smooth sloperator

hi guys

my other blog which i was using largely for Get A Job purposes got almost completely abandoned once the mission was completed. i also don't really think anyone was reading it, which is fine because the way i was writing on there (see the two acceptable examples crossposted here) was really kind of gross. now i have been liberated back into my lowercase freedom.

writing a blog is not something that comes naturally to me. i don't have much to discuss (notmuchtosay dot blogspot dot com was taken). fundamentally, i genuinely don't think i really have unique insight to share that deserves a place online - i am the ulysses ogre. but i saw a post from an artist i like about how we should all start dailyblogging in 2026. 

i was kind of captivated because in the past year working in social media has really pushed me over the edge in terms of hating it. from a distance, social media discourse (like actually about the platforms) is all well and good. i find it interesting to know how people are using social media and what the platforms are doing - really, i'm deeply invested in social media. 

i grew up on fandom internet in case that much wasn't clear from the way i am as a person. in 2012 i made my first internet friend on my "aesthetic feed" instagram who became a regular in the kik group chat with my earliest secondary school friends. from 2013 to c. 2021, i was an avid stan twitter member, moving from youtube (tyler oakley dm celebrations; troye sivan skinny ratio girls; phan privacy defence league), to anime (edits; "minors dni" creation myth; the absolute rule of the phillipines on the tl; haikyuu last chapter lockdown drop), to kpop (getting my internet friend into seventeen; fanwar obliviousness). throughout secondary school i was a long time listener failed caller on studyblr, which iykyk is where i got my handwriting from and how i became an OG proponent of mildliners before they started selling them in WH smith (and how i actually learned to study and enjoy it).

so like to say i am obsessed with social media and its influence is true. but unfortunately i now find myself becoming one of those people who is preoccupied with the negative impacts of endless scroll, short-form video predominance, and the loss of desktop computer time. it's worn out and almost boring to criticise this; the new trend is "offline" anyway, everyone is already talking about it. morning raves, in-person speed dating, sober hobby culture, etc. i just read an article yesterday about how much it sucks that "relatable" humour of "my bed understands me and won't judge me for eating a pint of ice cream while watching netflix!!!!" that used to be restricted to superwholock binge-watching is now every third tiktok comment left by the "my new years' goal is to sleep more" brigade. the online noisemaking about club culture dying, for example, is only one iteration of the online/offline tension (although many people miss the austerity part).

but the problem is that that is kind of really genuinely actually how i feel. as much as i try to avoid it - as much as i have defended the six seeeveennn 8 year olds from my peers - i genuinely feel that we had social media that was social, enjoyable to use, and fit into our life in a way that made sense. i'm angry about the fact that people have spent their working lives custom-designing an addictive technology to rip time from users' lives. do i really think that the instagram where you could post one (1) picture at a time was the ultimate tool for creativity? no, of course hosting video is good too. but i also scroll to the very bottom of anyone with 2012 posts on their account (sorry emily axford) to reminisce on a time where there were not ads, it was cool to post, and people wrote earnest captions with #HashtagsThatWereAFullSentence.

so blogging is an interesting one. i never took to it as a teen because i was fundamentally terrified of people from my real life finding me online - i don't have much evidence of my fandom activity online because i meticulously deleted accounts, used pseudonyms, and did my best to be as anonymous as possible. that mentality has now somewhat permeated my "public" social media accounts, like instagram - posting selfies isn't cool any more anyway, but the fear of a digital footprint has now reached everyone. 

the ai of it all is responsible for, i would say, three strands of what i'm talking about here. firstly the genAI wave has eliminated the desire to post face (alongside arguably the pandemic-era social justice emphasis in online discourse branding selfies as tone-deaf). it hasn't escaped my contemplation that anyone could deepfake me from the content i've posted for work. the second strand, which is the floodgates opening ai slop, has sent the "dead internet is here" death toll posts through the proverbial engagement roof.

which brings us to the third point, the return to blogging and the rise of (faux?)intellectualism to combat the perceived cognitive decline ai has brought about. see the ridiculous growth of substack in 2025. i don't know if there have been any real, significant trials about cognitive function decline resulting from ai use. the oft-cited paper involving essay writing and brain activity i believe was an exploratory study with a tiny sample size. i also don't by any means think that the phenomenon of people who don't want to think is a new thing. people who want to take shortcuts, do the easy thing even if it's wrong or worse, or simply don't care about quality are not new. but there is a general concern about the mental laziness inspired by ai tools like chatgpt, hilariously at odds with the sloperator prompt engineer grindset that characterises the entire ai sector. 

the people are craving friction! so give them blogs!

nostalgia-fuelled, ai-hating, former-gifted-kid-sadposting millenials and gen z are embracing long-form with open arms, despite the fact that many of us were honestly a little too young to really have experienced the era of original blogging. but we have a craving to actually hear each other again, not the stupid voice of the short-form attention grab or the ai r/Relationships voiceover.

it's just that it's all on purpose. i logged into substack last night after not really using it at all when i made an account last summer. in a 20 minute scroll, i read two good articles and maybe four posts that lamented how the content on substack has become uninteresting and cheap, decrying the listicle and social media commentary. substack, the original blog platform that did what medium kind of couldn't and become a mainstream success, has immediately fallen to the sphere that linkedin operates in. thought-leadership posturing. not a single person who knows marcus aurelius has released you from the obligation to have a take.

and this is what i'm saying about social media nostalgia: we can't go back. the plague of the substack creative outlines what social media has become. before, you would be laughed at if you said your job was in social media for a brand. it wasn't a legitimate part of marketing. now it's millions of peoples' job. everyone is encouraged to become a brand, to build a platform online - to live out the rags to riches dream that accompanies having a good take online. it's obliterated gatekeeping, in a way. but in doing so  it's tied us to the stage. we're not posting to our friends but our audience, not for likes and comments but for a generalised "engagement".

the call to personal dailyblogging hopes to circumvent all this by avoiding the curse of readership desire. it's the one true magic bullet solution to the attention-seeking darkness that consumes social media! it's writing about things you like, for other normal people. it's not "building a platform". it's unique, original insight on topics that you 🫵 are interested in, for no reward.

where have i heard that before?

ALL of the internet is about getting attention. sorry. that is what stands in the way of me living my blogger truth. yes, the aforementioned audience issue has compounded it severely. but, in my most not like other girls take i'll have in this blog, i have always hated the notification-checking that accompanies posting. it makes me feel gross. i have deleted countless posts hours after posting because the phrase "no one actually cares tbh" is on loop in my head. not that literally no one cares about what i have to say - but why would i post hundreds of words into nothingness when i can have a real conversation with friends (this isn't referring to people who don't have the option to talk to people in real life about their interests. it's about me. this isn't a bean soup situation). 

content creation as a hobby requires a level of belief in your own self-importance which i simply do not have. a belief i'm not criticising whatsoever, because how would i have been keysmashing about youtube videos on twitter if people never made youtube videos? i just don't have it.

all this to introduce a blog which i hope to continue writing. why?

well firstly because i have to honour my love affair with old social media. there was a time when we were all posting genuine, earnest updates on our days and lives without worrying about "our data" (a fear which most people don't even know the meaning of) or ai or doomscrolling. now i've moved back home after uni and the fog of mental illness war is dissipating, i find myself desperate for those times back. is it a heartbreaking nostalgia for teenage fun i wasn't really having? that's none of your business. i want to be earnest on social media again! i want to stop feeling dread when i hit a "post" button! 

secondly, i kind of need a place to rant about pop culture. guys, i just watched twilight for the first time in december and i have so many thoughts about these shitty mormon vampires. i'm going to read them soon approaching them from a horror angle (it's real) and where am i going to talk about it all? also, i keep having these lengthy conversations with multiple people and it's kind of driving me crazy repeating like the BULK of my dumb theses to different people.

thirdly i kind of do believe in the project of us all blogging again. i want to read your niche takes on things i've never heard of, i want to know about what's going on in your life, i want to read what you're thinking, i want to hear from you.

so, the demons i will be fighting in this endeavour

1. my need to never have a digital footprint on any platform and my addiction to deleting posts

2. the dislike for my own writing

3. my lack of understanding about how to keep up with blogs, having had a feed on everything i've ever used

4. ulysses ogre complex

wish me luck. and make a blog! please!

peace

Men are so BACK?

Lueder is Marie Lueder’s eponymous menswear brand that takes inspiration from medieval armour to address mens’ mental health and anxieties about society. Implementing themes including disillusionment, vulnerability, and sensitivity, Lueder blends contemporary loose fits and historical elements to create 2020s-appropriate armour for mind and body. Additionally, Lueder operate with the intention of sustainability embedded in the workflow, such as using less water-intensive dying (LFW) and wood pulp faux fur (merde magazine).

Back in February much was made about the incoming controversy (that seemingly never materialised outside of a few Instagram comments) wrought by one garment from Lueder’s AW25 show at Berlin Fashion Week.

Photo: Lueder

It’s a white tank with shiny, plastic-looking red iron-on letters that reads: “Men are so BACK”. It seems cheap and low-quality, “like something you’d pick up from a Jersey City t-shirt shop” (Dazed). As well as the “so back” reference, the font is reminiscent of (if not actually - I don’t know) Impact, further fuelling the 2020s wave of brainrot-inspired creations. The space between lines is a centimetre or so too large, adding to the impression of poor quality and general atmosphere of an affirmation meme. The white tank is possibly the masculine garment; simple, shows off the upper body, etc. (although it's my personal opinion that slogan tees are for the girls... call it the iCarly effect) Paired with sagging, straight-fit jeans and a low puma trainer it reflects a modern masculinity that favours a vaguely fashion-conscious simple look.

Under backstage interrogation Lueder confirmed conclusively that the piece is about her fear of Trump: “being scared of him coming back” (Dazed). Although obviously humorous (or tacky, as per a few comments), the piece is very much in line with Lueder’s interest in masculinity and vulnerability. Lueder’s statement is that men are back - for the worse. Indeed it may be true – the simmering misogynistic violence, the pushback on LGBTQ+ existance, the political Olympics – but the overtly celebratory undertones of “so back” are somewhat overpowering and I wonder if it’s the best choice of pop slang to employ here.

Lueder debuted this on the runway in Berlin but also created a club-like show where models danced around guests with techno and strobe lights. But my first sighting of this tank was Lexie Liu’s music video for her song FFFFF, featuring vampire-Lexie alternating between hanging out with her human pizza delivery boyfriend, drinking blood for dinner with her blonde moms in their stately home, and doing mascara in the webcam of a laptop from 2005. 

Lexie Liu wearing Lueder in her vampire mansion

The masculinity presented here is starkly different that which Lueder pictured while designing the garment. It’s passive and in some ways lower status. It’s “boyfriend as accessory”, it's Ken. In this context the phrasing comes across almost entirely differently; men are validated on authority of Lexie’s it girl-ness. Not only does she have the power to turn her 2013 boyfriend into a vampire, she seemingly decrees that men are so back, as in: back in fashion.

Can we produce a new masculinity through it girl decree? I don’t think so. Undoubtedly iconic and a top-10 concept for the girls (myself included), it still suppresses any self-actualisation or reflection. More hopeful than Lueder’s ominous intention, but not going anywhere. We’re already past the point where it’s revolutionary to have the ditzy boyfriend replace the ditzy girlfriend, and well into the era where “positive masculinity” influencers are finding audiences. The accessory boyfriend isn’t contemporary enough to exist in real life, and this is reflected in Liu’s Y2K sensibilities, a trend which often draws more from nostalgic cosplay than historical reenactment.

Boyfriend in tow

So men are back, but maybe not all of that has to be terrifying. While the fragile, misogynistic nonsense portrayed by Trump and his ilk is in full catastrophic swing, their counterparts are working hard online to reclaim space for men to thrive. The it girls are toting their boyfriends around on Instagram and showing off how they care. Perhaps this piece can help us encourage that side of masculinity - manifest it, if you will. 

We can hold the fear and the celebration together. And of course, the club is the perfect place for that.

Smaller things inside bigger things

After a shocking getting-a-job related absence of 8 months (???!!!) I write to you today because - huge news - I saw a sick ass rug. Upon trusted recommendation I took my mom to Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300–1350 at the National Gallery for her birthday. The work on display was interesting enough but the highlight was two men who happened to run into each other while visiting, and stopped next to us to discuss (by example!) how a 14th century sheet of music would be sung, which was incredible. 

Despite covering the engaging output of what seems to be not a particularly long period, we did suffer mildly from either too many rooms or a minor lack of benches, so don’t ask me about the final two rooms because my legs had clocked off by then. However, you can ask me about the Confronted Animal Rug on loan from the Met which was (unsurprisingly) my favourite object on display.

Confronted Animal Rug, 14th century. Attributed to Turkey, 165.1cm length, 138.4cm width. (c) Met Museum

Confronted animal rug, 14th century

These “Early Anatolian” carpets are depicted in various paintings from 14th century Siena as trade between Europe and the Ottoman Empire strengthened. This example is one of several that made their way into the market as monks fled from Tibet during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

The field depicts four possibly digitigrade quadrupeds in two confronted pairs, each raising a front leg. Enclosed within them are smaller animals with three visible legs. These smaller animals are within a shape which I took to be abstract, but which Michael Franses in God Is Beautiful and Loves Beauty: The Object in Islamic Art and Culture suggests is a third level of animal, perhaps the senmurv (sinmurgh) of Persian legend. I’ll just be focusing on these animals, not the borders.

As Daniel Walker writes, the smaller animal within the larger one appears to be a “play on the stock image of an animal within a compartment found in many ancient and medieval textiles”. Other rugs of like origin feature this geometric style and compartmentalised organisation, but the Matryoshka doll effect is rare - there is a very similar carpet at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha that has it but it is otherwise unique.

Altogether the symmetric shape of the tail, nested animal motifs and tiny heads create a whimsy that makes this piece unusual, while the three-leggedness of the smaller animals furthers the geometric element but still retains a balance that makes the rug pleasing to look at. Given there are more naturalistic animal depictions in other styles, this simplicity appears purposeful.

Interlude on Matryoshkas

Briefly - it has to be said that my original ideas for this blog literally consisted of a list of “smaller things that go inside bigger things”. I love to harass friends when trying to think of what to write so in addition to the list I had I did ask a friend, giving the extremely specific requirements that the thing has to be a smaller version of the thing it’s in, they have to be discrete objects (therefore excluding e.g., Earth’s layers) and has to be completely enclosed in the other thing. Together we came up with:

• Matryoshka dolls (obviously, and the Japanese nesting kokeshi dolls they were based on)
• Layers of pass-the-parcel (excluding the prize I guess)
• One specific Chinese porcelain teacup set contained inside a big teacup
• Onion layers

Interestingly this photo of Matryoshka dolls was taken in Japan.

It was extremely difficult. If you have any other examples let me know because we were struggling.

Matryoshka dolls are popularly associated with maternal generational lines and fertility, and kokeshi dolls have similar associations with children. However, there’s also various interpretations of them as a representation of unity between body, soul, mind, heart, and spirit.

Our outlier: red animal on blue background as opposed to black/navy on yellow.


Journey to the centre of the ???

My point being that the inward direction of travel with nested symbols feels distinctly like an journey of self-reflection or truth. If we continue to pointedly and arbitrarily ignore the popular fertility interpretations for the time being, then the use of nesting objects as psychological metaphors becomes possible (verging dangerously on Shrek philosophy).

Given their representation in Sienese paintings of important religious scenes such as The Marriage of the Virgin, these rugs are imbued with significance well beyond their simplistic animal motifs. My guess is that their foreign provenance improved their luxury status - and indeed not every painted animal carpet has nested symbols - but it’s interesting to wonder about this inward journey in a religious context. Many religions have a reflective function and in Christianity this is no less the case.

I prefer this interpretation as my focus is drawn to the singular blue/red iteration of the smaller animal’s background in the top right, which hints at a difference between an individual and society. The outer animal is somewhat more flashy than the inner; their symmetrical (armoured?) tails are reminiscent of the antlers of these animals on a carpet in the Vakıflar Museum, Istanbul. On the raised front leg of each outer animal there appears to be a spur, and round the neck of each is a striped collar. Meanwhile, the inner animal has a much simpler rounded tail and no collar, as well as a simpler facial silhouette.

Combined, they have a distinct feeling of internal vulnerability/external hardiness. A group-oriented warning against individual difference, or a personal admission of feelings of isolation? The outer shell is identical to its peers in fashion (collar), anatomy, and stance, while the inner animal self is simpler, less intense.

Ultimately this single instance of variation draws the whole composition together. Regardless of intention, there’s a striking difference between the movement of the animals and the feeling of internal solitude that centres on this little guy. Or he was just sick af