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styledeficit · 1 year

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5 December - 10 December weeknotes

Arbitrary stupid goal. I haven’t read it yet, but I did read Laser Writer II and I loved it. Regardless, I didn’t think I was the type for gamification – a year is a long time to wait for 1 point, but here we are. Last week’s week notes, late.

Monday 5 December

Dark morning. Fell over litter picking and cut a round hole in my shin for the trouble. Felt the sting and the bruise blooming with every step that followed. Mondays in December! Honestly it makes me think I should reverse the order of my weeknotes.

Winter is finally coming though. On the way back from band the night smelled of woodsmoke and frost.

Tuesday 6 December

A post on LinkedIn tells me it’s 9 years ago today that I gave a talk at Creative Liverpool: an indie night of talks with Gavin Strange, Sam Meech and Adrian McEwan. It was the first time I’d heard both Gavin and Sam speak, and their talks were unexpected and brilliant. (Adrian’s was of course, as brilliant as ever. And he was kind – I get nervous when I speak.)

Gavin spoke about… everything, I guess. A bit about his work and a lot about the projects he does for fun. So much stuff and so much fun. Everything from posters for bands he likes, to an organised bike race to every chip shop in town. Some projects grew into bigger things, and some did not. He didn’t care though; why worry? There are plenty more ideas where they came from. I’m a horrible cynic usually, but his enthusiasm was so infectious it still makes me smile to think about it now.

And Sam was something else altogether. He set up a knitting machine and while he was talking, knitted 5 frames of Eadweard Muybridge’s running horse. At one point he shouted “Any knitters in the audience? Eat my dust!” Ironing to a soundtrack of Crazy Horses he then videoed each piece to recreate a pixelated version of Muybridge’s animation. Writing about it now it doesn’t sound like much but it was frenetic and compelling. I’ve followed his work ever since - he does fantastic community projects and public art pieces.

It’s very easy to say things were better in the old days, but on seeing the video I couldn’t help but miss those times when we (I?) just did stuff for the hell of it. For the joy of doing it and seeing what would happen. And seeing it on a place like LinkedIn too. Where everyone is doing #thoughtleadership in the hope that what will happen is a repost, a pat on the back or another jump up the career ladder. Arbitrary stupid goal indeed. (Or these days, with a cost of living crisis, maybe not. Each to their own, I guess.)

Wednesday 7 December

France, family and the circus. A woman hangs from her hair and yet dances carefree. There’s a man who can fall like water. And another who, semi naked, with a horses tail attached (not inserted) chews my hair while everyone watches. Later, a man with the face of an angel walks a tightrope.

Thursday 8 December

We drive north from Toulouse. Across the top of deep, tree-lined valleys.

Friday 9 December

We visit Sarlat, a medieval town, always nice at this time of year. Inexplicably, they have a small Christmas market – the kind with wooden sheds and handmade gifts of varying quality and origin. And it’s all decorated in green, white and orange. At the end is an ‘Irish Christmas Pub’. I’m still not sure what made it Irish, but I don’t think it was the stalls selling duck or pretzels.

Saturday 10 December

Sneak out for a walk at sunset. The leaves glow orange.

Later, France beats England in the world cup. In a half-French half-English household, it doesn’t seem to matter much.

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nvzblgrrl · 4 years

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Part 1 Heyo man, I'm absolutely ecstatic that you have this whole One Piece Big Fic project in the works. I'm honestly p paranoid about interacting with words, but your works have been something I've continuously enjoyed going back to and rereading over all these years. And while you've grown and your earlier stuff feels cringe, there's a charm that Witt and Witticism and all of your earlier works have that is longlasting. And I, and apparently others, can't help but love.

Part 2 I've probably reread your fics a good thousand times by now. Like seriously I've got a good bunch of the fics you posted on AO3 saved as PDFs for my own personal reading when I feel the urge. Namely Luck of The Draw, Ultimate Symbiote, and a portion of your Chain Adventures. I've been here quietly reading for a long time and I'm gonna make sure to properly give feedback this time. Good luck in your absolutely bonkers endeavor!

Yeah, absolute mood on the ‘cringe’ part. I think the only excuse I can make for the really early stuff is that -

(this is gonna get loooong and reference child abuse + the 2000′s-2010′s meme culture, so pre-emptive apologies)

1. I had a really messed up upbringing. Not as bad as some people’s situations but still on the deeper end of bad by the ‘White American’ standard and still (albeit barely) within the bounds of Funny Sitcom Abuse Antics (at least for mid-2000′s and older stuff) most of the time. Most of it was neglect and social isolation - I pretty much left the property to go to school, church, and to visit relatives because of court-mandated visitation, the last of which probably kept me from going insane, and that was it aside from events where my dad needed an accessory to compliment his public mask - but there were some other shit mixed in that relied on the Trunchbull Rule (it has to sound too weird to be real so nobody believes it/takes it seriously) to happen.

So besides like, the PTSD from that (which has a habit of bleeding into all of my works, which you’ve probably noticed by now, lmao), I had like, zero experience on healthy relationships, social skills (well outside of a few variations on ‘messed up friendships’ and what I picked up from books, movies, and TV), and basic life skills outside of stuff like ‘boil water and follow the box directions’).

2. I got into the internet really late compared to my generation and everyone after. This was mostly because we had literally no semi-reliable internet access until I was about 11-13 and that was either the school internet or the dial-up at home (which of course was time-limited with the time shared with my brother and done on the family computer with observation in effect). Most of that was spent on like flash games or webcomics, many of which I have tried to reread only to find them gouging my soul because god what the hell was happening in 2007 - wait. Yeah.

It got better by the time we hit high school because by then we had our own computers (not scanners though, I had to pass art and passwords over to a friend of mine to get them on the internet for a couple years before we got one at home), a better internet connection, and high levels of parental disengagement as we proved to be disappointments despite our previous ‘potential’ (my dad was hoping for me to become a life-long cash cow for him, IDK what was going on with my brother and his mom), which meant I could spend more time on the internet... which at the time, meant DeviantArt and FF.net (tumblr came way, waaay at the end of my time in high school).

Yes, that’s where I started out. That should explain a good 90% of why the early stuff was Like That.

Also don’t look for my DeviantArt because I deleted the whole thing years ago, for cringe reasons - namely, a really, really stupid minor war over something I can’t even remember but it ran a lot like those old ‘Potterheads Get Your Wands’ posts, though the fact that 80% of my output towards the end were extremely banal and/or fucking insane One Piece (and occasionally Soul Eater) Demotivator Posters didn’t help.

Pictured: proof of my crimes against humanity (with some minor repeats - every single one of those demovitators are something I did and that’s not even all of them) despite my attempts to destroy the evidence, because the internet (and pinterest) never forget and often reposts without permission.

[Image description: a series of drawn images of a man. the first panel is of him looking at a computer with the subtitle ‘recognition’, the second is a close-up of him with sweat and a look of surprise on his face along with two exclamation points subtitled ‘realization’, the third and final image is an extreme close up of his intensely stressed expression subtitled ‘fear’.]

[Image description, but funny: me accidentally coming across one of those reposts a couple years ago.]

I personally can’t forget because I know my style at the time (it had a few variations, but all of them have been seared into my soul) and how inane/insane some of them read. My favorite was one that ended up turning into a word vomit about how cool Gol D. Roger was that ran so far that it didn’t fit inside the format anymore and ended up running off of the page repeatedly.

...and yes, I did make one edit that was ‘Dead or Alive? is that a trick question?’ for Brook. That one’s still circulating too.

3. While that covers a certain amount of the problems with the early work, Witt and Witticism stands out as a pinnacle because I was both using a reaction heavy style (I was pretty much doing a live-blog of my One Piece anime rewatch in fanfic form, using Witt as a mouth piece - a similar style was used with Ultimate Symbiote but fortified with a few original stories and actual non-canon stuff happening!) and going through the tail end an extreme manic period brought on by escaping (read: getting kicked out of because they were no longer socially or legally obligated to care for me anymore) my abusive childhood home + having money (from my dead mom’s social security).

Seriously, that year was bonkers. I got to go to Disneyworld, got a new cat, published an insane fic, and blew through so much money on some dumb fucking shit when my dad wasn’t stealing it because I didn’t realize he had access to my then-bank account.

Also I’m pretty sure that you can detect when my sanity/depression started reasserting itself in the last few chapters of Witt because he starts experiencing consequences, though I’m not saying you should reread it to try to locate that moment because I’m having to re-read it repeatedly for reference purposes and I don’t think anyone should have to suffer this unless they’re into that (which admittedly, might be the result of that ‘charm’ you mentioned, because I can’t otherwise account for how that fic got over a quarter of a million hits otherwise).

Not to say that all of my early stuff was bad (some of it was actually shockingly good once I found it again, even though it was flawed) but the most easily accessible stuff is... not great!

And thanks for the well-wishes. I’m gonna need that luck if I want to get through it. I look forward to the feedback!

#asks #the big fat one piece fic project #Anonymous

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thedipshits · 4 years

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𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂

bold what applies to your muse. italicize what sometimes applies. repost, don’t reblog!

tagged by: @silverskins like 15 years ago 💜 tagging: i’m doing this for all my guys. feel free to steal.

𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄

cloudless sky / ocean waves / winter dusk / deserted rest stops / dust filled book jackets / sea salt in your lungs / open space lofts / mountainside meditation / empty ski lodges / calm before storms / electric charged air / lighthouses / road trips with no destination / desert skies / summer breeze through a cottage window / cool air against water soaked skin / seaside towns during off season / wind-chimes / big bed with lots of blankets / coming home after a long time away / a wolf howling in the distance / fingers dancing along spine / a hug from an old friend / afternoon tea / wild flowers off abandoned highways

𝐑𝐄𝐃

wine soaked lips / internalized rage / blood on knuckles / four poster beds / barefoot on marble floor / velvet drapes / lipstick marks / murder mysteries / old barns with hay lofts / mouth full of weapons / possessive love / dark chocolate / apple orchard visits / handwritten letters / fresh strawberry fields / cherry flavored chapstick / soft candlelight / vintage pumps / tingles over your body / strong but gentle hand around your throat / scarf tied over your eyes / fog on a rainy night / intimate bar settings / complete destruction / kiss swollen lips / scratches against flesh / sitting by a fireplace / blood orange sunsets

𝐘𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖

community gardens / sunflower seeds / open fields / blowing dandelion fluffs / bubbles in spring / warm champagne / drafty cottages opened after winter / soft buzzing near your ear / loose braids / flaxen sundresses / handmade straw hats / warm butter on fresh toast / daisy chains / drum circles / sun on your face / maypoles / outdoor festivals / street food / car shows / pop art drawings / fruity flavors / mist on produce / running through sprinklers / cucumber water / wrap around porches / worn pages of a book / honey in tea / yard sales / freckled skin / tarnished gold lockets / angel food cake / windmills / flashlight beams

𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐍

marshy swamps / cajun recipes / haunted graveyards / old road signs / the house people tell stories about / lights flickering / jazz music / twig snapping / campfires / ghost stories / urban exploration / vines creeping up brick / wooden flutes / quiet forests / labored breaths / hiking trails / rain on leaves / bonfires / fresh smoothies / water logged grottos / painful whispers from jealous lovers / successful business ventures / leaky cellars / park theater productions / mint scented lotions / ambitious promises / pine needle covered floors / oil lanterns / aloe on warmed skin / crushing floral foam / forgotten towns

𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊

crinkle of leather jacket / midnight walks / bulbs burning out / black lacquered nails / the sound of bats screeching / distant marching band music / noises when you’re home alone / blood soaked knife / dark lipstick on pale skin / scent of sulfur / soot on boots / slasher movies / glint of cat eyes in the dark / oil slicks on dark asphalt / basement bedrooms / investigating a noise / grainy camera footage / black and white photos / dust filled attics / empty theaters / whistling in the middle of the night / scratches at your window / wrought iron gates / lace neck ruffles / long floor sweeping skirts / broken music boxes / needle scratching on vinyl / lost memories / disembodied voices / forgotten faces

𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄

crisp scents / laundry on a line / fleece blankets / brightly lit hospital rooms / empty train stations / genuine laughter / feathers against skin / new life / cotton dresses / log cabins in winter / swan gliding through water / harp music floating through the air / plane rides for fun / mountain tops / ice sculptures / first snowflake of winter / linen freshly pressed / the scent of a running dryer / vanilla and cinnamon milk / a smile from a stranger / letters in the mail / a longing finally satiated / kiss of moonlight on skin / fresh canvas / snow glittering like diamonds / paint strokes / pretty lie told from a kind mouth / sparklers / coffee foam art

#🏹 – about duhlainn #my dumb murder boi. 😍

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vrainsweek · 5 years

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VRAINS WEEKS “LINK-14″ - Daily Prompts 2019

Hello again Minna-saaaaaaan!

How are yooou? Did you miss me? Did you miss the 2 weeks we were talking about Vrains and Vrains only? Yes I missed them, too. =D So I sat down and started thinking about the prompts for these year’s Vrains Weeks. But first a little information! As some of you remember I asked for another name for the Vrains Weeks because...”Vrains Weeks” sounds too normal and kinda boring even if any of you understand what they are. (I had a minute I wanted to call them Double Week but that was even worse.) So I asked around if you guys have an idea how to call them and actually... One person had the perfect idea! So first let me introduce to you the new name of the Vrains Weeks:

Link-14 (Weeks)

And I think it fits. 2 Weeks have 14 days and everyone in the Vrains fandom knows what you mean when you say “Link-”. My special thanks for this name go to @mythicalartisttm Thank you so so much, my brain never ever would have thought this way!

Thank you! Danke! ありがとう！

Before we start with the newest Vrains Prompts for 2019 let’s take a look at the rules again (So noone can say they didn’t read or find them!)

NO Bashing of ANY content! That means no BASHING or INSULTING over any Headcanons, Theories, Shippings, Works and and and.

NO NSFW. Sexual and / or Gore content or similar for some people in a fandom are exciting ofc but since I can’t control the age of this blog’s followers I have to keep this free for minors. Also I hope this will keep triggers away from some followers.

NO Copying, Stealing or Reposting of other people’s work! Not even with credits! This is unfair and really NOT a way to show YOUR content. Also you hurt the real artist with this and we don’t want and don’t need this. YouTube Videos musiclinks or similar for special topics for a day are excluded as long as credits such as the directlink are included. (Please contact me if someone reposted your art over the #vrainsweek or #VRLINK14 tag)

Don’t forget! If you break one of those rules you will be banned from VRAINS WEEKS! Also I want to inform you that every content is allowed as long as it doesn’t break the rules. Drawings, Cosplay, Theories, AUs, everything aslong as it fits with the topic!

About the tag you have to use to find your work you can use 2 tags now:

You can still stick with the #vrainsweek from last year or use #VRLINK14

I will look at both of them to check your guys’ works. Just don’t forget to tag! Ok, here we go! Ready for the 2019 prompts?

Monday (15th July 2019)

“Favorite Headcanon” To start the Link-14 weeks let’s begin with something easy. Show me your most favorite Headcanon you had so far after 2 years of Vrains. Draw something, describe it, whatever you like! It doesn’t matter if this headcanon is old or brand new just show us you always wanted to show all of us!

Tuesday (16th July 2019)

“Androids” Wouldn’t it be great if we see the Other Ignis as Andoids as well? Or even Yusaku and the others? I wonder how they survive in the real world? Do they eat like normal humans? Will they ever feel tired? How would the Ignis look like? Aaaah so many questions~

Wednesday (17th July 2019)

“Happy Hot Dog Day!” Of course the newest LINK-14 Week again is the same date as the National Hot Dog Day as well! And again you can do whatever you like aslong as it includes a Hot Dog (I am sorry if it sounds a bit NSFW But I DON’T MEAN IT THAT WAY ///)

Thursday (18th July 2019)

“Babies”

Last year we had a prompt which I wanted you to put our favorite characters into adults. This time let’s go back in time and show them as little kids and babies.

I think Vrains has too less of some past shots from when our favorites where small and cute, let’s change that!

Friday (19th July 2019)

“Memories”

Thinking of the past can be beautiful but also pretty cruel. We all know that everyone of us thinks of the past knowing that it made us what we are today. So do Yusaku and the others. They think of the past and appreciate every memory they have no matter if they are hurt- or beautiful.

Saturday (20th July 2019)

“Gaming Champs”

Ok ok so... I played some League of Legends a while ago and suddenly I thought: “How would Yusaku look like as a LoL champ?” I went too far and even thought about his skills but hey! Wouldn’t that be a great prompt as well? If you guys are actually gaming something why don’t you put Yusaku or Ryoken or whoever you like into a game? No matter if it’s an MMO or something like Super Mario or Sims 4 or whatever you like. Maybe...I will design Yusaku as a LoL champ as well *laughs*

Sunday (21st July 2019)

“Vacations” We all are soo thirsty for a beach episode but it looks like we never get it...sadly ... *cries* BUT That’s why the LINK-14 Week is here for so let’s get the boys and girls into some sweet vacations! They really REALLY need a break! It doesn’t have to be the sea, send them wherever you want them to be. Another place, another country, wherever you like!

Monday (22nd July 2019)

“What if?” What if Ryoken / Revolver never was able to save the children from the Lost incident?

Tuesday (23rd July 2019)

“Share some music”

Music is my way to happiness I always say. What are the songs you relate the most to when you think of Vrains? It can be anything, songs to some AUs or to a special character or shipping or a scene you liked the most.

You can share Spotify playlists or YouTube Links or just the title and singers of the songs (Please don’t upload music files).

If you want you can use this prompt as well to show some relating from Vrains characters to music (For example Hanois as a band)

Wednesday (24th July 2019)

“Me when I watch VRAINS”

I am curious and maybe this prompt is a bit stupid but Vrains and the LINK-14 week only works with the people who actually watch Vrains. And I want to give you a “stage” cause you matter a lot! What do you look like when you watch VRAINS? (Describe it or draw it or even take a photo of it haha)

Thursday (25th July 2019)

“VRAINS goes Hollywood” So I have two tasks and whatever you like more is what you gonna do: Drawers: Redraw a movie cover / movie poster from whatever movie with Vrains characters. Writers: Take a scene of a movie you love and rewrite that scene with Vrains characters. Those movies can be anything (Disney, Marvel, Ghibli or other Animes, Romance movies or Hunger Games stuff) as long as they still fit with the LINK-14 Rules.

Friday (26th July 2019)

“VRAINS Manga”

I don’t know how long we will wait till we finally get a VRAINS Manga But we all have a lot of imaginations of how it will be. So share!

Saturday (27th July 2019)

“Happy Birthday!”

Imagine it’s Yusaku’s birthday. No other comments needed just be creative ;D

Sunday (28th July 2019)

“???” This day will be a surprise. Just wait till 28th July to see what’s up.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER!! DON’T FORGET TO TAG YOUR POSTS WITH #vrainsweek or #VRLINK14!!!!!!

See ya in July Minna-san!!

Choco

Note: I got the render pic of Yusaku for the header from here: LINK ME

#vrainsweek #VRLINK14 #yugioh zexal #vrains #vrainsdays

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 5 years

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'SighSwoon' merges self-care tips with hilarious memes on Instagram

Scrolling through @SighSwoon on Instagram is the equivalent of picking up a mysterious book at a thrift shop and falling into words that both enlighten and entertain.

Gabi Abrao, a 24-year-old Los Angeles native, is the mind behind one of Instagram's shiniest hidden gems. SighSwoon showcases self-reflective memes and guides on how to feel things, whether it's simple pleasures or a broken heart. It’s a treasure trove of content tailored for millennials navigating creative lives.

Sighswoon began in the summer of 2016, Abrao tells Mashable over email. Heartbreak and the desire to make some changes drove her toward the internet as a medium for creating and connecting with others, mainly through memes. With an ever-growing follower count of 62.3K, she's connected with a lot of people.

“When I share a realization online and see that thousands of people are going through the same thing, it makes me feel less alone, less hard on myself. I want people to feel this way too — understood, empowered,” Abrao explains.

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Reminder that we’re all multi-faceted human beings and inner movements and conditions are subject to change constantly. There is no fixed condition. The more you do and the more you experience, the more understanding you will gain about your many facets and when they show up for you. There is so much to you - your capabilities, your moods, your modes. Being in one mode doesn’t make you in fixed opposition to the the other. There is no forever, there is no never. Fixation is an illusion. Change and shape-shifting is nature. After you understand your modes, you may get close to managing them. The gift of this will be synchronicity and balance. ** (Reposting myself from last October because this theme keeps showing up for me time and time again. Love this truth too much. Happy shapeshifting.)

A post shared by GABI + MEMES (@sighswoon) on Apr 7, 2019 at 6:20pm PDT

The artist uses her platform to offer a plethora of self-care tips, from how to sunbathe ("a secluded location where you can get as naked as possible") to the best ways to "shapeshift," a visualization practice for when you're uncentered. Reading her is kind of like speaking to a caring physician who knows exactly what ails you and then gives you the perfect prescription, free of charge.

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Three years ago, following a mildly devastating heartbreak, I dragged my mattress and box spring to the very center of the room and said, “I am a lush, self-sustaining island“. I slept in the center of the room for three days. That weekend, I took myself to a local playhouse. A 20-seat theater, the space was tiny and intimate. I arrived alone in a long black dress and proceeded to watch a stubborn man fall in love with an alien. The play was incredible, surprising, I cried. Once home, I felt ready for the luxury of leaning on a wall and shoved my bed back up against it. . . Later, ready for guests and no longer isolating, I thought of myself as a castle in the desert. “Grand for itself, wise for itself,” I wrote in a poem. In this new form, I was rejecting the need for outside validation, especially that of romantic partners. I imagined myself made of stone that remained cool, even at the highest noon. I imagined myself as an abundant whimsical structure in an environment lacking of. Sturdy and welcoming and independent. “Grand when you arrive, grand when you leave,“ I added to the poem. . . In a meditation class in high school, our teacher told us to pick our place. My teacher, who did past life regression on dogs, said, “Pick a place to be in. Just sit there and listen. Make room for visits from animals, insects, spirits.“ I settled for a giant warm boulder in the sun, next to a free-flowing river, surrounded by woods. A buffalo visited me that day, my eyes closed in a classroom. When things are neutral, when things are good, when things are great, I am the boulder in the sun by the river. Or I am laying on it. . . The house cat reminds me to stretch my body and take time in the sun. The house cat makes me not feel guilty for napping too long or staring at the traffic outside. The house cat reminds me to give myself permission to relax and take it slow.

A post shared by GABI + MEMES (@sighswoon) on May 2, 2019 at 7:19pm PDT

With so much to do and see online today, it can be difficult to slow your scroll and ask yourself how you're feeling. Abrao's hyper-aware content offers a mirror with which followers can take a nice, long look at themselves. The focus falls on subjects like self-worth, illusions, success, and creativity. She utilizes extensive captions to explain specific ideas in depth — or even just to describe a sunset.

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me drinking the sunset on a hill overlooking the city. it’s incredible how some of the most impactful events occur in line with some of the most devastating. sometimes intensity is just intensity. i am living my dreams and aching simultaneously, and i’d be a fool to think this could ever be any other way. dual, shifting, unbelievably fair. i am so happy to still be here. when things feel gigantic, and the imagination builds tall tales to match the sensation, we can always return to water and sunshine.

A post shared by GABI + MEMES (@sighswoon) on Mar 26, 2019 at 3:50pm PDT

“As a teenager, I used to do street art wheat paste posters around the city that said ‘sigh swoon sigh’ on them," Abrao says of her page’s unusual name. "It was a mini poem I made up and attached meaning to, and sharing it like that was a reason to run around and be bad. Years later, the phrase would come back around and feel like the most fitting title for what my page has become.”

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My Higher Self just whispered this to me and I was floored. May we recognize crossfire. May we recognize deliberate, aimed fire. May we protect ourselves first before engaging in any perceived battle.

A post shared by GABI + MEMES (@sighswoon) on Mar 13, 2019 at 9:36pm PDT

The Sighswoon feed is aesthetically pleasing, everything kissed with a tint of beige. It's light and welcoming, which is exactly the way Abrao wanted it. She blames her fascination with the hue on her time spent at the beach: “I was renting a bed and a balcony in a living room for $500/month. The building’s stucco was beige, the cheap '90s carpet was beige, and the sand was beige. I think I just wanted to match everything.”

SEE ALSO: I don't know who needs to hear this, but these memes are good

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tbt to the longest but purest #vintage #meme wrote this a year ago

A post shared by GABI + MEMES (@sighswoon) on Feb 5, 2019 at 1:40am PST

“The cyborg in me recognizes the cyborg in you,” reads her bio, just above a link to her online store where she sells merch that features the saying on totes and sweatshirts. “It’s a claim to embracing the digital age,” Abrao explains, “the very human-meets-technology existence we all participate in, and are still wearily adapting to.” She admits that while it’s meant to be humorous, she also means it with her “whole heart."

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my beloved cream crewnecks are now available! i got one sample made for photos are I absolutely adore it. sizes run a little big and on the “men’s” side of sizing. sweaters are made-to-order and will ship within two weeks. link in bio 🏹🏹 p.s. totes are still available in the shop and any orders made today before midnight will ship on thursday morning along with every order placed this past week. love a cozy cyborg

A post shared by GABI + MEMES (@sighswoon) on Jan 29, 2019 at 1:41pm PST

With just about three years of memeing under her (beige) belt, Abrao has figured out the formula for making a solid one.

“A good meme is funny, relatable, insightful, and healing. In that order. You should laugh, then feel connected to the creator or others who understand it, then experience some introspect, then leave with a healed feeling from those three processes,” she muses. Her delivery method varies as she utilizes many different meme formats.

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ok fine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A post shared by GABI + MEMES (@sighswoon) on Feb 5, 2019 at 10:30am PST

Occasionally, Abrao will post pictures of herself wearing interesting outfits made of neutral textiles and glowy silks. These portraits provide a face to the name (as well as maintaining her color-coded image). They also fuel fan encounters at her part-time book store gig: "A few times I have rung up a book, handed it to the person across the counter, and they’re just staring at me, and they say 'You make memes right?'"

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Years ago, I read a passage by an unknown source that said - “When you have an amazing day, take note of what you were wearing, what you ate, who you were with, what you did. Do the same with bad days.” This shirt is my absolute favorite of mine, and I’ve only had good days in it.

A post shared by GABI + MEMES (@sighswoon) on Apr 17, 2019 at 5:11pm PDT

Abrao just wants to help everyone chill out. "I aim for my page to be accessible, empowering, and soothing," she says. And she wants to keep it up for as long as possible.

"I wish to continue my studies of the invisible and unseen — documenting my findings through paintings, writings, videos, memes, and other art forms," she says. Her end goal is literally out of this world: "I will operate a carousel in the desert some day, and I hope to re-spawn on another planet in my next life."

In the midst of all the noise that is Instagram in 2019, Sighswoon provides a light-filled digital oasis, a faraway page that's easy to get lost on. Be careful, though. You might just walk away feeling refreshed and renewed. And with an affinity for beige.

WATCH: Nickelodeon releases official SpongeBob meme figures

#_category:yct:001000002 #_uuid:507e85d2-e538-3381-ba4a-2b4215c5f63c #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_author:Harry Hill #_revsp:news.mashable

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mariemary1 · 5 years

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Best Instagram Apps for Marketers

By itself, the Instagram app is awesome and powerful.

But do you know all the best apps to take your Instagram marketing to even greater heights?

There are certainly a lot to choose from. There’s no shortage of great Instagram apps for marketers.

To help you find the best of the best, we’ve tried out dozens and researched scores more. All the apps we’ll recommend below are ones you can download to your iOS or Android device for Instagrammign on-the-go. (The Buffer mobile app is a favorite of ours, too, for obvious reasons.) Keep reading to see our list of the very best Instagram apps for marketers, apps that can make your social media shine even brighter.

The Trend of Standalone Instagram Marketing Apps

The trend of single-job, standalone apps is not a new one.

Whenever anything reaches the mass and scale of social networks, there’s certain to be enterprising folks building tools to make the experience that much better.

In fact, this is exactly how Buffer got its start eight years ago, doing the single job of scheduling for Twitter.

These “single-job” tools do wonderful at delivering on the promise of a single superpower to help marketers and creators. And people are way into them. Huji Cam, which make your images look as if they were taken with an old-school throwaway camera, has been downloaded more than 16 million times.

What we love about all these tools is that they do a single job well, and they make a significant impact for marketers at brands and businesses, whether it’s helping to make content even better or helping to save time in an already-overcommitted workflow.

The Best Instagram Apps for Marketers

Photo-editing apps

VSCO

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

The first one we want to highlight is VSCO. Now, VSCO really stretches the definition of a standalone app — it is a fully-functioning company on a huge growth trajectory! According to Crunchbase, VSCO makes $50 million per year from app sales and in-app purchases. Wow! The app itself is hugely powerful with features and makes a completely lovely experience. You can do pretty much any sort of photo editing you’d like: filters, mosaics, you name it. VSCO has become the gold standard for photo editing.

Huji Cam

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

Huji Cam has been downloaded more than 16 million times, which is amazing because the tool does just one thing: a low-fi, old school photo filter to make your pictures look like they’re vintage.

Over

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

Over has been one of our go-to photo apps for years. With Over, you can place text on top of any image you want. Picture like a Canva lite — there are a ton of different typography, style, and color options to choose from.

Layout

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

When it comes to making collages and multi-photo layouts for Instagram, there’s lots of great options. One of our top picks is Instagram’s own standalone app called Layout. You can combine up to 9 images at once to create some really eye-catching layouts.

Snapseed

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

Snapseed, which is made by the team at Google, has a host of powerful editing options and one in particular adds a slightly different take on the editing process. Rather than editing the whole image, you can use a brush to apply any effects to just the part you want.

Other favorites

Carbon is a beautiful black-and-white photo editor to make eye-catching black-and-white photos and effects

Facetune is one of the very best selfie editors. The retouching features in Facetune work like magic! We’ve never looked better.

Glitch Art Studio has a huge number of different glitch effects you can apply to your photos.

Darkroom and Afterlight are a couple other big and powerful photo editors, similar to VSCO and Snapseed.

And if you’re looking for a simple Instagram resizer, there are a lot of apps that let you resize your image without cropping. Search for “square and crop” … but just watch the reviews because some apps make you jump through hoops to use the service.

Instagram content and hashtag apps

Re-grammer

Price: Free

Available on: iOS

One of the most popular categories for Instagram content apps is apps for reposting Instagram content. If you search your app store for “repost,” you’ll see a number of different apps that do the same job. Re-grammer is one our favorites. One of the best use cases for these reposting apps is with user-generated content. You can use reposting apps like Re-grammer to curate images from your community, reshare them to your Instagram profile, and give the original poster all the credit. These apps make that whole process easy — all you have to do is discover the content you want to reshare, and the apps add attribution for you in the caption text as well as on the photo, with a subtle tag in the corner.

See Repost for an Android alternative.

Hashtag Expert

Price: Free

Available on: iOS

Another hashtag favorite is Hashtag Expert for Instagram. This app is really quite robust with different suggestion algorithms to choose from, a trending hashtag section, and more. When you enter your desired hashtag and see the list of suggestions from Hashtag Expert, you can pick and choose which ones to keep and then copy your new list to take straight into Instagram.

Tagomatic

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

Tagomatic is a super lightweight app — just 11 megabytes — that does its one job well: suggesting hashtags to use. All you need to do is enter a word, and Tagomatic will give you a number of hashtag options to choose from. One thing that Tagomatic does really well is surface trending hashtags that are popular right now.

Instagram Video Apps

Boomerang

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

If Boomerang sounds familiar same with Hyperlapse app, which we mention below), theres good reason. You might have seen these apps mentioned within the core Instagram experience, too. You can use them in the Instagram app, or you can download the individual apps to build and create these special videos on their own. Boomerang allows you to create super short, looped videos that move forward, then backward, then forward again. The effect is a bit like a GIF with a rewind button. Boomerangs make for great bite-sized content and are a lot of fun for creators and for followers.

Hyperlapse

Price: Free

Available on: iOS

Hyperlapse lets you take time-lapse videos and has some neat stabilization options so that you can move and rearrange things without risking the quality of the video. Time-lapse videos can make great storytelling content for events, meetups, you name it.

Clips

Price: Free

Available on: iOS

In addition to the apps that Instagram has made, there’s a great standalone app from Apple as well, called Clips. With the Clips video app, you can add filters, emojis, stickers, and more to your video — they even have 360-degree backgrounds. There’s a lot of cool and fun customization you can add to your video with ease.

Giphy Cam

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

Giphy Cam by, you guessed it, the folks at Giphy lets you record gifs — which function as a type of video on Instagram. You can add effects and stickers to make some really humorous and engaging content.

Quik

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

If you use much GoPro footage on your Instagram account, then Quik by GoPro is going to save you a ton of time with editing. It’s great for editing high-def GoPro videos, and we’ve even found it to be quite easy and useful for non-GoPro vids as well.

Crop Video Square

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

Crop Video Square Editor is a useful app for turning non-square video into just the right size for your Instagram feed.

See Inshot Video Maker for an Android alternative.

Instagram analytics apps

Command

Price: Free

Available on: iOS

Command is a great app full of keen insightson how your Instagram content is performing. One of its best features is the chart that shows you the best times to post content to Instagram. We also love the daily stats roundup of all the most essential metrics for your account.

Follow Meter

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

And for something a bit more lightweight, you can check out Follow Meter, which gives you stats about your Instagram followers. You get all the great demographic information you could want, but you can also see who is following you back, who your top followers are, and more. We’re quite fond of Instagram Analytics, and we’re building it into a new tool ourselves. It’s not a standalone mobile app – yet — but if you’re keen to give it a go, you can learn more over at buffer.com/analyze.

Instagram Stories Apps

Hype Type

Price: Free

Available on: iOS

As the name suggests, Hype Type lets you create animated text that you can place on top of videos and photos. This can be particularly eye-catching in your Stories content, both organic and paid. Moving pictures get people to stop and watch, and moving text catches the eye even more so! See Hype Text for an Android alternative.

Unfold

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

Unfold is one of our top Instagram Stories design picks. The app has over 150 Story templates to choose from, plus unique stickers and its own Unfold camera. You can create some really stunning visuals in Unfold without needing a full set of design skills!

StoryArt

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

StoryArt, another Instagram Stories design app, comes with a huge number of templates plus a selection of covers and themes to choose from. Both Unfold and StoryArt come very highly rated in the App Stores. We think you’ll get a lot of value from them!

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Heather-Mae on Twitter

Dave on Twitter

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode. It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Thank Best Instagram Apps for Marketers for first publishing this post.

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baneismydragon · 7 years

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OT4 Nonsense pt 4.

YES IT’S BACK! (I am reposting this without the art this is inspired by to make it easier to link to the others later.) This is set about a month or so after where part 3 left off. I might go fill in the gaps later.

This chapter is based on the following art: http://hchano.tumblr.com/post/155309545851/yo-fangirlmorelikefangay-im-your-mlsecretsanta

“Nino!”

“GAAAHHH!” Nino shrieked, spinning towards his open window to see a distraught looking Chat Noir poking his head in. “Dude! I… Jeez, you cannot just sneak up on me like that!”

The hero hunched his shoulders, his cat ears flattening ashamedly.

“Sorry, I just… I needed to talk and I thought it would be ok…” Chat Noir began in what might have been the most pitiful voice his friend had ever heard from him.

Nino sighed, shaking his head slightly and trying not to laugh at the pathetic picture clinging to his window sill. “I don’t mind that you are here just, I don’t know, knock or something,” he said, gesturing for him to come into the room.

“Sorry.” Chat said again, his transformation dropping away in a flash of green light to reveal a sheepish and somewhat disheveled looking Adrien. His small black companion immediately darted into the corner of the room where Nino had turned one of his old toys into a kwami den the last time they had stopped by.

Nino got up from his desk chair and sat down on the edge of his bed, patting the mattress next to him in a beckoning gesture.

Adrien wasted no time climbing up onto the bed and curling up into Nino’s lap, his arms wrapped securely around his boyfriend’s waist.

Nino began softly carding his hands through Adrien’s hair, knowing that the easiest way to get the severely repressed boy to open up about anything was to simply say nothing and wait.

It didn’t take long.

“Have you ever thought that something was one way, and then found out that you were completely wrong and that everything you thought was true is a lie?” Adrien said, his voice somewhat muffled as he buried his head into the fabric of Nino’s tee-shirt.

“Huh… I donnow. I mean, two weeks ago I was a normal guy with just a normal- well, somewhat normal- girlfriend. Now I find myself in a complex polyamorous relationship with both said semi-normal girlfriend, and my best friend, who apparently I have been unconsciously dating since November- who, by the way, decided for our one week anniversary to tell me that he has secretly been running around saving Paris for the last two years in a skin tight leather cat-suit. Nah, that is a completely foreign feeling. Your own your own my friend.”

“You’re so mean,” Adrien whined, squeezing his arms tighter and shaking his head in irritation. “I am going through a profound and deeply distressing emotional epiphany and all you can do is make fun of me.”

“I am not mean, you are just melodramatic,” Nino teased, eliciting an irritated huff from his boyfriend. “So do you wanna tell me what happened or are you just going to be vague and depressing?”

Adrien stiffened slightly.

“It’s stupid,” he said softly. “I’m just stupid. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“If it matters to you than it isn’t stupid. And if it matters enough that you are going to come chasing me down, after midnight, less than three hours after I got home from my trip- which you already knew- then clearly you should say something, regardless of how stupid it is. So talk to me, what’s going on?”

Adrien muttered something incomprehensible, burying his face further into the fabric of the tee-shirt.

“What was that? I didn’t catch a word you just said.”

“I said I don’t want to make you mad at me.”

“Why would I be mad at you?” Nino asked, scratching at Adrien’s scalp with his fingertips in the way he knew never failed to relax the boy.

“Because I am an idiot,” Adrien sighed dejectedly, his muscles going limp.

“Did you kill someone?” Nino asked calmly.

“No…” Adrien replied, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“Did you suddenly decide to join up with Hawkmoth in his quest to seize the miraculouses in order to achieve… actually what does he want out of all of this?”

“Honestly? No idea. He wasn’t really up front with his motivations. And no.”

“Did you start dating Chloe?”

“God no!”

“Then I can’t think of anything stupid you could have done in the last 48 hours that would make me hate you,” Nino said smiling. “So, what horrible cat-astrophy brought you scampering to my window at one in the morning?”

“Did you just make a cat pun?” Adrien asked, his eyes lighting up and a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“Well, I have it on very good authority that you like them.”

For the first time since his arrival Adrien seems to calm down and Nino smiled to himself. Score one for the boyfriend.

Adrien sighed contentedly and wriggled around a bit, adjusting his position so that he was face up with his head propped against Nino’s thigh.

“You are the best, you know that right?”

“Hang on, can you repeat that into a microphone so I can play it on repeat to Alya?” Nino teased.

Adrien laughed, catching a hold of his friends hand and entwining their fingers.

Nino said nothing but raised his eyebrows expectantly to show that he wasn’t going to be that easily distracted.

Adrien’s expression sobered and he stared absently at one of Nino’s many posters, a soft blush staining his cheeks.

“So, yesterday was New Years,” he said softly.

“Yeah I think I got that memo.”

Adrien rolled his eye. “Do you want me to tell you what happened or not?”

“I’m sorry, please continue.”

“Anyways, father was out of town and so were you so I thought I might go and… um… well I decided to go try and visit Marinette.”

Nino bit his lip to clamp down on the string of questions that THAT statement evoked.

“Did it not go well?” he said instead, attempting to sound casual. He knew that Alya had spent the holiday at Marinette’s as well, and she hadn’t mentioned anything about Adrien being there, which was already suspicious given her obsessive matchmaking. Either Adrien was really making a big deal out of absolutely nothing, or something had gone extremely wrong.

“Well… She didn’t exactly know I was there… I sort of… um… I might sometimes… goandvisitherasChatNoir.”

“WHAT?!”

“She is like my biggest fan! And she totally gives me cookies and gets all excited, and she is really cute and it’s adorable, don’t judge me!”

“And how long exactly have you been ‘visiting’ Marinette in disguise?” Nino said, punctuating his statement with air quotes.

“Only the last 5 months or so.”

“Only the…” Nino took a deep breath, “you know what? We are tabling that for now, back to the original conversation. So you are creeping outside Mari’s house in disguise-“

“I wasn’t creeping!”

Nino raised an eyebrow.

“Ok I was kinda creeping, but the point is I get there and…” his expression darkened. “Well she was sort of… occupied.”

“Did… oh my God, did you walk in on her and Alya making out?”

“I didn’t walk in so much as saw it through the window.”

“You’re jealous!”

“I never said that!”

“But you are!”

Adrien didn’t say anything, instead he twisted around again, curling into a fetal position with an irritated pout.

Nino couldn’t help it, he burst out laughing flopping back on the bed and covering his face with his hands.

“Okay, I might have been a little jealous,” Adrien confessed softly.

“You think?”

“Do you hate me?” Adrien asked quietly, his tone heartbreaking vulnerable.

“Oh, dude of course I don’t hate you,” Nino said reassuringly, reaching to haul the miserable looking boy up into a tight cuddle. “You are my best friend AND my boyfriend it would be rather inconvenient if I hated you,” he said soothingly, stroking Adrien’s back. “Not to mention it would pretty much make me the world’s biggest hypocrite, seeing as how I already have a girlfriend and a boyfriend and agree with both of them that Mari is smoking hot.”

Adrien relaxed, snuggling into the embrace and letting out a gentle purr at the affectionate attention. Nino wondered idly if he would ever get used to the surprised thrill that shot through his system every time it happened. He rather hoped not.

“In fact,” Nino continued smugly, “if I remember correct I was the first person in our group to ask her out.”

“You mean try to ask her out,” Adrien laughed, “You failed miserably remember?”

“It’s still more than you have accomplished Mr. cat stalker,” he retorted causing Adrien too blush and bury his face again. “Besides I have no complaints about how things worked out in the end.”

Adrien hummed noncommittally, closing his eyes and continuing his purr filled snuggling.

For a few minutes they just stayed as they were, Nino occasionally rubbing his hands down Adrien’s back or ruffling his hair, hoping to reassure the boy that he was, in fact, loved and wanted.

“So have you been beating yourself up for the last 24 hours because you have a crush on Marinette?” Nino asked.

“Maybe.”

“You are killing me man,” he sighed, chuckling a little at the whole ridiculous situation.

“I told you I am an idiot,” Adrien said.

“No it’s not that. Do you have any idea how much I want to hold it over Alya’s head that I was right this whole time? Seriously, it is taking every bit of self-control I have not to grab my phone and just start screaming I told you so for the next 20 minutes.”

“You knew?”

“Technically I suspected, since you never admitted it until now. But I can’t say anything because you know Alya. She is going to want details and I can’t really explain what happened since she doesn’t know that you’re Chat Noir.”

“I mean, if you need to we can tell her. Plagg doesn’t really seem to care that much about the whole secret identity thing, right Plagg?”

“It’s your life kid do what you want. Tikki’s the one with all the stupid hangups about it,” the kwami called out from his nest on the other side of the room.

“See,” Adrien said, “it’s not a problem, and besides it’s not like I don’t trust Alya.”

“It’s ok, you don’t have to feel pressured into revealing yourself for my sake,” Nino said, slightly awed that Adrien would even offer something so monumental.

“I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” Nino said, squeezing Adrien a little tighter.

“I know but… I know that it would make things easier for you. You guys are always telling me about how the key to this whole relationship thing is being honest and communicating, and this is a pretty big thing to be hiding from Alya.”

Nino worried his lip lost in his own thoughts. It would definitely be less stressful if Alya knew about Adrien’s double life. Plus they would both be able to potentially support him- helping to come up with excuses when he ran off after Akumas, filling him in on missed homework, that sort of thing. Not to mention that it would pretty much make Alya’s year having direct access to the Super heroes. On the other hand… an idea began forming in Nino’s mind and he smiled.

“You know let’s wait a little bit. You know, have some fun with the whole thing first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Alya and I are supposed to be meeting up at Mari’s tomorrow night for a study group to finish off that physic project that’s due on Monday.”

“You guy’s still haven’t done that?”

“Not all of us are you Adrien. Anyways my point is, since Chat Noir has a history of visiting Marinette anyways, you could just show up. You know Al would love it.”

“Yeah ok. I mean, Marinette usually makes me wait up on the roof. I think she is worried that I am going to attack her yarn collection or something.”

Nino tried to repress a snort of laughter. That certainly explained a lot about Adrien’s continued obliviousness. He wondered how Adrien would react to Marinette’s- admittedly toned down since she had started- choice of décor.

“I am sure between Alya and myself we can talk her into letting you inside,” Nino said with a smirk. This was going to be a lot of fun.

“Okay, it’s a date.” Adrien gave him a wide smile, then sighed again. “It’s late I should probably go.”

“You can stay if you want. It’s not like we have school tomorrow and you already said your dad’s out of town.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, you might not have noticed but I kind of enjoy your company.”

Adrien grinned again before kicking off his shoes and wriggling back into a comfortable position.

“I really do mean it, you are the best,” Adrien murmured sleepily.

Nino smiled, dropping a gentle kiss into his boyfriend’s hair. “I love you too Adrien.”

#ot4 #ot4 nonsense #my fanfiction #adrino #alyanette #miraculous Ladybug #I seriously need a life guys

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newstechreviews · 4 years

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Building a protest movement during a pandemic requires creative — and virtual — work. For illustrators and artists with social platforms, their output has an attentive audience — and an influential role to play, in parallel to the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the country. Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis during an arrest on May 25 that turned fatal when Floyd gasped for air as an officer weighed down on him with a knee on his neck. The officer involved, Derek Chauvin, has since been fired and charged with third-degree murder. As artists are aware, their responses can help build narratives of empathy and focus action on what matters.

The movement has seen large-scale marches and clashes with police in cities across the U.S. and abroad as late May turned to June, and has also grown online as support for anti-racism actions and systemic change against police brutality has become a dominant virtual conversation. While the act of re-sharing a portrait or re-tweeting a slogan has drawn criticism as potentially empty, the process of building solidarity through symbolism has played a core role in the history of protest, especially during a pandemic that may rule out in-person activism for some. In the wake of Floyd’s death, social media sharing has helped to dissolve the distances between local pain and global outrage.

Creators have taken different approaches as they engage. For some, it’s a continuation of their activist spirit. For others, Floyd’s death marked a shift into newfound political involvement and more serious subjects. Millions of reposts later, however, one thing is certain: the conversation is still in its nascent stages. With that in mind, we asked artists about the creative process behind some of the most resonant original imagery of the moment. Much of the most popular works reimagine the subjects at hand, giving us new ways to grasp what’s going on.

For Nikkolas Smith, an L.A.-based artist and activist who calls himself an “artivist,” there has never been a divide between the work he publishes and the justice-oriented goals of his creative endeavors. On May 29, he shared a digital painting commemorating George Floyd.

Intentionally unfinished

Like most of Smith’s portraits — many of which focus on other victims of police violence, like Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor — the style evokes a traditional oil painting, but is rendered almost as an abstraction. (He makes them in PhotoShop, and gives himself under three hours to complete them.) And the unfinished quality is intentional. Smith says it’s meant to echo the unfinished business of these lives, cut short. “I don’t like clean lines,” he tells TIME. “That’s a parallel to all these lives. They did not have a chance to see their end. They should still be living.”

View this post on Instagram

George Floyd’s life mattered. His killer, Derek Chauvin has just been arrested as he should’ve been days ago. Chauvin’s arrest is not justice, and his conviction will only be a fraction of justice. Black lives in this country are being destroyed by a virus of racism, fear, and hatred. It is up to everyone to take a stand and actively work to tear down this centuries-old pandemic. NOW. Art for @blklivesmatter #BlackLivesMatter #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #JusticeForGeorge #Justice #JusticeForFloyd #GeorgeFloyd

A post shared by Nikkolas Smith (@nikkolas_smith) on May 29, 2020 at 10:53am PDT

Soon after posting his Floyd portrait, it was shared by Michelle Obama and Janet Jackson among other celebrity fans. It was spread further by the official Black Lives Matter Instagram account. In fact, it soon became one of the widespread original images of the latest protest movement.

Smith coupled his image with a caption that calls for justice for Floyd, but recognizes that just the act of viewing and sharing is a powerful first step. “Even if there isn’t an action item, people are still seeing an image of a human being. The narrative is building up more and more that these are people who should be on this earth who are not here anymore, and their life is important,” Smith says. “To share it, even if it’s just that, is important. I’m hoping that all of this leads to a bigger, more substantial change, especially with accountability of law enforcement.”

Smith is no stranger to protest art. He was still working at a corporate architecture job in 2013 when he first captured attention for his illustration of Martin Luther King, Jr. dressed in a hoodie, meant to cast doubt on preconceptions of the differences between the civil rights leader and the young Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teenager shot by George Zimmerman in 2012. Smith has been creating works with political and anti-racist themes ever since.

“A perfect poster child”

On the other hand, Illustrator Tori Press’s latest Instagram post was a departure for her. In 2016, Press checked out of her own nine-to-five corporate gig to focus on illustrating full-time, as an emotional response to the election that year. But she has always shared lightly humorous personal anecdotes with bits of advice about self-care and managing mental health in a signature style of pastel watercolors and black ink text — until now. “I’m not very political,” Press told TIME. “It’s not really something I wander into all that often. But in the wake of this murder, I’ve been sick all week. I couldn’t stay silent.”

View this post on Instagram

To my fellow white people: if you are sitting in judgment and condemnation of the protests going on in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, I urge you to look at and reflect on the many, many peaceful protests against systemic racism and police brutality that have gone on in recent years, and how they have been received. I urge you to do the uncomfortable thing by putting yourself in the hopelessly frustrated, righteously furious shoes of the people of color that have been demanding justice for centuries, of honestly examining how you might feel and respond in the same situation, of considering that sometimes a peaceful avenue to meaningful change does not exist. And if you want to see change, as you should, I urge you to do the difficult but critical, unavoidable work of exploring the ways you have benefited from and upheld a racist and unjust system. Only when we can acknowledge that we have inevitably been a part of the problem can we begin to be part of the solution. It’s up to those in power, including white people who benefit from the status quo, to hear the protests of those we have oppressed *in whatever form they take,* to see the system for what it is, to set aside our discomfort and use our power and privilege to reject and dismantle it. I recommend the books White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and Mindful of Race by Ruth King as places to start scratching the surface. Many more resources are out there and easy to find.⁣ .⁣ I am donating 100% of all proceeds from all my print and greeting card sales to the ACLU for the next week. I am also donating 100% of proceeds from any order placed since May 25, 2020, the day George Floyd was murdered.

A post shared by Tori Press (@revelatori) on May 31, 2020 at 1:32pm PDT

The result: “If you want non-violent protests, listen to non-violent protestors,” reads her latest post in large black letters, with a small kneeling figure of former NFL quarterback and social justice activist Colin Kaepernick in the corner; it has over three times the likes of the prior post. “When something like this happens, and people are righteously angry, and justifiably so, but you hear folks being dismissive of the entire cause — I just think that’s a way to dismiss this fury, and the reason behind it,” she said. Press added that she feels particularly responsible to share this message as a white, privileged woman with a platform.

“I drew Colin Kaepernick because he’s a perfect poster child for someone who tried to make a peaceful protest, and was absolutely vilified for it. It’s just infuriating,” she said. “We need to have space to say, yeah, I recognize how furious you are.”

As she says in her caption, she feels there is a role for white people to play. “I can address my fellow white people and say look, this is a time we all need to stop and reflect. Really put yourself in the shoes of people who are angry right now, who are protesting. Have some empathy.” She hopes her illustration will help “at least a few people” to have that moment of self-reflection.

“It can turn into a tidal wave”

Eric Yahnker, a California-based satirist who has displayed his absurdist works in fine art galleries, laid aside his typical tongue-in-cheek tone when he published his latest Instagram post: another George Floyd portrait, done in colored pencils on a sheet of kraft paper as a “gut reaction” to Floyd’s death.

“I am absolutely unimportant in this story,” he said to TIME. He chose to draw Floyd as the “gentle giant” he was described as by friends, reflecting his “soft humanity.” “It absolutely guts me that if Mr. Floyd were a white gentle giant or anything other than black, he’d still be alive today,” Yahnker notes. “As a Jew, indoctrinated since birth to the scores of my own ancestry massacred by the hands of evil forces, I know full well that silence itself can be a painfully violent and oppressive act.” On its own, Yahnker knows a single piece of art can’t create real change on its own. “But I am a firm believer in the power of the collective. If we all put a drop in the bucket, it can turn into a tidal wave,” he says.

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Justice for George Floyd. The wheels of justice are criminally slow. Sweeping institutional change must occur NOW before we can even think of healing our hopelessly divided & wounded nation… *All 4 officers involved in George Floyd’s murder need to be charged NOW. *Derek Chauvin’s charge should be upgraded to 2nd degree murder (a long shot, but should). *All nationwide Mayors and Police Chiefs must IMMEDIATELY adopt the policing strategies/tactics outlined by the Black Lives Matter organization to dramatically reduce these violent incidents. *Non-violent protests must continue across the nation to hold officials feet to the fire until they act. *City, State and Federal Government must not escalate the situation by inviting military tactics to stamp out peaceful protests. *We all must VOTE as if our lives (especially the lives of African-American’s) are depending on it. There is so much more to overcome, but we have to start somewhere. #blacklivesmatter #justiceforgeorgefloyd #ripgeorgefloyd #icantbreathe #ericyahnker

A post shared by Eric Yahnker (@ericyahnker) on May 31, 2020 at 11:33am PDT

Reimagining the possibilities

One of the most widely circulated images is an illustration from Shirien Damra. It’s a pastel, color-blocked portrait of Floyd that sees him wreathed in flowers, one in a series of similar portraits Damra has done for people who have recently fallen victim to violence. Damra, a former community organizer in Chicago and a Palestinian-American, turned to this form of commemoration in order to spread awareness in a way that avoided sharing videos that she said can be “traumatic and triggering,” she told TIME. “I think art can touch our emotional core in a way that the news can’t.” Damra adds that one thing artists can do is help illustrate what comes next.

“We know what we don’t want. We don’t want any more black lives targeted by police and white supremacy. But one thing that I have found we struggle with is actually imagining what kind of things we do want to see in our world,” she says. “I feel like as artists, one role we could play is allowing ourselves and others to reimagine the possibilities. Our society will likely never turn back to how it used to be before the pandemic and everything happening right now. Art can be a powerful catalyst in bringing more people together to take action.”

Damra’s Instagram account is only a year old. But especially in the pandemic era, people are turning to the digital sphere to consume art perhaps more than ever, by default. “This has opened up a way to reach more marginalized communities who need art most during this heavy time,” she says.

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Yesterday, in yet another act of anti-black police violence causing mass outrage, George Floyd yelled “I can’t breathe” and pleaded for his life as a white Minneapolis police officer violently pinned him down with his knee on his neck. George died after. He was murdered in broad daylight. His death is reminiscent of the death of Eric Garner. Even with a crowd yelling at him to stop and while folks filmed the murder, the cop did it anyway, showing the massive injustice, zero accountability and white supremacy embedded in the “criminal justice” system. Heartbroken, angry and disgusted. This must end. Much love and solidarity to Black communities grieving another beautiful life lost. May George Floyd Rest in Power. Text ‘Floyd’ to 55156 to demand the officers be charged with murder. You can also call Mayor Jacob Frey at (612)-673-2100, DA Mike Freeman at (612)-348-5550 and demand justice. #blacklivesmatter #georgefloyd #icantbreathe #justiceforgeorgefloyd

A post shared by shirien (@shirien.creates) on May 26, 2020 at 12:07pm PDT

Inspiring protest signs

Another popular image is a gesture to the Black Lives Matter movement by the French artist duo Célia Amroune and Aline Kpade, who go by the name Sacrée Frangine. Like a spin on an earth-toned Matisse cut-out, their trio of Black faces — overwritten with the “Black lives matter” slogan — is a universal statement that is just abstract enough to be repurposed in many ways; protesters have even drawn versions of it for signs at marches. Amroune and Kpade may not be U.S. citizens, but they told TIME they feel “very close to” the movement. This has, after all, had a wide reach.

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Say it with your voice, say it with your chest, say it with your words, but say it. #strongertogether #blacklivesmatter

A post shared by sacrée frangine (@sacree_frangine) on May 30, 2020 at 12:05pm PDT

The comments to their art are a chorus of “thank-yous” and heart emojis, with the promise of sharing. As social media was overtaken by “blackout” trends on June 2, these works momentarily disappeared from feeds. But they will resurface again.

“Some people who never spoke out before — when Mike Brown or anybody else was killed — they saw this video, they see this art, and say, now I’m going to say something,” Smith said about what’s different this time around. “I don’t even really know where things are gonna go from here, but it’s getting to a boiling point. People are done. They’re going to make their voices heard.”

As for Smith, his latest piece of art, called “Reflect,” isn’t a portrait but a depiction of a single masked protester, kneeling at the foot of a line of riot-gear-clad policemen and raising a mirror to their hidden faces. “Can we just hold up a mirror to what this looks like right now?” Smith wants to know. That’s what contemporary art is for, after all: to refract back reality, and raise questions about what we are willing to accept.

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So that they may see what they have become… So that they may see what they have become… So that they may see your light. So that they may see what they have become… So that we may see what they have always been. #REFLECT #SundaySketch #ThisIsAmerica #BlackLivesMatter #takeAKnee #cops Art inspired by the incredible photography of @daisugano 🙏🏾✨

A post shared by Nikkolas Smith (@nikkolas_smith) on May 31, 2020 at 10:01am PDT

#Blogger

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phooll123 · 4 years

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New top story from Time: ‘Art Can Touch Our Emotional Core.’ Meet the Artists Behind Some of the Most Widespread Images in the Wake of George Floyd’s Death

Intentionally unfinished

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A post shared by Nikkolas Smith (@nikkolas_smith) on May 29, 2020 at 10:53am PDT

“A perfect poster child”

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A post shared by Tori Press (@revelatori) on May 31, 2020 at 1:32pm PDT

“It can turn into a tidal wave”

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A post shared by Eric Yahnker (@ericyahnker) on May 31, 2020 at 11:33am PDT

Reimagining the possibilities

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A post shared by shirien (@shirien.creates) on May 26, 2020 at 12:07pm PDT

Inspiring protest signs

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Say it with your voice, say it with your chest, say it with your words, but say it. #strongertogether #blacklivesmatter

A post shared by sacrée frangine (@sacree_frangine) on May 30, 2020 at 12:05pm PDT

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A post shared by Nikkolas Smith (@nikkolas_smith) on May 31, 2020 at 10:01am PDT

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wolfenm · 4 years

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The Problems with Reposting

Recently someone reposted my work -- as in, downloaded it and then posted it from their computer -- on their Insta and their Twitter. I politely but firmly pointed out that they did not have my permission, that they really should reblog / retweet an artist’s work rather than repost, and asked them to take it down. They BLOCKED me without responding on Twitter. I THINK they took it down from Insta, but I'm not 100% sure it’s *their* gallery that I'm seeing (which would mean they didn’t block me there), or one with a similar name and theme, because the one I saw before had less images. Anyway, I'm betting they did indeed remove it.

To their credit, they DID @ me on both posts, which I do appreciate. I know what some of you are thinking: Wolfie, that’s like a link, and you’re getting exposure -- why are you still upset? Except it’s really not.

Keep in mind that I am not some mega-corporation -- I don't have a huge following, I don't make tons of money (practically none, really -- I do it mostly for the joy), and my work is not instantly recognisable (although, really, if a famous artist posts their work, you should hit that reblog / retweet / share button in those cases, too). And for those who are thinking, “well, posting on the internet means you give up your rights” -- NO. That is 100% false. Read these:

https://sarafhawkins.com/copyright-online-photo-etiquette/

https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/copyright-protection/

https://about.deviantart.com/policy/copyright/

Here are some of the problems with reposting instead of reblogging/etc.

1) With it reposted in someone else’s space, if I want or need to change or even take the work down ... I can’t, because I don't have access to their account.

2) It adds a level of distance between the artists and the work, with dangerous potential for further separation. Even if the one who reposted gives the link to the artists’ site, that doesn’t guarantee that someone who then takes it from THEM will share that credit.

Once, someone took an image of my Grootmas tree, stripped my credit from the photo, and posted it on their page, saying nothing about who it was by, so as far as anyone knew, they had made it. It was shared by over a thousand people before I learned about it. I contacted the poster, and he laughed and said “You didn't make it -- it’s not yours.”) So I showed him the original, with my credit still on it (meaning it had the part of the photo that his version was missing, not just the credit) -- and he insisted that proved nothing. So I took a pic of myself with Grootmas, with a sign saying who I was. *Finally*, he conceded and took the post down, but those people who reposted it would never know who really made it.

3) Too many people only link to the parent page of the artist, not the display page of the image. For artists like myself who post on DeviantArt, if a person does actually follow the link (many do not!), they then have to hunt for the image in the gallery -- if they don't find it, we don't get the pageviews. That makes it a lot harder to judge the success of a work, because we're not aware that people are even seeing it in those cases.

4) Not everyone who sees a repost speaks the same language as the reposter. This means they may not get that the reposter isn’t the originator, and is crediting someone else in the description, rather than just tagging a friend they want to show the work to, or a client who paid for a commission, etc -- context is lost.

5) Sometimes those credits get lost by the way the social media site displays on certain devices -- people may not see the actual credit at all, as it gets hidden behind a “see more” link.

6) It’s basically stealing “likes”. I mean, if someone reblogs my work, MY numbers go up, and helps my work to be seen more. It’s pretty much the same at Twitter. But if someone ELSE posts it directly to their social media, as a separate post not connected to me, it’s only THEIR numbers that go up, THEIR exposure that increases, not mine.

Putting a lot of work into something, only to see someone else get more recognition for it than myself, doesn't exactly encourage me to make more art, ya know? If you like an indie artist’s work, SUPPORT THEM, in the best way possible: share THEIR posts. Don't take control of their work out of their hands. If you want to use it for something outside of just a simple post, GET PERMISSION.

Once, some fanzine informed me, *after* the fact, that they had used art of mine in a post of theirs, but added that they would take it down if I wanted them to. Let me say right now that, even if I had been okay with the post it was included in, I still would have been hella annoyed that it they hadn't asked permission FIRST. As it was, I was even more upset when I discovered HOW it was used: it was art of Harry and Petunia that I had done for a fanfic of mine, and they were using it as a header for a ficrec of someone ELSE’S fanfic. (Seriously?? They used my work for my story to celebrate someone *else’s* story?? HOW could that be anything but rude??) At any rate, I saw on their site that you have to fill out a form to opt *out* of your stuff being used!! Outraged, I pointed out that inclusion in their zine should be opt-IN, not opt-OUT ... and they replied that it would take too long then for them to gather content, so they wouldn't be able to share artists’ works with the world, framing it like they were doing people a favour and we should be grateful, even if we never asked them to do it.

Don't be like that, please. You aren't loving the artists when you act like this; you’re acting entitled and using them for your own benefit.

I know, I know, “Wolfie, you hypocrite, you do fanworks! You aren't getting permission from the original artists!” Putting aside that I tend to gravitate more towards creators who welcome and encourage fanworks than ones who don’t .... you're right, and I entirely understand if you lump me in with the very people I'm complaining about. Any justifications I make are, in the end, me rationalising and excusing, whether I’m right or not.

So what are my justifications? I'm remixing hella well-known works, often owned by corporations (ones that I likely have given more than a little money to). I'm taking something that has become part of the fabric of our society, a touchstone, and participating in the conversations about it. I’m sharing my own thoughts about the stories by framing those thoughts in the form of new stories -- save for occasional quotes, I'm not sharing the actual original text. I give credit to the originators. When I do portraits, I typically use promo art, and often compile multiple images and otherwise put my own spin in things. My brain forms the words that my versions of the characters speak, and the actions they do, and my hands lay down the lines. (And I don't sell the fanworks, but that’s a whole other discussion.)

I don't make gifs, but yes, I do share them -- these soundless, quick scenes that are used on the internet as a form of conversation, as well as a means to study, re-experience, and share favourite moments of a show. They’re no substitution for the real thing, In fact, I have started watching shows BECAUSE of gifsets! (And showrunners aren’t, unlike me, ever going to need or want to take down old versions -- presumably they have put forward the best version they ever expect to do. Once a work is distributed en masse, that ship has sailed.)

There is no risk whatsoever of anyone mistaking me as the creator of the franchises I make fanworks for. Everyone knows where to find the source material. Everyone SHOULD be smart enough to understand that the originators are not actually participants in fanworks; if the reader / viewer doesn't like something, they should know not to hold the originators responsible for what a fan does with their characters (and if they aren’t smart enough, gods help us; we’re doomed).

(Also, if I know that a creator has forbidden fanfic, I *respect that and don’t do it*. And as I said, some of the fandoms I indulge in have even actively welcomed fanworks, rather than simply turning a blind eye. Like, Sony sent me a bunch of stuff for being “Fanartist of the Month" for October of 2004 on their Spider-Man website, and my Iron Man / Tony Stark painting ranked #1 for a while on the movie site for the first film, and James Gunn shared my Grootmas -- yes, he reposted, but I let the content-originators slide on that point. Hell, Warner Bros actually had a fanfic thread on their Harry Potter website years ago, Rowling having given her blessing, and had files for fans to use to make fansite graphics ....)

#mine #fandom #essay #fandom issues #artists on tumblr #creators #creator issues #social media #social media issues #fandom etiquette #reposting #reblogging #retweeting #2020

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gossipnetwork-blog · 6 years

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Meet Rupi Kaur, Queen of the 'Instapoets'

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/meet-rupi-kaur-queen-of-the-instapoets/

Meet Rupi Kaur, Queen of the 'Instapoets'

Rupi Kaur is too sick to get out of bed and wishes she had realized this a few hours earlier. Sitting on a king-size mattress in her Soho Grand hotel room, Kaur tells the story of how she almost lost her brunch all over actress Jennifer Westfeldt. “I knew something was wrong when I was talking to Jennifer and the green haze came over me,” she says in between sips of red Gatorade. “I was like, ‘You’re talking about something so deep right now, but the strawberries are coming back up girl, I gotta go.'”

Trying to keep fruit down isn’t exactly how the 25-year-old imagined she’d be celebrating the release of her second collection of poetry, The Sun and Her Flowers. It’s a celebration which kicked off the night before with a live performance of her work featuring Westfeldt, YouTube star Lilly Singh and fellow poet Chloe Wade. But this story of what was supposed to be a nausea-free victory lap, which she spares me the gross details of finishing, is just the kind of anecdote her 1.9 million Instagram followers would adore.

Since 2013, Kaur has been sharing poems about love, heartbreak and womanhood that perfectly exemplify the self-care movement. Most are bite-size affirmations, accompanied by Kaur’s own delicate line drawings, that go down easy when scrolling through Instagram. Kaur’s most-liked poem, which is just six lines and begins “how is it so easy for you/ to be kind to people, he asked,” earned over 240,000 likes.

Her poetry has gotten her more than likes, though. Her debut, Milk and Honey, has sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide since its 2015 re-release by Andrews McMeel Publishing. (Kaur self-published it a year prior.) In its first week of release, Kaur’s follow-up was duking it out for the top spot on Amazon’s best-seller list with Dan Brown’s latest novel. It would win the coveted spot atop The New York Times list for paperback trade fiction where it stayed for nine straight weeks before E.L. James usurped it.

Uncomplicated and concise, Kaur’s poetry has been criticized for being too simplistic. Parody accounts have shown up on Twitter that intend to show how easy it is to write a Rupi Kaur poem – the gist being you take any conversation, format it in all lowercase and insert random line breaks. Milk and Honey officially became a meme earlier this year when people starting taking the text from Vine videos and stylizing them like one of her poems. Now there’s even a book called Milk and Vine that’s quickly become an Amazon bestseller since its October release.

Kaur doesn’t think her poetry is simple. To her, it’s straightforward. “It’s like a peach,” she says. “You have to remove everything and get to the pit of it.” Kaur – who moved from Punjab, India to the suburbs of Ontario, Canada, when she was three and a half years old and now lives in Toronto – doesn’t want readers to agonize over each and every word like she did when learning poetry in school. “I would have to pull out the list of literary devices my teacher gave me and my 10 colorful pens,” she says, her big, almond eyes getting wider. “It was like doing surgery on the damn thing.”

Instead, Kaur wanted to do something more accessable. “I’ve realized, it’s not the exact content that people connect with,” she says. “People will understand and they’ll feel it because it all just goes back to the human emotion. Sadness looks the same across all cultures, races, and communities. So does happiness and joy.”

Though she’s made her name with words, Kaur’s initial Instagram fame had nothing to do with her poetry. Three years ago, Kaur posted a shot of herself lying in a bed with her back to the camera, menstrual blood leaking through her sweatpants. Instagram removed the image – which was for a college assignment in which she was asked to “challenge a taboo” – two separate times for breaking community guidelines. The site eventually apologized and reposted the photo, but not before Kaur wrote a letter reprimanding them for trying to censor her. “Their patriarchy is leaking. Their misogyny is leaking. We will not be censored,” she wrote on Facebook, in a post that’s been shared over 18,000 times.

Kaur’s response went viral and soon she was doing interviews with The Huffington Post and Vice about the need to “demystify the period.” Talking to Kaur now, she says she wishes she never wrote that letter – curious, since that’s how so many people found her Instagram. “I think that day, this anxiety came upon me that’s never left,” she says, recalling how scary it was to get “that much hate literally from every corner of the planet.” While Kaur says she received overwhelming support from the letter – the most memorable, she says, was an email from a war general in Afghanistan – she also never experienced “so many people saying so many mean things and telling me they were going to kill me.” Still, she doesn’t deny that the strongly worded letter benefited her career: “They came for the photo, but they stayed for the poetry.”

Why they stayed is simple, according to Kirsty Melville, the president and publisher of Andrews McMeel Publishing, which had previously been best known for releasing Calvin and Hobbes. “She’s given voice to things that people may not have been able to articulate for themselves,” she says. “In this digital world where content marketing is this sort of buzzword, Rupi is the content and it doesn’t need the marketing.”

Kaur’s popularity on Instagram is part of a trend so prominent in publishing right now that it’s spawned its own genre. “Instapoets” has become the term used to describe a new generation of writers including Lang Leav, Tyler Knott Gregson, Nayyirah Waheed and Robert M. Drake, all of whom have landed book deals thanks to their respective social media presence. “We were told for so long that there isn’t a market for this, and there is,” Kaur says. “I’m seeing so many more poets who are getting published, which I hope isn’t just a trend that goes away.”

Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter have allowed more poets – especially those of color – to share their work with a larger, younger and more diverse audience, but not everyone loves the “Instapoets” nickname. “Personally, I think it is ridiculous that a social media platform is used to define a genre of writing,” says Leav, who has 393, 000 Instagram followers. After all, Leav released her first two bestselling poetry collections – her 2014 self-published debut, Love & Misadventure, which sold 10,000 copies in the first month, and Lullabies, which was published that same year by Andrews McMeel – without ever writing a word on Instagram. (She preferred Tumblr.)

No two Instapoets are exactly alike, but there are similarities between writers that even those in the community find worrisome. Earlier this year, Waheed, who self-published her debut, Salt, a year before Milk and Honey, accused Kaur of “hyper-similarity” after fans on Twitter and Tumblr made those charges. Waheed wrote in a Tumblr post, which has since been taken down, that in 2014 she emailed Kaur, “woc writer to fellow woc writer,” to share her concerns “in the hopes that upon awareness on their part. efforts would be made to cease and desist.” In the post, Waheed, who keeps a low public profile, rarely giving interviews, said that her concerns went ignored.

Kaur declines to comment on Waheed’s specific allegations, but when speaking in her hotel room says she believes some crossover between poets is natural when they have “similar experiences and similar ideas about the world.” She also wonders if some of the accusations of similarity between her work and others are a way of silencing women of color. “It’s like that scarcity complex,” Kaur says. “‘We already have one and it’s enough,’ as if we have to fight each other off now and I think that’s really dangerous.”

Over 900 fans came out to see Kaur read at the Tribeca event. John Halpern

Kaur certainly isn’t spending her time duking it out with other poets. She holds her own unique space in the literary world where her poetry readings are more like pop concerts. To launch The Sun and Her Flowers, she put on a special theatrical performance at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York City to a sold-out crowd of over 900 people willing to shell out $75 to $100 to see her.

In a nod to the book’s cover, Kaur’s fans – mostly women in their late teens and early twenties – took photos with gigantic sunflowers. Beyoncé, Rihanna and Drake played over the speakers before the petite poet took the stage in a dress that hit right above the knee. It was something that gave her pause, knowing that her Sikh father was in the audience. “It’s the shortest thing I ever wore in front of him,” Kaur says later. “I was like, ‘My legs! He’s never seen my legs before!'”

When Kaur speaks, her fans, which she says are “60 percent female and 40 percent everything else,” listen. They also whoop and holler when she delivers the climax of her most suggestive poem, Milk and Honey‘s “How We Make Up”: “Sweet baby, this is how we pull language out of one another with the flick of our tongues.” They snap their fingers in solidarity after “What’s stronger than the human heart/ that shatters over and over and still lives,” a line that found its way onto posters at the Women’s March in January.

“Whenever I read her poems, I have the same thought: ‘This is exactly how I feel but never knew how to say it,'” Lilly Singh writes in an email days after sharing the stage with Kaur to read selections from The Sun and Her Flowers. “Rupi’s words make people, especially women, feel safe and understood.”

Kaur has no problem connecting with her audience, but now she’d like the literary world to take her more seriously. She admits that her goal with her new collection was to improve as a writer and show “that just because your work is successful does not make it bad work.”

Kaur started writing Milk and Honey when she was 18. Now 25, Kaur doesn’t deny that she’s outgrown some of her early work, but isn’t ashamed of anything she’s put down on paper. “We grew up in a time with every single one of our moves being recorded and documented forever and in that was this idea that we can’t make mistakes,” she says, “but when that’s not happening you’re also not growing.”

The way she looks back at her life and lets her fans know it gets better is a big part of Kaur’s appeal, but some critics question whether the stories in her work are really hers to tell. Kaur’s been criticized for blurring the lines between her own experiences and the experiences of others when writing about the trauma women face – rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse – most notably in the Buzzfeed piece “The Problem With Rupi Kaur’s Poetry.” The essay makes the case that the poet’s “use of collective trauma in her quest to depict the quintessential South Asian female experience” is a way of forcing universality to reach a larger, more mainstream audience. It’s a dilemma that many writers of color face, knowing that sticking with specifics in regards to their own story could mean alienating readers.

Kaur tells me she writes about the South Asian experience – hers, her friends’, her family’s – because she doesn’t want to see these stories go untold. “I began writing pieces about violence at the age of 16 after seeing what the women around me were enduring and facing,” Kaur says. “It was my way of reflecting on all of these issues.”

With so little South Asian representation in entertainment, Kaur also understands how important it is for her to share these stories even if it may come with some backlash. “This name,” she says, pointing to the “Kaur” that appears on the binding of her latest book, which she pulls out from underneath the white comforter of her hotel bed, as if scripted, “is so important on a bookshelf. That’s the name of every Sikh woman. If I was six years old and I saw this in Barnes and Nobles, I would cry. I would sit there and be like, ‘If she can do it, I can do it.'”

With Sun and Her Flowers, Kaur’s still following her peach-pit philosophy, but she’s also getting at the core of who she is, delving deeper into her South Asian identity in a section of the book fittingly called “Roots.” The eldest of four writes at length about her parents, specifically her mom, whose struggle with being an immigrant is something Kaur admits she’s often taken for granted.

During her Tribeca performance, Kaur tells a story about how, as a kid, she would ignore her mom at the supermarket, too embarrassed by her accent to be seen with her. The anecdote acts as the perfect lead-in to “Broken English,” the standout of her latest collection in which she chastises herself and anyone else who’s ever been ashamed of their immigrant mother. “She split through countries to be here/ so you wouldn’t have to cross a shoreline,” she writes. “Her accent is thick like honey/ hold it with your life/ it’s the only thing she has left of home.”

The funny thing is, Kaur almost didn’t include this section in her book. “I thought nobody cares about this,” she says. “It’s not cool to talk about your parents.” But it’s the part that’s gotten the most feedback from fans who want to tell Kaur about their own mothers and how far they traveled for a better life. “When you start writing those other poems about your parents and all that, it’s like, how can you write about love and heartache?” Kaur asks. “That just seems so silly.”

For those who want it, there are still plenty of traditional love and heartache poems in The Sun and Her Flowers, but Kaur’s expanding on these topics. She’s now writing more authoritatively about the love and heartache that accompanies her mom and dad’s immigrant story and discovering that her specific experience of being a woman, being Punjabi and being a child of immigrants has universal appeal.

Knowing how far her reach is, Kaur doesn’t just want to write poetry, but prose, too. Back in 2015, she wrote 10 chapters of a novel that she’s still figuring out what to do with. She’s also thinking she might even want to give music a try. “It would be cool to write a song with Adele,” Kaur mentions with a chuckle. “You know, if she calls me up.”

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thedipshits · 4 years

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𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂

bold what applies to your muse. italicize what sometimes applies. repost, don’t reblog!

tagged by: @silverskins like 15 years ago 💜 tagging: i’m doing this for all my guys. feel free to steal.

𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄

𝐑𝐄𝐃

𝐘𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖

𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐍

𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊

𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄

#💾 – about jensen #mmmm i love these

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