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Hmm, so this is fascinating. I was spring cleaning my drafts, and stumbled across this post that I fully wrote just about a year ago and had neglected to free into the world. I don’t know why I did that, but it’s still a perfectly good post that I figured I may as well publish and maybe do something different with. I’ll use this as a space to have a conversation with, and you all can just come along for the ride lol.

When I originally wrote this post, I was in a very challenging time of my life. My husband was preparing for a beyond huge career change, and we were drowning financially because of it. The world felt like it was constantly closing in on us, and somehow I managed to find a pocket of joy to cling on to that somehow made me extremely anxious to hold. It felt dangerous, like a threat to achieving anything good ever again. It wasn’t a big deal though, I just wasn’t well-versed in consistent positive notions happening in my life. This post became a meditation of that, of co-existing with the good feels as I reason with being an achiever without the extremist motivation of life-bad-must-work-hard-so-it-become-good.

Please, enjoy.

I have come to the realization that the gifts of ease and convenience that the modern era provides us has seriously damaged my determination. To get some feel-good dopamine, you no longer have to fight hard to earn a good moment, now you can literally just search for something that’ll make you feel good, and your wish is easily granted.

I am about six years post-undergrad, and I can feel laziness seeping in as I’m now old enough and resourceful enough to make my small, dopamine-induced wishes a reality. I genuinely can remember when I had to work so hard for the dopamine rush granted from getting all A’s during a semester, or from getting a banger summer internship opportunity. But now, funnily enough, as the judgmental glare of the institution of education has left my orbit and I’m now in the regular degular real world, I have come to realize that the stakes are much, much lower.

Maybe I bought into the systems and institutions too much, but growing up I really thought that good times would be so hard to come by. I really believed that I’d constantly have to earn and work so hard to enjoy a nice chat, a yummy meal, or even a great experience (I also blame all of these beliefs on two decades of hard times, but more on that trauma a different day). Now I know the truth: good times exist everywhere, all the time. And boy, have I been indulging in all of it.

I keep my calendar stacked with events to explore, my DMs filled with new, joyful connections, my attention kept with constant content and entertainment. I have become a dopamine fiend, a total dopamine goblin, and I’m here to chow down on everything that feels good as hell.

The issue with this is that now that I’m experiencing the good-feels of life, I have become oh so very indulgent, which is very new to me! I’m not used to having the opportunity to indulge, and so I have never had to learn how to pace myself or have boundaries in this area. If I want it, I buy it. If I want to experience it, I do it! The problem is that as a creative who sets her own schedule and does her own thing, it does lead to me getting less and less done as I solely fixate on what feels good.

In order to make space for achieving my goals, finetuning my habits, and just getting some goddamn work done, I have begun to practice delayed gratification, and man is it a powerful tool.

I decided to create a habit tracker bingo board. It’s a monthly 5x4 bingo board that both contains routine habits and goals that I wish to nail that month and mundane tasks that I would like to check off my list (like doing laundry or scheduling that doctor’s appointment). Each standard bingo that I achieve (so left-right/up-down, no diagonals for a 5x4) gives me one point, and each point contributes to a reward tree that I’ve built out.

Of course, it would be impossible to be perfect, so I’ve also added some “free passes” to allow myself some grace as I work hard to complete my board. If I read two books in a month, for instance, I get to check a box off my list even if I haven’t achieved it yet. If I complete a T shape on the board (5 across at the top, 4 going down the middle) then I get another free pass. This way, I don’t have to sweat the small stuff and I still get my delicious dopamine hit for having worked hard.

As we enter the second half of the year, I hope to work harder to be more dedicated to myself and my goals. I’m not used to having so much feel-good stimuli around me, so I hope to use my goals and achievements as a base where I can ground myself and come back to reality (yes, I know that’s very Virgo of me, sue me!). These days, I can get very swept away in what’s going on around me — honestly it’s to the point where I can’t even remember what it’s like to do everything in life all alone — and I hope to have a much smoother second half of 2025 as I have taken a real look at myself and begin to sink deeper into giving myself exactly what I need to be happy.

Now that I have this context of how delayed gratification works, it makes me realize why positive reinforcement for habit building didn’t work for me growing up: it’s hard to positively reinforce with something that you don’t know if you’ll be able to grant yourself. However, now that I know how to make life feel good at every step of the way, I love leaning into positive reinforcement and delayed gratification to achieve all of the good things that I’m hoping to get out of this life of mine.

Here I am, just a year shy from when I originally wrote this post. I think it’s so fascinating to speak to your past self in such a manner. I was asking and posing some serious questions and needs here; how do I coexist with happiness and productivity? Does delayed gratification actually work to achieve things whilst in this state? Can I conform to the rules and laws of “joy” and just become a person who enjoys living life and enjoys having nice things?

And most importantly, did that second half of 2025 clear up for me?

Well, to my past self, you end up figuring it all out. Delayed gratification works, but you aren’t so regimented with it like you thought you’d have to be. You find that flowing comes easier to you than you originally anticipated, and it leads you to a restful, but still chaotic end to 2025. You forced a lot of doors shut, so that way new, better doors could open. And, yes, you’re still indulging to the max. You get a better stride by the time 2026 rolls around, and despite the continued chaos of Q1 as you fight for your health needs, you’re still in a great position.

You don’t have to suffer just to find the will to achieve things. Now, is it hard? Most definitely. But, maybe it will one day become a language that you’re much better versed in, have some hope and optimism there. Your greatest works are still on the way, and yes, they will be birthed from a life well-lived, not from one that you keep having to suffer through.

Keep writing, keep savoring, and keep creating.

Love, me. To, me.

I want to start off by saying that this article isn’t here to bastardize AI for the havoc it’s wrecking on communities, infrastructure, our environment, our brains, and more. I know that AI is terrible for all of those things. I know. There are copious amounts of articles, videos, and think-pieces both on and offline that will lend to that narrative and viewpoint, so if you’re looking for that sort of tone, you’ll have to go elsewhere. What I want to have here is a discussion that no one else seems to be willing to have.

I want to talk about why people, not the ravenous corporations, not the evil businesses, not the big-wigs who are using this technology to rid themselves of entry level positions to carve out more profits for themselves, but why people are flocking to AI in droves in spite of the damage it allegedly does to all of us (from the mental, to the community based, to the environment, etc). I want to discuss why AI, to many, is incredible and such a “boon” for society, and why, quite frankly, it won’t be going anywhere any time soon.

I don’t want to spend an entire article shaming and maiming AI users for using this thing that was made and multiplied en masse by corporations no less for public consumption. Again, there are tons of people you can find who are online utilizing shame as an activist tool, and I just won’t be doing that here because one, I know that it doesn’t work or change anything for our society and our issues and two, AI users don’t feel shame, hence why they continue to use it and have no plans to cease using of it. Duh.

Lastly, this is my third piece in this sort of series noting being moderate and level-headed in chaotic and ever-changing times (I don’t know what to call it so that’s gonna have to work for now). This will be split into parts as I found that I had sooooo much to say that it was getting a little ridiculous to cram all into one article. Next part coming soon~!

If you’d like to see my other pieces in this series, please give these a read too!

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No One… Cares…

Seeing shame and “cold-hard-devastating-facts” (like how an MIT study showed that AI causes the brain to utilize fewer neural pathways, “rotting the brain” as it is being colloquially labelled) as an activism tool to attempt to repel and repulse the world from using AI is so fascinating, because yes, while maybe it is silly to utilize AI to write a simple email or to tell you what to do everyday, no one is discussing the desire behind what makes someone use AI in the first place. Due to the stigma of how much AI hurts us, it doesn’t strike me as weird that people would avoid talking about that, because why should we focus on how much you want to do menial tasks easily when it’s causing the world to burn, but it’s definitely an important part of even the MIT study that is being completely glossed over, and it’s making for weaker studies about the affects of AI on society as a whole.

In the MIT study referenced and linked above, a factor that was not measured by researchers was desire. Yes, the brain-only and Google search groups had better neural processing than the AI-only group, again, duh, the brain is a muscle so if you don’t use it then you’ll be lacking in that department, but what if all participants were sorted by their desire to even accomplish the task, which in this case was the writing of an essay? How do the brains of people who genuinely want to write an essay sans-AI differ from those who genuinely don’t care to, and then how do those brains look when given the essay-writing-task with the solo form and the tech assisted form?

I pose this question because I, as a writer who went to school for Writing & Rhetorical Studies, obviously love writing. I don’t care to utilize AI in any of my process whatsoever because I, well, enjoy writing. It’s simply what I enjoy doing, therefore, my brain will continue to fire off and stay strong in this way so long as I keep with this technical skill, yay.

But I recall several moments in college in which unrelated majors in subjects like tech or sports management wound up in some of my essay-intensive writing courses due to program requirements and those individuals literally did not care whatsoever for the courses. Many folks would just do the bare minimum, cheat their way through class, barely pass and barely attend, doing whatever it took to just get their needed credits so that way they could go back to doing what they actually wanted to do, which was to study [insert major that had nothing to do with writing essays all day long].

Looking at this example — from my own life, mind you — do you think they felt any shame barely passing a class that they gave zero fucks about? Do you think that their reputation and skills as a [insert major that had nothing to do with writing essays] is tarnished and soiled because they didn’t care to do something that they literally didn’t care about? Obviously not. They’re all prob living their dream now doing what they actually care to do, and in the case of AI, I do see it being utilized the exact same way.

I think this is the part that is prickly for everyone who is staunchly anti-AI right now. I think that people truly believe that AI is some evil force that is taking away people’s ability to think and/or will to “do” for themselves, and is convincing people somehow to stop human-ing and start letting a robot take care of everything for themselves. In reality, the opposite is true: AI is simply giving many folks the means to do what they have already desired to do the most, which is, well, nothing.

“Nothing” can be completely absolute, as in not having to do absolutely anything, or, it can represent a thing or facet you don’t want to do, like the email writing example I used in a prior article in this series.

Like the dishwasher, which takes away the need to get your hands dirty and hand wash dishes, or Uber/Lyft, which takes away the friction of having to physically hail a taxi, AI gives you the ability to have a friction-free or lack-of an experience, which, is obviously making some folks happy because, well, people keep using it.

The problem, of course, is that AI has greater ramifications for society than a dishwasher or Uber or cheating on an exam or SparkNotes or text-to-speech or literally anything that has granted the ability to avoid the friction of an “unsavory” experience.

Still, the desire is completely the same.

You cannot be shamed out of getting help for a task that you didn’t want to do anyway. You can’t be scared into the deaths of parts of your brain that you never cared to use anyway. You can’t be convinced that your life needs certain tasks, habits, or hobbies that you quite literally don’t want to partake in anyway.

Access & “Innovation”

A funny point that I see thrown around often when it comes to the “innovation” that AI brings to the table is the ideology that now, anyone can become and artist and now anyone can become a writer, etc.

I always find it so fascinating that people pick and choose when to include disabled or neurodivergent individuals into discussions, and it always seems to pertain to excusing things that aren’t the best for society. People will say “and because of this kinda bad thing existing, now an entire group of people I haven’t spent a lick of time caring about or advocating for otherwise can enjoy society just like the rest of us!”

Hmmmm… Anyway.

You know, in February, I went to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and it was a stunning display of just what artists can do in spite of being disabled. Aside from seeing her incredible works in person, I listened to every single portion of the audio guide (which took almost two hours by the way), and learned a lot about her personality, how being disabled affected her craft, and also what her life looked like outside of being a disabled artist.

There was information on her love life, her friendships, her style, and more. It really rounded out her story as a human, and really makes for a great antidote to this idea that AI needs to exist, or else no one in need will be able to have access to the great world that is the arts™. Like am I the only one who grew up with copious videos and news stories of people who created art with their feet due to not having the ability to make art with their hands?

Why is it more socially desirable all of a sudden to create “perfect” art with AI if you’re disabled, rather than to create what you are able to create and turn into art with what you can access with your disability, you know, the way disabled people have done it this entire time?

I think the reality is that at the end of the day, people need a justification for this thing that they enjoy utilizing. A thing that, in one commenter’s words, makes it easier for “us little guys” since apparently the price to take on a craft like painting (in their example) is just “too expensive” otherwise… However, if you’ve ever been broke and creative before (been there for like two decades, done that), you’ll know that that is also a fallacy in itself.

Art is not an expensive or inaccessible endeavor for the poor, disabled, or anyone in-between, it never has been and never will be. However, I think it would make AI even more so deeply unpopular if users of said technology noted that they loved that the tech lets them fit in at some sort of cool kids tables of self-proclaimed artistry now that they could “create” something with their “hands”.

That, for them, it feels great to finally be able to achieve whatever desire that they are just simply “not gifted enough” to achieve on their own with their own two hands, and now that this technology exists, they can “create” some sort of output that supplies some level of gratification, rather than whatever they had attempted to create before.

I feel like any other justification that comes out of the mouths of users who love to create with AI is contrived and trying to appeal to some sort of moral ethos to say “hey, see, now you can’t say I’m a bad person for using AI because look at what it could do for a hypothetical multi-deployed military veteran who got his hands blown off and wishes to hold a paintbrush with his hands and no longer can! don’t you feel bad for condemning my and others’ AI usage now?” so that way their usage is justified. It’s really silly and irritating and I feel like honesty would take us a lot further than goofy notions created to keep yourself from feeling like a bad guy. But then again, with all of the talk on the anti-AI side being explicitly about how AI usage makes you a bad guy and that you should feel bad for using it, I guess I can somewhat understand the constant pitter pattering away from what’s really going on here [with the desire behind generating AI art].

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It’s Okay to Be Lazy, Bad at Things, Mentally Ill, & More: Capitalism’s Purity Complex

Continuing on with this point, I feel like a big issue is the fact that people who “suck” at art don’t want to admit that they just simply suck-ass at creating art and don’t want to be a person who sucks-ass at creating art. They would much rather be a person who’s awesome at making stuff, so why not just fast-track one’s art journey (granted that they’re on one to begin with) and just… utilize AI to skip to the “good part”, where one can experience what life feels like as someone who can truly create “like the greats” (I shudder as I type this sarcastically).

Again, no one’s saying it out loud, as it’s constantly being said in a roundabout way, but it’s okay to create dogshit art, you know? It’s also okay to utilize AI for art and say that you’re utilizing it simply because you don’t want the world to see the art that you can actually create with your hands that you don’t value highly. Using disabled and broke folks as a scapegoat so that you can keep playing with your favorite toys and tools of creation is just so unnecessary.

But then again, we don’t live in a society where you can openly express your adoration for AI without getting stomped on, so I can see the complexities there.

But what about those who use AI to deal with their mental health struggles? And, no, I’m not referring to those who are now struggling with AI psychosis because an AI has convinced them of things like their own therapist totally being in love with them, or folks who are getting suicidal notions from AI. No, I’m referring to those who utilize AI as a virtual shoulder to cry on, with some even naming their AIs to make the experience even more personable.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that strives for complete and total perfection, and doesn’t nurture those with mental health struggles, and when it comes to just needing someone to talk to, the stigmas surrounding being a imperfect person with problems in the first place can feel daunting. I, myself, have certainly been in that sort of position; I was ostracized and slowly isolated due to not having my life together whatsoever (even when it was from factors that were not under my control).

Not to mention, situations like being in a new region with no friends or family, recently having cut off several individuals and starting fresh, or even just feeling like your issues are so much larger than any help that a friend or family member can provide you can complicate finding a good, free ($) ear to hear you out. This, along with the expense of consistent, reliable mental help can make it really difficult to get the help that you need.

I don’t think it’s that deep or that complicated to understand why people would utilize AI for their various mental health issues, but I do want to look at it from the outside perspective—the perspective of fear.

The primary concerns that I see about this usage of AI (outside of the extreme cases of suicide and psychosis) are primarily surrounding the fact that all AI is built off of whatever biases that it’s programmed to have. Of course, let’s not forget what happened when Facebook Meta attempted to create AI profiles of individuals with various qualities of diversity and marginalization, and how that ended up being a complete disaster.

If we take these things into consideration, it can definitely be scary to imagine that people are finding companionship and contentment of any kind with a device that is created solely from one programmed lens. This puts the care that you can get in the eye of the beholder, and who’s to say that that beholder has any of your best interests in mind? It also doesn’t help that with the way that AI is programmed, it can become a reinforcer, or a validator, for all of the things you throw into it. If you continuously rant to it about your spouse, for example, it could then reinforce this idea and create an ideology that it just simply makes sense to hate your spouse, and then you could end up in a nasty feedback loop where maybe you begin to believe that you yourself hate your spouse.

It is a scary precedent and real connection obviously outweighs robotic ones, I agree, but regardless, people ultimately are finding ways to get what they need from a non-human source, and whether for good or naught, it does seem to be helping folks with their mental health struggles in some capacity, giving them what they need that they find that they can’t attain from human-to-human connection.

Of course, as time goes on, we’ll have much better studies to understand if people are truly being “helped”, or if it’s just a bandaid or temporary solution for bigger issues. For now, I do choose to believe those who proclaim that AI helps them in pinch moments in which they’d rather just speak to a robot than a human.

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It would obviously be better for society as a whole if AI could exist without causing such deadly societal issues, especially since so many people enjoy using it as a tool for whatever purpose they see fit to use it for. However, we just aren’t there en masse yet. Services like Ecosia and Viro claim to provide a sort of eco-friendly AI service similar to what we see with Google’s AI search features and LLMs like Claude, ChatGPT, etc., but without widespread implementation, promotion, or explanation, we’ll just be stuck in a loop of one side yelling that AI destroys the planet, and another side saying that they don’t really care.

I am hoping that we can move the conversations forward as a collective soon because truthfully speaking, AI isn’t going anywhere any time soon, so it’s time to simply adapt and create better solutions and expectations if it’s truly here to stay.

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You know what’s worse than working incredibly hard for something? Working incredibly hard for something, and then coming to the realization that the thing you’ve been working so hard for will never come to fruition. Yes, this is about helping someone out, fine, you caught me. But I think the most mind bending part about it all is the reminiscing on the time spent on workshopping, helping, and attempting to mold someone into not just a better form—but a better form that they claimed to have wanted. Hell, even trying to lay breadcrumbs so that they could follow me into the holy lands of growth and expansion, just to come to the realization that you can’t actually help people into change. They must help themselves.

I feel too old to be realizing this, but then I remember that I’m only 28 years young, barely on the move into her first Saturn Retrograde (Saturn in Aries baby), and that it’s actually a great time to be coming across this realization, so that way I don’t carry it into my 30s.

I donno, I think I just thought that I could carry all of my love ones with me, or grab them by their hands and drag them to where they claim they want to go, but I’ve come to learn that the things that we say are sometimes not the things we actually mean (both in positive and negative regards). Sometimes, we want incredible things that we are genuinely not willing to put in the work to achieve, and sometimes, we’re mean to ourselves when in reality, we meant to express our needs so that we can feel more loved and held, so that way we can fill in the gaps of the void that makes us express ourselves negatively.

It makes me sad, but it’s okay. I think that is just truly life. Que sera, sera.

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After absorbing this lesson into my brain and then into my body, I took some time to think about what I would do with the extra energy, time, and mental space that I had suddenly acquired by no longer extending myself in this way. From there, I decided that the only rational thing to do next would be to use all of that newfound energy on myself. Just blast my being, my goals, my desires, everything with all of this energy that I’ve been reserving for everyone else’s growth and change. Pour all of the advice, the love, the determination, the optimism, the bad-bitch-energy, the everything into myself.

What happened next, or rather over the next couple months (I have been working on this part of myself since around… October of 2025? With it reaching a true zenith of being so forreal with myself around December 2025?) was that I really began to get into a deep flow state with myself. All of a sudden I could hear my thoughts and my desires louder in my mind, thus giving me a much better compass to follow in my day to day life. I found my conversations in therapy changing as I began to finally put the spotlight on myself and my innermost issues, versus how other people’s issues kept affecting me. I began to wean myself off of several individuals who definitely weren’t the best for me energetically (and also because they were toxic af lmao), and even found it easier to wean off of doomscrolling and being excessively tapped into the news. It just suddenly became easier to live my life as an individual, rather than my life as the person who kept getting affected by other people’s mess and messes.

I definitely still have the issue of wanting to give sooooo fucking much even to people who don’t really give much back to me, but at least I’m working on one part of the equation: the part where I am such an insanely active participant in other people’s journeys. I know, it probably sounds terrible to say, but idk man. I be so obsessed with helping others because I know what it’s like to literally suffer (yay trauma!), and that makes me project that desire to not suffer onto others when in reality, no one asked! So then I end up in this mental headspace where I’m not realizing why no one is reciprocating to ease my suffering, but again, the reality is that no one asked to begin with, so of course no one is coming to my aid.

In a way, I entered them into a contract that they never agreed to.

I think the most reassuring part of all of this though, is that my closest and dearest girlfriends have [digitally] looked me in the face and have said girl… stop… lol… Which, in a way was very reassuring to me. Being told by my own friends that even they wanted me to stop tending to them so aggressively was a relief that I’ve never experienced in my entire life. I’m just so used to people taking from me or having the expectation that I’m just here existing to be taken from, that I donno… it has definitely been a breath of fresh air to be told to chill out with that impulse, but at the same time it’s a very scary undertaking to finally be living a life that is fully my own, but tbh the alternative hasn’t been the most effective so it’s time to be a lil afraid and live this life of my own lmao.

Per usual, I’m workin’ on it, and I’ll deploy more rambles when the time comes!

I was roaming social media, doing a morning doomscroll if you will, and I saw a reel from a Black female goth influencer who wanted to give tips to “baby bats” (those who are fresh in their pursuit to dressing more goth-like) to assist them with finding gothic clothing pieces for their arsenal. In the video, she addressed the primary concern that many “baby bats” have, which is the struggle to find affordable and cute goth pieces, and how the pricing can keep people away from the fun of exploring the subversive clothing style, and suggested thrifting and showed more info on how thrifting can be your saving grace in your pursuit to be a budget friendly goth.

Despite having no interest in building a goth closet, I watched the video all the way through which was filled with great ideas such as fashioning unexpected (aka: non-trendy) pieces to fit a desired aesthetic, and also picking textures that you may not originally expect when thinking of “gothic” clothing. I thought it was fun, well-made, and a great source of information for those seeking it.

Then, I ventured into the comments.

I found copious amounts of people (particularly women of all shades, backgrounds, and regions) making mention of how they find it hard to thrift due to various constraints such as living in a small town with a very restrictive aesthetic (resulting in thrift shops to carry strictly business-wear for instance) so they prefer to shop new and would love to be able to thrift otherwise, or maybe even that they prefer not to thrift and would rather buy new pieces due to their ability to keep even the fastest of fashion pieces in good condition for over a decade despite the general consensus that fast fashion wears down into nothingness within just a few washes.

These comments and concerns were reasonable and also kindly and aptly put, in my opinion of course, but the creator seemed to not think the same as I did. As she took to every single comment and made each person aware that by choosing not to thrift, whether it’s due to your region, your ability to maintain clothes, your general preference to buy new, or whatever it may be, that you are someone who supports child labor and would rather climate change be delivered upon all of us time now. Since she (the creator of the video) is the one who is smarter and better than the rest us all and realizes that there are enough thrifted clothes for all of humanity, she goes to heaven when she passes on to the next life because she does the good deed that us new-clothing-shoppers refuse to do for the greater good. She, in her own roundabout wording, is better than us and would never support such terrible crimes against humanity.

…All of this, of course, as she films videos on her smartphone which utilizes parts mined in places that have active genocides right now, made with labor in factories that have unfair labor practices. But of course, that doesn’t make her a person who supports genocide. No, of course not. Because in her comment section, we must stay focused on the fact that we are people who support child labor if we buy any new clothing, and any rationale, in her words, is a “weird way to say that you support child labor and climate change lol”.

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It’s not the first time that I’ve watched someone who seemingly has “good intentions” cannibalize others to bolster their own viewpoints, ego, and morale, especially considering how I literally wrote about this same sort of thing a few months ago:

However, with the advent of AI in a worsening world, this appears to be an issue that only seems to get worse and worse with time.

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions—Maintaining the Scope of Consumerism & a Pinch of AI (because that is also ruining the planet)

No one is born wanting to destroy the planet, at least, that’s what I would like to believe. I do not believe that babies come out of the womb with tap-to-pay at the ready to contribute to consumerism and climate change. Hell, I don’t even believe that it’s something that’s taught (as in, taught in that manner so overtly). However, I will say that buying things feels awesome, getting a new shiny thing feels awesome-r, and for those who are extensively AI inclined, I’m sure that having AI write that email for you is suuuuper awesome (I for one don’t mind writing, along with writing emails. But considering I am someone who has experienced Elementary, Middle School, High School, and College, I have certainly experienced people who literally abhor writing in any form including a simple email).

In a way, we are all just here on Planet Earth, chasing what feels good for us, and unfortunately that can have devastating effects on our ecosystem. It’s not exactly because of us per se (as in doing things maliciously to harm the planet), but it’s more that by chasing these things that feel good, we end up becoming a part of systems that were not created with the planet in mind.

For most of us—I say, as a 90s baby—our problems with consumerism began before we were even born. Waste began to become a serious problem in the 19th century as American cities rapidly grew. Cities were able to maintain sanitation standards in the 1890s with the advent of many beneficial waste collection standards, however things worsened once again after WW2 created the perfect environment for a boom of consumer purchases as well as the rise in disposable goods and packaging that prevailed due to concerns about germs that made prepackaged products seem more sanitary and desirable. We ended up with today’s recycling movement(s) from these events—creating a net-positive for society—however, these solutions are no longer effective as landfills are filling up and are leeching toxic chemicals to humans, and to the planet.

Mind you, this is only from an American historical lens. Consumerism is an issue that affects all continents, and has affected the entire planet even beyond today’s Shien’s and Fashion Nova’s of the world (that new Starbucks teddy bear cup that you abhor with a passion? yeah, its been a thing for years in other countries such a China for example with very little cultural resistance in the way that Americans have shunned Starbucks as of recent for the creation). Once goods and services were suddenly able to be dispersed globally when the Soviet Union collapsed, when China opened up its markets in the late 20th century, when the World Trade Organization was formed in 1995, and as well as many other serendipitous events that contributed to consumerism and capitalism, consumers were granted revolutionary access that allowed for unprecedented levels of consumption.

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This, alone doesn’t even begin consider conversations around planned obsolescence (the creation of inferior goods on purpose so that consumers will have no choice but to purchase more goods more often), the general “appetite” of consumption by humans, the general evil-ness of capitalistic advertising practices, the fact that some facets of consumerism began because the lower class was suddenly able to afford the forms of goods that the upper class was able to afford (thus allowing for a larger population to consumer rather than survive), the fact that thrift stores have irritatingly become more expensive than buying new in many cases, and of course, the modern child labor and underpaid labor situation of it all.

Consumerism, evil labor practices, capitalism, waste management, capitalistic propaganda, the expansion of the affordability of goods which alone caused increased consumption, and climate change are all issues that are much more complicated than anyone should be led on to believe. I can’t personally, in good conscience, blame anyone for their “over consumption” practices when I have learned the bigger picture and a fuller story of events that led us here.

Everything is not so simple.

I also think it’s the hindsight of these systems and issues that now articulates to us the errors in our ways, and I can see why there is an attempt to do a huge societal transformation overnight to correct said ways by letting everyone know that, “Hey, we can fix all of the mistakes of the past if we just give all of these things up and commit to a lifestyle that benefits the planet.” By no means do I think that’s incorrect (that we could improve the entire planet by cleaning up our actions as members of it), but I think that it isn’t fair to those who believe in the lavish, consumerist lifestyle ideals sold to them that the only alternative that exists is one that provides none of the dopamine that the most harmful ones do.

Now, if you’re vehemently against doing anything negative towards the planet, I know you’re probably seething or something right now at that sort of perspective; that it isn’t fair to just expect people to do what’s right by the planet. But think about it: we all have this one life experience on this planet. How could you possibly tell others “Give up everything you love about experiencing life or else you’re a child labor supporter” and expect to make meaningful change—especially with such a complex, long-standing issue? How do you expect to convince people to, for example, choose thrifting over buying new when the goalpost is set so very far away from all the things that someone—who enjoys consumerism for example—wants to be able to experience in life? All the things in life that, sure, maybe they were propaganda-d into believing that they want, but they still want to be able to experience these things. You unfortunately cannot come at members of society aggressively to convince them to change their entire way of living in an effort to do the “right thing” without a viable alternative that provides the same desired effects of the original intention. If that approach was one that worked, then we would have cured the world of all its ailments centuries ago.

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It’s Complicated.

We live in a very highly complicated world right now. In fact, I’d argue that the modern human experience™ is excessively complicated in itself, so it makes sense to attempt to make meaning in the simplest ways possible. I mean, it’s as Occam’s Razor states: the simplest explanation is usually the best one.

But with more and more individuals online and offline using this logic, we degrade and dismiss the unfortunate complexities of existing. Mind you, the world that we currently exist in still has complex fractals and remnants of a world that literally predates us, and you can take that to mean anywhere right before you were born, all the way to 5000 B.C. for all I care. Needless to say, our world is simply not as cut and dry as our anger and immense desires for positive change would lead us to believe.

Again, maintaining the scope of our current conversation around consumerism contributing to waste and the fury and self-righteousness of this one influencer (though, one with a sentiment that I have seen replicated all over the internet in this same context and with different contexts), the earliest recorded waste disposal system was noted between 3000 B.C. to 1000 B.C., with the first garbage collection service occurring in the Roman Empire. With all honesty, the Roman Empire wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of the history of our lovely planet, but even with all of this time that has passed, we still have not perfected this issue that has existed since 3000 B.C. I do recognize that there are certain factors that could get in the way of us solving this problem sooner or more effectively, but to some extent, we have to be real with one another and ourselves and recognize that our standard “just recycle” or “just thrift” or “just don’t buy anything whatsoever!!” solutions are just not adequate for the gravity of the situation that we’re dealing with.

We can all do our best to find solutions, to decrease actions that are harmful to the planet, to decrease actions that are harmful to one another, and so on and so forth. But for the majority of all the issues that we suffer with right now as a society (even going beyond the scope of the issues talked about in this essay), it would truly behoove us to not sling so much vitriol at one another for being born into complex systems that we cannot control, and for environments that we did not cause.

I don’t have anything overtly optimistic to offer or anything that could solve our infinite number of crisis that plague this planet, so maybe that makes this piece a bit pessimistic in more ways than one. Life is complicated, and our planetary issues even more so, so I just can’t personally feel compelled to “rally the troops” to do anything in particular, so to say.

All I can muster is to say that if you take anything from this, know that everyone is doing their best. There are innovators out there who are crafting extremely environmentally friendly products that can replace our current highly polluting products (e.g. jewelry that decomposes in soil and skincare packaging that decomposes in soil and a smartphone company that creates eco friendly, sustainably made smartphones), but let’s all be real here, this innovation is being done by normal, good-hearted people like you and I with big ideas and in most cases, without the mass resources to make it happen sooner or bigger. This makes progress and change take time, and with climate change worsening year after year, it makes our time feel much more limited, thus making the pressures we put on one another to just be great already even more aggressive.

We all get one life, and it sucks that a lot of what is enjoyable about existing hurts the planet. I have enough common sense to be able to be real as hell and admit that. I’m sure that one day, we’ll be able to find tons of solutions that allow us to solve all problems without compromising the societal love for “stuff” (just like what happened in the 1890s when new sanitation practices allowed for better waste management practices) but until then, just be nice to yourself and others. Aim for progress, sure, but as the saying goes: Don’t bother punching down or sideways. It doesn’t tend to provide the desired progressive results in the end anyways.

Welcome to field notes, my casual blogging platform within my Substack Messy Dialectic. If you are looking for refined essays and discourse, check here for the latest posts. If you love rambling, brain dumps, and chit-chats about life experiences, then continue reading on.

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If you read the post immediately before this one, then you’ll have read my various grievances about posting on social media as a creative as well as how it feels to view those who post on social media now that I’ve had experience with having a personal brand. Honestly, looking back on that post, it’s definitely giving “old woman yells at clouds”, but it turns out that it was exactly what I needed to further understand my relationship to social media and how I might want to use it in order to further my “brand” and also to create more opportunities in my life.

It’s always said that the sooner you know what you want to do, the sooner you can begin working on that thing, but as I get older I’m realizing that it’s even more powerful to know precisely what you don’t want to do. That way you can narrow things down further and further until you’re left with the only option(s) that you’re willing to take on, until you find yourself eventually culling those down too until you’ve created your own a la carte life, built entirely from a list of likes and dislikes.

Spending the majority of my 2025 putting myself out there in this new and foreign way (via building a personal brand on Instagram utilizing all the tips and tricks and “growth hacks” that I see posted everywhere) has taught me quite a lot about what I don’t like, but it has also made me think even deeper and further about the fig tree analogy. If you aren’t familiar, I’ll post an excerpt below:

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

A few paragraphs down, the book notes this:

"I don't know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach."

And then, six pages afterwards, it notes this:

"The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket."

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The author of the article explains the meaning in much deeper context, and as someone who hasn’t read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar yet, I highly recommend reading what the writer has to say about the deeper meanings of the novel that are commonly missed by those who are just posting the fig analogy quote without its entire context.

But when I think about 2025, I do see myself as this character who yearns to consume all the fruits of the fig tree. I’ve been grappling with the realization that I can only do what I can do, and part of that does mean letting go of what I can not longer do, or even more importantly, what I no longer want to do. In addition, aging has made me realize that doing everything simply because you can (aka freewill) is not all its cracked up to be. It is all much more exhausting than simply choosing one, or maybe two things at most, and simply working towards being proficient at those things.

While being on the cusp of a small financial boon, I feel grateful of course, but I also feel this frustration striking me. Now, I think, oh, well since I have more resources, then maybe I could revisit this or that. But when I think of returning to, say, my skincare business that I put on hiatus due to the COVID economy wrecking havoc on my costs of ingredients and materials, I get this immensely conflicted feeling.

This fig that was once so full and rich for the taking has fallen and rotted and, well, has been rotted out for the past two-ish years. But now I see it growing once more, and I see the opportunity forming for me to take it (funnily enough, I checked my skincare biz email and saw a major franchise inquiring if I could sell my products in their store. A major franchise ya’ll! That’s a major opportunity that I would’ve begged for four years ago!! This is crazy af too because they’re asking to work with a business that hasn’t been running for the past 2 years and it’s not even a scam, it’s a real opportunity! wOW).

However, although I can see the opportunity and the promise of capital gains, I also see the price of that fruit. Being in business mode 24/7 (because it’s basically impossible to turn your brain off when you have a product based business). The body pains from standing and combining and mixing products for hours on end. Thinking of the year in quarters and having to match up to the entrepreneurial expectations of each quarter. The volatility of the materials/ingredients market right now (cocoa butter prices alone are at a record high due to “driven by adverse weather, diseases, and climate change affecting West African cocoa production supply, causing significant shortages and escalating costs” as noted by my cocoa butter supplier). All of the hats that I’d have to wear (business owner, R&D, PR, social media manager, web designer, product designer, and the list goes on). Not to mention the hassle of having so many things all the time (all the ingredients, all the materials, all the stuff).

When I look over at the fruit of the fig tree that simply makes me a writer, I feel… icky about it. Logistically speaking, you could say that becoming a writer is my destiny. I always got straight A’s in my English and Reading courses, and before I was given a laptop, I would write fiction stories by hand and fill up countless notebooks (I have since transcribed those stories onto digital documents and am too terrified to read them back lmao. Sometimes I wonder if I should take a look at them again). When I begin a writing session, I instantly yawn not because it’s boring, but because it just calms and relaxes my brain to such an extreme that I could literally take a nap afterwards (yes, even after writing my essays about society).

Writing is really just something that I just… enjoy doing. But I think that I’ve colonized my mind away from the idea that I could ever enjoy what I do (due to various traumas and such), so I had never truly considered writing as my life’s path, my career, or even a thing that I could just sink time into as an adult. Yes, even though I majored in Writing & Rhetorical Studies in college (with 7 out of 8 possible Dean’s List awards might I add), I still had never even considered that I would—or could—grow up to become a writer in any professional capacity.

So when that financial boon came into fruition, my mind, of course, went to the now, reopened door to my skincare business, not the fact that I guess I could focus on writing my novel and on Substack without worrying about starving in the process. I instantly went for the thing that I can’t quite say that I enjoyed doing, but rather the thing that I did immediately after college because the job market sucked and I needed to make money some way some how, and starting a business with $100 was somehow the easiest way to make money at the time.

I think another part of this fig tree predicament is the social media aspect. I would like to utilize social media in order to capitalize on opportunities, but man do I fuckin’ hate the growth hacks being presented to the world. Honestly, all this narration and showing glimpses of your life and creating scenes and B-roll just ICK. I’m obsessed with living a private life and I also really hated every part of the Instagram/TikTok personal brand building process because it’s just not authentic to me. I’m currently writing this post wearing my husband’s oversized Modelo tee and a pair of Aerie flare leggings with a light blue bonnet on (the leggings and bonnet being mine obviously). I have the AC cranked to a crisp 66° and I’m wrapped in two blankets—a blue and white checked blanket with tomato accents and a plain grey blanket.

Guys, I am not about to film all of that and put it on the internet as a show of “authenticity” and “realness”.

But the problem is that in turn, I was filming content that was just so unrepresentative of what my life and process actually looks like that it irritated the hell out of me. It was all made even worse by the fact that now, I can see just how much everyone’s content on social media is so faked, fabricated, and curated. Now that I’ve been in the production chair (so to say) I can spot it all a mile away. In a funny way, this has cured a lot of my social media scrolling addiction (as I am now easily repulsed the second I even begin scrolling), but now I feel too irritated to utilize social media to further my potential opportunity gains.

I love writing on Substack. I don’t have much of a community here yet, but it reminds me of the good ole’ Wordpress days. I have an old 16 year old Wordpress account that I grew to 300+ subscribers, which to me meant a lot. I blogged about my personal life and personal thoughts as I came of age in my turbulent upbringing and my words really resonated with people and I really enjoyed that tbh. I honestly think that if Substack hadn’t boomed in popularity and had gotten on literally everyone’s radar, I’d probably be back on Wordpress blogging there again. Sometimes I think of leaving Substack behind and just going back to Wordpress anyway.

This was just a random assortment of thoughts, of course, as always. I’ll have more to say in the future, but for now, I’ll be experiencing life with a few more resources than I’m used to. An experience that will certainly change the way that I craft, create, and live. I’m nervous and excited for this new endeavor that will yet again expand my human experience and grow me into, well, who knows.

Introduction

I loved seeing those highly inspirational/aspirational posts on social media that speak of “being paid to exist” and how awesome social media is for allowing this opportunity to exist, and I won’t lie, I was swayed. Convinced even. I found the notion of being able to just post my life and get riches for it to be compelling, and I even tried it out. Well, what I learned shocked me. Turns out, that shit sucks. I mean suuuuckssssss.

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As a marketing girl, I know how the industry works. Between pain points, branding, funnels, you name it, I’ve got the framework for it. So when it came time for me to try it out for my own personal brand, I absolutely hated it.

As an experiment, I created a cozy self care personal brand with pillars surrounding cozy living, self care, and cozy eats. I had hopes so high that I even applied to a speaking engagement, confident that this is the life for me. That this is the path I wanted to pave for myself. I too wanted to get paid to exist and receive opportunities beyond my comprehension. I had spent Q1 of 2025 planning out content pillars, content ideas, and more, and once April rolled around, I was ready for the world to see me.

I had filmed a ton of content over the past year and edited several pieces down to create 3 posts per week, and in that first week of April, I had launched my personal brand.

It was sharp as hell, the quality was high, and I was doing very well especially for my first personal brand (I have a 5 year old skincare brand that I have on hiatus with 1k+ followers, so I am used to the rhythms of content creation. However, product based business is much different than crafting a personal brand).

I’ve learned and realized a lot, and honestly I don’t quite know if I’ll keep running my personal brand, even with the fact that I got accepted to speak at that speaking engagement and even had a great crowd and some emails that I could funnel to sell some products to.

I just don’t know if I’m quite sold on this notion of selling ourselves to create income or community for that matter, despite the ease of opportunity online. I feel like today’s algorithms have shaped the modality of digital expression a little too much for me.

I Envy No One (making money influencing or with a personal brand)

One of the first things I noticed when running my personal brand is that when your life becomes your personal brand, your life becomes your work. This is much different than my experience with running my product based business (skincare brand) in which my products were my work. If I was creating a new batch of products or designing packaging and I wanted to record content for social media, that is simply what I would record. No narrations, no storytelling, no story arc, just me quite literally showing BTS of me creating a product. Running a personal brand is simply not the same, especially these days when the path to social media success has become so formulaic and honestly, overdone.

Plus, with the algorithms corroborating the necessity for following these new trends in content creation, such as showing your face more often than not, narrating over your content, adding subtitles on the screen, focusing on reels, using certain effects, having a certain HD quality for your content, and more, it’s becoming even more obvious to me that content creating for a personal brand is not the dreamland that I had imagined that it could be. And don’t even get me started on the algorithmic preference for rage baiting and inflammatory content.

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Where Are the Real People?

Where does sharing our content to share ourselves end and sharing our content to be seen begin?

I am personally someone who has no problem with putting myself out there. Again, with the context of my product based business and how I shared and grew my business through Instagram, monthly markets, and collaborations, I am well-versed in the art of putting myself out there. But what I realized while actively posting on my personal brand’s page is that even if you are creating boundaries by keeping your brand away from facets of the intimate details of your life, it’s still quite hard to truly express yourself as you are still beholden to showing up on social media a certain way, lest you risk not being seen at all.

And let’s be real; what’s the point of showing up on social media at all if it isn’t to be seen in the first place? Why go through that entire humiliation ritual just to not be picked up by the algorithm?

Humor me with a quick thought experiment, will you? Let’s say that you are passionate about ceramics, a craft that you wish to share with the world, and you want to put yourself out there by utilizing Instagram.

You want to share pictures of your ceramic creations, but you quickly realize that simply sharing photos of your craft simply doesn’t provide the eyeballs that video based content provides due to the way that the algorithm has been programmed. You realize that you have to turn to the video format in order to have the best opportunity at crafting the community that you wish to create.

You could go on to YouTube and create videos like “studio vlogs”, but the long form is daunting and takes a lot of time to edit such long videos. Not to mention, YouTube takes a lot more dedication as it takes a longer time to create an audience on that platform.

Sites with shortened forms, such as Instagram or TikTok, are more inviting and user friendly, plus there’s countless guides from internet gurus that claim to have the formula to creating the audience of your dreams, which can thus provide you with the opportunities of your dreams. All you have to do is batch film, edit in a certain way, upload a certain amount of times each week, utilize trends and trending audios, and most importantly stay consistent—lest you upset the algorithm and miss your chance of hitting it big!

The time you dedicate to marketing yourself and putting yourself out there has now been lessened by the choice to go short form, and the techniques and templates keep you full of ideas of how to share yourself effectively, but now you’re truly just another ceramicist on the internet, vying to be picked up by the algorithm.

Here’s a perfect example of someone who has done a year long experiment to mold his form of creation (photography) into a form of expression valued by the algorithm so that he too could take advantage of the opportunities present on the platform in order to grow his photography business. A great watch to understand more of how we contort ourselves and the ways in which we express ourselves for online visibility.

If the form is who you are, then of course you are truly putting yourself out there, but the reality is that there is nothing natural or “like” oneself about sharing videos in this distinct Instagram-esque style in which, yes, you are sharing behind the scenes looks at what it looks like to be engaging in your craft or living your life, but you are also just curating and fabricating the idea of what it looks like to be engaging with and partaking in your craft.

The camera angles, the positioning your body in a certain way, the turning on certain lights so that you look better through the lens, the filming in certain areas over others due to how the background looks behind you, the being dressed in a presentable manner, it’s all the illusion of the scenes behind the craft and it’s such an overlooked and under-referenced concept when we speak of the “fakeness” of social media.

Because yes, of course we’re all just sharing “highlight reels” of our lives, thus showing a version of ourselves and our lives that isn’t real when you boil it down and think about what the entire scope of someone’s life actually looks like, but when you relate it to the creative process and showing up to show that process, I think it genuinely gets muddy on social media when we consider if this content is truly a representation of our selves.

Maybe a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

The turn away from long form videos and the short form of an image into short form video content has truly ruined everything (in my opinion, of course). If a picture was supposed to be worth a thousand words, and videos have the capacity to contain a thousand words, then what worth does a short form video have? It’s nice to have the convenience that the short form gifts us with; quick bites of information, learning about someone’s three year process in one minute, getting a quick synopsis of a book/movie that we may be interested in. But just like at the convenience store, there’s always a fee that you pay from going for the quick, convenient option, and short form content is no different.

The shortened form gives the illusion of having learned so much more than we already have, and in a way, it reduces the potential for further inquiry to deepen our understanding of the topic at hand. If we’ve gleaned everything that is to glean on a topic from a one minute video, and we’re led to believe that that’s all there is to it, then what else is there to wonder about? What else is there to be curious about?

This is where the short form flattens our understanding of the world and of one another, and where we begin to flatten the ways in which we express ourselves online. We cull and snip and trim away the fats of our “process” (take our ceramicist example above, for instance) in order to stay within the guidelines for attaining successes in the digital realm, and in turn we create a product that doesn’t even fully articulate and express ourselves in the end.

I guess one could say the same about any medium, but my distinction is in the opportunity to express oneself. The long form (maybe a YouTube video, or maybe even a Podcast) gives one the opportunity to fully express oneself in your own way. The longform is subjected to an algorithm and a “template”, but that form is so much looser due to the length of the content for the medium. A picture, in the same way, is also subjected to the algorithm but not so much a “template”, as again the medium makes it a bit harder to create an all encompassing form that could please an algorithm and rocket you to the top of your niche.

But the short form is just so much different. It provides us with a shortened medium that allows us the opportunity to copy one another with ease, all to please the algorithm and to achieve the level of visibility that we yearn for. Copying each other’s forms and techniques like this is not an articulation of our selves, this is just us gamifying the system with the context of the subject matter that we’re positioning ourselves as an “expert” in.

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This differs from long form content—take vlogs for example—in which one could of course copy someone else’s thumbnail format, but at the end of the day it would be quite challenging to replicate someone else’s viral 10 minute vlog highlighting their day outside running errands with your 10 minute vlog highlighting your day outside running errands, which is part of why you see so many cries for plagiarism on various short form social media sites (the IGs and TikToks of the world) versus places like YouTube or even Podcast mediums like Spotify or Apple Music. Hell, I don’t think I’ve even heard of someone outright plagiarizing an entire book and having it published. There are stories of lifted passages and ideas, but an entire work being stolen? That is something that keeps the long form or even just a photo a bit more protected from the gamification of short form content that keeps us all ripping off one another incessantly.

The Normalization of it All

There’s nothing normal about posting videos of ourselves lip syncing to songs to get recognition and attention on the crafts we dedicate ourselves to, the businesses we are forging, or the interests we have in the world. Imagine if back in the 2000s when you were a kid watching Nickelodeon (of course considering that you were also kid in that time period) you were met with several ads back to back of people showing off a thing that they had created while lip singing to a random song that was popular on the radio at the time. Wouldn’t that be so bizarre? There’s a somewhat modern form of this dystopian example that I’ve created, and we can turn to the series of ads that T-Mobile created in 2024 for the Super Bowl.

The big difference between my dystopian example and the example above is that the basis of the video is meant to be a Musical themed advertisement, and although the song being utilized is derived from a preexisting song, it’s not only sang by the individuals in the video but the lyrics are written by T-Mobile, thus allowing it to be a parody and it’s own form of original creation. It’s not like they’re lip syncing Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” while waving around wi-fi modems. They’re literally singing a handmade song used to articulate what is being sold in the video.

Then, there’s also the internet trend of showing small clips of moments that are supposed to articulate a “vibe” or convey some sort of “meaning” (this is primarily seen on personal brand pages, but this is also seen sometimes on product based brand pages). I now look at these videos with a level of scrutiny that I didn’t possess until I had tried it out for myself and I grapple with the meaning that is supposed to be made in such a shortened, shallow format. I also see the ways in which it makes sense that rage baiting is used so frequently to force meaning onto such shortened content. Not only is nuance removed, but even the context of the original clip being shown in an inflammatory manner has been removed (and even in some cases, the author of the post will highlight these facts despite having chopped it down and posted it themselves).

And don’t get me started on things like food content in which folks are out here presenting multiple panned clips of the meal at hand, a biting shot, a shot of you approving or disproving the meal, an establishing shot of the restaurant, a far away shot of you at the table eating your meal with your friend (or setting up and sitting at the table at the beginning of the meal), and so on and so forth. Like friends, this isn’t normal! Why are we buying into the performance of social media so hard that we are performing actions like this over and over and over again just to please an algorithm and have the chance at scrumptious, tantalizing internet income. (I recognize that I answered my own question, but my question is why haven’t we even fought back to change the internet “meta” into something that isn’t so performative and instead is more real and indicative of our truest most authentic expression?)

I am spoiled in that I was able to utilize the internet to build my business during a time when it made sense to simply post your products and talk about your products with much less emphasis on following internet trends for traction. Yes, trends existed, but they weren’t your livelihood back then. Nowadays, you really have to leverage trending audios, trending content creation methods, and quality boosting tools to stand out and create an audience that will engage with what you’re sending out into the world. Due to these factors, I view the current state of short form content creation to be one lacking true expression of self, and I also see expression on these platforms primarily as a means of doing what it takes to be visible rather than doing what it takes to show up as ourselves (fully, without guidelines or goalposts).

I know that there will be many people who continue to begin a content creation passion with the goal of making it into a career, and I know that there will continue to be people who are willing to do precisely what it takes to achieve the visibility that they desire, but I do believe that social media is swinging in a direction away from its original vibe—of being odd enough to put yourself onto the world wide web to be seen—and becoming a place where as long as you’re willing to check the boxes and do what is “necessary” in order to be seen, then you’ll be awarded visibility in lieu of anyone who just doesn’t want to play the social media algorithm game.

Welcome to field notes, my casual blogging platform within my Substack Messy Dialectic. If you are looking for refined essays and discourse, check here for the latest posts. If you love rambling, brain dumps, and chit-chats about life experiences, then continue reading on.

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Hmmm. I write all of my pieces well in advance, and I wrote this not knowing that the future held even more war and turmoil. I wrote this originally with ICE and other domestic issues going on, but with what has transpired over the past few days, I think that the message stated in this piece is even more relevant.

When I was in college, I was quite an avid protestor. Even more so, I was a protest photographer with a cheap DSLR equipped with a powerful lens and secret dreams of going into journalism as a photographer. When I learned that the military had photography roles (and continued to get nonstop recruitment emails due to my high grades and indomitable desire to succeed at college LOL), I even considered enlisting to do important photographical work in that manner.

Nowadays, I am much more chronically ill and also in a climate much warmer and less hospitable than the crisp, cool air of the northeast. I personally do not have the gusto to be out in the streets, yelling for justice like I used to, so I choose to optimize my protesting efforts online with boosting, sharing, and even with writing and creating. I know that my audience is still small, but I know that by adding my own non-problematic noise into the airwaves of the internet (which is filled with a lot of problematic nonsense from right wing folks) I am able to contribute to a better world online and offline.

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I know that by working diligently on my books that I one day expect to publish, I am providing fodder for a better, more diverse world of authors as a Black woman. I am working on my social media marketing game as a unique, “alt” Black woman knowing that I can create a special community and corner of the internet perfect for other quirky, nerdy Black women like myself.

I am finding that it’s hard to create art/be creative/write/etc. especially when you’re weaving together worlds of optimism and utopia in today’s climate. I am writing a grandiose Black romance novel as my life is under the backdrop of an encroaching fascist regime, and as I write my philosophical/dialectical pieces online, I think of how regimes always start by harming the academics, trusted sources, and general smart folks of the population. I think about myself and all of the other lovely thinkers on Substack, for instance, and think of how we’re all targets for censorship and oppression as we all sit here writing our nice pieces on this website that, for better or for worse, is committed to completely free speech (for now). I think of how quickly all of that could change, as everything has been changing quite rapidly under our idiot in chief’s command.

I mean, hell, a month from now I might have to scrub away the fact that I typed “idiot in chief”. You might revisit this piece and see giant redacted blocks like this ██ █████ ████ ██ because it turns out that we suddenly can’t say stuff like that without facing persecution anymore. Anything is possible when the Constitution is being treated like a big fat joke.

*sigh*

I think a lot of thoughts on this notion of how we are possibly going to build the world that we hope to live in, but my pessimism kicks in as I see folks pedestalize those who make the best mediocre recreation of something that was already great in the name of getting cool points, and those who are truly all in the game for themselves. We can all be changemakers, but the call for change is always spelled out as such a tall ass order that it keeps people thinking that they can’t be a beacon for pure good, so then people get worn out and do nothing instead. There isn’t as much emphasis placed on simply creating space or taking up space and how much good that does us all as a collective. It’s frustrating.

This was all just a quick, free flowing vent/rant on the awful things going on societally right now. It’s so upsetting because I have a lot of high hopes for society and where we could be, and I try to stay optimistic, but shit is getting insane and I’m just trying to create so that I can add my own balm to a hurting, aching world. I recognize that the world needs art during the revolution, and I recognize that my creation can fuel the rest and relaxation of those who have the gusto to be out on the front lines and put their bodies on the line.

I just want to do my part, no matter how small, to help get us out of this conservative, extremist hellscape.

Introduction

A few weeks ago, I found myself lost on the internet.

In an effort to get inspiration for my wardrobe, life, and general ideas, I had headed over to Pinterest—the mecca for life’s motivational and creative visual needs. While there, I got an ad for these regal journals that I had previously looked into online. I chased this thread by clicking on non-ad posts with similar journal patterns, and ended up on a post about gorgeous vintage book covers.

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From there, I scrolled down and saw several other beautiful book covers that led to me convincing myself that I wanted to inquire about purchasing one of these books. I go on a separate adventure and add some of these vintage books (priced between $120 and $300+) to my wishlist on Etsy and continue my newfound rabbit hole on Pinterest. I now begin researching vintage book cover designs on Pinterest.

In my research, I found these stunning vintage art nouveau graphics of a pear, and research deeper and find this style depicting an array of different fruits and flowers. I reverse Google search these graphics and find that they are scans from a 1909 art workbook called L’ecolier décorateur 2, which was originally utilized as an art workbook for primary school students. The book is only 10 pages total, and features the art of M. Chevry who describes themselves as an “artiste, peintre, professeur”.

This rabbit hole lasted several hours and to be quite honest, it brought me back to when I was a kid, during the peaceful days of the early internet when all I did was play online games, do my homework, and go down deep rabbit holes where I learned so much about history, culture, and the world we live in. It also stumped me in a way, as I couldn’t quite pinpoint when I stopped this practice of diving deep into my topics of interest and began viewing the internet as an entertainment station versus the beacon of information it once was.

As I thought more and more on this topic, I realized that this issue goes further than it all simply being because of our phones, and is more due to modern social media platforms and how we engage with today’s internet.

The Death of Internet Wonder

As examined in a prior Messy Dialectic post, the algorithms on social media platforms work to keep you engaged, scrolling, and sharing, but how does this keep us from investigating and digging deeper into the topics that we are interested in?

Well, data from several investigations notes that 402.74 million terabytes of data are created each day (“created” meaning any data that is is newly generated, captured, copied, or consumed). Social media contributes to 12.69% of this generated data, with 1.7 million pieces of content shared on Facebook alone every single minute.

When looking at the data supplied above, it is no wonder that we all don’t go down rabbit holes like we used to. Where are we to turn when we consistently rely on algorithms to provide us with all the information we could ever need? And secondly, why would we turn elsewhere when there is more information than we could ever need in the present day?

In David Perell’s short essay The Never-Ending Now, he says:

The structure of our social media feeds place us in a Never-Ending Now. Like hamsters running on a wheel, we live in an endless cycle of ephemeral content consumption… Even though on the Internet, we’re just a click away from the greatest authors of all time, from Plato to Tolstoy, we default to novelty instead of timelessness.

We’re trapped in a Never-Ending Now — blind to our place in history, engulfed in the present moment, overwhelmed by the slightest breeze of chaos.

Here’s the bottom line: How can you prioritize the accumulated wisdom of humanity over the impulses of the past 24 hours?

This all gives me pause as I think back to my rabbit hole adventure and the fact that I uncovered a gem from 1909. It makes me think of the last time I consumed a work that wasn’t highlighted on social media or from a time before I was born, and the best I could come up with was around my college days where, of course, professors continuously feed students works from the greats of older times.

We, as a collective, are so tapped into the present. We have unfettered access to our friends, our friends’ friends, and even random strangers we have never met. We know what everyone is eating, thinking, and doing. We have incredible technology that keeps up up to date with everything happening in our home countries and all of the other ones across the world. We know about all of the incredible happenings and creations of the present day and keep ourselves glued to our devices that keep us glued to the present.

So then how can we possibly even begin to define ourselves outside of the confines of the everything that is happening in the present moment, and delve into a curiosity and deepness that transcends the “never-ending” now?

Some social media users seek to combat this by curating listicles of liminal spaces on the internet that allow users to experience the crafty and creative websites that defined the internet user experience of the past (before the social media boom), however, this becomes a double edged sword as users rely on these posts to direct them to the “places to be” rather than taking their own time to find the places that they would like to venture off to. Even in this way, users are relying on others to venture down rabbit holes so that they themselves do not have to put in the effort to create their own discoveries.

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We Have Forgotten How to Do What We Would Like to Do

Diving beneath the surface into a rabbit hole relies on the desire to sink deeper into oneself: deeper within what makes us tick, what makes us curious, and what makes us who we are. Not having the will to delve deep into our curiosities (let alone if we are developing curiosities to begin with) is akin to us drifting further from ourselves. Then, if we are not doing any of this work the develop our relationship with ourselves, then where are we getting the information necessary to make our daily decisions, curate our daily habits, and create our “dream” lives?

As John Washington notes in Stop letting algorithms tell you what music you like:

We’re conditioned to rely on algorithms in enough facets of life now, whether it be in our news, shopping or social media use; it shouldn’t be the case in art.

When everything becomes specially curated “for you,” you become pedestrian in this relationship. You never escape your comfort zone. Anyway, even if you ended up wanting to experiment, you wouldn’t know where to start. An overreliance on algorithms making choices for you leaves you a little less independent.

And, as Muriel Leuenberger notes in an excerpt from "AI Morality" (Oxford University Press, 2024):

Ultimately, relying on AI to tell you who you are and what you should do can stunt the skills necessary for independent self-creation. If you constantly use an AI to find the music, career, or political candidate you like, you might eventually forget how to do this yourself. AI may deskill you not just on the professional level but also in the intimately personal pursuit of self-creation. Choosing well in life and construing an identity that is meaningful and makes you happy is an achievement. By subcontracting this power to an AI, you gradually lose responsibility for your life and ultimately for who you are.

If you are happy with the ideals that the algorithmic overlords are feeding you, then maybe you won’t see a problem with going on autopilot and following the whims of every bit of advice you see on social media. The notions of purchasing this, going to that, or using this app or that may not make you feel as though there is anything wrong with your relationship with the identity that the internet now tells you to become.

In a way, we are a first-of-its-kind generation for what social media and algorithms are doing to us. We are mere guinea pigs who won’t know the lasting effects and deeper implications of allowing our identities to be fine-tuned by technology. This, even more so, when we consider Gen-A and today’s iPad kids whose childhoods have become completely molded by today’s internet.

Only time will tell how these things have impacted all of our minds and ways of showing up in the real world, but for now, I wonder how we can combat the systems that are currently in place. I wonder what we lose by unsubscribing and tapping out of the present day internet content mill, and instead tap deeper into the relics of the real world or even of the internet. I wonder how we can go back to treating life like one big antique shop, seeing opportunities for our next great find at every bookshop (without seeing giant "#BookTok” signs everywhere), through an album (not found through a trending sound), or even in our own closets (with new fits made with old garments), without the interjection of what an algorithm desperately wants us to do.

What then, could we learn about ourselves and the world around us if we made our own personal listicles of things that we enjoy exploring or diving deeply into?

Bringing Back the Deep Dive

There are many websites that we can use now that can help us to tap back into the “good old days” of curiosity that used to prevail on the internet. Because, as we know, we all not-so-secretly yearn for many elements of the past, there are already many communities and tools that are helping us to reconnect and provide a sense of familiarity to the old days of collecting our favorite digital objects. There is of course, Pinterest or even Tumblr, the holy grails for roaming the web and saving random images that spark joy, but there is also Cosmos which is a more robust and elegant Pinterest alternative for finding visual inspiration.

But maybe you want to go deeper. Maybe, you don’t want to just be on the surface of a rabbit hole, maybe you want to seek deeper and deeper as a reflective practice that can send you back to your deepest self.

For this, you may envision yourself collecting links/images and attaching various notes or thoughts or even building your own personal wiki from your findings. For this, the kind gardeners at r/digitalgardens highlight tools like Obsidian, Fabric.so, Are.na, Notion, Milanote, or Raindrop.io. I myself am currently building my own gardening personal wiki on Notion called the “Gardening Compendium” where I an digitally storing all of the information I am learning about gardening, and am also leaving space to record my personal gardening log of experiences. For more coding heavy digital gardens, you can always use Neocities which allows for full creative control for your digital garden masterpiece.

Or, maybe you would even choose to use Substack for this, and to be honest I would say that Messy Dialectic in itself is its own version of a digital garden as I discuss, link, and highlight all of the topics that I’m interested in delving deeper into as an extension of myself.

If you would prefer to go low tech, then there is always the humble Commonplace book which of course can have a digital form, but is based on an analog form featuring a journal, notebook, or even a deck of cards that stores any collection of knowledge and reflections. It’s meant to be a catch-all for your thoughts and ideas, and works great conceptionally to store your digital and physical findings.

But even without the use of tech or fancy websites, you can always take a moment to look something up, and engage in research on any topic that helps you to learn more about what the topics you’re interested in. You can always go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of curiosity, knowing that exploring your curiosities will always allow you to learn more and more about the fullest extensions of yourself.

This practice, forever allowing you to connect deeper with the world around us.

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If you know me, then you know that I have been through an insane amount of stuff in the entirety of my life. In the interest of not trauma dumping and oversharing two decades of insanity in one post, you’ll simply have to trust me when I say that my life has truly been filled to the brim with misadventures and unfortunate circumstances until about a few months ago.

Being as young as I am while having gone through so much awful stuff, it’s a tough place to be as my ultimate goal has become harm reduction and “protecting my peace” (as people say these days), and in order to achieve these two goals, I have definitely taken many steps to isolate myself from situations that have burned me in the past. However, a new issue replaced all of my old ones: that methodology led to me creating a very sterile life that, yes, protected my peace, but also kept me from living my life and enjoying activities that I had been curious about pursuing in the first place.

That’s when I knew that I had to reframe and overwrite everything that had originally deterred me from my desires in the first place.

I’m currently doing this by (finally) joining other French enthusiasts (or Francophiles) in practicing speaking French. So far, it has been a total breath of fresh air. It pales in comparison to every other experience that I had growing up and doing French 1, 2, and 3 in high school in which I was met with some sort of nonsense from both teachers and students for being a Black girl in French class, and that as a Black woman, I suppose that the only language I am “allowed” to know is English.

Despite that awful experience, I am now immersed in this community of extremely kind individuals, from young adults to the older folks, who simply want to practice speaking a language that greatly interests them.

I can’t quite pinpoint where my love and interest in the French language comes from. Maybe it’s from when I learned as a child that my side of the family is Creole and then further learned of its proximity to French-ness, or perhaps it’s from me being shaped by those images from the early 2000s that depicted waif thin girls in Paris with shopping bags, coffees, and chic outfits. Hell, it might even be from seeing so much Parisian paraphernalia in Walmart and Michaels as a child (does anyone else remember seeing an abundance of Eiffel Tower paperweights and journals with Parisian bakeries on them in the 2000s? I know it’s not just me).

But what I know for a fact is that two decades have passed and I am still enamored by this imagery and this idea that I, too, could one day speak French and step into any of these images (minus the waif thin quality of course).

My last French class was in 2014, and I was more than happy to finally be done with that chapter of my life. Finally done with the shame of being a Black girl who was, yes, beyond proficient at English but seen as stupid for having only known one language while also being shamed for attempting to learn another, finally done with being ogled for being a Black girl in a language class even though I had to choose a language to graduate anyway, and away from the teachers who judged me for not catching on to the language as fast as my peers who already knew two languages, thus making the concepts of French (like conjugations and the fact that all words are gendered and you do have to keep that in mind when utilizing the language) a much easier concept for them than it did for me.

Once I got to college, I threw away any notion of learning any language. I even threw away an opportunity to learn ASL (another interest of mine at the time) at the collegiate level simply because of my rough experiences in high school and the impact that those experiences had on me.

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But I don’t know. Something clicked in my mind—now a whole decade after my last French class—that has just kept dragging me back to French. It’s just like people always say these days: the process of growing and aging and healing happily is just you walking back to yourself and finding yourself through all the muck of what the world has tried to convince you to be. And for some reason, I have suddenly felt this pull back to myself despite my fierce desire to run far, far away from those days of being teased and tormented.

So, I did it. I reopened Duolingo for the first time in well over a year (which the app was sure to let me know lol), and I brushed up on my French fundamentals. Shockingly enough, I remember more than I thought I would. Simultaneously, my French interest group (that I have been in for years without having attended a single session, mind you) created a new meeting time that worked much better for me, and I forced myself to attend.

As mentioned above, the folks who I met were just so nice and incredible and welcoming. They were really helpful and definitely helped with all the nervousness that I was experiencing at the time, given that I hadn’t practiced speaking French with someone in a decade. Funnily enough, I did end up forgetting a lot of the words that I knew because of how nervous I was, but I know that in time I’ll be able to recall my vocab much better.

It was all just such a total shock to my system, and it really made me realize how important it is to allow yourself to rewrite the awful things that we’ve experienced in life.

In the same way that I shouldn’t stop eating at all restaurants simply because of a bad experience at one (or several), I also shouldn’t forgo a whole interest of mine simply because people had ruined that for me for three whole years.

Looking back, I think that the whole three years part was one of the biggest deterrents to me further pursing something that could potentially result in a potential three more years of suffering, but now that I was brave enough and allowed this experience to redeem my impression of what my life could look like as a Francophile, I can now enjoy a lifetime of casually enjoying this interest that refuses to leave my side.

I wonder what I’ll retry next.

Introduction

I had the pleasure of reading The Bennet Women by Eden Appiah Kubi last month, and I would love to share my thoughts about the book with you all. This book is a modern take on the well known and well loved novel Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, and honestly, I didn’t realize it until I read the book’s bio after starting it. Reasonably so, I don’t like to read too much into books as it can spoil the experience of discovering a story on my own, but I did have a creeping feeling that I was “missing something important” as I began reading The Bennet Women. Once I saw that it was an adaptation of the story, it made much more sense.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember too much of Pride & Prejudice. I read the book and watched the movie too young to have many core memories of the plot or characters, however I do remember the core plot which is revolves around Elizabeth Bennet and Mr.Darcy’s tumultuous love story.

Overall, the book was really incredible! It was slow to start, but as the story progressed, I began to fall in love with the characters, their aspirations, and their love stories. Considering how it is an adaptation of a classic work by a white author, it made me think further on the topic of Black media, diversity, and the landscape of entertainment in the modern day.

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Original Works vs Modern Adaptations

“Black Versions” of media have always existed in the entertainment sphere. From Brandy playing Cinderella alongside a diverse ensemble to Halle Bailey playing Ariel, in many ways we have all come into some sort of contact with a Black individual playing a traditionally or historically “white” role.

Although white individuals continue to play the roles of those who are blatantly BIPOC without a hitch, even the casting of Black individuals in mythological, sci-fi, or fantasy roles is still frowned upon due to the white-adjacent preconceptions attached to these genres. As a result of Black (or even BIPOC) folks continuously being cast in these roles, there has been an outcry for Hollywood to cease with the casting of melanated individuals in these roles and instead create original works that have diverse casts instead. That way we could—as some describe it—actually have progressive works in media, rather than writing over an old work in the name of diversity.

However, the answer to cultural inequalities in the entertainment industry is not as cut and dry as simply creating more original works for Black/BIPOC individuals to star in. Take for instance this short video which sums up the issue succinctly:

Despite this video being 13 years old, the sentiment carried is still quite relevant. Although more original Black works have come out since the creation of this video, there is still an overwhelming diversity issue in Hollywood that is continuously being rectified with the occasional casting of a Black individual in a “white” role. With racial biases still governing an industry that takes millions of dollars to create each product, it is simply not an easy decision for any executive to grant that level of funding to original Black works. However, it will always be easier to invest in Black castings for preexisting “white” media as there is already some sort of fanbase attached to it that validates its potential as a money making opportunity.

Although these castings are not curing the world of racism per-say, they still hold their own ground as a strategy to be used for increasing diversity and inclusion on the big screens.

The Skillful Retelling of a Classic Story — The Diversification of "White Media"

Although The Bennet Women doesn’t feature an entirely Black ensemble, it features a Black character as “Elizabeth Bennet” who is originally white in Jane Austen’s text Pride & Prejudice. After looking over the characters in the Austen text against the characters in the Kubi text, I feel as though Elizabeth Bennet and Mr.Darcy’s stories are the focal point of the adaption with all of the other characters (like Jamie and Tessa) being additions that Eden Appiah Kubi crafted to create a world that is truly her own within a story that is truly as old as time.

This personal touch truly helps The Bennet Women to stand out from a crowd of media seemingly “forced” to be diverse, and transforms the book into a story that lovingly appears to be a work that stands on its own easily.

I never fell into any particular camp that was for or against the diversification of media by way of changing white characters to Black/BIPOC ones, however, this book definitely taught me that there is a certain tactfulness that one could possess that could really let a story shine without the focus being on the fact that it is an adaption of a so-called “white” classic.

Not to mention, the touches that made “the Bennets” an all women’s school, along with a transgender bestie and a plus sized Asian bestie? And then the fact that they all had very distinctive struggles in love and relationship and all sought to handle them in different ways that were akin to their individual personalities? Not to mention the conversations that Elizabeth, or EJ, has to tackle with her family and her school advisor as she prepares for her post-graduate future? There were just so many great touches that made this a coming of age story that is now a classic in my own personal home library.

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The Future of Black Artwork & Media

As social media allows for an “open access” of sorts for regular folks like you and I to ascend to greater heights, Black individuals are using these new tools for success to create and pave their own fame and fortunes. With this, there are so many new independent, traditional, and self-published creations with Black and diverse teams and castings. Take for example Kiana Khansmith, a Japanese and Jamaican Storyboard Artist & Director, who has taken the blerd/nerd side of the internet by storm with her pilot episode of “Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl”:

Or, maybe even Jacque Aye who has published several books that center Black characters in worlds that are typically viewed as “white”, such as fantasy.

There are so many more examples of how people are pushing the envelope and creating works of art that feature Black and other BIPOC characters in new and exciting ways. I am entirely optimistic about the future of Black media, and while I recognize that we have far to go before things are perfect, we have to take the wins where we have them and then use our time and energy to simply continue to progress towards our goals.

Further Reading:

Ghost in the Shell’s whitewashing: does Hollywood have an Asian problem?

Whitewashing v. Blackwashing: Structural Racism and Anti-Racist Praxis in Hollywood Cinema

Now that my health has improved (I, too, acquired the big flu of January 2025), my new home is finally unpacked, and I have officially settled in to my new spot, I have decided that I am finally ready to begin my “new year”. Although I began at the mid/end of February, what matters most of course is that I started at all. However, this new growth journey is much different than my prior ones.

I don’t know if it’s the prefrontal cortex development, or maybe my brain chemistry shifted after the shitshow that was 2024, but growth in this current stage of my life is actually consisting of pains. This is the first time in my life that I have experienced “growing pains”, and I now understand the true meaning of the phrase.

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It’s like when you’re a kid and your favorite pair of shoes suddenly pinch your toes due to your body rapidly growing and developing into its teenage form, resulting in you having no choice but to get new shoes. Sure, you can keep those outgrown shoes in a corner of your room so that you can admire a style you once donned, but after a while you realize that you had to get new shoes anyway, and that those old shoes are never going to fit you again.

(this is not about shoes, however I did go through this exact thing when I was a kid and it did suck. if you’re curious, it was about these shoes right here. this is the only set of photos I could find of them, but if anyone is able to find more lmk!)

I have gotten to this point with my growth in which I’m realizing that everything that I want to have or experience in life is on the other side of many of the habits and tendencies that I currently exhibit, and it fuckin’ sucks.

If I want to write that book, I simply have to live life differently than the me of yesterday who does not have the habits or discipline necessary to write that book. If I want to stay healthy as I continue to age (I am already beginning to feel it in my knees. Yes, I’m freaking out about it), I simply have to live life differently than the me of yesterday who phones in working out every time I begin to show results. If I want cool experiences and opportunities, I simply have to live life differently than the me of yesterday who played smaller and safer. If I want to make a living “existing”, I simply have to live life different than the me of yesterday who feels like everyone else deserves to live big, grandiose lives doing whatever they want, while I am only to do what is traditional (and thus what doesn’t work for me), practical, and common. The life that I desire quite literally requires me to change on a fundamental, cellular level that I am witnessing the progress of every single day.

This shit is really fuckin’ me up man.

When I first brought up these revelations of how I have to push myself outside of the comfort zones in every aspect of my life to my therapist, she looked at me with a concern that I had never seen her face me with before. It then occurred to me that this was the first time in our several years’ relationship that I had truly exhibited anxiety. I am typically such a confident person. On first glance I know that I appear confident. I dress confidently, I stand tall, I speak to others confidently, I write authentically, and so on. For all intents and purposes, I am a “confident” person. However, what these growing pains have taught me is that I am not confident in the parts of my being that would propel me towards the life that I want to live.

I think I got comfortable in all of these ways in which I show up in life (which is already quite a lot, especially considering my lovely history of traumas and such), and couldn’t see the ways in which I was holding myself back by sticking to those habits in lieu of adopting new ones that would accelerate me towards my desires. The issue, though, is that I am at a point in life where the adoption of new positive habits would forcibly take me out of my current goalpost of surviving, and take me towards a brand new frontier: thriving.

For me, this is mortifying.

Thriving asks of true vulnerability and authenticity. Thriving requires of you to have an ironclad discipline towards the acquisition of your desires. Thriving means being the absolute fullest extension of yourself (something that I believed I was doing, but have now come to realize that I was far from doing).

I have spent all 27 years of my life surviving. It’s something that I believe that I’m truly a master at. In a way, it’s like I’ve achieved the maximum level on the Game of Surviving Life, and there’s literally no more game to play. There’s no endgame, there’s no new game +, there’s no DLC, nothing. I can continue running around the map in circles, maybe continue to live the same-old-same-old quests and journeys, but it will never progress me further than where I am now.

In the end, I have to take out the cartridge and load in an entirely new game: The Game of Thriving Throughout Life.

It is truly uncharted territory for me, and as I spoke about this in therapy, my therapist fed me with so many affirmations and compliments on the progress I’ve done thus far with this whole growth journey that I knew that she knew that I was freaking the hell out.

The worst part of it all? I know good and well that I can never go back. It’s like this deep inner knowing that the “shoes” of my past literally don’t fit, so unless I want to wear them and hobble around uncomfortably, I quite literally have to make a change. I have to get new shoes.

It makes me feel like I’m being kicked out in a way, but instead of me being kicked out and lost, I have a path available for me to traverse in the meantime. It’s dark and uncertain, but I either travel this path or bang on the door for a life that I cannot fit into any longer.

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When I talk to my girls (hey gworls~) it makes this sensation even worse.

One of my girls just got an incredible artist residency opportunity that would allow her to be connected with incredible artists in the city, a whole group show opportunity, and also she’ll have a cozy, dedicated space to commit to her furthering her craft. Another one of my girls has been so irritated and frustrated with her current job that I just know that she’s on the cusp of leaving them in the dust to pursue something that rightfully pays much more for the labor that she puts into her career responsibilities (she doesn’t know it yet, but I manifest this for her constantly). A wellness girlie of mine finally attained a recurring weekly (and sometimes multiple times a week) venue for her sound bowl meditations, allowing her a beautiful and crisp atmosphere for her healing arts. A girlie who I have been less connected with these few months came to me and mentioned that she’s starting a whole journaling series at a cozy, local, bookstore bar (which is so cool might I add!!). Another girlie just won a grant (!!!) to pursue her desire to spread knowledge about cybersecurity to the general public so that they can be more protected during their digital adventures!

At the same time, I am being showered by the people on my friends list with so much love and genuineness. I’m being invited to things I am actually interested in—which of course requires people to understand me—meaning that I am finally being understood. I am finally feeling like I fit in somewhere on this planet, and the feeling is so overwhelming.

The love, bravery, and positivity beamed from all of these individuals however comes with a distinct choice that I have to continuously make. Do I choose to move forward with them, or do I choose to go back to where things feel comfortable and safe? Do I put a magnifying glass on my most authentic self and continue to share her with the girls (and the world!), or do I pinch and shrink her until she is tucked under the folds of what could have been?

Obviously the wise answer is to continue to move forward, even if all of my friends have to drag me there whilst I kick and scream of course. But it’s all still so awfully terrifying and feels so nauseating. It’s even nauseating to imagine that all of the things I desire are simply within the grasp of the choices that I choose today, and tomorrow, and then the next day, and then the day after that. It is, and always has been, that simple. As long as I keep making the choice and moving towards what I desire, it will all end up working out for my higher good regardless. All I have to do is continue to do the work. The hard, hard, work. No matter how much it hurts me.

What terrible news.

Introduction

Here we are, post-election, post-new years, and post-super bowl, and one thing remains abundantly clear to me: we will all continue to be one another’s downfall in the grand scheme of “progress”.

It has been fascinating to watch think pieces and videos crop up about Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance and observe the stark differences between those who are finding meaning in every millisecond of his performance, and those who believe that his performance simply isn’t adequate enough in the name of advancing Black folks and other POC in today’s grim America.

Typically, we ascribe such rigidity in beliefs and extremist ideals with those with right-leaning ideologies, but it has been interesting to watch those who identify as progressive, liberal, or left-leaning in general rip Lamar’s performance and his credibility as a change-maker to pieces simply because he’s wealthy and has maintained his wealth after his so-called “revolutionary” performance. Therefore, his efforts are null and void as he simply did not rebel hard enough to “truly” make a difference.

As the saying goes, I believe we have truly “lost the plot”, and in this piece I will be discussing the new plot that seems to be at play and how we could potentially course-correct ourselves back to an existence that continues to advance all of us no matter how long it takes to achieve extensive progress.

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The Goody-Two-Shoes-ism of it All — Puritanism & Self-Righteousness

I think that by historically being on the right side of history, people of color, especially women of color, find it harder to allow individuals to just show up as they are without grossly criticizing them.

We’ve mastered the art of uplifting those who work to call out and highlight the racial injustices that continue to harm the Black community, and we’ve also worked hard to call out those who disrupt the Black community from within the Black community. But now, there is this increase in calling out those who are not up to par with the standards of perfection that seems to be set up as a reflection of if someone is “truly” a part of a movement or if someone “truly” cares about a cause. We’ve entered an era where we are all continuously having our rebellious “gangsta” tested by those who believe that they are the spokespeople for all of our progress.

I curiously watched Kendrick Lamar’s Superbowl performance live just in case he did something so outrageous that it got taken off the air (which ultimately did not happen), but I was happy to see clever symbolism and references that allowed him to make his revolutionary points whilst staying on air. The immediate references that I had caught were the American flag being divided, the all Black dance crew, Samuel Jackson playing “Uncle Sam”, and the reference to “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” at the beginning of the performance. To me, it felt like Kendrick made his point, and made it well at that. I felt like he did what he could as a Black celebrity who was given this opportunity to perform on a stage viewed by a worldwide audience.

What happened next truly shocked me. Waking up the next day and seeing these opinions floating around that devalued his performance strictly because of his millionaire status (with many incorrectly calling him a billionaire to fit this narrative that his contributions are null and void due to his well-off status) was very shocking. Many critique that since his “revolutionary act” allowed him to keep his fame and riches in a world where the poor continue to struggle and the rich continue to prosper, it was simply not “revolutionary” enough and was nothing more than a “minstrel” dancing for the white man.

Considering that we still live in a world where rich Black folks are still subject to police brutality, I think it’s fair to have a bit of nuance and understand that Kendrick probably knows that his identity as a Black man takes precedent over his status of wealth, and that ultimately he can’t use the Super Bowl as a playground for his revolutionary concepts and ideas. He unfortunately, just like us “common folk”, has to combine his artistry and emotions with a tactfulness that allows his message to remain widespread and received by the world.

He could always make the same mistakes that he made during his Grammys performance in 2016 in which he performed a powerful piece that featured himself and his dance crew in chains and even a freestyle about Trayvon Martin. This performance, although powerful and blunt in its approach, has led to it being wiped from the internet, which is why I have linked a recap video from AJ+ as opposed to the actual performance. It is nearly impossible to find, and every time I find a video, I come back to it having disappeared shortly after.

I understand why an in-your-face approach is the most desired approach from onlookers, especially when we take into consideration the decrease in critical thinking skills, reading and comprehension skills, and even in patience. The blunter the message, the more disruption is caused, the easier it is to understand, and the sooner we reach salvation, right? But when it comes to matters involving art, it is simply not as cut-and-dry as throwing resistance into someone’s face and getting the outcome we desire.

We may have this perceived notion that a fierce and assertive approach is exactly what’s going to cure us of our societal ailments, but the reality is that such an aggressive approach is more likely to be taken down (like Kendrick Lamar’s 2016 Grammys performance) or cause the artist in question to have a harder time securing opportunities that would allow them to spread their messaging in the future.

On the same accord, I understand that it is only human nature that would cause tensions towards those who do not get-in-and-fit-in with these puritan standards. It only makes sense that the discontent that we all feel in today’s jacked-up whacked-up societal, political, economic, environmental, (and so on) climates is what’s causing us all to become more extreme both in our views about the government and about one another’s adherence to certain views or values. But when it comes to the fight for progress, it would benefit all of us to take a step back, take a breather, and recognize that none of us are perfect, let alone perfect revolutionaries.

Revolutionaries Don’t Take Vacations

When the holier-than-thou call the shots, there is no room for error, emotion, or ease. If you do not do something “perfectly” enough, then you simply haven’t done it at all.

Take for instance, the Black women and Starbucks boycott situation. As the election season came to a close and demographic stats and interviews were released, an uproar occurred as individuals on the internet began to parse through the information.

One particular graphic that caused an uproar online was the one above, which was widely shared and being touted as a screenshot showing the exact data for how everyone voted in the 2024 election. In the same timeframe, an article and several videos were released on social media that showed several Arab Americans detailing their reasons for choosing Trump in this election. To sum up the sentiment in many of these videos, it appears that this was primarily done to spite Democrats and out of their rationale that to them, Trump would do more for Palestinians and for Americans as a whole in comparison to anyone affiliated with the Biden-Harris platform.

Despite the graphic above actually being an exit poll from 22,966 randomly selected individuals across the country “conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool consortium of ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News”, the internet took this idea that this was an exact depiction of how all Americans voted, and with the Arab American interviews fanning the flames, a new movement was birthed online: the 92% movement.

The 92% movement derives its namesake from the 92% of Black women in the exit poll who noted that they voted for Kamala. The movement is about allowing Black women to center themselves for the next four years (and even beyond that if they so choose) without feeling peer pressured to be a part of any movement or revolution that could cause harm or disrupt one’s peace. It encourages Black women to step back, recharge, and enjoy life without running into the fray to become a revolutionary again.

In addition to this sentiment being widely adopted on social media, there was also an uprising of Black women expressing discontent that other racial demographics did not show up in the name of progress the way that Black women collectively did. Due to this, many Black women decided that they would no longer boycott businesses like Starbucks, and many more would even choose to go as far as publicly supporting Starbucks in order to spite the Arab Americans who purposefully voted for Trump in an attempt to spite the Democratic party. This is due to the incorrect and widely held notion spreading on social media that states that Starbucks directly supports Israel, and thus supports the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

Very soon after, there was a surge in new think pieces centered around chastising and reprimanding the Black women and Black men who had decided to renege on their commitment to boycotting businesses like Starbucks, and even more think pieces about how this caffeine riddled injustice now means that those individuals “never supported Palestine to begin with”, but not very many think pieces cropped up that gave grace to Black women and men’s anger and grief in this situation.

What makes it worse is that due to these belittling pieces, a new rhetoric began to spread in which Black folks began noting that they no longer cared if Palestine was “turned into a parking lot,” or they noted how they were sure that “oceanfront property” would be “beautiful” at this time of year, due to their invalidated anger alchemizing into a vitriolic hatred that made them too frustrated to continue to fight for a movement that they were becoming gatekept out of.

Social media (especially TikTok) moves very quickly, leaving us little time to give situations the nuance and consideration that they deserve. To this day, I haven’t seen any new ideas or thoughts regarding this situation, and it appears that everyone is rigidly in their camp of emotions with little capacity for further understanding and compassion.

I haven’t seen many trending think pieces that hold those accountable who have created a notion that both candidates carried the same risks and issues for the American people and the world at large. I haven’t seen a balanced think piece go viral that allows Black women and men to grieve and express their disappointment through the means of drinking their Starbucks coffee. I haven’t seen a widespread notion that expresses that maybe one small infraction—the size of a large cup of coffee perhaps—does not negate how much one truly cares about a cause or a societal issue, and that when one is ready and feeling better, they can jump right back into the fight just as they did prior, and that maybe this break will allow them to fight with a strength that they didn’t have before.

As someone who doesn’t drink Starbucks anyway due to me not enjoying their products or practices, I did wonder how I too would express my discontent and remove it from my nervous system. I opted for talking to my Black homegirls and also speaking in a post-election open-forum and aired out my grievances in safe spaces that held my anguish and did not invalidate how I felt (despite one moderator getting very close to doing so). It is only human to be so upset when you’re let down, and it feels even worse when it feels like the world—especially those who you were working hard to protect—has let you down too.

Being someone who cares about Palestine and who also feels the immense weight of disappointment about this election, I have to wonder: are we really basing the depth and extent of one’s care about a cause on… rebelliously drinking coffee? When we know good and well that drinking coffee is not how we got here as a society, is this really the hill that we feel we must die on to achieve progress as a people?

By being so rigid with these self-imposed rules of what it means to be a “proper” revolutionary, we lock people out of having the opportunity to even care about the matters at hand. We also disregard the reality that at the end of the day, we’re all human, and we should use that knowledge to find common ground rather than to discover “perfect revolutionaries” who will then be deemed worthy of credit for their efforts towards bettering the world, while tearing down everyone who doesn’t meet those unnecessarily rigid standards.

In a future piece, I will discuss more about the 92% movement, its progression from centering Blackness to developing into a space being widely criticized, and what the movement as a whole says about the immense visibility of Black pain and suffering and how Black individuals are expected to deal with it.

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Reframing Progress — There Are No Perfect Martyrs

To close this topic and keep things as optimistic as possible (as optimism in itself is a revolutionary act), I want to start by offering up some realities that might help to reframe the game of “progress” and how we could achieve our good-intentioned societal goals. I think that at the end of the day, we have to remember that “The United States of America” is still a young, young country in comparison to other countries to our East and West. We have to remember that Black women barely got the right to vote after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. We have to remember that Ruby Bridges, the first African-American to attend an all-white elementary school in the South, is only 70 years old at the time of writing this blog post.

We have attained a lot of progress in the name of bettering this country in the past 100 years, but considering that the United States barely declared independence from Britain in 1776 (a mere 249 years ago), it just goes to show that we have so much farther to go before we reach the idyllic post-racist, post-worrisome, post-nonsense society that is wholly possible in this universe. When imagining what is possible with regards to drifting towards progress, we have to acknowledge, at some point, that we have truly only just gotten started. To be able to withstand going that kind of distance, we need patience and the acknowledgement that it will take time to get there.

The progress we seek may lie several hundred years in the future, and as much as we want to see every little box ticked off in our own lifetime so that we may bear witness to it ourselves, we have to be patient and acknowledge that progress never happens on our schedule. It happens when favorable conditions collude with luck and together, conceive a new means of existence.

When looking at Black celebrities or superstars who don’t perfectly show up the way that we may want or need them to, I want us to take a step back, and take their accomplishments and efforts as strides towards a better future. I want us to have more control in our own agency as consumers, and recognize that we can always choose to focus less on those individuals, just as they can choose what they want to use their influence on. I want us to take charge and use our influence to fuel the lives that we want to live. Instead of spending so much time nitpicking and punching sideways, we should all be punching up towards the institutions and systems that got us here in the first place.

I’m not saying that we should allow rich Black folks to commit crimes without facing any consequences, support problematic (or even unproblematic) Black celebrities just because of their race, or allow questionable behavior from Black superstars to go unchecked. However, I do think that we should check ourselves and be open to acknowledge when Black celebrities are doing their best—or the best that they wish to do—and acknowledge progress where it exists, instead of creating the crime of imperfection for those who do not don a cape to save us from a system that they did not create (and in many cases, a system that they are still not a part of even with their notoriety and millions of dollars).

We all have a role to play in the pursuit of progress, and there is no one person who is meant to wear all of the hats of a revolutionary. For many of us, the only hat we may wear is the one that involves us changing the way that we think or act, and allowing that change to change our personal world, which in turn can change the world at large.

That act in itself is revolutionary, and can be caused by those who show the ways in which they lead revolutionary day to day lives. From this, one could cause more and more ripple effects that can allow for more of us to see the ways in which we can evoke change in our own lives, and thus in our own communities.

Further reading:

• Boycotting Target because of its DEI policies is going to hurt. That’s the point.

• Suffering May Lead to Extreme Political Beliefs

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2024 was a year of few ups, and several intense downs. Downs so intense that I became doomed to never return to the state that I was prior to the year’s existence. I can say that from these many downs, I certainly learned a lot, but what shocked me most were my revelations on depression.

I started the year with the loss of my cat, the loss of a couple of opportunities, and a betrayal that rocked me to my core. Now that nearly a year has passed since that betrayal, I have realized that it was depression in the form of anger that had metabolized into the form of depression as a result of my anger having no choice but to be stuffed down and swallowed into the days and months that had followed.

In the middle of the year, I felt the ebbs and flows of grief as life continued to go on after the loss of my childhood cat; the loss of my first best friend. Everything that I had ever done was punctuated by her existence, so I felt lost as I tried partaking in my habits and living my life without her presence. With everything in my life, I’ve had to remake every single habit from scratch to accommodate for a world in which she no longer exists, and the toll that it has taken to start my life over has weighed on me heavily. That in itself was its own form of depression.

Then, my birthday came, and it was my first birthday without my lil baby, but also my first birthday trip (and first vacation in the first place to be honest). I had decided to go camping, and at the end of my trip I had experienced “post vacation depression” which left me crying every single day for a couple of days. It really messed with my head, and left me wondering if I ever wanted to go on vacation ever again at the risk of feeling that heart wrenching pain again. I still remember how upset I was packing everything up and doing the three hour drive back home, only to just sit still on my couch in a heap of sadness from the end of my off-the-grid adventure. Now that a few months have passed, I can say with confidence that I will certainly go on vacation again. I can just go now with the knowledge of the sad feelings that will inevitably come at the end of the adventure.

At the end of 2024, I moved into my new spot (yay!) that I love dearly. It’s incredibly spacious and a great upgrade that’ll lend itself perfect for all of the life changes coming my way. But wow, here I was yet again, floored by depression. It was from this move that I learned about “relocation depression,” a phenomenon that I had never heard of or anticipated. From what I learned, it’s essentially a form of depression that is not classified in the DSM-5 that relates to you simply getting depression symptoms from moving into a new home/space/etc. It doesn’t matter if the move is good for you, if you’re excited, or even if it was a dire move that needed to happen. The relocation depression can still get you, and it can definitely debilitate you, take it from me.

In 2024, I learned that apparently, you can get depression from literally anything.

Any life change, good or bad, can cause you to fall victim to a sort of sadness that unfortunately, our human brain worms do like to feed on and use as information relating to the situation that currently in. Then, if we don’t fight against the sadness (of course as much as we can in the moment, I know it’s hard at times) and we just believe in what our brain worms are telling us, then that can serve to amplify the sadness that we’re feeling, and in turn make our lives even more upsetting or stressful.

These learnings really shocked me, and have definitely made me realize that going into 2025, I need much more stability in my life, but not just any stability. I need stable joys that I can depend on especially as I am architecting my new year to be a year of metamorphosis into the creative woman who I have deep-down aspired to be ever since I was a little girl. I do fear that all of this rapid and intense transformation and change will cause my being to falter and crumble at times due to how much our human brains love sameness, so I hope to get into some really good habits that keep me filled with a nice steady dopamine release that keeps me going as I work on myself.

I’m really excited about where I’ll be by the end of 2025, and I can’t wait to see all of my creative ideas and projects through. It’s gonna be really incredible, I just know it.

Please note: This post is too long for email, which means that it may cut off at the end if you prefer to read through that medium. Please be sure to check out the post on Substack to ensure that you’re able to read the full post. Enjoy!

Introduction

Back in 2019, I started my business as a solution to the crappy job market that I had graduated into. It was a skincare business that I solely began because making skincare is something that I knew that I could both do, and do well due to my years of making skincare to heal my chronic, painful, cystic acne, so it felt like an easy choice to make money as I navigated my post-grad unemployment. In addition, it doesn’t make it any better that COVID began soon after I had graduated and started my business, thus locking me in to being an entrepreneur for that time.

From 2019-2022, I ran quite the solo-business. I was formulating and making high quality skincare products from scratch, earning interviews in publications, made it to the semi-final round of a Black business owner grant, and even got a Black Friday business roundup feature in Yahoo! Finance. In this time, I was coding and programming my website, allegedly sneaking my catalogue of products into Ikea and doing full on photoshoots to navigate my lack of investments or funding, graphic design-ing all of my product labels and boxes, and researching actual scientific papers as part of the R&D for my products. I was electric.

Then, 2022 hit, and I honestly began to lose steam. Running a business at such a high caliber with all of the chaos that was going on in my life began to weigh on me, and I went on an indefinite hiatus that I remain on to this day.

As I went through the months (and now years) of my hiatus, I felt through all of the motions of being a business owner. I had incredibly high-highs, and upset, disappointing lows. I had customers yelling at me to “do better” by creating more organic and sustainable products and to “add X type of product” to my line, while also being begged to not discontinue or reformulate other products.

It taught me a lot about sustainable business practices, people pleasing, the entire product development process, and also taught me a lot about the true monetary value of the products that we can buy at our favorite stores and on our favorite websites.

Since my days as an artisan, I have grown many thoughts about today’s up-and-coming entrepreneurs and influencer businesses, from how they’re ran from a customer service standpoint, to an manufacturing and marketing standpoint. In addition, I’ve also curiously watched the ways in which the public has responded to some influencer products over others and have found so many fascinating similarities to this modern age of influencer products versus the old school days of the celebrity product.

It is certainly interesting and worth examining as online businesses take over store shelves in even clandestine ways that would never make you guess that an online figure was behind the product all along.

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Steeped in Greed & Vitriol—How Dare You Criticize My Business

Despite the “personality” and “relatability” that separates old school celebrities from today’s influencer, influencers seem determined to traverse the same monetary bounds that celebrities charge through as part of their “celebrity” title. We see this time and time again as influencers continue to release products that, typically, have nothing to do with their core branding or audience. At this point, it seems to be a rite of passage to create a business or release a product (or two, or even three) that solidify the fact that you have “made it” as an influencer.

Take for instance, Pokimane’s Myna Cookies, Ryan Trahan’s Joyride Sweets, Emma Chamberlain’s Chamberlain Coffee, or the countless other influencer products that plague the market. It’s bad enough that influencers are following the same plight as celebrities by oversaturating markets and releasing random products that no one asked for, but it makes it worse when you realize that these influencers are also doing this as a profitable business opportunity rather than for the love of the craft.

Influencer businesses like Lunchly come to mind immediately when thinking of influencer brands that exist simply to maximize profit margins. KSI and Logan Paul’s PRIME has combined together with Mr.Beast’s Feastables bar to create Lunchly, a modern competitor to the Lunchables meal kit.

On the surface, this appears to be a potentially positive thing, especially since competition can be great for society, but the problem comes when taking a closer look at Lunchly and its claims of being a “healthier competitor” to Lunchables.

The Lunchly website claims to be “Delivering the Dream” with lunch kits “designed by today’s internet icons”—two things that maybe shouldn’t be factors when marketing to younger individuals—along with other fluffy language designed to set themselves apart from other meal kit brands, such as them describing their product as being the “life of the lunchroom”. However, there is a page labeled “Us Vs Them” that highlights the nutritional differences that set them apart from their competitor, Lunchables.

In order to have the nutritional details properly articulated, I’ll be sharing this video from Doctor Mike, a certified family physician based in the US:

In the video, Doctor Mike details many of the nutritional problems of the Lunchly product, such as how they’ve rebranded sodium as “electrolytes” in order to contribute to their narrative of being a “healthier” alternative, and even how the Lunchly product itself doesn’t even contain enough calories on its own (per USDA caloric guidelines for children) and that if a child were to eat multiple in order to meet these caloric standards, they would be consuming about 1300mg of sodium. This is far out of bounds of what is okay for a child to consume.

As Doctor Mike states, Lunchly, like Lunchables, “misses the mark too many times to be considered meaningfully healthier”.

To make things worse, since Lunchly has launched, Mr.Beast along with both Paul brothers and their associates have slung vitriol at those who dare speak up about the negatives that Lunchly brings to the lunch table, and even those who have made mistakes when speaking about the Lunchly brand.

As a business owner, I understand taking pride in your business and being confident, but there is no reason to sling vitriol against others for receiving valid criticisms for something being marketed to children.

As stated in the introduction, I had my fair share of criticisms even in my short period of actively running my business. I still remember the micro-drama that ensued online over my usage of a preservative with the INCI “Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate,” when first starting out my business. My customers (both prospective and current) were upset that I was using a preservative with a formaldehyde releasing ingredient (diazolidinyl urea) and another ingredient deemed unsafe for aerosol usage (iodopropynyl butycarbamate).

At the time, I was really confused.

I began using that exact preservative based on a skincare formulating expert who has countless free resources on making professional grade skincare products at home, and she had never discussed these things. Not to mention, “green-beauty” was just beginning to trend online and on shelves, so I had never even heard of eco-friendly beauty products prior to being called out.

Rather than getting upset or angry with my customers, I proceeded to do hours of research and learned where I had gone wrong. I then proceeded to use a preservative with safer skin attributes (phenoxyethanol) and also reformulated every single one of my products to contain green, eco friendly extracts, oils, and butters from then on. This also meant that I had to purchase brand new product labels with updated ingredients, thus rendering the prior labels null and void. These expenses were worth every penny for the trust and safety of my customers, and I don’t regret any part of it.

Businesses like Lunchly highlight that whether it’s on a macro scale or a micro scale, we all have the choice to be better than the gatekeeping overlords who reign supreme with their longstanding businesses, and in choosing to not do better, we become no better than them. If I had cussed out my customers or tried to make examples of them for bringing me their valid safety concerns (some weren’t very nice about it, I’ll admit), how would that make my small business any better than any juggernaut on the shelf at Sephora?

What, then, is even the point of me bringing my business into the forefront in a market dictated by capitalism and overconsumption aside from me lining my own pockets and setting myself up for fame and acclaim? If garnering fame and acclaim are my only two guiding principles, then what is even the point of starting a business in the first place? We don’t need another capitalistic monolith that solely exists to create profits for its owners and founders.

We, as consumers, need and deserve alternatives to a world of capitalistic endeavors that align every shelf at every big box store.

It’s okay to want to diversify your portfolio and offer different things to your audience. I understand the appeal for a rich person to want to diversify their earnings portfolio and allow for their eggs to be contained in different baskets. This helps to protect their rich lifestyle by allowing them to fallback on one income stream if another falters. Plus, it allows for bonus funds on the side that can be used for further self-investments (or whatever else they want to spend their money on).

But, do we need another celebrity fragrance? Another random influencer’s sugary food or beverage product with one beneficial ingredient featured as the “thing” that sets them apart? Another skincare brand from a set of investors who know all too well that the face of their brand achieved their “perfect skin” with the help of expensive skincare treatments, not from the products they’re marketing to you? Another cheap clothing brand made entirely/primarily of polyester but has an influencer/celebrity tax that makes the garments far more expensive than they should be?

Do we really need another?

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The Cost & Business of “Better”

Doing “better” business comes with caveats. As someone who began to elevate their products and increase their pricing due to COVID price inflations, I know all too well of the price and cost of doing better business.

When I first began selling my skincare products, I started out by making huge batches of product. In time, I began to learn how cost ineffective this was, but in addition, I also soon learned of the tug of war that came with making smaller batches.

Making a larger batch of product didn’t take too much extra time on the formulation side, but it did add a larger strain with packing up products. However, when it came to smaller batches, they were just as exhausting as creating larger batches, and still resulted in me being too taxed to make any more products for the remaining day, let alone for the next few days. This meant that committing to making smaller batches would take up more of my time as a whole, and time is money.

There is also a monetary value that comes with making small-batch skincare as an artisan, and that value also came with its own price increase as my customers understood the price of having handmade, high-quality, fresh, eco-friendly, green skincare products.

Then, there were the rising costs of ingredients, especially for natural ingredients, during peak COVID era (and still have a lasting effect to this day). Before pumping the breaks on the business, I had shared this carousel to my followers to explain how I was affected by the price increases.

Each time I made my business better for my customers, it grated on me as prices steadily drove upwards. It was becoming unrealistic to provide such a rich, positive business without any funding at such a small scale. When purchasing larger quantities of supplies, the cost per item is typically lower. However, this is challenging, if not downright impossible at such a small-business scale. The price increases that I would implement had caused more scrutiny (and not just with my business, I watched other small businesses struggle with this too) and to be quite honest, it’s hard to keep running a business under those conditions without the necessary support.

In my own personal life as a consumer, there are many things that I utilize or support online that I would define as “better” businesses, but of course, they come with their costs. Take for example, Briogeo.

I am a diehard Briogeo stan, as one would call me. When I chopped off my quarantine locs and shaved my hair clean off, I took the time to experiment with brands that I had never used prior in my natural hair journey. Once I had reached Briogeo, I didn’t venture any further. Their Don’t Despair, Repair line was my favorite, and since then (after years of usage) I have transitioned to their Scalp Revival shampoo and their Mega Moisture deep conditioner as my hair has grown and changed. If you are familiar with Briogeo, then you already know that these products are far from cheap. Although they’re not affordable in the slightest, they are incredible, at least for me personally, and I can’t see myself using anything else.

As someone who ran their own natural skincare business, I am drawn to Briogeo because of their clean, plant-based formulations. But also, as someone who ran their own natural skincare business, I am very familiar with the high costs that come with working with natural ingredients and high quality extracts, hydrosols, and more. Due to my perspective, I am personally okay with the price that comes with a brand like Briogeo, because I understand that this is simply the price of shopping for products that are better for us. As an aside, I am also learning more about the communities that they positively impact, and in a way, this too is part of the cost of buying “better”.

In terms of brands that I don’t purchase from but support online, I have to shout out Popflex Active, a highly inclusive activewear brand by Blogilates (aka Cassey Ho). I have never purchased from this brand, but I do follow Blogilates on YouTube, and she constantly shows the new products that she’s releasing there and I’m always so impressed. She utilizes her creativity to create products that provide solutions to her customers’ needs, and the speed and effectiveness at which she does so is truly impressive. In addition, her products are size inclusive (both for size and inseam length) and have higher quality fabrics that at least feature lower amounts of polyester in the products that feature a fabric blend containing polyester.

However, these high quality products come with a price tag that many of her supporters have shown a reluctance to support, which has caused her to now consider creating a lower-end version of Popflex Active that would allow more of her fanbase to support her.

Now, although it is nice that she wants to have price inclusivity, I can tell that she knows (as many business owners do) that in many cases, lower prices do result in lower quality, which means that sacrifices and compromises will have to be made in order to produce a product that is cheaper than where her current product lines stand. Only time will tell whether she is able to produce a product that is “cheap” yet higher quality than your standard fast fashion outlet, or if she even goes through with the idea considering the challenges that come with producing a cheaper, high quality product in the first place.

Fighting the Good Fight

Some brands are simply doing their best to ethically fill the gaps that our current market remains plagued with. Take for instance, Rebdolls. They feature stylish (and in my opinion, very cute) pieces ranging from small to 5x. Their mission, as stated on their about page, is to “strive for great quality and well fitting clothes” for a wide range of sizes. Unfortunately though, it appears that most of their collection is made from lower quality fabrics such as polyester (however they do have pieces that seem to be made from higher quality fabrics such as cotton or linen).

I couldn’t find specific information on any other missions or values that the brand is working towards on their primary website (such as ethical sourcing of their products or fabric conscious production), but I was able to find more information on their Kickstarter. This information states how Rebdolls was able to secure a space in the Dominican Republic that, if funded, would allow them to continue to create the “sustainable, on-trend fashion” that they are known for. They work towards ethical labor business practices, and that is what sets them apart in today’s fashion market.

The progress that Rebdolls seeks to bring forth to the fashion industry is admirable, considering what the current industry reflects. In a 2023 blog post on the exploitation of garment workers, the Department of Labor states:

Last year the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division’s Southern California offices embarked on an ambitious plan to investigate several contractors in the region’s large garment industry. We found that 80% of the contractors were violating minimum wage and overtime laws and we recovered over $892,000 in back wages and damages. We found one contractor paying garment employees $1.58 per hour in a state where the minimum wage was $15.

Mind you, these prices reflect what is happening on U.S. soil. This doesn’t even begin to paint the picture of how little workers are getting paid to create garments in other countries for fast fashion retailers. Fair wages come at a price, let alone the price of sustainable fabric choices, and many consumers simply don’t want to have to pay the price. With the increase in the price of materials, plus the continual rise in the cost of labor, along with the continuous challenges that consumers are dealing with to make ends meet, the act of supporting sustainable, ethical business practices or allocating one’s budget to high quality garments becomes a laughable endeavor when there are always cheaper, more accessible options available.

Screenshots of comments from the Rebdoll owner’s TikTok video where she talks about her business coming to a close due to a lack of funding and business growth:

Of course, this leads to an entire discussion about affordability in fashion and what consumers should be paying for garments, but we will of course have to have that expanded conversation a different time. The screenshots alone highlight the larger issue which is that many consumers are simply not willing to pay the price that fighting the good fight that sustainability, ethical business practices, and higher quality fabric options entails. Many people, it seems, just want to be able to buy their stuff at a price and quantity that is affordable for them, no matter the societal cost.

Because of this, Rebdolls may be going out of business. In an update video, the founder states how the Kickstarter’s supporters helped to “save their lives” and “finish the factory” that she would be using to provide ethical labor and wage standards for her employees, but she explains that as a DTC business that is not involved in AI, it is challenging to get the funding that would allow her to grow and maintain her business for the future.

@griselangelpRaising capital for a DTC brand? It’s a tough market out there as AI has everyones attention. I’m afraid that might be the case for a while! #raisingcapital #DTC #VC #investors #businessoffashion

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Rebdolls isn’t the only business that exists as a means to fight against the current societal standards that dominate the manufacturing and merchandising of goods. In my research on this topic, I even found a vegan caviar product being produced by French Chef Alex Gauthier. He was drawn to creating this dish due to his knowledge of the caviar industry and the process behind how this expensive delicacy is horrifically farmed from sturgeons. In learning of this, and also with his decision to no longer eat meat in 2016, he created a vegan caviar product that allows consumers to enjoy the briny taste of the sea that the rich adore without the grotesque farming practices that regular caviar requires.

There are so many business owners and product designers who are using their skills, talents, creativity, and willpower to intentionally create products for the good of the world without inklings of greed or malice. The world is a much better place when consumers have the ability to make better consumption choices due to the abundance of better things to choose in the first place. But things become difficult when money-hungry execs and manufacturing powerhouses use low rate labor, low quality goods, and predatory marketing practices to convince shoppers to spend money on products that not only keep us back societally, but also with products that negatively impact our health.

I don’t want to believe that things will always be this way; that consumers will continue to prioritize cheapness over fairness, or quantity over value. As time goes on, we will see if this push and pull between the recession and overconsumption, and virtuous businesses and high-caliber products will be the death of progressing society towards better business practices on a large, big-box, global scale. Or maybe, just maybe, we will make it through this economic collapse with new ways to make accessible products with better business practices in mind, and maybe we will find even more ways to highlight and “sell” sustainability to those who still believe that cheaper is always better.

Until we find out in the future, I will choose optimism for the present, and I hope that you all are able to find the means to do so too.

Welcome to field notes, my casual blogging platform within my Substack Messy Dialectic. If you are looking for refined essays and discourse, check here for the latest posts. If you love rambling, brain dumps, and chit-chats about life experiences, then continue reading on.

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A couple of weeks ago, I decided to finally have a much needed night out. I took a break from my current stresses (which were moving, my awful neighbors, and apartment management) and went to a late night art exhibit opening and a lil dance event afterwards that was conveniently behind the art venue.

On the surface, everything kinda seemed like it was going to be a perfect night. I’d be able to see some folks who are within my writing community, and then I’d be able to head straight to the dance’s event space conveniently located right behind the art exhibition and release some of those piled on stresses through movement. Combined with the restorative two hour nap I took prior to the event and the fact that my brand new disco-boots fit perfectly, I had some pretty high hopes going into the evening.

However, the night was anything but perfect.

I don’t know how to describe it, but the energy on the art gallery opening ceremony just was… hmm. It felt like the exhibit itself was laid out in a way that didn’t allow for all of the art pieces to connect for me as an art enthusiast. Like, I was struggling to grasp what was supposed to be connecting the fashion, paintings, and photography together due to how they were strewn about in different rooms and hallways. It just wasn’t clicking for me.

It also didn’t help that during the artist talk (which I didn’t know was on the table for that evening), the setting didn’t really feel intimate in a way that would be conducive for a warm art gathering due to the way the main room was spatially laid out. I donno, you’ll have to trust me on it. I don’t know how else to explain it.

To be completely honest, I did flee the scene the second I got the chance (aka after the artist chat and after looking around at the pieces once more), but before that, I was able to talk a bunch with my writing gworls and that was really fulfilling. I hadn’t seen them in a while due to a November recess with our meetups and then I was too sick to make October’s sesh, so it was so nice to see them again (especially since it’s the first time I’d seen them since my revolutionary birthday camping trip). It was nice to catch up but also to socialize, which is something that I had been lacking since I’ve been too stressed about my sleep deprivation and also about the moving process and its logistics to go outside much.

Funnily enough, I was able to acquire another +1 to the dance event (one of my friends from the exhibit decided to tag along!), making it a full night of newness for me, and after I left the exhibit with my friend, we ditched our coats and waited in line with my husband.

This is where the night continues to go down a spiral.

The event (a warehouse-esque party in collaboration with adidas) was slated to begin at 9pm, and at this point in the story, it’s around 9:30pm. I’m getting lots of secondhand smoke and with the way it’s mixing with the free champagne that I got from the art exhibit, I began to, as the youth say, “crash out". It was honestly just frustrating being that intoxicated at that point yet still waiting outside in the freezing cold for something that, at this point in the story is now 9:45pm!

I made a fuss about it—and was maybe speaking way louder than I realized, I blame it on the juice—and earned some giggles from the people in front of and behind us in line. Honestly, it created a funny comradery that helped the time to pass, but also allowed moments for me to connect further with the friend who tagged along from the art exhibit. It was like the struggle (standing in the freezing cold waiting for an event that was an hour late to open its doors) was connecting us further in that moment, and after a while I kinda didn’t mind.

After we finally made it inside, and were one person away from grabbing some “limited-edition” adidas (boooo), we assessed the atmosphere and decided that it wasn’t really for us. It was giving highschool dance, with folks dancing with their adidas shoe boxes and swaying with laces tied around their necks, free shoes just dangling in the air. The venue, again, wasn’t great, and there were too many cameras to feel comfortable and excited about the night ahead.

After a few fist bumps, all three of us decided to part ways for the night, with my art gallery friend continuing her night at a different bar, and my husband and I continuing our night with a friend who these days is like the little sister I wish I had. She invited us to a cozy bar/event space that was having a gaming night that exact same night. Anything felt like a great excuse to continue the rambunctious night that I was excited to have (and continuously failing to have), so we drove ten minutes away and met her and her friends there.

While the hubs parked, I met with my friend and her old childhood friend, and I felt so warm, cozy, and accepted. Both of them were so stylish and we even took some selfies, and it just felt nice to see my friend in an environment that we haven’t connected in yet. It felt like I was traversing new territory in the connection of our friendship and it was really exciting. My husband joined us, and we all went and also met the partner to my friend’s friend, and it was awesome. It wasn’t anything extreme or jaw-dropping per say, it was just that it was nice to connect with others in a way that I never really have before. This is the kind of adventure that I didn’t have in college due to me having never truly fit in enough to be accepted in academic settings. It made me feel like I was expanding as a person and ushering into a new state of being. I think I’ll expand more on this feeling a different time.

But yeah, we spent a lot of time just speaking and learning about one another. We all ordered pizza from the nearby late night pizza joint (I was so hungry I thought I was going to die at this point in the night) and it was all just a comforting, cozy experience in the cold of the outdoors.

As it got later in the night, we all decided to go our separate ways and head to our homes, and with that, my husband and I headed to the house to end our long night, and I spent that night and the next few days just processing the night that I had just had.

As a chronic perfectionist (I’m a double-Virgo, sue me), I have a habit of expecting things to go exactly as I’ve planned, so long as the plan is solid enough. When the plans are shaky, I give them more space and freedom to be less than perfect, but if the conditions seem right, I set my sights very high.

However, if you’ve read this far, then you can probably tell that that night was less than perfect. The art exhibit was meh, the dance event was blah, and I ended up going to a bar to meet people who I was not prepared mentally to meet. The night had several touchpoints of uncertainty and disappointment that just made me more and more anxious with each venue hop, and it was veering away from the perfect night out that I had planned for.

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But something incredible had happened that night. I had connected with the people around me. My husband and I went out for the first time in a long time and were able to get away from all of the moving stresses, I was able to see my writing community again and see them in a different environment than I’m used to seeing them in and we got to catch up and talk about a lot of stuff, I got to see my bestie again for the first time in months and I got to meet a long term friend of hers and we were able to visit a spot that she really enjoys, and at the end of the day, I got to connect. I got to connect on a deeper level with so many of the people who I care about, and I felt a closeness that made me remember how worth it human connection is.

And no, I don’t mean that I’m barely learning how valuable friendship is or anything like that. I mean the value in the simplicity of hearing about how someone else’s life is, and just having them ramble to you for who knows how long. The value in hearing about someone else’s struggles and empathizing deeply with them. The value of dealing with something challenging with someone else, and then mutually planning out situations that work better for one another even if those are two different things.

All of these other faces of the human experience are just so enriching and so underrated and vastly outweigh the sentiments that friendship, community, or even relationship should be this constant pathway to your own personal fulfilment with continuous dopamine hits to your own list of desires.

I found the give-and-take of that night to be so delightful, it was like dancing conversationally with those who I care for (and those just met) to find a medium that felt comfortable to waltz through. It was so delightful and exciting and I hope that others enjoy spending time in this gray area of relationship, where maybe you are not taking as much as you’d like from someone, but seeing their joy and mutual appreciation for what you are doing for them fills you with enough contentment to pour into them with a certain patience about the rate at which your own cup is filled by them.

I know that’s a hard ask in today’s current climate of 50/50 this and conditional love that, but right now I implore you to at least dance a little with the natural give-and-take of relationship. Feel deeply into the notion of reflecting the love you seek onto others, and examine how that feels and where that takes your relationships with those who you love and care for the most.

Introduction

What another interesting week on the internet, huh?

If you spend most of your time on TikTok, especially on the side where Black creators create, then you will have probably seen the outrage that has stemmed from user SlimKim, who bravely proclaimed that she loves being skinny, and that it is something that she (in her own words) “thinks about all of the time.”

I would have a link to this video in my usual fashion, but the video has been removed by TikTok as users were reporting the video for “hate speech and hateful behaviors". EDIT: The video is back up! I will have it below, but I will be keeping the text that I originally typed as that was the reality that I was living in when I originally typed that up!

@sliimkimtbh..

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Now, this side of the internet is divided into two camps, those who believe that SlimKim is allowed to love her skinny body, and those who believe that she should stay quiet on it for numerous reasons. I have seen users saying that SlimKim’s comments contribute to the “alt-right pipeline” for women, that her comments show how we’re “cooked as a society”, that she is fatphobic due to her video, highlight her lack of “self-love” for herself since she only likes herself skinny and fears being anything but skinny, that she clearly has an eating disorder due to her statements, and proof of how we are regressing back to the old times of society when diversity of skin tone and body type weren’t praised or upheld to any positive beauty standards.

It has been such an interesting display for me, as a curious internet explorer, to watch as the algorithm amplifies the videos about her and spreads them en masse, causing chaos on TikTok in real time.

For this piece, I want to follow this very topical line of thought as toxicity continues to prevail in spaces, communities, and posts that claim to help us all to come to conclusions about our messy, messy society.

The Algorithmic Trap—Your Custom Made Echo Chamber

In today’s fast paced social media society, it is fascinating to watch as people interact with social media as it was intended to be interacted with, while simultaneously watching as people think that they are fighting against the algorithmic overlords that engineer succulent programs to keep us glued to their creations.

Let’s talk this idea through with the SlimKim situation as our example.

When this controversy was at its peak, people were going into their separate camps to either dunk-on or defend Kim, with some folks meeting in the middle to dunk-on or defend her on someone else’s turf. We have think pieces being made about the gross disgusting impact of her harmful words, and think pieces being made about how her words resonate positively and how there is no fault in her word choice.

The part that’s fascinating as someone who is on the outside of this situation and truly doesn’t care either way, is how everyone is convinced that their side has won. By leaving a brash video or comment defending or demeaning Kim’s words, you have won the fight, and if you have other people on your side then you have won the battle.

Although this controversy in itself doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things (because let’s be real, who cares if someone prefers to be skinny or not, and who cares if someone does care if someone prefers to be skinny or not), it does matter when we look at this common pattern of how social media users are utilizing today’s internet and how that pattern is affecting us as humans on a global scale.

We are starting to see online users craft audiences that are so entangled with one another that it becomes a giant hivemind of groupthink, and it’s so frustrating to watch as someone who enjoyed the older versions of the internet that allowed for the expression of the creative self as an individual. Now, it just feels like these online spaces that could be used to build community are being used to create a place/space that is all uniquely yours. A place solely meant to represent you and only you, the viewer, not the creator.

This is not a community. This is an echo chamber.

To explain this even further, here’s what Dr. Kurt Braddock, assistant professor of public communication at American University, had to say about the algorithms in Forbes:

"The algorithms used to determine which content people see necessarily puts people in their own echo chambers where they are only exposed to things they agree with, which basically creates distinct 'sides' on issues," warned Braddock.

"The platforms are financially incentivized to do this since people are more inclined to engage with material they agree with, which makes it easier to earn advertising dollars by placing that content in front of their users that they'll look at and click."

As I expressed in a prior piece, when you work social media the way that it works you, you can truly craft a feed that feels like it was made for you. You can create a feed that perfectly articulates your dreams, wishes, and desires in one place. In a way, you begin to take ownership of the social media app or interface, and maybe begin to believe that it is not only yours, but it is an extension of you.

Coming from that standpoint, I can understand the anger from those who realized that SlimKim’s skinny sentiments were on their well-crafted feed (and thus, their app), and felt the need to lash out (or defend) in order to restore the balance and return their app to the addictive dopamine center that it once was.

However, the issue is this constant de-selfing of creators in an effort to maintain echo chambers on apps that are being crafted for capitalistic endeavors, not for our enjoyment as viewers.

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I, I, I. Me, Me, Me. An Age of Angry & Entitled Social Media Users.

This is a sentiment that I have been examining for the past few years as I see more and more people attacking online creators for not fitting within their desired expression of reality. I plan to speak more exhaustively on this topic in a separate post dedicated to this topic, but for now, I want to examine this thought briefly in the context of the SlimKim controversy.

The invention of the “Influencer” and its proximity to us normal folk has given us a new definition of celebrity that we have never truly experienced before as humans. Now, we can converse directly with those who have riches, fame, and notoriety. The worse part is that if someone creates content that affects you negatively and you wish to take it out on them, technically, you could. You could sling all sorts of vile words and threats to this person who has affected you, and in many cases you could even cause a response to happen either via the person you’re trying to verbally harm, or even a response from their associates. This allows you this direct line of communication to harm others that can even result in a direct indication that you were successful in your pursuit to harm others with said words.

Unlike the celebrity icons of the past, it is a feedback loop that begins with your hatred and ends in a response that confirms the effectiveness of the harm you’ve caused, such as with a comment response, a block, or even an entire video response.

To narrow the scope back to the SlimKim incident, I am aware that weight can be a touchy societal topic. From experiencing the end of the heroin chic era of the 90s to the body positivity movements of the 2010s, it would be naive of me to pretend that body composition would ever be a light topic in any capacity. However, the problem occurs when we place a magnifying glass on the content that caused this uproar.

In SlimKim’s defense, I will say that she made content that was truly representative of herself and her experience. She stated that being skinny is something that she is obsessed with, something that she likes to be, and something that she fears losing. This piece of content wasn’t geared towards anyone outside of herself, it wasn’t said in a mean or snarky manner, it was just a true and genuine account of someone who really, truly, loves being skinny. It is also worth noting that her username is “SlimKim” which we can infer would mean that she truly values being skinny, especially in this context.

But when we combine the knowledge of how the addictive social media algorithms work, along with the ownership that people take when it comes to the media that comes across their feeds, added with the extra layer of sensitivity that comes with speaking about topics surrounding weight, and not to mention the intersectional aspect due to SlimKim being a Black woman, we end up with a whole mess that is impossible to untangle due to the rapid nature of social media. Adding in how reactionary social media users have become, a storm of hatred was bound to occur despite her efforts to highlight that the reason she said what she said was because of what she enjoys.

Realistically speaking, this is quite a complex problem that can’t be solved within today’s era of social media because the fast-paced nature of it all is the name of the game, and we can’t possibly understand both ourselves and others on a deeper level in the time it takes to scroll through content that evokes seven layers of emotions within us.

There is no time or space for empathy. There is no time or space for compassion, or deeper understanding and connection. There isn’t even time or space to even ponder the question, “How does this content truly affect my personal life in the grand scheme of things?” and then create a plan to begin the work that would fundamentally remove or heal this problem that this content is causing. Under the thumb of capitalistic social media endeavors, there is no time for pondering. There is only time for knee-jerk reactions and surface level feelings.

Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game

I don’t have the data for the statement that I’m about to make so this will purely be an opinion from me, but if I had to give it a guess, I’d say that 95% of chronic social media users do not understand the way that these apps work to feed on and harness your love and hatred for things to capitalize on your attention. I make this assumption based on how angrily users react when they see content that they don’t agree with, don’t resonate with, and even don’t relate to.

I’ve watched users on social media proclaim things like “don’t put this on my feed”, or “I don’t wanna see this shit wtf”, or even threats and insults to the creator of the content or those who dare to enjoy it simply because the content exists on their feed. The part that gets me, is that users who engage in this type of behavior are too trapped in the anger of their disrupted dopamine rush and lack of education on how social media is engineered that they don’t even realize that their feed looks the way it does because of their own actions. Their own hatred for this type of content is exactly why it continues to get recommended to them.

Devon Dundee states in his blog post:

The algorithm only cares about engagement, not the quality of the experience that users are having. Sure, it’ll show me things that are genuinely interesting to me. But it’ll also show me posts that it knows will get under my skin in order to get me respond, to post back, to spend more time on the service so I can be shown more ads. The algorithm is optimized to do whatever it takes to keep me engaged as long as possible.

Whether you leave a hate comment or even a comment filled with love and support, you are fueling the algorithm. You are telling the algorithm that you enjoyed what you observed enough to engage it with one of the highest honors—a comment. Even if you did not leave a comment out of love, you are still telling the algorithm that what you viewed was worth being viewed by another person, and is something that you would most likely engage with if shown that sort of content again.

As a digital marketer, I have known this for years, and it always frustrates me when I see so many people engaging with social media in the exact way that it was meant to be used, all in an effort to make their lives (or rather, algorithms) better. In continuing this pattern, users are only getting fed more content that riles them up and makes them even more discontent with the current state of their feeds, thus making them more miserable overall.

As an early internet and social media adopter, I feel that there are ways to coexist with the rampant algorithms that attempt to overtake our lives and influence our spending power. This will be yet another long ongoing conversation to be had especially since this only highlights one facet of social media’s control over us all. For now, I hope that as we step into the new year, you—whoever is reading this—can use this examination of the SlimKim situation to better understand how social media (yes, including Substack) feeds on your activity, and also how you can truly take control of your algorithms and your life despite being within this system.

Maybe you will even find ways to coexist with the algorithmic overlords to achieve your own goals. We will go more in depth on that another time.

Additional Reading:

• How social media algorithms 'flatten' our culture by making decisions for us by NPR

• How have social media algorithms changed the way we interact? by BBC

• Are you only being told the things you want to hear? by Massachusetts Daily Collegian

• From Nazi propaganda to Holocaust denial, social media is pushing hate on users: study by USA Today

Welcome to field notes, my casual blogging platform within my Substack Messy Dialectic. If you are looking for refined essays and discourse, check here for the latest posts. If you love rambling, brain dumps, and chit-chats about life experiences, then continue reading on.

This is a topic that I’ve been meditating on for the past few weeks as I have been struggling with a frustrating situation of my own.

Remember that camping post? You know, where I went camping for my birthday?

Well, basically, I went on that camping trip for my birthday, and then when I came back my husband and I were met with tons of noise on the side of the wall that was originally empty when we left. As the days drew on, and the noise was constant (literally all day and night) we realized that no, those weren’t workers renovating the unit. Those were brand new neighbors.

And they are terrible.

Come to find out, what we hear all day (and primarily all night) is their zoo of 3 animals (two cats and one dog…...) who zoom around all night. They have seemingly taught their animals to play on the wall that connects our units, and even throw toys at our wall… In addition, they yell loud as hell into the night, all the way into the morning, and even have loud furniture that they slam so hard that it shakes our wall!

It has been a nightmare that the management has barely been dealing with (which started with weeks of us complaining, and the neighbors telling the management that they have no idea what we’re talking about 🤡), so what else is one to do?

Well, I’m now set up to move (🥳 yippee!) and in the meantime, I’ve actually been… sleeping on my couch…

I won’t lie, it has been a large source of frustration to sleep on my couch when I own a big, beautiful, ultra-cozy king size bed (from a cheap bed in a box company no less) and at the end of the day, I deserve to feel comfortable and safe in my own home so that I can get sleep and be well-rested for the work that I do. But this is an issue that, to be fair, has technically been solved.

The move is slated, the new apartment has been reserved (it’s so cute, I’m so excited!!), and a plan has been made to keep me from continuing to experience the levels of sleep deprivation that I was dealing with for 5 weeks when I was attempting to sleep in my bed and simply didn’t want to sleep on the couch out of stubborn dogma.

All that’s left now is the passing of time.

That part is the challenging part for me, and has made me very introspective in the past few weeks as I’ve dealt with this (reminder, the camping trip was September! It is now November!!!).

My first few weeks on the couch made me realize how much I personally just love to have what I want immediately. Now, I’m not faulting myself for wanting to sleep in my own bed, but it was more a funny thing that I laughed about with my loved ones because I found that the couch was giving me the best sleep of my life. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a new sleeping location or if it’s because of how dead quiet that side of the unit is, but wow. As someone who struggles with sleep maintenance insomnia, it has been wild to sleep at night and then wake up to my alarm especially while on the couch.

So, in a funny way, my solution to deal with this frustrating situation not only solved my problem, but it even improved a whole part of my life.

Not to mention, the hubs and I have a great exit plan that we’re grateful to have, plus we’re thankfully at the end of the lease anyway. So it all really worked out for the better. For context, I got the lease renewal message coincidentally at the height of all this insanity and at the height of the management doing fuck-all nothing, so it all really truly worked out in perfect divine timing.

The problem then, is this feral craving I have for the finish line. Again, I give myself grace, yadda yadda yadda, it’s okay to be excited for something better and exciting I know. But, I also know myself, and I know that the feeling I have inside is like a child tantrum-ing, screaming about how badly they want the candy now and when told that the candy can be had after dinner, they keep crying about how they want and need it now.

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It’s like a searing burn that shakes my entire body. It’s what made me realize, shit, I have been messed up by the drug of instant gratification. The damn phones done’ rewired my brain.

It triggered a set of self-evaluations within myself, and it occurred to me that this desire for instant gratification is leading a lot of my current issues in life. For one, I realized that I don’t go out to a lot of events or things like I’d like to because driving takes time (as they say, Houston is an hour away from Houston), getting ready takes time, planning with folks takes time, recharging after hangouts takes immense effort and intentionality, it all takes time and effort. And then, you put all of that work in to get a little dopamine hit that might not even have the mileage to last you to the next fun event you have scheduled later in the week.

But why go out when you can stay in? There are algorithms that serve up little surges of dopamine on tap 24/7. You don’t have to go out and put so much effort into feeling good. You can choose to be cooped up in your cozy abode, have a nice cozy beverage or meal, and scroll to your heart’s content. There’s no traffic to deal with, no rude weird energies, nothing that exhausts my introversion, no frustrating experiences, it is paradise in the palm of your own hand.

It is unfortunately the best (in the context of getting those dopamine hits), but it isn’t the most conducive to having what humans truly need for healthy mentals and for living fulfilling lives.

I also realized that I have a big problem with deriving my own dopamine from the dopamine of other folks’ success and endeavors.

I am one of those people who perfectly tailors and handcrafts their feed to be niched down to the gods. Every crevice of my identity, dreams, and hobbies is articulated perfectly in who I’m following on all platforms (YouTube, IG, and TikTok primarily). Let me tell you, it’s awesome. It’s like my own little curated TV station on whatever platform I’m craving at the time.

I primarily follow a lot of enterprising Black women who do really cool things by putting themselves out there, taking risks, and going on fun adventures. They have so many connections and stay in the streets whether that’s via public transport or driving. They are doing the work to live fun, exciting, successful lives, and they are confident and hardworking enough to broadcast that on their social media channels.

As an empath, I watch their content and feel so extremely proud of what they’re doing and accomplishing in the world. It’s so exciting to watch people who look like me accomplish things beyond my wildest dreams. It’s awesome. But the problem is that I get attached.

I get so attached to these feelings of excitement and joy for others that it does, in a weird way, take away any part of me that feels like I need to do it too. I get this weird feeling where it’s like… Because I can see how that success looks on the screen, I don’t get inspired to create that success and joy in my own life. It makes me so satiated. I end up feeling so fulfilled in my own life watching others live a life that I wish that I had.

Personally, I find this line of thinking so… fascinating and bizarre, “bizarre” mainly because it was me sleeping on the couch that made me realize that I was feeling this way for who knows how long. But the more I have given myself time to sit with it, the more I realize the extent of the mental hole that I’ve been stuck in.

I don’t think that the solution is to ban my favorite lil’ rectangular devices from my life, however I do know that I must change my mindset.

In preparation for my big move, I’ve also begun a fitness and mindset journey to just get me prepped for the 2025 that I am intending to have, and all of these thoughts are included in the journey. I have begun to consume content with much more intentionality with a focus on manifesting my own hopes and dreams.

I honestly haven’t even worked to manifest anything in my life since taking a mental health hiatus from my skincare business (it has been like 2 or 3 years or so at this point), and I donno… I think something shifted in my mind during the big 11/11 portal (I know woo-woo topics, sue me), and now I suddenly feel ready to get back into myself and into my own life.

I also have realized that I must put myself out there if I want to have anything that I truly desire since all of my aspirations are quite outward facing, and that feelings of satiation are just not satisfactory. I have to make myself keep going until I actually have what I desire. I have to reach feelings of accomplishment and triumph.

I have to realize that the pain in the processes and journeys is necessary a lot of times, and also in many cases, worth experiencing. The pains of traffic that I have to drive through to get to a friend or an event, the awkwardness and fear of putting myself out there, the sadness of rejection, the boring aspects of my creative aspirations, the frustration of not getting it right all the time (thus subsequently decreasing the dopamine I could be experiencing). It’s all, unfortunately, a part of anything good that anyone wants to have and experience, but it’s also a part of being a human, and there’s nothing that takes us outside of the natural realms of living than our little devices and their algorithmic dopamine machines.

Scrolling and watching as a bystander on my little rectangular device has protected and shielded me from the everyday pains of having to human, and in turn has shielded me from the exciting life that I could be living. It was a very easy rhythm that I accidentally stepped into, and it has felt so good to be on the receiving end of endless dopamine hits (especially with the tumultuous years I’ve been experiencing). But I donno, maybe the mental fog is clearing up and giving me the physical ability to get my back off the wall and get back into the mix of things.

As I continue to meditate on this, I only wonder how many others are trapped in this sort of loop, doing the exact same thing unknowingly.

Imagine spending money just to say that you went somewhere, except that “somewhere” wasn’t a top travel destination or a Michelin star restaurant… It was simply a party or a concert.

You don’t know the songs, and quite frankly, you don’t care about the songs either. You’re not even happy to be there.

You’re just happy to take photos and videos to show your social media enviers that you were there and they weren’t. That alone is satisfying enough.

Introduction

What a bizarre junction that we’ve reached as a society. Yes, being at certain events and parties has always been a symbol of status, but this is quite different. People (particularly rich folks) are now using niche and underground events and artists as spaces to flex and flaunt their wealth, connectedness, and “coolness” despite not caring deeply about the performer or performance whatsoever.

The funny part is that while at these events, these individuals will make little to no effort to be an active participant. At concerts, they probably don’t know the songs, so they don’t sing or even attempt to mouth the lyrics. At discos, raves, and other genres of DJ shows, they stand within frame of the cameras capturing the DJ’s set, and barely move a muscle when the greatest, most mind-bending samples and transitions are playing. At festivals, you see a larger emphasis on fashion choices and capturing footage of celebrity attendees rather than the enjoyment of the music. It is truly bizarre.

These spaces that have existed for the enjoyment of art and culture have now been completely dismantled into places that clout-driven individuals wander to just so they can say that they too, were in attendance.

With an intense election cycle and hit after hit of insane news, we’ll spend time talking about an incredibly first-world problem that matters, but also doesn’t matter too much in the grandest scheme of things.

Social Media Made the Underground “Cool”

With nerd-culture, braces, and reading being rapidly thrust into the limelight of mainstream culture, it was only a matter of time before underground music cultures came to the forefront of mainstream trendiness too. Now, we have social media feeds full of alternative and punk appearing influencers who do not align with the ideologies that are behind the articles of clothing that they adorn themselves in, and caricatures of what a good time looks like by individuals who don’t even know the genre of music being blasted on the speakers.

Unfortunately, like many problems of today’s digital society, the issue continues to be social media and how it is utilized in today’s world.

Nowadays, younger generations are using social media to get an understanding of what is truly “in” and “out” of culture, and where the “it crowd” spends their time. On these platforms, there is a notion that virality rewards tastemakers and that if one were to go viral, then it is for “proper” reason. This staunch belief in the algorithmic overlords that keep us glued to our devices is exactly what keeps posers in spaces that are now getting rewarded by algorithms on all platforms.

Take for instance Charli XCX and Chappell Roan who each had fame of their own within their own niches and communities before social media exploded them into full blown stardom. When these two artists were performing for their communities in the past, they didn’t have to deal with issues like these at their concerts:

@megj54chappell roan called out the VIP section for not doing the hot to go dance lol @chappell roan #chappellroan #livemusic #outsidelands #livemusic #hottogo

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This song and dance of Chappell Roan calling out VIP and other high tier sections of festivals has become an ongoing trend as people buy out expensive tickets and occupy space on the barricade to get a premium view of her shows. Of course, let’s also not forget this occurrence:

@blueoncatWhy was it so hard to find this the fart also that guy sucksssss#charlixcx #britanybroski #britanybroksigettingshoved #concert #man #sweattour

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At one of Charli XCX’s concerts on her Sweat Tour, several rabid fans who also wanted a few seconds of clout and fame pushed fans out of the way (one of which happens to be a prominent internet personality) while they were performing the “Apple Dance”. It’s worth noting that these four individuals were chosen to do this dance (a different set of concert goers are chosen at each tour location), and it’s worth noticing that the individuals who barraged into the space made no effort to do the dance, and only wanted to insert themselves into this moment because of the virality each Apple Dance had accrued on social media with each location Charli XCX performed at.

The tickets to these concerts and festivals are nowhere near cheap, and the virality of these and other artists’ content doesn’t help a true fan’s desire to see their faves on the big stage, and raises many questions about who gets to inhabit what spaces.

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Repackaged Elitism — Modern Day Status Symbols

A common motif of many topics that I will be discussing on this blog is how symbols of status morph as time progresses and we evolve culturally. In the 2000s, there were a slew of status symbols related to high end brands and their flashy, iconic logos. Now? It can be as simple as showing that you were somewhere that other individuals weren’t connected or wealthy enough to be.

Take for instance Zack Fox who recently did a set with Boiler Room a couple of months ago:

I jammed out to the entire set so you wouldn’t have to, but it is thoroughly worth listening to. DJing is a skill that not everyone has, and it is clear to me as someone who loves this space that Zack Fox truly has a talent for it. He fluctuates the tempo of his set to create perfect pockets of dance and rest, while also just having a flat-out incredible ear for music.

His music curation skills are amazing (there’s like a four minute praise break in the middle and it was insane), and it is great to witness someone who has this much talent be awarded their flowers while they are young enough to continue to enjoy the spoils of their skillset. For further listening jamming out, I highly recommend his set with Elevator Music, which also shocked me as that video was my first interaction with his DJing prowess, and it certainly wouldn’t be my last.

Something that I had noticed while watching was that everyone was mostly chatting, standing around, doing a slight bob-and-weave, just using their phones to take selfies or scroll, and waiting for someone else to dance before doing so themselves. As someone who has gone to both raves and mosh-type events on both a large and small scale, it was just so funny to me to watch moments like these where you can hear the crowd cheer as the song splices into a new beat, and then the camera pans to the crowd and no one is really dancing. The people who are directly behind Zack Fox kinda start to begin to dance, but it’s almost as if they give up on their pursuit to let loose because no one else is doing so en masse, and heaven forbid they stand out at a Boiler Room event.

This rhythm happens for just about every major song change Zack Fox does throughout his entire set. He switches the song ➡️ Everyone jumps around and looks around in excitement ➡️ About 5-15 seconds later, everyone defaults back into standing, swaying, and looking “cool” for the cameras. Watching his set with such a magnifying glass turns the set into this constant temperature check tug-of-war to see what is considered “cool” and “safe” to do in the space at each moment and what isn’t. It’s like everyone is monitoring themselves against a crowd of people who are more fixated on themselves and how they look versus the artist who should actually be the focal point of the performance.

What struck me too, is that everyone at this Boiler Room event is so very stylish. It’s not that they can’t be stylish, but it almost seemed antithetical to the point of being at a rave/dance event. I’m seeing full on jeans, a lot of unbreathable fabric, yoga pants, unopened fans (which yes, do have a role in rave events other than keeping you cooled down in the sweaty environment), and larger sized handbags and shoulder bags. It just didn’t seem very practical or enjoyable for the night that they intended to have when you look at the surface level of why someone would attend an event like this.

But when you look at it more deeply, you realize that everyone knows they’re on camera, and that hyperconsciousness is why they’re there in the first place. It’s Schrodinger’s Virality after all; as long as they attend, then they can assure that they are a part of the viral moment that could happen at Boiler Room’s Zack Fox set. As long as they make sure to dance, cheer, and look like they’re having tons of fun at every song shift, then they could make sure that they look cool during one of the potential viral moments to come.

Since Zack Fox and Boiler Room are constantly rewarded by the algorithm, it was just bound to happen again. And this time, they were there to experience it in the flesh.

Instead of offering up a different DJ set for comparison, I want to offer up the same event, but we’ll skip forward to just around the 1 hour mark. As the crowd shifts and a few new characters emerge behind the DJ booth, you can clearly see an energy shift take place as his set continues to unfold. You can see that the new individuals are connecting with the music, dancing, and enjoying his set regardless of how manic their dance moves are and how sweaty they appear to be. They are jumping, gyrating, and smiling so hard that they’re making the camera shake at some parts. Even if their fun is a performance and an act for the cameras, it is infectious and looks as if they’re actually having fun. You can also see how their act of bravery to be their fullest selves affects the original crowd of people behind Zack Fox (some of who, are constantly keeping tabs on the new group’s dancing rather than Zack Fox throughout the performance), and how that, in turn, causes them to dance more than they had prior to their arrival.

The energy shift is palpable when comparing the earlier minutes of the set to the hour mark of the set.

Do Superfans Deserve More?

Although I’ve said everything that I’ve said prior, it also requires several considerations. For instance, who are any of us to declare who a fan “is” and “isn’t”? For all I know, the people who were dancing the least behind Zack Fox could have been his biggest fans, and vice versa with the people who were dancing the most behind him towards the end. None of us truly know how much of a fan anyone at that Boiler Room set were, and that also goes for the Charli XCX and Chappell Roan performances. All of these things are true and fair considerations to make as we criticize people who are put on the internet for our consumption and entertainment, and also for the commodification and financial abundance of influencers, corporations, and businesses.

However, there is another consideration to make, and that’s for the fans who are willing to engage with an artist’s art at a level that truly shows their appreciation and enjoyment of their art regardless of how many cameras capture them. There is a stark difference between people who are at a concert and are spending their time standing and filming, and those who are at a concert and know that they will be waking up sore and voice-less the next day. The biggest consideration of all is that we viewers behind the screen are not the only ones who notice these differences. The artists are noticing too.

All levels of fans can end up at the same concert or set, but it’s where they place themselves that tends to cause strife on the internet as more events are televised. We are now seeing people who are not truly engaging with the art being shown at the front of crowds or in the VIP sections, while fans who know all of the lyrics or who are willing to dance all night further back, and out of frame of the immediate cameras and the star on stage.

The issue is that now, the underground has been launched above ground, and everyone knows what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to be a part of a niche community. This definition of “underground” that I’m speaking of also includes the niche of immense fandom within larger collectives. With social media providing the “cool-factor” validation of virality for some artist’s fandoms, it makes the once “underground” world a battleground for individuals who live, speak, and breathe these communities as a lifeforce for their own lives against those who want this momentary validation of virality regardless of if they want or care to be a part of the communities they force themselves to inhabit.

It also doesn’t help that by inserting themselves and creating content about it, they also put themselves in the line of fire for virality, which could also help to catapult their own online careers into the throes of more financial abundance. You can read more about this topic on my post about The Ethics of Going Viral:

To conclude (and to keep it light for today), there is a larger topic to be had here about the momentary shifting of once “uncool” aesthetics and genres into “coolness” all because of the social media algorithms dictating it so (and the aftermath of what happens when the algorithm no longer deems the niche “cool”), the fabrication of identity that comes with algorithmic shifting, and also the surveillance culture of society that many individuals not only buy into but also contribute to by using that to influence their money making decisions and purchasing power. We’ll talk about those larger issues a different time.

For now, I will say that this is an issue that I feel will balance itself out as do all fandoms and niches in today’s chronically online world. As the social media algorithms no longer push a certain form of content, the appeal to be there and to show out as a “lesser fan” will decrease, and the “true fans” will be back at the helm of these concerts and events, allowing them to give their artist the attention that the artist deserves, which is adoring (and respectful!) fandom and engagement with the art that has taken time for them to craft and develop for their audience. This isn’t an issue that we can alter with brute force and irritation. This is something that will simply ease up with time as it always does.

Welcome to field notes, my casual blogging platform within my Substack Messy Dialectic. If you are looking for refined essays and discourse, check here for the latest posts. If you love rambling, brain dumps, and chit-chats about life experiences, then continue reading on.

Hi everyone! How are you doing? Today’s field notes is a shorter post that I’ll be using to speak about my intentions for this space that I’ve created on Substack. I think it’s important to state my intentions publicly because it’ll also help to keep me accountable as I continue to live and deal with the motions of everyday life. Being consistent and showing up here is very important to me, so I really want to do my best with it :).

If you were here prior to this post, then you’ll recognize that I’ve changed the name of this page from with love, tiara to Messy Dialectic. Honestly, I had no intention of keeping with love, tiara, but I wanted a name that I could use as a placeholder while I was figuring out the actual name that I wanted for my Substack, so I just copied the name I’m using on Instagram.

My intention for Messy Dialectic is to show up every other Sunday at 10:15 CST with either standard essays (Messy Dialectic) or rambles (field notes). The essays are going to touch on culture and society both on and offline, and the rambles are just chill posts about my life or even essay topics that I’d rather speak on in a more casual manner.

Every now and then, I’d love to do an audio-based episode. So we’ll see how we do with that in time :).

I started this Substack to rebuild my writing skills, as I had lost them quite a bit post-grad, and also to create a space to do what I love to do, which is writing academic-ish essays on topics that I’d have to research and carefully evaluate. I’ve been kinda shocked how enjoyable it has been to write essays again, and I wish that I had gotten back into it years ago when I had begun to crave essay writing again.

Overall, I hope to continue to cultivate this space into a place where multiple points of a topic can be looked at and evaluated to create a sense of clarity about different societal issues, events, and phenomena. It has been really fulfilling and enjoyable to spend my time writing these essays and researching topics that I genuinely care about, and I hope that you all enjoy reading them too :).

P.S. If there are any topics that you’d love for me to cover, please let me know! I will add it to my growing backlog of ideas.

The problem started long, long ago, when corporations and individuals discovered the blueprints to success. With this cheat code, anyone could be truly be famous. You just have to be willing to do exactly what it took no matter how it made you look.

Or, maybe you prefer to look famous so that you can become famous, well that has a blueprint too. Just spend your money and run your cards up with expensive trips and luxury car rentals and make sure you take photos to show your audience that you’ve “made” it. These days, even the idea that you’ve got it “like that” can propel you to the riches that can make your fake feed a reality.

What’s wrong with faking it until you make it? What’s wrong with faking it all to the way to the grave?

If you could lie your way to riches, wouldn’t you do the same?

Introduction

Virality in the context that I’ll be observing is a complicated issue to critique. It’s not that it’s hard to form an opinion on the ways in which people are conducting themselves online, but it’s more about the societal impact that virality can allow for. Everyone has the opportunity to change their life by going viral no matter their religion, race, upbringing, location, political view, or even age. We have seen individuals who have changed their lives for the better by going viral and making enough money to buy a house all because the algorithm awarded their content creation.

But we have also seen how virality can allow for life-ruining accusations, like when it was alleged that a TikTok user raped a women who he had never met. This all came about simply because a person made a video that spread like wildfire. There was no proof, no information, and no confirmation from the woman who was portrayed as the victim in this scenario. It was just a video edited in a way that elicited a knee jerk reaction. Since then, both parties have said that not only did this not happen, they also didn’t know one another.

This gives virality a terrifying slippery slope.

With the ongoing recession and the growing discontent with late stage capitalism (among other things), it makes sense that individuals with access to a phone and a few hours of free time would rather use that time to build an internet persona/brand that could eventually land them into the throes of financial freedom. In reality, any of us could be one video away from a viral video that projects us to having our own podcast like “Hawk Tuah girl” and her new podcast Talk Tuah or starting your own brand like the “Pink Sauce Lady”. The issue comes when we would do anything, and absolutely anything, to achieve that freedom.

Doing Anything for Views

I remember when “mukbangs” began to come around the internet scene around 2015. ABC News describes them as:

"Mukbang," which is a term that originated in South Korea and translates to "eating shows," involves content creators posting videos, sometimes more than an hour long, of themselves eating mostly junk food. In some instances, they take on exorbitant amounts.

As I went through my college years, I saw more and more mukbang creators trying their hand at the globalizing trend and personally, I couldn’t get into the content. Some folks would combine their consumption with a podcast while others would eat food in grotesque—and in some ways fetishizing—manners. But at the end of the day, the content was the same: there was an overabundance of makeshift food challenges and overconsumption.

When Googling or Youtube-ing the genre, a face that appears often is a user by the name of Nikocado Avocado. Mukbang aficionados will definitely be familiar with this name, as he is a sort of forefather of Mukbang content in the United States. His personality is incredibly loud, larger than life, and unfortunately toxic and problematic. He has several videos where he and his husband fight one another physically or engage in other kinds of inflammatory relationship content together. Meanwhile, they’re doing all of this while progressively gaining an extreme amount of weight with no end in sight.

In typical individualist fashion, we can all sit and say the typical adages of “well that’s his life, if he wants to ruin it then who cares,” or, “I think his content is entertaining and funny,” or maybe even, “none of it is real, nothing on the internet is real. Who cares?”

Well, the problem comes when we reward harmful and inflammatory content creators with unlimited fame and exposure.

On September 6th, 2024, Nikocado Avocado fans woke up to a new video titled “Two Steps Ahead.” At the time of me writing this, the video has amassed more than 46 million total views. The video features a smaller framed Nikocado wearing a panda mascot head who speaks with a calm and seemingly calculated voice. He begins the video by saying, “Two steps ahead. I am always two steps ahead.”

Before conducting a mukbang, he unleashes a Joker-esque monologue detailing his grand scheme of using old videos on his channel to maintain his career while losing weight and becoming healthy in the meantime. He calls all of this “the greatest social experiment” of his entire life while also calling his audience “peasants” while chatting with his bird.

The comment section oozes support and awe for Nikocado. Commenters commend him for losing the weight (which is definitely an incredible accomplishment), but they also applaud him for fooling the world, “redeeming” himself, and most importantly, for “being the villain”. People are begging to see a Netflix documentary to get the scoop on his master plan to illude the masses in order to ascend to a millionaire lifestyle while also being a villain along the way. His audience is entranced and hypnotized by this unfathomable plot twist.

A situation like this further highlights the issues with virality while also reminding us that the internet is ever so forgetful.

Even if the fights with his husband were fake, the damage that he has done is real. Nikocado Avocado has created a blueprint for other content creators to recreate in the name of achieving their own social media success, so long as they’re willing to destroy their bodies and the lives of other content creators.

Even if his drama-loving internet persona was all bait for his “social experiment”, he still attempted to ruin the life of fellow YouTuber Stephanie Soo by aggressively bullying her, threatening her safety, and attempting to turn the internet and the people around her against her.

Among other things, he abused the copyright strike system to strike down other YouTubers who were not violating Fair Use Laws, he faked having health conditions in order to garner sympathy and attention from his audience, and he also created drama with other YouTubers just for content and views. His career has been built on malice, commodifying overeating, and unapologetically causing problems for other creators, and the effects of that do not dissipate because he decided to better himself.

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The Consequences of Controversial Content — A Moment of Reckoning

Some YouTubers who go viral for unsavory reasons have the privilege to directly face the monster that they have created. Take for example the creator iDubbbz who has been a popular content creator on YouTube for well over a decade. He was primarily famous for his series “Content Cop” which featured his critiques and deep dives of problematic YouTubers and other content creators at the time. The videos featured silly skits, clips, and information to help his audience understand why we should put a spotlight on these creators and give these individuals less views and engagement.

However there was a fatal flaw: iDubbbz himself was the very type of individual who deserved a “Content Cop” level of scrutiny.

In a 2023 interview with Anthony Padilla, iDubbbz speaks candidly about his fan-interactions, and how displeasing they have been. He states that on numerous occasions, he met fans who sucked because he “attracted a lot of people who suck.” He describes these fans as “anti-social, weird basement dwellers” who would say words to him that “we only say by describing the first letter.”

Unlike Nikocado Avocado, iDubbbz has worked to state his disgust with the old inflammatory content that he has created, and has even gone as far as deleting all of his Content Cop videos. However, as we all know, nothing can be deleted from the internet.

It only takes a cursory glance to find his old controversial content. You will see countless reuploaded videos of him going to an old Tana Mongeau meet and greet and saying the n-word (with the hardest of r’s might I add). He reasons that he did so simply because of her past usage of slurs and racist insults.

Ethan Klein, creator of the H3 Podcast, compliments iDubbbz as being “rhetorical and smart” for his “usage of the n-word,” in contrast to YouTuber PewDiePie who was “a little too comfortable” using that word. Meanwhile, there are countless clips that show Klein and iDubbbz using the n-word (among other slurs) back to back, seemingly just for fun during his 2017 interview on the H3 Podcast.

iDubbbz was right in his 2023 Anthony Padilla interview to say, “These are the people that I'm attracting. These are the people I'm entertaining. I need to reevaluate things. They are relating and enjoying this content for a reason, and that's not maybe the same reason that I'm trying to make.” Now, even the comment section on reuploaded videos are filled with comments claiming that iDubbbz was using the video in a “comedic” or “satirical” way, or that he’s using the word so heavily to be a hero and “desensitize us all” in order to diminish the hurtful qualities of the word, or even that he’s using the word simply because he wants to, and that’s all the rational he needs as a straight, cis, white man. Simultaneously, the comments demand that we should all “get over” his usage of the n-word and all of the other slurs that he utilizes, because after all, it is “just a word.”

iDubbbz has spoken on numerous occasions since then about how he doesn’t stand by his old controversial content. Since then, he has pivoted his new content to a more tame and mild vibe compared to the pure unhinged and unfiltered content of his past. These are all great changes to have been made, however, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he has not only achieved financial freedom by platforming bigoted ideologies, but he has also highlighted yet another harmful blueprint that can be followed for financial gain.

Jesters of Society

On today’s modern internet, you can find makeshift iDubbbz and Nikocado Avocado clones anywhere. With algorithms rewarding damaging content more than ever, content creators are even resorting to a genre of content called “ragebait” in order to garner views, attention, and most importantly, money. This can range from toxic carousel posts to faked arguments about hot-button issues that will provoke arguments and support in the comments. All forms of content is being created to create the type of engagement that could change someone’s life forever.

@influicityHave you ever noticed how rage bait posts keep popping up in your feed? 🤔 It's a tactic some creators use to boost engagement by sparking strong reactions and heated debates. The more you react, the more their content spreads, gaining visibility and driving up their metrics. While it can drive views and comments, it often spreads negativity, misinformation, and can be quite manipulative. Understanding this strategy helps you recognize and resist the urge to engage. #socialmediamarketing #socialmediamanager #socialmediatips #socialmediastrategy #tiktoktips #socialmediaexpert #ragebait

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There are even individuals who create fake news stories and frame them as real events that have occurred. Take for example TikTok user thesephew, also known as TheRobbyShow, who only notes that his content is “Fictional Stories and Satire” on his profile page. When it comes to his countless faked stories, like the “Hot Chemist” who caused an explosion from her bar beverage with a solution that exploded when spiked with drugs, or the “6’6" Texan Man” who threw a pickpocket down the stairs at the 2024 Olympics after failing to steal from the Texan man, TheRobbyShow doesn’t explicitly state in his comments or the video description that the “news” that he is spreading is all made-up.

He utilizes hashtags that would work for any regular content being created on the app, such as #revenge, #meetcute, and even #storytime, but doesn’t provide information or hashtags that would convey to the viewer that the content being consumed is fake. The only indication is on his profile page (which the average social media scroller wouldn’t bother visiting) or from the few comments that educate viewers about the fabricated nature of his content. To make it worse, these videos are shared to audiences outside of TheRobbyShow’s viewer base as real stories that happened, causing even more unnecessary, divisive, and sometimes aggressive, discourse in comment sections like in the video below.

@hughsllc#duet with @TheRobbyShow #StoryTime Ahh Texas #olympics #france #texas

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At the time of me writing this, this video alone has nearly half a million plays, and that doesn’t even include all of the other users who have watched and spread this video around to their corners of the internet as a factual event that happened during the Olympics. The comment section is rife with Europeans explaining the legal system and how it protects pickpockets, arguments and excitement about how “American” it was for the “Texan Man” to throw the pickpocket down the stairs, and even how we can’t blame the “Texan Man” for his violence because of how filled with adrenaline he must have been when he was being pickpocketed.

All of this worldwide discontent and jubilation for a news story that doesn’t even exist.

It is a community effort to keep the internet a safe and hospitable place for everyone, but with the way that virality can cause information and content to spread, hospitality and trust on the internet becomes an impossible dream. There are individuals all over TikTok, Instagram, Substack, and even major news outlets who attempt to educate their audiences about the fake and curated nature of social media content, but with Instagram alone bringing in an average of 100 million photos per day, we have an issue that has grown far beyond any well-meaning community’s bandwidth.

It is because of all of this and so much more that we should be careful as a society about the content that we put out there and engage with. Even exposing people to the notion that certain types of content can net massive amounts of fame and financial gain can be deadly in the wrong niche because some individuals will truly do anything for views. Some individuals just do not have a good enough moral compass to grasp why we shouldn’t just do anything for views, and are also not mindful enough to utilize a critical lens when posting content onto the internet. Many people are simply not community conscious enough to wield a power that could affect the greater collective in negative, longstanding ways.