Link About It #7: Transphobia, Scotch Snaps, and the Death of an Imaginary Clown

This is the seventh instalment in a series now known as Link About It, previously called My Favourite Internet Things, in which I compile interesting things I've seen on the internet this week.

State of the world

• Art Speigelman, the author of Maus, withdrew his introduction to a Marvel comics collection after he was asked to remove a critical reference to Donald Trump that described him as "Orange Skull" (akin to the Marvel villain Red Skull).
• Two trans employees have left the Guardian because of its recent transphobic reporting and an unwelcoming work environment. The fact that even the Guardian, a historically progressive newspaper, is giving a platform to such harmful views is concerning, to say the least.
• In America, it seems that protections against sex discrimination are being thrown under the bus in attempt to make sure it's completely legal to discriminate against trans people. Discrimination hurts us all, even if we think it doesn't affect us.

Things I didn't know (until now)

• The planet Venus may have once been habitable, and the fact that it isn't any more could be due to global warming. I feel like this gives us a glimpse of what Earth could become if we don't put a stop to climate change. This might be old news for some of you, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I only found out about this because of the song "Nobody" by Mitski.
• So-called "scotch snaps" are major musical trend right now, which you may or may not have noticed. What I found really fascinating about Adam Neely's video on this topic is that he gets into how differences in languages can impact the music created by their speakers.
• Robert Pattinson once lied on live TV about seeing a clown die at a circus. So that's... something. This article also reminded me of the many times Pattinson blatantly dragged the Twilight franchise while doing press interviews for the series, which never ceases to amuse me.
• On a lighter note, the creation of Viennettas is surprisingly hypnotic.

Miscellaneous

• At The Guardian (which I'm hesitant to link to now, given the second article in this post), Ammar Kalia has written a rather sweet article about men who choose to take their wife's surname after marriage. Although I'm stunned that any man would expect his wife to take his surname in this day and age, it's still fascinating to hear about what names mean to people and what their reasons are for changing them.
• Literature Wales are running a "Platforming Under-Represented Writers Funding Scheme" that is offering grants to BAME, disabled, or chronically ill writers in Wales. The deadline for applications is 21st August at 5pm GMT, so if you want to apply then do so quickly!

Link About It #6: Headphone Jacks, Capsule Wardrobes, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

This is the sixth instalment in a series now known as Link About It, previously called My Favourite Internet Things, in which I compile interesting/amusing things I've seen on the internet this week.

So once again, I have skipped a week of these Link About It posts. I'll admit I'm kind of defeating their whole purpose by doing this, as the aim of creating a "weekly" blog series was that it would compel me to post something at least once a week - alas, it seems that not even this promise to myself was enough to overcome my own laziness when it comes to writing. Plus, at the moment all of my free time is being sucked up by this great book called The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman (you may have heard of him). Anyway, before I digress further, let's get on to the links:

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
I'm currently ambivalent about giving any attention (even if it's only social media clicks) to Tarantino at the moment, since I learned about his history of mistreating women, but I have found the following analyses of his new film quite interesting:

• Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, was apparently not happy with the portrayal of her father in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, according to The Wrap. This article says that Lee feels the film downplayed the difficulties her father experienced as an Asian-American actor in Hollywood and makes him into "an arrogant punching bag".
• At Jezebel, Rich Juzwiak writes about the poor representation of the film's female characters - many of whom, it's worth noting, are based on real life women. While some degree of misogyny being present in a Tarantino film would not surprise me, the level of what Juzwiak refers to as "shittiness towards women" in this latest movie is pretty damning.

Fashion and minimalism

• Justine Leconte is a French fashion designer and YouTuber who makes brilliant videos on all aspects of clothing and style, including this excellent series on how to create a capsule wardrobe. She's also funny, charming, and straight to the point, so there's really no reason not to love her. At the moment I am obsessed with her videos, so much so that I am considering starting a capsule wardrobe myself.
• On a related note, Molly Osberg at Jezebel details her experience of wearing variations on the same thing for a year and a half. It's even more extreme a method than a capsule wardrobe, but Osberg makes a pretty good case for only having one outfit.
• If you're thinking all of this sounds worryingly like a certain trend for spartan aesthetics and bare-essentials living, Chelsea Fagan is here to tell you why minimalism is terrible. I still like the idea of having slightly less stuff than I have at the moment, but I agree with Fagan that minimalism as a movement is awfully wealth-dependent and generally cringey.

Miscellaneous words and (moving) pictures

• The end of the headphone jack is nigh! At least according to this article from the New York Times, anyway. Apparently we as a society have been hurtling towards a headphone-jack-less world for some time now, but being the obvious Luddite that I am, this is the first I've heard of it.
• Naomi Campbell has an incredibly detailed travel routine that has somehow made me both excited for and terrified of the next time I have to get on a plane. Mostly terrified, to be honest.
• Finally, this Tom Scott video will introduce you to the concept of "phatic expressions", which you've most likely heard of before but just don't know the name. The video also includes a dig at Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, which I enjoyed (the dig, not the books/films).

Link About It #5: Goat Portraits, Women's Work, and an Ode to Anne Shirley

This is the fifth instalment in a series now known as Link About It, previously called My Favourite Internet Things, in which I compile interesting/amusing things I've seen on the internet this week.

Remember last week, when I threatened to come up with a terrible pun-based name for this series if nobody suggested anything better? Well, I've made good on my promise, and this series is now going to be known as "Link About It" from this point onwards. Personally I think this title works better, but if you disagree.... all I can say is that you had your chance.

Women's work

This week I've somehow ended up stumbling across several excellent articles on the topic of women and labour, particularly the kind of domestic labour that is often invisible and expected from us.

• At The Cut, Lisa Miller considers how women tend to carry more things with them than men do, and what that says about our society. Miller looks at a number of issues, from the lack of pockets in women's clothes to who cleans up messes in public spaces, and ties them all together in a brilliant thesis on women and the baggage (literal and metaphorical) we carry.
• A new study says that the idea that men in general are "dirt blind" is a myth - they just aren't judged for being untidy or unclean in the same way women are. This made me think about the shared memory so many of us have of our mothers panicking over the state of the house when guests are coming over. Perhaps this is because women subconsciously know the house's condition reflects on them, rather than their male partners or children?
•  A lack of time is a woman's greatest enemy, writes Brigid Schulte at The Guardian. Her essay makes a compelling argument that the thing holding so many women back from creative or career success is the fact that they just don't have as much time as their male counterparts, due to the unseen domestic labour expected of them.

Articles on wanting and asking too much

• It's from 2017, but this ode to Anne of Green Gables at Lit Hub is so beautiful that I'd still wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who loves L. M. Montgomery's precocious heroine. I didn't read any of the Anne books until I was an adult, but once I did I related to Anne so strongly that I wish I'd read them many years before. 
• This personal essay at Autostraddle explores desire, being "thirsty", and the radical act of openly claiming what you want. It's excellent, but I will warn that it's a bit NSFW.

Stories and pictures

• "The Crane Wife", by CJ Hauser, also explores desire and emotional needs. It's a beautiful story of a woman recovering from the collapse of a relationship, and how studying cranes in the wild helps her survive the aftermath. I originally thought that it was a piece of short fiction, but now I think it might actually be autobiographical. 
• These portraits of goats, taken by photographer Kevin Horan, are surprisingly striking. I never would have thought of goats as being particularly pretty animals before, but their uniqueness and personality really shine through in this series. 

If you've finished reading this post and are surprised that I haven't shared anything to do with the UK's new PM, I would just like to say that the omission was deliberate. Between the recent heatwave and being ill, I don't have the energy to confront the horror of our current political situation right now. There is a time for action and a time for distraction, and right now I'm strongly in need of the latter.

My Favourite Internet Things (This Week) #4

This is the fourth instalment in what I've now decided is going to be a series: My Favourite Internet Things, in which I compile interesting/amusing things I've seen on the internet this week.

This post is going up about a week later than I originally intended, because I just got kind of overwhelmed with things and wasn't able to get it up last Sunday/Monday, and I thought it would be better to just wait a whole week after that than to put it up mid-week. But here it is! I am currently writing this with a headache that I haven't been able to shift all day, so please excuse me if this post seems a bit off. I was tempted to just leave this post again, but I really want to get into the habit of posting regularly on here and this series is a good source of encouragement for me. 

On another note, I'm trying to think of a new name for this series. I'm not particularly keen on the current name, nor am I sure it really fits with the theme of many of the links, so if you have any suggestions for alternative names, please let me know! I will be glad to steal them. Now, on to the links:

Important articles

• At Wear Your Voice, eight non-binary people share what they want society to learn about gender. I originally meant to share this around Non-Binary Day (14th July), but it's always a good time to analyse our preconceptions about gender and learn how to better support our non-binary siblings.
• This article details the history of Quentin Tarantino's mistreatment of the women he works with. On top of Tarantino's failure to do anything when he knew about Harvey Weinstein's abuse of women, learning what actresses like Uma Thurman and Diane Kruger have to say about Tarantino's actions on set is very disturbing.
• reCAPTCHA is possibly (probably) exploiting us all. I've been wondering about the "I'm not a robot" things lately as I noticed many of them were no longer requiring me to pass any obvious checks before they confirmed my humanity. After reading this article, I feel uneasy about the change.

Bookish stuff (i.e. most of these links are related to books or reading even though I didn't plan it this way)

• The New York Public Library has book recommendations for Game of Thrones characters, who I guess need something to do now their series has ended. I found the suggestion for Joffrey particularly amusing.
• Also at NYPL, literary cats! Cats! In books! Read this and try to forget the horror that is the new trailer for the Cats film (no, I'm not linking it here - Google at your own risk).
• BookRiot has a list of non-fiction essays you can read for free online, by writers including Ta-Nehisi Coates, Joan Didion, and Roxane Gay. Go forth and read.
• 'Our Last Guest', a short story by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, is beautifully eerie and poignant. Now I can't wait to read her latest novel, Starling Days, as soon as I find the money.

Miscellaneous interesting things

• It's a few years old, but this Japan Times article on 'an “art collective” of “ultra-technologists”' is still worth a look. (Full disclosure: I haven't actually read the whole article yet, but I thought the photos of teamLab's 'A Forest Where Gods Live' exhibition were too striking to not share.) 
• The Smithsonian website has a short history of gendered kids' clothing, which shows how the idea of pink as a girls' colour is only relatively recent. I'd also like to see a more in-depth look at how gendered clothing was marketed though, since the article moves over that part a bit too quickly for me.

That's all for this week. Don't forget to let me know if you have any suggestions of alternative names for this series (column? category?). If I don't receive any suggestions, I will most likely end up going with a terrible 'link'-based pun. You have been warned.

My Favourite Internet Things (This Week) #3

This is the third instalment in what I've now decided is going to be a series: My Favourite Internet Things, in which I compile interesting/amusing things I've seen on the internet this week.

This week's instalment is going to be relatively brief, because I sort of forgot that I was meant to be doing these until a day or so ago. Anyway, here are the links!

Miscellaneous interesting stuff

• Old article, but let us never forget Hannibal the killer swan, AKA the best creature to ever come out of Pembrokeshire.
• Speaking of Welsh greats, Art Fund did a list of sixteen Welsh artists (including Gwen John, another Pembrokeshire icon).
• This article at Medium looks at algorithms and how they impact our everyday lives, even more than we realise. This is something I think about a lot and this piece left me suitably freaked out, which probably shows it's worth reading.
• Lit Hub will tell you what your favourite beach read says about you. Tag yourself, I'm Gone Girl.
• The world of Thomas the Tank Engine is a dominated by a totalitarian regime. Stay vigilant, comrades.
• This map marks out the lands of different native groups around the world. I think this could be a useful resource for people trying to learn more about the history of indigenous peoples.
• Finally, this group of Chinese women living together in a huge, beautiful house are my new life goals. 

That's all for this week. In my defence, I was distracted by some rather entertaining Twitter drama today, so I wasn't able to fish through my browser history for links like I normally do. Still, I regret nothing.

My Favourite Internet Things (This Week) #2

This is the second installment in what I've now decided is going to be a series: My Favourite Internet Things, in which I compile interesting/amusing things I've seen on the internet this week.

Corsetry and Feminism
Since seeing the comments made about Kim Kardashian's Met Gala outfit (which I honestly liked), I've been trying to find out more about corsets and how feminists and fashion historians are responding to the current revival of interest in corsetry.

• This article at the Guardian generally has a negative view on corsets, although it does suggest that corsets and "waist trainers" are different products which appeal for different reasons.
• Marianne Faulkner, a corsetiere, argues that corsets can indeed be feminist when viewed through lens of self-expression and individual choice.
• Not analysis, but this corset made by a group of corsetmakers (directed by the aforementioned Faulkner) is really beautiful. The Underpinnings Museum website is also a good source in general if you're interested in fashion history.
• The New York Times published this article which seems to include a history of corsetry and thoughts on its feminist credentials - unfortunately I can't seem to read it. Still, I wanted to include it here as it looks good and I am hoping to find some way to look at it someday.

Interesting Articles
An assortment of random links I thought were worth sharing:

• A giant squid has been caught on film in US waters! I think this was mistakenly shared with the suggestion that it was the first time a giant squid was ever caught on camera, which I believe is incorrect, but sightings of giant squids are still definitely rare (and very exciting, if you ask me).
• The Cut published a sort of behind-the-scenes look at Babe.net, the now-defunct website that published the infamous Aziz Ansari article. Very relevant to the subjects of workplace harassment and how socially progressive, sex-positive culture can be co-opted by predatory men to take advantage of women.
• Fast fashion is actually bad for workers and the environment, according to a Guardian article. I'm sure that a lot of us already had our suspicions about this, but it's good to have the facts. Still, I was disappointed to see the Guardian end on a ethical consumerist slant, rather than a call to action against the companies which have real power in this situation.
• One of the newer entries in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography focuses on Rhiannon Davies Jones, an author and academic. I was ashamed I hadn't heard of her before seeing this biography, but then if this project is bringing attention to lesser-known Welsh historical figures then they are doing their job well.
• Ruth Hunt, the outgoing Chief Executive of Stonewall, did an interview with Buzzfeed in which she talks about a variety of topics from growing up gay to dealing with TERFs trying to co-opt the butch lesbian struggle to justify their transphobia. She seems like a brilliant woman and it's hard to read about all the harassment she's been receiving just for standing up for our trans sisters.

Websites and Resources

• My friend Sandra introduced me to this website, Radio Garden, which lets you listen to radio stations from all around the world. Useful if you want to know, for example, what people are listening to in Mexico City these days.
• Europeana: Rise of Literacy is a new digital exhibition at the National Library of Wales, focusing on the growth of literacy in Europe over the years. It's a pretty extensive collection, and I could see it being useful to those interested in either literature or history.

Fun Stuff

• Six is "a pop-opera style musical giving the wives of Henry VIII a historical revisionist feminism makeover", according to The Mary Sue, which frankly sounds amazing.
• It's an old article, but this series of photos which basically makes films into impressionist art is pretty cool.
• Miyako Ihara's photo series showing the relationship between her grandmother Misao and her cat Fukumaru is beautiful and made me want to cry. 10/10 would recommend.
• There are quite a few "Democratic Party candidates as..."  going around at the moment, but I found this one of the candidates as members of a university history department particularly amusing.
• Someone linked to these bloopers from Young Frankenstein on Twitter. I can't remember who shared it, but Gene Wilder's laugh brightened my day and for that I am thankful to them.
• I have been going on about the similarities between Lewis Capaldi's "Someone You Loved" and O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei" for weeks now but nobody seemed to take it seriously (and it really is serious). Thankfully I found this mash-up of the two songs on YouTube, and now I feel peace knowing that at least one other person saw the connection.

My Favourite Internet Things (This Week)

I'm going to keep this brief: I've seen quite a few things I liked or otherwise thought were interesting on the internet this week,* so I thought a fun thing to do would be to compile them in a blog post. This also means that I can refer my friends and family directly to this post when I want them to look at the things mentioned, rather than to all the links individually. They probably still won't look at them, but at least this way it's less labour-intensive on my end.

Taylor Swift analyses

After much internal debate, I did eventually decide not to write a bitter blog post about Taylor Swift and the "You Need to Calm Down" controversy, so instead what I'm going to do is share a couple of articles here that mirror my thoughts on the whole thing:

• This article at Slate really nails why Swift's positioning "You Need to Calm Down" as a gay anthem is so insulting and ineffective. It also (unfavourably) compares the song to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way", as a few other articles have done, but I appreciate that Cauterucci acknowledges that Lady Gaga is actually a member of the queer community, not just an ally like Swift.
• I already linked to this article at Esquire in my previous post, but here it is again if you haven't already read it.
• And Esquire did another article on the whole thing - I guess Esquire is gay now? Anyway, this article tackles the making-it-about-yourself issue that was kind of a problem with the song.
• Finally, this piece at the Onion pretty much says it all.

Miscellaneous interesting stuff

Not sure if there's a particular unifying theme among these, except that they are all things I found informative, enlightening, or just amusing.

• Diverse representation in children's literature is still not good enough, as this infographic demonstrates. I believe the data used was American, but I would imagine this is a trend in UK publishing as well (and that's without considering how many of the books kids read here are American anyway).
• An academic named Dr Marijuana Pepsi Jackson recently completed her PhD on "Black names in student classrooms: Teacher behaviors and student perceptions", which was apparently inspired by her own experiences of having an unusual name. This really made me think about the significance of names and how they influence our views of people, and how this is impacted by things like race and class.
• A publisher in Germany found a cool way to get around the country's VAT tax on menstrual hygiene products - by putting tampons in a book. Perhaps they will sell copies in the UK soon?
• I recently went on Spotify.me to see my music listening stats, which sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out exactly what "escape room" as a genre meant, which eventually led me to discovering this website: Every Noise at Once. It's a bit hard to navigate, but it's full of music stats which cover everything from words associated with different genres to what people listen to in cities around the world. It's fascinating and I'm obsessed.
• At The New Yorker, Kathryn Schulz wrote this very moving piece about her father and his relationship with books. I think anyone who loves books or comes from a bookish family will appreciate it.
• The revolution against the ruling classes has begun, and that revolution is being led by rats.

YouTube Channels

• I recently watched the 2016 movie Split, about a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), and it reminded me of one of my favourite YouTube channels: DissociaDID, which is all about DID and what it's like to live with the disorder. I found it incredibly interesting, and it's great to see people working for better understanding of mental disorders.
• At the moment I'm watching a lot of booktubers as part of a freelance job (yes, really), and one channel I came across recently that I really like is The Bookish Land. All of the videos I've seen have been good, but I especially enjoyed the ones on Chinese literature, which are very informative if (like me) it's not a branch of literature that you're very familiar with.

Fun stuff

Here are some of the things that have recently been consuming my time (and preventing me from actually applying for jobs, like I should be) far more than I'd like to acknowledge.

• I have watched this video of Jigglypuff singing Hedwig's Theme from the Harry Potter films every day since I discovered it over a week ago. It is the single greatest source of joy in my life now.
• This other video is the second greatest source of joy in my life, and I don't know why.
• You can now fulfil your childhood dreams of playing Dr Frankenstein with your favourite video game creatures by using this Pokémon hybrid creator. I've seen two "challenges" associated with this thing: with the first one, whatever hybrid appears when you load the page is your starter Pokémon; with the other challenge, you put the first letter of your first and last names in the first and second boxes respectively, and then the Pokémon that comes up is.... you, I guess? Anyway, all of mine were loveable yet horrifying, so I've left the tweet I posted about them below.

I tried that challenge where you put in the first letter of your first and last names and see what hybrid Pokémon you get, and all of my creations scare me pic.twitter.com/cNagi7wHS7

— Mary BP (@marytocracy) June 23, 2019

*Okay, they're not all from this week, because I was late to the party on some of the links and also have no concept of the passage of time, but I like to think that they have aged like fine wines rather than stale hot takes.

Feel free to comment below if you have any thoughts on the links I've mentioned or suggestions of other interesting internet things to look at. Also let me know, either by commenting or messaging me directly (since I know most of you readers anyway), if you've enjoyed this post and would like this link-sharing to be a weekly/monthly/regular thing. I'll probably do it anyway, because I've decided I don't need external validation anymore, but the support is always nice.