5 Quick Things: January 2022

Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

>Number One<

Little Talks

I know we probably all know about parasocial relationships at this point but another that seems to be rolling out of the woodwork is this kind of parasocial version of stalking and gossip. That is to say, the “main character” of Twitter kind of people. This article from Bitch Media dives a little deeper into not just the harassment and chatter around these events but also the social ramification for and because of these people.

>Number Two<

The Further Commodification of Self

As Bitcoin barrels past it’s first decade being absolutely useless, we’re unfortunately confronted with the fact that despite being extremely niche NFTs are now dominating conversations and destroying precious resources on our planet. This article is a quick one but it hits at the core of a conversation I was having the other week about who would even invent something like this other than to launder money and actively not care about other people. It’s frustrating and it feels like a distressing parallel to a lot of the current conversations people are having about luxury goods and their real value. Which is at least physical.

>Number Three<

A Queer Reading of 2 Fast 2 Furious

I hope that Voice Memos for the Void starts to blow up soon because this video which is a 50 minute dive into some of the ways bisexuality has and hasn’t been presented in media (with a special eye for television) has been kind of lacking and how it can be bolstered. I love this because it dives in from a few different angles of a conversation people have been trying to try lately, especially after Loki (Disney+) and the sort of “failure to start” moment of his “coming out” which was not much. There’s another companion video I’d suggest to this and that’s verilybitchie’s “Commodifying Bi Validation: Loki vs Russell T Davies” Just really good stuff.

>Number Four<

Disruption in the System

I have been really enjoying Ijeoma Oluo’s blogs that she’s posted recently and this one about what happened after her house burned down and how it enabled her to take a step back to think about how she had populated her life with things (that she now did not have).

As a person who is about to move into their very first space that they are allowed to fill with their own things (instead of having to throw out most of my belongings to move) and actually change as they like (instead of not even being allowed to hang pictures in my former apartments) this piece really got my brain thinking on how I want to make sure that despite that I’ve never been one to just buy without a purpose, that I don’t accidentally fall into the pattern society has set up for all of us.

>Number Five<

The Past is Present

And lastly, here‘s just an extremely cool thing that I saw. Part historical archive, part academic archive, part fun way to connect with people of the past this site has English translations of Slovak games from the 80s and 90s. Games made in this region and during this time have a really fascinating history but were mostly inaccessible to anyone who did not speak these languages and this project seeks to widen the audience and make available these things for more people. I just think it’s really wonderful to see such a great preservation and outreach.

Alright folks that’s all she wrote, see you next month!

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