved with beauty encourages narcissism, reinforces dependence and immaturity. Everybody (women and men) knows that. […] Women are taught to see their bodies in parts, and to evaluate each part separately. Breasts, feet, hips, waistline, neck, eyes, nose, complexion, hair, and so on—each in turn is submitted to an anxious, fretful, often despairing scrutiny.
[…]
[Beauty as a form of power] is always conceived in relation to men; it is not the power to do but the power to attract. It is a power that negates itself. For this power is not one that can be chosen freely—at least, not by women—or renounced without social censure. – Susan Sontag, “A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?“

I’ve been thinking about this quote for several days: first in its condensed, disconnected self on tumblr, and later in its entirety. Understanding now its context, I know that Sontag’s words concerned another realm, patriarchy and subaltern power – is there such a thing, even if is that power is under the overseer’s gaze? I’m not really into seeking agency in characters/lived people’s experiences anymore, because I believe it disregards point of view away from any gaze. In particular, the idea that subaltern groups did not necessarily see themselves as subaltern, but as individuals within a system that complicates choice. However, Sontag and my thoughts did reach juncture a couple of days ago: can women (or any kind of “gazed-upon” group) reframe the gaze for their own purposes? How can communication serve as a weapon against an unconsensual gaze? What can we use to entail that exchange is on our terms? To be more comfortable?

Being in a graduate program is exhausting. It is not the work itself that is difficult, but the process of which the work becomes. What does this mean? It means bullshit. It means having your essays rebuked because it wasn’t written in the way the instructor wanted it, but when someone else verbalizes the same thing in discussion, they are rewarded for it. It means being hyperaware that being concise is not enough; that subjectivity abounds even in places that you did not mean it to go. There is no control, and there is no map, only suggestions. For me, what I mean is not enough. I have to claim what I say with more vigor, more clarity, to be precise to the sharpest degree. It’s like learning how to be competent in a new language, but the improv is sometimes frowned upon.
It’s one thing to state “I don’t write for you, I don’t talk for you, I speak for myself and my experiences and this is what I want out of my studies and travels” but it’s another to actually embody it. This isn’t about resistance, it’s about indifference. How do you do that?


I came across this illustration and it instantly became clear! Of course, fashion as a self-defining form of communication is not a unique or new concept. I have seen this talked about forever, and my ex/academic friends talk about it on their respective blogs.
However, I have not thought of day-to-day wear as a uniform. What if we uniformalized our outfits, as unapologetic and indifferent to the other – an un-negotiated projection of self? Yes, you do this in the privacy of your home, but what about outside? This does not mean wear only your underwear and bra to class, of course; but if you like Sailor Moon earrings, wear them. If you feel like a space cadet, wear the shoulder pads you reserve for Halloween. Wear lipstick, wear no lipstick, dress formal, dress unformal – whatever demonstrates what is essential to you! To put yourself, personality, dreams, fantasies, whatever, into that uniform is very appealing, confidence-building, and soul-saving, very much like dressing up when you feel miserable/sick. And! People have to deal with it. You don’t have to wait until you’ve made it to dress this way: you can just do it now.
Akiko Higashimura, KIgurahime mangaka, reminds me of what I talk about below.. See also Beth and Eline as further examples!
It does not have to be consistent day-to-day – you are not consistent day-to-day; but let embody your story in your clothes. It can be the armor that not only helps you communicate who you are, your desires, your concepts of beauty and value, but also gets you through the undesirable and soul-sucking slough of stupid day-to-day exchanges, also known as paying your dues. This demonstration of self is turning your back on paying your dues, even as you are paying them. Get your work done, but enjoy yourself: have fun with it, play around with it, satirize it. But don’t let it be you: you get to be you, at least in this world.
See more:
“Cute as Subversive,” originally published on my old blog, Compact Fuku
NHK documentary on Akiko Higashimura
“#WeaponizedFashion” by ClockworkBlack

Welcome to the Working Week ☁ Sunday, November 1

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☁ Baby boomers are ruining your self-esteem, and will probably die before they ever take responsibility for fucking up the Earth.
☁ Misogynoir affects black women at all ages. To ignore its effects in pushing black girls out of school is evil.
☁ Miguel Covarrubias‘ archive has been digitized. Included are countless rare/unseen photos of Rosa Covarrubias (indexed 80 – 84).
☁ The Ivies are still wondering why their institutional barriers are strong enough to prevent poor kids from attaining wealth privilege by association.
☁ Why “Bonita Applebum” by a A Tribe Called Quest is the Best Rap Love Song of All Time, according to Fader. I’m not so sure about that, but “Bonita Applebum” conveys a tender sweetness that characterizes great love songs.
☁ There is crying in school. It’s fine to cry.

☁ Fuck coded, opaque academic wordiness. Let’s be public-oriented scholars.
☁ Yes, diversity doesn’t mean anything; especially in a society that uses empty words instead of the necessary ones.
☁ Cooking cinemographs, or cooked food gifs.
☁ Romantic love is a contested and negotiated choice, not a magical feeling.
☁ How to earn respect from students: be compassionate, have a back-bone, and demonstrate passion and commitment to your craft. Who knew?
☁ Hipsters are not the majority of bike riders: working-class folks are.
☁ The best Halloween illustration ever, by Rebecca Sugar.

Have a great week!

quick thoughts – 31.10.2015

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an action does not always warrant a response. an action is not necessarily personal, even if you happen to be targeted; it is an inconvenience. hard work is not analogous to working yourself to death. clear communication is more humane than casting a web of complex jargon. what is a body well-treated? maintain your uniform. i love juice pulp.

 

Carmen de Lavallade & Geoffrey Holder

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Carmen de Lavallade has had an unparalleled career in dance, theater, film and television beginning in her hometown of Los Angeles performing with the Lester Horton Dance Theater—the first multi-race dance troupe in the United States. She persuaded a neighborhood friend named Alvin Ailey to join her in studying with Horton. While in Los Angeles, Lena Horne introduced the then 17-year-old Ms. de Lavallade to filmmakers at 20th Century Fox, where she appeared in movies with Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte.

(more…)

Welcome to the Working Week ☁ Sunday, October 25

Posted on by tropigalia
☁ The Feminist Wire published Desiree Adaway’s  great essay about white women consumption of black women’s pain, or racist feminist cannibalism.
☁ Kyary Pamyu Pamyu makes a great Betty Boop.
☁ Tenure’s demise in Wisconsin is disgraceful.

☁ Cecile Emeke has expanded her Strolling series to Italy.
☁ The Moonlight Memory Crisis Moon Compact is coming soon, which means Proplica is going to make more stuff to match!!!
☁ We can’t fuck up Mars lol. More here. #spacebabelooks
☁ Speaking of space babes, Margaret Hamilton is finally getting her due.

☁ Looking forward to Sanjay’s Super Team!
☁ A profile on Warsan Shire.
☁ How damaging is the Model Minority myth when it prevents even its victims from remembering violence?
☁ Why passive voice can be silencing, not just bad grammar.
☁ James Turrell still has pretty exhibitions.
☁ James Turrell acknowledges Drake.
☁ How cis black women perpetuate transmisognyny and violence against trans black women.

Have a great week!

Warmth: Björk’s “Post”

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whereas ‘debut’ was like the greatest hits of ten years, ‘post’ was like the last two years. for me, all the songs on the album are like saying, ‘listen, this is how i’m doing,’ and that’s why i called the record ‘post’, because i always address my songs back in my head to iceland in a letter. because it was such a big jump for me to move away from all my relatives, all my friends, everything i know.

Björk represents a lot of things to me. I remember on her website (the old one, in the about&about section) when reflecting on Kate Bush, she had mentioned that Bush’s music had a nostalgic quality to them. While she had not really listened to Bush’s records much, she would always have appreciation for their genius, as well as the strength they held during her adolescence. Similarly, Björk’s records held the same nostalgic strength, particularly during my teenage years, and I always reflect on them with excitement (before I reset my last.fm track meter, I was listed as having listened to Björk over 12000 times).
Source: 12 inch
My first Björk album was Post. I came to it by way of hearing a live version of “Isobel” on a blog’s flash animation probably in 2005 or 2006. I purchased the album version from iTunes, and tried to borrow Post from my public library; However, the only Björk album my library location had was Medúlla. While Medúlla definitely has a place in my heart, I was so set on getting Post that I scrambled as much couch money as I could to get an iTunes card to purchase it off the net. Before I reset my last.fm charts, it was my most played album and “Isobel” was my most played song.
When viewing images from the Post era, you get a sense that everything is new, exciting, and fresh in her career: a new milestone. Currently, I’m feeling the same way – something is on the tip of becoming new, fresh, and exciting for me – a new chapter in my life. Post‘s sense of renewal also reminds me of spring, and I’m really craving an exit from winter, which is equated to death and silence in my mind. 
Post is my favorite album, design-wise. It feels so warm, fluid, and cheerful. The color scheme, also used on Cibo Matto’s Viva! La Woman, reinforces those themes. Post is self-actualized: it explicitly and boldly captures Björk’s personality within the album. If Debut is a rookie watercolor painting, and Homogenic is more modern art, but with a computer (think vector art), then Post‘s essence of renewal, warmth, and defined youth is captured through solid paint colors, or oil and colored pencils. 
I’m looking forward to a warm and vibrant year.