“to be lensed is to be loved” … LMK WHEN U REACH delivers stunning flash photographic portraits of Black queer dance spaces. These spaces are sacred, meant for love, expression, and liberation. In previous writings, I’ve delved into the predatory nature that the camera can take on. When an outsider enters a space or community that they aren’t a part of, the lack of care and consideration oozes off the photos. Bodies become documents; objects unable to be humanized. Mulenga is different. They come from a place of love and preservation. They document people in an effort to tell their stories. In a world that often abandons Black queer folks and their histories, Mulenga offers us a way to honor them, showing how joy can be the ultimate act of defiance.
This inclination to use photography as a means to preserve memory, they tell me, is an extension of their mother’s own practices of archiving family history. “When my mum immigrated here from Congo, she couldn’t bring most things, but she brought photo albums from her life there,” Mulenga shares. “That’s a privilege in itself, as so many children of immigrants have one photo of their family when they were young or a singular photograph of their grandparents. I’m really happy that I can see images of my parents when they were young, with their parents and their siblings. My mother made it a point to save those images and also take lots of photographs of my childhood. It was her way of loving and remembering.”
➤ The tech bros are making themselves sick | Garbage Day
I will always be AI’s number one hater. The mere mention of ChatGPT gives me agita. There’s a million ethical and environmental reasons not to use it, but let me give you one more: ChatGPT has recently been inducing paranoia and psychosis in a number of people. In layman’s terms, people have been relying on artificial intelligence for all of their answers, and not just for research, but advice on their personal lives. They let ChatGPT in on their deepest darkest thoughts and secrets, and spoiler alert: it remembers what you told it last in order to accurately give you answers, more importantly telling you what you want to hear. Mix a people pleasing AI chatbot with tech that is trained by humans—meaning not only is it full of glitches, but it’s inherently biased—and all of the aggregated random shit from the internet, and baby we got a stew going! A psychosis stew that is.
The other piece of what appears to be happening to Lewis is that he seems to think that what ChatGPT is telling him is consistent with what it’s telling everyone else. Which it absolutely isn’t. As Max Spero, the CEO of an AI firm, wrote on X, “Unfortunately [Lewis] doesn't seem to understand ChatGPT memory and believes that anyone can reproduce his results. Is he completely isolated from friends and family?”
➤ How to have a Flip Phone Summer | Nicstalgia
This essay seems to have landed in my lap at the perfect time. As I’ve considered throwing my phone straight into the Hudson more than usual, I’ve been on the hunt for something that resembles a “non-apple smartphone” or a “phone without AI” and unfortunately, no dice. Left in my Google search was links for giant flip phones that were marketed towards elderly people. I’ve personally hit a point where I spend more time scrolling and less time using my phone to connect with loved ones. Yearning for the days of my Sidekick ID, my dad’s old Blackberry, even the coveted pink Motorola Razr, I’m simply craving old tech. There used to be a separation of church and state! Phone is for phone stuff, like SMS messaging your friends and taking selfies and texting to tweet. Computer is for going on social media and chatting with friends on AIM and watching Youtube. Now I’m paying bills online at 2 a.m. and forced to send emails in the backseat of a bumpy Uber on the way back from a doctor’s appointment because everyone has unfiltered access to me at all times. I hate it.
Gen Zers dunk on Millennials for being cringe, but at least we became cringe after we already experienced The Chasm™ and had already shifted out of the youth generation’s spotlight. Gen Z is already there, but it’s not entirely their fault. Honestly, the older generations should be ashamed of creating a world where anyone under the age of 30 considers it a test of human will to ‘think their thoughts.’
➤ plagiarism means you can change the world. | Briffin Glue Huffer
The onslaught of critiques about online culture are beginning to sound the same. When we’re being fed the algorithm, or rather what the algorithm thinks we want, we slowly become part of an echo chamber. It’s the same people sharing the same thing, having the same discourse. So are we surprised when writers (specifically on Substack) have been copying each others hot takes? When similar ideas get regurgitated over and over, the lines become what increasingly blurred of who really owns these ideas. Did they see it in a TikTok, or maybe a tweet that was stolen from a Tumblr post, or maybe it was an Instagram reel someone posted in their story… But what does it mean to write something that resists being stolen? An idea that’s different and original, and not something that’s been shoved down your throat in your designated social media’s home page. The solution is to resist the algorithm by any means necessary. Now, our quirks as artists, writers, etc. that were once discouraged will slowly be embraced again as proof of authenticity.
In general, and I’m certainly not the first to say this, we’re surrounded by emulation day and night. During the times when I’m too online, it becomes hard to tell what is in my brain and what is content. We repeat quotes from the internet, repeat arguments we read in books, repeat bits we see in comedy, and sometimes pass them off as our own, not out of a scheming urge to raise our own star by stealing from others, but rather because, as we float along inside our individual incubation tanks of constant bits of information, we risk gradually losing our ability to decipher whether a thought is our own or if it’s something we picked up from Substack, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Youtube, or some podcast.
➤ In Defense of Thinking Small | Byline
My mind is constantly cooking things up, working out different problems and coming up with new complicated projects that all seem to sound good in theory. It’s a book, or a podcast, or a new Instagram account, no wait, it’s a Tiktok, no wait, that’s too much work. The pressure from social media to constantly rebrand ourselves has become overwhelming and exhausting. We’re being forced to come up with what our next venture will be to keep the people interested. But sitting with a concept or idea and nurturing it is different. It requires real thinking, and what if, the idea is only for us? The push to perform has ruined us in a way (or it has for me at least), because we were never meant to churn out ideas like content farms. Maybe sitting with our thoughts and starting small will be a lot more fruitful then speed running our own creativity.
Somewhere along the way, we decided that the only acceptable form of communication is a main-stage monologue. Virtual validation has become currency, and every thought must hold weight. One version of me has bought into that. It’s compelling, competitive, and best of all, within reach. But another, quieter and better version wonders whether “big concepts” are just a facade, a distraction from our inability to conquer the small, steady things. Is it possible to move slower, see softer, and want less?
Life Updates:
After a [redacted] month hiatus I’ve found my way back to writing. Actually, I should say fought my way back. I’ve spent the last five years of cycling between freelancing, part-time work, and unemployment and I’m proud to share that back in February, I started a full-time job. In the abridged version of this story, we’re now Hudson Valley people and life has changed a bit. I’ve been trying to learn how to balance my own creativity with work life and self-care, which has been proven to be a juggling act. It feels like my creative well has run bone dry, and no amount of reading has been able to fill it. If you’re a writer or an artist of any kind, sometimes it feels like the more you make an effort to be creative, the more difficult it is. The grand idea might hit you while you’re showering or in the bathroom at work, and other times the idea never strikes—you just have to push through.
And another thing. I wanted to leave Substack to find a new platform to write and publish on. There’s been a lot of talk about Substack, specifically their ethics, who they platform, and recent controversies on their site. Although I love making community and chatting with other like minded people on the internet, the cons outweighed the pros, and I decided to take my newsletter elsewhere. In hindsight, I spent far too long researching on what the best newsletter/blog was, and now realize I wasted precious writing time. I got too caught up in the rabbit hole—sue me. Anyway, here I am again, back in your inbox; no need to worry where I’m posting from. I’m safe and sound in the depths world wide web. Alternatively, I’m a computer!
See ya soon. xo
A