October Brain Dump

Yellow! Did anyone else's parents ever answer the phone like that when you were a kid? "Yeh-low?!" Or when they would hang up they'd be like "mmm buh-bye." Like not just "buh-bye" but there'd be the "mmm" in front of it? No? Just my parents?

Anyway - I digress. I was trying to say hello and start this blog post but then I wrote it as "yellow" cause that's how I was saying it in my head and down the rabbit hole I went. So I think this is going to be just a little bit of a brain dump/housekeeping kind of a post because of a few reasons:

1.) I am in a writing mood

2.) I got a new computer and wanted to play on it so typey type type away I go

3.) I am procrastinating finishing a vampire book I'm reading because I'm pretty sure something bad is about to happen and I dunno if I'm ready for it. That and plus it's night time now which means I REALLY can't read it right? Silly me was like oooooh October! Halloween! Spooky season! You should try and read some spooky books! Who exactly did I think I was? Brave? So blogging it is for tonight. 

Let's talk about that actually - blogging. You will probably notice that this blog, is a rickety, old, very old blog. Sometimes images don't load, some content is missing from the tabs on my home page, sometimes instead of the actual header image you'll instead get a little Photobucket image (lol remember Photobucket?), and things of that nature. That is because this blog is old and I have made zero effort to update it. Oops. 

At first, that was because for a few years I was rarely posting on here and didn't really feel the need to update it. But lately, I've really been thinking a lot about writing and blogging and craving what it used to be. Craving to have a little space online where I can ramble on about things I love and talk about them with other people who also love those same things and just be dumb and silly and creative whenever I want to be. So I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm making plans for this blog. So far, they are:

1.) Posting at least once per week, ultimately I'd like to have two blog posts per week. Too ambitious? We'll find out.

2.) Move this blog over to Wordpress and redesign. The time suck on this one is that I want allllll my posts I've ever written to come with me to the new platform. Which means me, manually copy and pasting over all the hundreds of blog posts I've written over the last nine years. You can guess why that would be taking me FOR.EH.VERRR (in my best Sandlot voice). So in the meanwhile, thank you for your patience in dealing with this rickety old blog. 

3.) Lol I thought I had more plans which is why I started a numbered list but I guess these two are the gist of it 😆. 

So the hope in talking about this is not only to let you, reader, know what I'm working on and have planned, but also to hold myself accountable. I am fairly good at planning things but executing said things is where I typically fail. But fail here I shall not! I can't and I shan't! 

In other news - the high today in Arizona was 67 degrees and I shit you not I thought I was going to freeze. Sidenote - I used to think "I shit you not" was a crude and vulgar and unnecessary turn of phrase but now I think it's kind of funny. It's funny right?

Also, I need you all to know that in the event we might pull up to a 4-way stop sign at the same time, I AM THAT PERSON that will accidentally start going at the same time as you and then we'll both be like "You go. No you go! Ooop you go! No ok you go!" for literally the next hour. I am the absolute worst at this I don't know why and I don't know how to fix it. I am truly sorry.

Other things:
1.) Did y'all watch Emily in Paris on Netflix? I did and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it and I don't know why this was such a controversial show. Is it because it was cheesy?? I love cheese.

2.) Did ya'll listen to Kelsea Ballerini's Ballerini album? It's the acoustic version of Kelsea that came out in March and WE STAN.

3.) Did ya'll see that Mina Lima, graphic designers of all eight Harry Potter movies released an illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? IT.IS.STUNNING.

4.) My friend Brianna started an Etsy shop and you should check it out HERE, and my friend Kayla started an Etsy shop you should check that out HERE. 

So if you've made it this far, as always - you da bomb. Thanks for reading and thanks for your patience as I get my blog legs back under me! 

It's OK to Talk About Fun Things on the Internet

This blog post is brought to you by this Pinterest inspiration:

I can confirm that I have gotten up, cleared my desk, tied my hair, and I am just starting. This is me just starting.

I've been wanting to come back to this blog for a while now but various things have been holding me back at different points between the time of May - my last post, and now. I even wrote an entire summer recap and just never hit publish. There were the usual roadblocks - things like: nobody blogs anymore anyway who cares, nobody reads my posts anyway who cares (except mom - hi mom!), I'd rather read a book, I have no post ideas, blah blah. But then there were other things like, an ongoing worldwide pandemic, societal unrest, riots, political campaigns, and things of the like. Anywhere I looked on social media, it was these things. Which is understandable - many people want to talk about what's going on in the world and advocate for their causes and things they feel passionately about. I understand that. 

The internet has just never been the place for me to do that, personally. 

So I didn't know if, given the times, I could pop into this rickety old blog and say hi and talk about how I started watching Gossip Girl for the first time, or Taylor Swift's new album, while everyone else on the internet was discussing their perceived injustices of the world. Will that make me look insensitive? I wasn't sure.

But the the other night I was cruising the Twitterverse and someone I follow tweeted out this article titled, "The Era of Influencer's Being Apolitical Online is over." I clicked it, read it, and have been thinking about it ever since. And I decided this is what I'm gonna write a blog post about.

The article argues that the era of online influencers remaining apolitical and keeping politics and current issues out of the realm of their content, is no longer acceptable. 

That, "Influencers who continue to post their usual content without acknowledging the realities of this country face the risk of appearing so laughably out of touch that it renders anything else they have to say irrelevant." 

It continues, 

"As we get closer and closer to Nov. 3, an influencer who remains silent about one of the most consequential US elections in history may risk alienating and angering their followers in such a deep way that it would be impossible to recover from."

So like I said, I have been thinking about this article ever since I read it. Some people may subscribe to this line of thinking and that's cool, but I decided that I do not. In fact, I wholeheartedly reject this line of thinking. I reject it for a few reasons.

Firstly, as a content consumer - the people I subscribe to and follow, they don't owe me their political views. They don't owe me anything. There is now somehow a sense of entitlement on our part, to the political views of our favorite athletes, actresses, and celebrities. Many people demanding they speak up and speak out. Why? This bothers me because I don't think the demand is genuine. I don't think most people are genuinely interested in what point of view their favorite Youtuber or celebrity may have - I think they're interested in making sure they hold the "correct" point of view. That they vote for the "correct" candidate. Imagine if after all these years of folks demanding Taylor Swift speak out and take a political stance, that she endorsed a Republican candidate for office? 

Secondly, the more and more politics invades our previously shared spaces, the less we have in common with each other. Sports, music, television shows, our workplaces, Goya foods, Nike...hell, the National Anthem itself - all of these things and more, no matter how big or small, have become politicized. What can we share in anymore, as Americans? What can bring us together? By requiring everyone to speak out politically and "take a side"...means everyone has now taken a side and we are by very definition - divided. Is that what we want?

And lastly, if we're constantly requiring influencers, celebrities, and athletes to comment on and speak about the latest crises of the day, then we're only ever consuming the latest crises of the day. An entire days worth of our social media feeds just politics, fear, crisis, more politics, more hysteria...day after day after day. Is that good for us? Surely not. 

Now, I am not in fact an apolitical person. I have very strong opinions about politics and the current issues of the day and I certainly have those conversations offline. But this blog, in the nine years I've had it, has never been a place for those discussions. 

I understand the immense value that the internet gives us as a tool to organize, spread awareness, create community and engage in dialogue for the causes we're passionate about, and oftentimes I have participated in some of them. I respect those who do use their platforms for these things. 

But I also think it's ok to spend time participating in the things we love, the things that we enjoy and make us happy. Take a break from the hysteria. The fear and anxiety that is in the news and your social media feeds day in and day out. I don't think it makes anyone "laughably out of touch" to want to talk about fun things on the internet. That's what I want to do. I want to get on the internet and find people who want to talk about books and Real Housewives and Harry Potter and laugh at funny dog memes and theorize about Taylor Swift lyrics. And if not, at the very least maybe find people who don't mind reading my writing about all these things. 😉

So anyway, if you made it this far - you are a champ and I thank you and I hope you want to stick around and talk about fun things because that's the plan. And I think that's ok.