It’s another one of those instantly-iconic photos. So much to see, so much subtext, and yet the subtext is somewhat visible.
The photo that got AJ banned from Twitter.
Batfort
Style reveals substance
Author: childlike empress (page 20 of 67)
Disclaimer: introvert.
I went to a party tonight. CRASHED a party, even. The only people I knew were the hosts.
It was a party for small business owners.
And I gotta tell you: I actually had a good time.
Normally when I go to parties it’s excruciating. Small talk with people I don’t know, trying to decipher the culture of the group, feeling disconnected and socially awkward. That goes double for parties where I don’t know anyone.
Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and I cease to care, but socializing with small business owners was way more fun than a normal party.
There was always an ice breaker (“what’s your business?”), and everyone had an interesting story around what they do. Add in some small town do-you-know-this-person bingo, and you’re golden.
It probably helped that not everyone knew each other, so everyone was more than willing to accept new people into their conversation circles.
This is a much smaller deal than I’m making it, but I kind of want to start a small business so I can hang out with other small business owners.
The productivity wagon, that is.
Back in July, I pushed real hard to finish a task. A goal.
I did it!
Then I didn’t do anything else.
This summer has been a terrible time for productivity based on just about every metric.
- Very few books read
- No “weekly” entries in my bullet journal for like 6 weeks in a row–that means I didn’t have enough going on to bother writing it down
- Out of town every other weekend
- Says she need to stop watching so much YouTube while simultaneously opening another video
- Lots of low quality 300-500 word blog posts
I DID start working out regularly and I DID do some more work on my diet, so that’s something. But it’s not the yuge plans I dreamed up last May.
This fall I need to leverage the change floating around in the air and make some solid, concrete plans. Set some goals. Dig in deeper.
If I say I want something, but don’t work toward it, do I really want it after all?
Or do I value lounging whilst reading and cheap laffs on Youtube more?
- Despite the embarrassing kerfuffle about Zina Bash making an “okay” sign in the hearings today, I’m quite amused to find that the okay sign still shocks the pants off the left. The meme is still going strong, and it’s one of the older ones from the 2016 meme magic cycle.
- Recently I made a decision to eat only when I’m truly hungry. I’ve been unhappy with my weight gain as I’ve only eaten meat, and think that perhaps my hunger signals have something to do with overeating. Instead of thinking “It’s after work, obviously I need to eat dinner,” I’m waiting until I actually feel hunger. The first two days of this mindset, I ate 1 meal each 24-hour period. Today I ate 2, but there was a solid 8 hours in between meals. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I lost a half-inch from my waist.
- I’m planning a trip to Hawai’i and man, is it some FOMO. Going to Hawai’i will give me more experiences than not, and yet I’m stressing over which islands to visit and what to do and where. Mostly I want to go on hikes and crash on the beach.
- WordPress has me over 400 views for the month of August (woohoo!) but I got an email from Google Analytics citing over 500. Usually Google is stricter than WordPress on view count, so I’m confused as to which is more accurate. Either way, I’ll take it. (And I’ll try to have some better content for y’all who actually do come to this site.)
- More people need to listen to Ted Naiman.
Is Lee Soo-Man afraid of getting old?
I’ve noticed a recurring pattern in many of SM’s releases over the past year or two. Most notable are two SM Station x 0 singles back-to-back with the word “young” in the title.
- “We Young” – Chanyeol x Sehun – Sept 2018
- “Young” – Baekhyun x Loco – Aug 2018
- “We Young” – NCT Dream – Aug 2017
- “Young and Free” – Xiumin x Mark – July 2017
I would say MAYBE this comes from NCT Dream being the youth unit, but NCT Dream only put out one of these songs. Most of these include members of EXO.
So maybe it’s not Lee Soo-Man who’s having the crisis, but EXO. They’re getting to the point where they can no longer push out military service (I believe Xiumin is required to enlist this year) and are staring down the results of what happens when a group is scattered through military enlistment. Super Junior has been doing a decent job of picking back up the pieces as the members end their service, but it’s still a somewhat scattershot approach.
Perhaps I’m trying to ascribe to much meaning behind why there are 4 songs with incredibly similar themes and titles. (I probably am.) But I’m curious as to why there are songs from two different groups that have the exact same title. Is this an SEO thing? Is the Chanyeol x Sehun version going to be a remix of the NCT Dream song? (We’ll find out.) (I’m hoping it’s a Chanyeol original, tbh.)
When you add NCT Dreams “Go” and “We Go Up” to the mix, it further muddies the SEO waters–let alone someone’s ability to remember the actual titles of the songs.
Part of me wonders if this is a byproduct of an overly refined system, in which the syntax “We ____” has tested well and in which concepts of youth and going places have also risen to the top. Watching how SM iterates on a theme, it almost looks to me like they’re putting out multiple variations, waiting for one to stick.
I don’t know anything, really, about the behind-the-scenes of the pop music industry so take that with a grain of salt.
I see patterns and can’t help but speculate on them.
This will be the 12th time that I’ve moved since I graduated from high school.
I would stay, but that’s playing chicken against a possible future landlord. That’s not a situation I want to be in.
My new place is in a new town, somewhere new to explore and maybe make some friends.
I’d like to settle down soonish, somewhere where I could put down roots and grow a community.
Until I find that place, though, I’ll be moving.
I am a Millennial, and sometimes I hate us.
Today I was out at a burger bar, eating a stack of burger patties (as we do). Because it was somewhat busy, I was sitting up by the condiment/assembly station, right in the thick of things.
A lady approached the counter. She placed a weird piece of metal on the counter. It almost looked like an earring. It was in her burger, she said. She almost broke a tooth.
“I don’t know how that happened,” the condiments guy said. “I we don’t have any metal like that in the store.”
The grill guy, who runs the place, came over.
“I don’t know how that happened,” he said. “It must have been the people who grind our meat.”
(The people who grind their meat happen to be a well-loved local co-op.)
The lady wasn’t happy. “I didn’t have a good experience here, and I’m going to tell people about it.”
The guys shrugged.
That was it. They didn’t care.
A few months earlier, the same thing happened to me at that restaurant, only this time it WAS their fault. One of their to-go sauce cups somehow got melted into my burger patty.
I had to push them to remake the burger for me. They didn’t offer anything above or beyond, or even really offer an apology.
It was more of the same: “I don’t know how that happened.”
Maybe I have a strange view of customer service. Maybe I’m naive about people trying to get free food from restaurants by claiming things like that. It’s entirely possible.
Simply stating “not my fault” and expecting everyone to move on is not a valid approach to treating customers right. Getting defensive doesn’t solve problems. This approach is 100% the opposite of the idea of extreme ownership.*
I’m less concerned about what happened to me (hey, mistakes happen) but watching what happened to that lady makes me want to support this place a whole lot less. I prefer to support local businesses that themselves support local purveyors of produce and beef and whatever, but I’m entirely willing to take my business elsewhere.
I’ve seen this attitude with other Millennials, that somehow ducking and weaving around responsibility is all it takes to make something right. “It’s not my fault.”
That only works when you’re part of a larger system that can absorb blame into it. When you’re on your own, it IS your fault. Even if you didn’t do the deed, you served the food to the customer.
I hate that Millenials were taught that this is okay, and I hate that we continue to allow it to be our way of being.
“Not it,” we say.
Denying responsibility doesn’t change reality.
In my book, a good response to that lady’s claim–whether or not she was scamming–is “I’m sorry, I don’t know how that got in there. Let me remake your dinner. Would you like a complimentary milkshake while you wait?”
Maybe the lady takes you up on the offer, maybe she doesn’t. These actions put you in a proactive situation, rather than a passive one.
Passive seems to be programmed into our genes.
Like I said, sometimes I hate Millennials.
*Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book.
…how Kanye makes just as much of a splash IRL as he does on twitter. Man knows how to make an entrance.
Anyway, I don’t have any other new photos saved on my computer, so you’re getting this one this week. I think Kanye is up to the same things this week, only with bigger slides.
The styling on this is fascinating to me. My brain doesn’t want to consider them a matched set. Kim is bright and futuristic, while Kanye is dull and self-consciously minimalistic. Kim is the sexy sports car we know and love reconfigured for the future, while Kanye reminds us that he does all this despite or because of his bipolar disorder.
Both convey a sense of success and forward-thinking.
They don’t match, but they go.
SM Entertainment’s love affair with minimalism continues.
Maybe it’s white space.
Whatever you want to call it, “We Go Up” is the latest in line of lighter songs that breathe between notes rather than being a 100% wall of noise all of the time.
Twice’s “Likey” also did this. I don’t follow all of k-pop enough to know if this is a legit trend, but I can trace it from Red Velvet’s “Peek-a-Boo” through to NCT 127’s “Boss” and now NCT Dream with “We Go Up.”
There are so many tropes that permeate this video. The IRL bubble sounds and other samples, which tie it directly to songs like “Boss” and even the clinking glass in EXO’s “Sweet Lies” and “Twenty Four” (I’m pretty sure it’s the same sample in both songs). There’s the pantheon of NCT dance moves, including the bicep flex, the elbow airplane, the knock-knees, the back-to-the-camera-ending-pose (previously seen in NCT 127 “Limitless” and EXO-CBX “Hey Mama”), and of course the obligatory NCT high five.
Mark is aging out of NCT Dream after this comeback. Because of this, the Dreamies have been working to bolster their rap line. I’m pretty impressed with Jaemin and Jisung’s raps. Somebody’s got to hold down the fort when Mark is gone, but nobody could replace him. Mark’s raps have gotten better with age (and he’s barely an adult). Compare his rap in “We Go Up” or “Go” to something like “Mad City” (which was still good) and you’ll hear how much he’s grown.
I really hope that Renjun drew the wolf that’s on their flag. He’s the artist of the group, in that the members have forced him to show off his drawing skills on variety shows.
Like “Boss,” Dreams’ “We Go Up” is a lot more interesting with headphones. There’s a lot of subtle layering that gets revealed when you pay more attention. The bass line is addicting–just enough space between the notes to keep you hanging on–and I love the use of the minor key.
Sometimes I think about how much SM does A/B testing and releases new-and-improved versions of their own content. Red Velvet’s “Mr. E” is a more refined version of “Zoo.” EXO tested the reggae concept with “Twenty Four” before they came out with a reggae-influenced title track. In that vein, this song feels like a refined melody of “We Young” from last summer combined with a bigger version of the beat from “Boss.” Not everything is an evolution, but it’s interesting to tease out the similarities and watch ideas develop.
Kind of like when every group in SM worse gold and silver lame sometime circa 2012.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with NCT Dream. “We Go Up” is not the sound I was expecting from them, but I’m loving it. It’s relaxed and loose and yet interesting and fun. I’m looking forward to their album release–this should be good.
PS. SM Entertainment, this is another official request for a Mark/Haechan subunit.
Sometimes the best kept secret is the one you share at the end.
Surprise parties are awesome, especially when tailored to the recipient.
That is all.
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