ode to jade west

for as long as i can remember, i have wanted an eyebrow piercing. i got my first ear piercings at 16 and since then 6 more, but still the eyebrow piercing haunts me. i wanted one before i had any piercings, even when my style icons were, like, girly girl kpop idols.

from the title of the blog you can see where this is going but shockingly dear reader i had not. my sister is rewatching hit nickelodeon tv show victorious once again and i am being trapped in front of the tv like a moth. for a show that does not whatsoever hold up today, contains a disturbingly zach schneider-motivated number of feet scenes, and is generally not that funny half the time, i am glued to the screen.

for nostalgia, yes, but also. because the grip of jade west on my heart has never left.

and, mid-episode, i let out a gasp. you know when something is really crazy to you but when you explain it no one really cares and you have to deal with the knowledge that only you are having this galaxy brain realisation? that was me when i clocked that the source of my lifelong eyebrow piercing obsession, was standing right in front of me. 

for some reason i had just internalised the eyebrow piercing need entirely independently of the source. apologies jade and katie gavin elford, who from imdb appears to be the costume supervisor with the longest connection to the show. 

when i was a kid i was just absorbing the various character outfits like a regular viewer. but now, because i'm insane and this is my life now, every episode i have been locked in to what everyone's wearing. and what i have to say to you is this: i was right the whole time.

people typically refer to jade as emo online, but really her outfits lean more on a punk-lite grunge. lots of flannel, combat boots, spikes, etc. it doesn't fully veer into subculture though - they tend to still be pretty..... pretty, and have elements of conventional popular 2010s style like the relatively understated jewellery. this actually somewhat reflects her character, as she's typically standoffish and tbh mean (side note: i've discovered people ship jade and tori and honestly you lot could convince me on it because tori has to be down BAD to let jade talk to her like that. but i never liked her much anyway so i could also just believe that she lets it happen) but also frequently a Teenage Girl. see the episode where slapmaps updates its map for hollywood arts and it looks like jade is picking her nose so she makes sure they retake the photo and is hands on hips posing ready for it. do i think these were intentional decisions? maybe. i actually think they just wrote her to do whatever bit they had planned and then styled her to be the hot goth archetype, but let's imagine a world where it's that deep.

also deeply important to me is the fact she mains knee-high all-black converse in like half the episodes. they're kind of her go-to shoe. the IDEA of wearing knee-high converse with skinny jeans in 2026 has just made me actually laugh out loud while writing this, but i wanted them so badly when i was a kid. my mom never let me get them, thankfully at the time because they went out of style fast but also sadly because those pictures would have been great to look back on.

which brings up a more general point that i don't really see anyone dress like this...? and i live in a major city? i don't see that many goth/emo people in general to be honest but i definitely think i haven't *noticed* anyone that hits this exact kind of style.

i think it's because the 2010s aren't really back yet. they are online - my queen trinity zmazzzy on insta is the most committed i've seen, and the twilight style resurgence counts, with its revival of the scoop-neck long sleeve. but out and about? the 2010s revival is not visibly happening. it's still wide leg jean city on the tube, black puffer jacket/long coat rotation, and slimline sneakers.

the seeds of 2010s style revolution are there. a permeating nostalgia for pre-IOS7 iphone and white girl club music. a jeans trend cycle that hit speeds so fast it became obsolete and now you can wear whatever jeans you want. y2k has been done. a new generation who don't remember the reality of 2010s style (2010s is to gen alpha what y2k was to millennials) is ready to take the lead..........

anyway. when i reread the hunger games undoubtedly i will be giving a style review of my IRL style influence from that time, katniss everdeen. 

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