we as a society started to lose the day we lost the idea of “selling out” as a concept

Fifteen years ago the celebrity appearing in advertisements game felt like such immediately understood shorthand for “washed up has-been actor trying to scrape together some cash” and now you’ll see ads of everyone from “$20 million a year salary” Jimmy Fallon to your favorite “appears in 12 movies a year and only has speaking roles in half of them” character actor trying to get you to download Candy Crush to your phone. Every last person creating things on the internet these days is streaming the next big sponsored game with Square Enix or shilling their Surfshark discount code at the end of every video, no matter if they’re 14 viewer streamers or video essay producers with a whole setup or like, someone fucking just cooking in their kitchen.

I feel like we used to correctly think that shilling was a lame as hell thing to do that had a certain amount of shame associated with it, that it was this thing you might have to resort to but never really wanted to do, but now we live in an entire culture of how shilling is absolutely awesome and how plugging your Squarespace partnership definitely doesn’t make you sound like the biggest loser on the planet earth.

I worked at a cafe in wicker park when it was still a trendy hip place and we had all kinds of marketing scams that would pop up in the neighborhood because there were tastemakers around. And once one of my friends came in bragging that he had just made $20. For what? There was a couple people with a video camera at the five corners who were paying people to look into the camera and say "sell me something, Bacardi!" Get out there and get your money! my friend said. And I didn't mean to make him feel like a sellout but after a couple minutes talking about it he felt bad and wanted to give the money back. No, no, don't do that. But think about how much you want that kind of corporate interference in your life. For me the answer is the smallest possible amount that doesn't require growing my own crops or forging my own kitchenware from crude ore. But I'm a dinosaur

this video is genuinely incredible - the framing, the sunset, the single street light, the sound of traffic and cicadas in the background, the video of the sign capture imperfectly by (presumably) a phone camera. it’s a work of art and a perfect encapsulation of 21st century america

it's almost fall

being into fonts is maybe the actual worst thing you could do short of being into fine dining or physical artwork, because at least you get to do something if you buy those, but every once in a while you'll spy a gorgeous typeface and then look and it's a thousand dollars to play toys with the digital file

exciting news: that gorgeous alphabet (you have one like it at home) could be all yours to type up a cool-looking word in, but first, you're going to need to play the kind of tables that get you put in a kaiji contraption

Stooooppppp taking photos of random people in public without their permission. Stop being assholes in 2014.

snoopy of the day

Yeah wait what the fuck

cafe / japan

an old fave…

they follow me everywhere i go

Ivan Pavlukhin - Winter, 2015

Carved linden wood figurine of Death riding a lion, Middle Franconia, Germany, dated 1513

from The Bavarian National Museum

White women are leading white supremacist institutions all over the world yet they demand we listen to them on the matters of feminism. What a joke

context according to instagram:

original image from the magazine:

Found a scan of this issue on the Internet Archive (it's the back cover). This scan is 4000x6000 for all your high resolution needs!

The caption reads: "Defeated by roses. Near Turin's Lingotto station, along a lonely path, Miss Guida Concetta Rinino, 28 years old, who was bringing a nice bunch of roses to a relative, was accosted by an unknown young man. The young woman, rather than losing heart, defended herself with extraordinary energy, using the bunch of flowers as a weapon. So it was that the scoundrel, his face all scratched up, had to flee. (Drawing by Walter Molino.)"

Incredible. At a distance I understand how the woman might appear to be the abuser and the man the sympathetic victim, but the second you zoom into the man’s face the pink-cheeked rage- not remorse, or rejection, or embarrassment- not heartbreak or despair- but RAGE- the deeper story speaks itself into your suspicions.

And the bit where they’re HER roses? Almost a relief, but also sadder, as she will arrive at whatever event without them, or with them destroyed.

Do you think when the righteous anger and anxiety and annoyance fade, when she arrives at her destination- will her loved ones applaud her? Will she be proud? Will her hands shake? Will she walk home with company from then out, and for how long?

In this moment, she is provoked into anger. Anger is good- it appears strong. But look at his face. Would you put it past him to linger there after dark, in case she returns alone?

What story will HE tell, of ‘I was perfectly polite, but she didn’t even give me a chance- women like that, they’d swoon for a jerk in a heartbeat, but kind and flattering men like me?…”

I love this piece. It paints both stories while illustrating the power dynamics and struggles at play. This should be shown in art classes

James Hutton, “Thee Devouring Teeth of the Sky,” 2022

Lizz Lopez, “I put a spell on you”

charcoal and graphite on paper, 2016