mainstream SHAMESTREAM

Being alternative was a big issue in 2013. No one wanted to ride the main-stream when it was so controversial we didn't know whether it was ok or not. Ppl liked Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines but got DUNKED for being a supporter of this misogynistic man. Ppl were feeling Miley Cyrus' Can't Stop but were SLAMMED for being a fan of a major appropriator of black culture. You thought it was safe to throwback to R Kelly? THINK AGAIN you're going to get SPACEJAMMED because the media's remembered he was a huge paedo. I am running out of basketball verbs but basically 2013 was not a good year for riding the mainstream wave. So we all tried that bit extra to be a lil alternative.

(UPDATE: DRIBBLED is a good b-ball verb that I failed to use in the previous paragraph I am aware of this so pls look past it)

Begging the alternative life is not a good move. It's a try hard move. It's a move I am not about. I'm not going with the line of argument that mainstream culture is popular for a reason (although v true). The fact is: ALT LIFE is UNPOPULAR for a reason - a lot of it is hideously tacky and embarrassing.

If you don't understand what I'm talking about then I shall exemplify it with the biggest mainstream vs alt debate of our time: Simon or Garfunkel. Ok this one is easy - if you're #TEAMGARFUNKEL then u need to shut your lying mouth and gar the funkel out of here. I own Fate For Breakfast, Art's no.2 uk chart album featuring one of my fave album covers of all time (there were so many great photos to choose from that they released several).

 (A gripping trilogy, although there are even more out there. I own the seductive third one which is the coveted vinyl version.) Anyway - this lp is bad. IT'S SO BAD I LISTEN TO IT WHEN I'M JOKING. If you ever say you genuinely think this joker's solo stuff is better than our g-d Paul Simon's then you're either trying too hard to be alternative or u have tinnitus which I am v. sorry about.

These tacky alternatives are probably the same ppl who buy newly released vinyls in 2013. YEH the snap crackle and pop of records may sound ultra cool but my friend you are dropping £50 on a record player from ebay and £20 on the lp just to listen to Vampire Weekend pretend they're actually from 1985. Ur nostalgia for an era that wasn't even urs is tacky bye.

Buying vinyls in your #TEAMGARFUNKEL shirt is the least of my worries though. Your alternative lifestyle of buying organic soya chai tea is extra tacky. CHAI TEA are u joking w/ me? It's so overpriced they named it twice (british ppl u look so dumb right now all ur ex-british colonies r laughing at u because u keep saying it twice u couldn't even take a minute out of ur pillaging of resources to address this tautology? my friend, CHAI MEANS TEA oh my god my ancestors' ghosts take a shot everytime an english person says chai tea it brings them back 2 life). You're paying £3.50 for something you could've made at home with a 20p tea bag just so you can keep that stupid starbucks xmas red cup as a pencil pot are u for real? With £3.50 you can make 17 cups of fine chai tea at home and keep the extra 30p as tip 4 ur gr8 barista work. I hope u enjoy your expensive weak leaf water whilst eating ur extortionately priced churros from south bank smh che guevara did not die for this.


I hear some non believers that know me crying out BUT SADIA UR THE BEGGIEST ALTSTER EVR SO U CANT EVEN CHAT KMT STEP DOWN, I SWEAR YOU THRIFT? THAT'S SO WACKLEMORE!  Thrift is some glamorous 'united states of the americas' word for wearing hand-me-downs and buying jackets from probably unregistered charity shops. Since when has skintness become trendy? Expensive clothes that are made to look vintage - now that is tacky. Am Apparel sell a 'vintage minnesota gophers ice hockey championship t-shirt'. Ur friends are going 2 grill u about how the game was and u weren't even alive to see it. If ur a millennium kid then not even ur parents were alive u can't even pretend it was handed down oh my god all ur friends now think ur a beg. Is losing the respect of ur peers really worth 44 british pound sterling? Why are ppl buying 'vintage argyle lambswool and angora mock neck sweaters' for £87?? I swear there was a national holiday in the early 2000s when everyone had to burn every mock neck sweater they owned. Vintage as a fashion is NOT KOOL. 2013 has been the year of the thrift store IDEOLOGY but we're still buying our vintage from River Island - we've been hit by social cryptoamnesia; let's put away those cut-off jeans and go have a lie down. we've dissociated thrifting from poor peepz and turned it into some sort of alt fashion statement and I can't go for that cya.

Why do we even try and be alternative anymore? If we all do the same thing don't we just become the new majority except a lil bit more annoying?? 2013 was full of us youth begging it with our TWICE TEA, nostalgia for bad music and ugly sweaters just 2 seem alternative. I accept that some of us may genuinely have a refined taste for weird privilege music or drink assam instead of english breakfast tea - just don't use your expensive alt lifestyle as a bragging point when others of us weren't blessed with such cultural capital and elongated access to the internet. We've been overthinking everything just to construct coolness when coolness should come from within. In 2014 I propose we all cool it just a bit. Drop this beggy shame of 'mainstream culture' and be chill - a new year's resolution 4 us all. 

to all the non-believers...

I was NOT overreacting about how underwhelming the mona lisa was. You don't even need to have been to the Louvre yourself to know how disappointingly small it is. She is TINY, ok. proof below:

she's tiny as hell so all u non believers are real motherfukers

anyway, I said I'd look 4 more photos of ppl taking photos of mona, and I stuck 2 my word. Enjoy this exclusive PART DEUX (PART UN here) of my journalistic endeavours into the activity of the most under-documented fandom: the Monites

Monites paying up to €5 for audiotours about their queen - the cost of dedication

I can't see the actual painting but I'm not sure I mind

go big or go home

On the left: devout Monites, on the right: a NON BELIEVER

the face of a defeated man, unable 2 get close to his idol this time

I'm really pleased with the amount of interest I'm getting for these photos of monites - I hope one day I'll be acknowledged for my outstanding investigative journalism into this. I'll keep searching for more photos just for you guys, thanks!!

sales are the way, the truth and the life

HAPPY CYBER MONDAY!!

actual picture of me in my KEWL t-shirt

I dropped some serious british pound sterling on a camera and some clothes on a few online Black Friday sales. I livetweeted my moral conflict.

It shouldn't have troubled me so bad though. It's a day of great savings!! I can buy things for less, I'm supporting the weakening economy by letting my coveted british pound sterling circulate, and now I have some swish polos from Am Apparel for 75% off. Who's really losing here? Me, the consumer, to capitalism?

Buy Nothing Day is here 2 save us apparently, but its attempts at social change are kind of weak and embarrassing, as well as ineffective. Besides, flash mobs are super uncomfortable-making. I couldn't have supported BND anyway since the name didn't tell me what day it was on (a rookie mistake, imo).

U flashmobbers have got to chill out about consumerism. I'm a simple person with simple, selfish needs. I still want that lacoste polo whether I know I've been conditioned to want it or not. I'M 2 FAR GONE 2 B SAVED, just let me buy my way into class in peace!! I can only speak for myself, as someone who values gr8 savings more than having my own consciousness against capitalism, when I conclude: I'm already locked into my role as a unit of consumption, so it's a bit 2 late to change now by boycotting one annual sale.

Although it's fair to say the instore sales, which I would never partake in (I'm not about that life), get a bit out of hand - I completely forgot it was Black Friday on the day and went to Asdas to buy my basic foodstuffs. It was a TERRIFYING xp and I left empty handed and fearful. If I had a small child with me I would have inevitably and regrettably lost it in the crowd. But if u need some gr8 xmas presents yet don't have the british pound sterling to drop on full priced goods then your participation in Black Friday really shouldn't be condemned by a bunch of rando middle class students who think flash mobbing is some sort of statement. (I'd advise sticking to online shopping if you're aggressively prideful like me though.)

Am I trivialising the very important issue of consumerism? I guess so. Do I feel guilty? Now that you're flash-mobbing me, well yeah a lil. AM I GOING 2 STOP SUPPORTING CYBER MONDAY TODAY? PROBABLY NOT lol

we're all the chosen one

Through Wikipedia link hopping (how all great stories begin) I found the page describing the belief that you're the only one with consciousness and everyone else is almost definitely a robot. I made someone cry in primary school when I told her she was a robot and she was programmed to think otherwise but now I don't have to feel bad about it anymore because it has ITS OWN WIKIPEDIA PAGE.

There are two main types: metaphysical (you are a robot), and epistemological (you are a robot AS FAR AS I CAN TELL). I say robot but the actual term for it is 'philosophical zombie' or 'p-zombie' as all the cool millennium kidz say. Isn't SOLIPSISM incredibly selfish though? well YAH. Isn't it kind of stupid? YAH a bit. But can you disprove it? NAH.

SOLIPSISM is really cool because of how irrefutable it is. It sounds crazy I guess but so does the idea of an omnipotent embarrassing dad in the sky which we've taken to be pretty legit over the years. SOLIPSISM could even concur with religion - maybe our life is just one big, individual kobayashi maru programmed by the master computer GOD as an entrance test to the afterlife (James 1:12 - the proof is in the papyrus). The most sneaky thing about it however is that it gives everyone a reason to believe it. According to its postulate, YOU, the person reading this blog post, are the one conscious being and I'M the p-zom!! This is so embarrassing!! I'M the robot! (I struggle with captchas so it's a possibility).

I'd wondered why no one had written more on this decidedly rad meta topic (and why the wikipedia page was so scant of more info) but 'solipsiphers' probably didn't see the point writing for all us p-zoms. A bit unchill and selfish of them. We're all going 2 die 1 day anyway so let's listen to some jams about the inevitability of death. 

month of the SPOOK

It is October. The air: chilly. Creepy things have been occurring. The greatest wind storm in London since 1987 hit on Monday, knocking down my garden fence. It was a bit crap, but the wind definitely whistled in a distinctly spooky way. 

Halloween shouldn't be limited to one night - it should be an uncomfortable state of mind that spans the entire month. Eggers and TPers add to this experience (not opening the door to trick or treaters contributes to the fear) in which we should all be uneasy, as we should be afraid in very real aspects of our lives as a method of immersion. If that fails, then sure we can turn to the aesthetics of this holiday however, often, the wrong kind of effort is made such as when it comes to dressing up. I want to see creepy prostheses that make you look like your face is peeling,  not some halloWEENIE in an ironic costume. I don't want to be left wondering how you could afford a £70 costume if you're so hard up on loans, I just want to be spooked. 

There's also an incorrect focus on food - unless it's eyeball and innards shaped then I don't want to know. I've never eaten a pumpkin (do the seeds count) and I'm probably not missing much - so don't step to me about trying the limited edition pumpkin spice latte at starbucks. If pumpkins taste so good then why are pumpkins seasonal? Why aren't pumpkin seeds seasonal? In this post-modernist age, have we turned a vegetable into a NOVELTY?

We're losing the essence of what Hollow's Eve really is: occult and that. In the Philippines, Halloween is total child's play - it's just prep for All Soul's Day which is as spooktacular as it sounds. You eat bread in graveyards I think. I guess we're just not as easily creeped out anymore. There's nothing wrong with using the night to get drunk and wear clever costumes (unless you're this loser who I think I actively dislike) but I do think it's important we remember that this night used to give us the heebie jeebies as chiddlers.

Halloween is a night of spookiness and unease. I sit in my living room with the lights off not to watch Evil Dead 2 but to make sure no trick or treaters think anyone is home. I don't open the door to Jehovah's Witnesses and I'm not going to open the door for 12 year olds dressing up as someone they're not (as an American). After seeing the Halloween special of Recess I went trick or treating a few times in my youth. When I was 8 I went trick or treating down my road and this Indian woman was all dressed up for the night in some shiny sari, I was loving it. I learnt from Recess that you're meant to yell 'trick or treat!!' so I did and she started shouting at her son in her mother tongue. He was all, 'you're meant to give her sweets' and she was all, 'nay PENNIES' and gave me two penny coins. I was not feeling her at this point. Although one penny fell down this grating business in front of her door so she went back in to get me another one which was chill. Maybe I ought to start opening the door, to keep the children's spirits alive and make sure they don't have a shitty time like I did, but isn't disappointment the spookiest feeling of all??

Mona Lisa fans

Regarding my dismay at how small and therefore un-impressionable the Mona Lisa was, I found myself taking a photo of one man instead of the actual painting.

His struggle to reach the goal is almost masked by his beauty

The internet shares my interest; a phrase said by many first discovering a fandom online, I think I've found the Monites, the Monicans, the Mona-Lisians (?). Thus begins my list of people taking photos of people taking photos of the Mona Lisa (not limited to just photos!!) :

A Jewish man possibly

Captivating

This Monite knows what he wants, and it's a selfie with Mona

Art

A video-taker of Mona Lisa  (a highly prized and v. rare find)

If proven popular, I will continue my search for these photos - there must be others out there