If you’re unfamiliar, Letterboxd is a social networking platform that allows people to rate, review, and catalog films. It pretty much functions exactly like Goodreads with a laughably bad search function to match.

When I was a more avid reader growing up, there was nothing more satisfying than slamming my latest book shut and immediately typing away on my Goodreads account to publish the most unfiltered, long-winded review.

A friend or two—someone I knew in real life or Tumblr—would like my update, prompting feelings of immense pride and accomplishment to rush in. I was doing a great service. I was a critic offering well-regarded opinions. People trusted my taste in storytelling, an honor and responsibility I did not take lightly.

When Goodreads rolled out its recommendation feature, I was emboldened to continue pushing my favorite books at the top of my friends’ feeds like an absolute menace.

Now I slip my one-sentence, tongue-in-cheek, anonymous Letterboxd reviews in quick, smooth, easy conversations in person or via text. My comments are just as unsolicited, but the validation I get from making myself chuckle alone is enough of a reason for me to keep doing it.

—

I watched Jane Schoenbrun’s A24-distributed film I Saw the TV Glow (2024) and finished New York Times bestseller The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020) in tandem. 

On the surface, both stories are pretty different. If they were the same medium, they wouldn’t be in the same genre section in Barnes & Noble or Netflix. Their intended audiences seem far apart as we follow a 35-year-old British woman in present day in The Midnight Library and two queer pubescents in American suburbia in the late 90s to early 2000’s in I Saw the TV Glow. 

Still, I came away from each story equal parts comforted and disturbed by the shared antagonistic passage of time, the mess of people and remnants of wasted potential lost or left behind, the fatigue of existence and repression in a stagnant world, and the life-saving, persisting art that emerges as a constant opposition for stragglers to build identities, homes, and whole communities around.

In The Midnight Library, Nora’s lifeline is the musings of old male philosophers and in I Saw the TV Glow, Owen and Maddy bond over a campy young adult show called The Pink Opaque.

Despite their respective outlets, we witness the nightmares of Nora and Owen actualize in real time: a dead-end, unfulfilled life haunted by what-ifs.

Nora’s what-ifs are a wide range of unrelated choices and passions. Owen dismisses and runs from gender dysphoria, or as it manifests in the film: the possibility that they are an unconscious Isabel, one of the two main characters in The Pink Opaque.

Nora lives out variations of her life through the purgatorial Midnight Library, each book a gateway to an alternate life she could have led. The Pink Opaque starts to bleed into Owen’s reality, but the harder they push this world away, the faster time skips ahead, leaving them with no memories of the past few years-turned-decades as they become more shell than human.

—

The metaphors these stories employ to make their points can be heavy-handed and blinding. (Though personally I enjoyed watching I Saw the TV Glow more than I did reading The Midnight Library.)

I’m aware this is a common crisis among 20-somethings and that other stories have dealt with disassociating from a life passing you by.

When I reminisce and look back on my life (as it’s beginning, thank you), my brain naturally visualizes my Goodreads account, specifically the annual reading challenges and year-end summaries in books. 

I can pick out a book and recall not only the year I read it in, but also the state of mind and circumstances I was in while reading.

If I go through my old rambling Goodreads reviews, skimming through the noticeable lack of punctuation and capitalization in some, and the ecstatic overuse in others, I can focus on the personal tidbits younger me threw in between the lines…as breadcrumbs, almost, leading to…I have no idea where exactly.

I can view my degression as an avid reader laid bare on screen. In 2015 and 2016, I read 53 books each year. In 2022 and 2023, I read a whopping total of 9 and 8.

Eleven months into 2024, I read 4 books including The Midnight Library and two of which being a manga volume and poetry collection. On the flip side, I logged 40 films in my Letterboxd diary.

One way or another, I’m getting my necessary fix of stories. As someone who has had difficulty being in touch with recognizing and feeling what’s real, media in its many forms has shaped and been shaped by how I’ve made sense of my life in that moment in time.

With an amorphous blob of a personality throughout my teenage years, using my favorite books, shows, movies, and music as an escape and front was always an intentional choice to avoid confronting uncomfortable truths.

Over time, I absorbed the stories so that they became a part of me, so that I was unrecognizable without them.

There are two aphorisms both The Midnight Library and I Saw the TV Glow really hinge upon. Without them, there is no purpose to either story. 

Matt Haig writes “three simple words containing the power and potential of a multiverse.” 

I AM ALIVE.

Jane Schoenbrun lingers on a shot of a street covered in chalk doodles and squiggles, framing a clear message.

there is still time

I want the stories I consume to be an extension of who I am, rather than define and form my entire being. 

I’m working on talking more about the experiences I’ve lived and not only the ones I’ve lived vicariously through fictional characters.

In separate discussions about I Saw the TV Glow and The Midnight Library, two friends asked if I had any regrets.

I said I didn’t, I’m too young, but I also don’t know that I’ve made decisions big enough to live out their effects. Or perhaps therein lies the regret: the absence of risk.

The voice that narrates in my head sighs and tells me to keep going.

The post I Walked Through the Midnight Library and Saw the TV Glow appeared first on The New Absurdist.

With some help from you, reliable sources, and our editorial team we have put together a brief guide for learning about what is currently happening in Palestine, around the world, and what we can do to support people in the face of genocide and ethnic cleansing. While the New Absurdist is not a news source, it is a place for education, activism, and promoting positive growth in the world. It is both our privilege and our responsibility to elevate the voices of people who are being censored for speaking out for peace and basic human rights. 

At this time, we’d like to invite artists and writers who are passionate about anti-fascism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, and Palestinian support to consider submitting their work to The New Absurdist, and as always we will do our best to elevate these underrepresented voices on our platform

Introduction 

In the Western world, and as we can see in the United States, many people, including students, are being doxxed for speaking out against the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. And although there has been a slight shift after much public protest to offer a more ‘balanced’ perspective, much of mainstream media has been offering biased reports dehumanizing and downplaying the plight of suffering Palestinians.

In stark contrast, when Russia invaded Ukraine, international leaders applauded Ukrainian resistance against occupation, because they were people that “looked like us” — essentially people that didn’t look like brown skinned refugees — but blond and blue eyed people, “civilized people” that deserved our empathy. 

Gaza is currently, and has been, an open air prison where Palestians have no right to free movement, a situation made exponentially worse by the incessant and indiscriminate bombing by the IDF. Thousands of people have been killed in an extremely short amount of time, with 74% of them being women, children and the elderly. Around half of the Palestinian population are children. Public infrastructure such as hospitals are now practically nonexistent due to Israeli bombing and war crimes. Like many others around the world, we demand a permanent ceasefire, and an end to genocide, occupation and apartheid. 

This article is divided into three main sections which you can click on below to jump down.  

1. The Occupation of Palestine
2. The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
3. About the Cover: The Watermelon
4. What can we do to support Palestine

The Occupation of Palestine

For many people in the US and the western world, what is being called the “Israel-Hamas War” seems to have started in a horrifying attack on October 7, 2023 when Hamas killed around 1000 people and abducted around 200 people to the Gaza strip.  For many others, especially those in Palestine, the violence goes more than 75 years back, with Palestinians facing illegal occupation by the Israeli military. 

Nakba

After the Partition Plan (Resolution 181) passed in 1947, Palestine was divided by the United Nations into 3 parts: a Jewish state, an Arab state, and the City of Jerusalem under UN administration. This plan was rejected by the Arab world, on the grounds that it was unfair and violated the UN Charter. Israeli militias launched attacks against Palestinian villages, destroying hundreds, killing thousands of people, and forcing a mass exodus of Palestinians to flee, never able to return to their homes. 

More than 1 million Palestinians were left living in Israeli occupied territories. This forced exodus became known as nakba, translated as “catastrophe” in English. It is considered to be a core part of the shared trauma, history and experience of being Palestinian. 75 years later, Palestinians continue to have their rights denied, whether it’s by dispossession and displacement by Israeli settlements, evictions, land confiscation or home demolitions.

Apartheid 

The situation in Palestine has been aptly described by Amnesty International as apartheid. 

Apartheid may ring as a big buzz-word. There is a misconception at best, and a Zionist sentiment at worst, that the situation in Israel cannot be at all akin to apartheid, at least as people know it from South Africa.  After all, as the Jewish Virtual Library (published by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise) puts it, “Jews are the majority within Israel, but the non-Jewish minority…enjoy full citizenship with voting rights and representation in the government.” It’s giving ‘I’m not racist, I have a black friend,’ or ‘I don’t see color’ energy to justify systematic racism and oppression. The Palestinians in the Bank are considered to be in a ‘different situation’ because of what is called “incessant terrorism” and there is denial of any injustice done to civilians living in Palestinian territories illegally occupied and controlled by Israeli military and settler violence. 

Amnesty International describes apartheid as “territorial fragmentation; segregation and control; dispossession of land and property; and denial of economic and social rights,” Palestinians currently do not have the same rights as Israelis in the illegally-occupied territories of Palestine. Checkpoints, roadblocks, and settler-only roads make daily tasks almost impossible to complete. Getting to work, school, or even the hospital requires an extensive amount of bureaucracy and luck in the permite regime. For these reasons, Amnesty International has written extensively on Israeli war crimes and officially considered the treatment of Palestinian citizens in these occupied territories as apartheid.  Human Rights Watch has also pointed out these injustices, without directly using the label.

In 2022 for the first time in history, the United Nations commemorated nakba, or The Catastrophe on its 75th anniversary, and proposed to make it officially recognized in 2023. Just months after this international recognition of Israel violence against Palestinians, we are once again witnessing Israeli militia indiscriminately bomb people and infrastructure, killing exponential numbers of Palestinian civilians. The Israeli response to the Hamas attack and subsequent kidnapping of hostages, has turned into an attempt at ethnic cleansing and further establishment of a Zionist and Nationalistic military state. 

It is very important to note that governments do not necessarily represent their people, and the Zionist movement does not represent all Jews. Zionism is a Jewish nationalist movement that calls for the creation of a Jewish state, which gathered much more support after the horrifying events of the Holocaust, and as a response to the rise of both nationalism and Anti-Semitism on a global scale. But in practice, Zionists are engaging in settler colonialism, including creating illegal settlements, driving out and ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians with the justification of returning Jews to their ancestral homeland. Before 1948 and the formation of the Israeli ethnostate, Muslims, Jews, and Christians in various empires had coexisted in Palestine for generations. 

 In addition to recognizing that it is difficult to deprogram from philosophies and politics that we may have grown up with, it is also necessary to combat our own anxiety and fears and deprogram ourselves from Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Zionism. Ethnic connotations and stereotypes associated with religion are used as a tool to dehumanize people and ‘other’ them. With the power of the internet and spread of information, people are not only learning about the liberation movement for Palestine, but for the Congo, Sudan, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and many others. 

The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

Gaza is a small strip of land (28 by 6 miles) populated by 2.3 million Palestinians, making it one of the most densely populated places in the world. About 50% are children. The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees who were uprooted from their ancestral homes in Israel occupied land. Most of them are unable to leave Gaza.

In response to the 240 hostages taken and 1,000 civilians killed by Hamas on October 7th, Israeli forces have killed 15,000 Palestinian civilians (more than 10 times the amount). 

While it’s difficult to compare tragedy, as a frame of reference, about 10,000 people were killed in the Ukraine War over 2 years, and 3,000 lives were lost on 9/11. Entire families have been killed as a result of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, and it is estimated that a Palestinian child is killed every 10 minutes on average, since October 7, 2023. 

Palestinians in Gaza face dire conditions in Gaza due to Israeli occupation and international humanitarian war crimes. This includes:

• White Sulfur bombing, an international war crime with a loophole used for ‘signaling’ as an excuse over civilian areas, which can cause severe burning down to the bone. 
• Restricted Water supply and Hazardous water quality – Israel controls the water resources of the West Bank. Palestinians receive only 20% of the water resources, and are unable to drill new wells or install pumps without permits from Israel, which are nearly impossible to attain. They aren’t even allowed to collect rainwater without having cisterns destroyed by the Israeli army.  (See Climate Diplomacy for more information on the Israel Palestine Water Sharing Conflict.)
• Extremely dire living conditions – In some shelters, 400 people share 1 toilet.
• Destruction of communication infrastructure and targeting of Journalists and their families
• Collective punishment involving civilians- international war crime
• Cutting access to food, fuel, electricity, water, medicine, and internet 
• Bombing of civilian areas including Refugee Camps, Schools, Hospitals, and Mosques – An international war crime
• Military detainment of Palestinian children – hundreds of children are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system  every year
• Crumbling War-torn infrastructure

About the Cover: The Watermelon as a symbol of Palestinian solidarity and resistance

We invite you to print this cover and use it freely at Pro-Palestinian protests. 

This cover is inspired by how in  2023, protesters in Tel Aviv used images of a watermelon captioned with “This is not a Palestinian flag” in response to a ban on the Palestinian flag and its colors, enforced by the Israeli military.   

This is not the first time the Palestinian flag and its colors have been banned by Israel. Israel banned the Palestinian Flag and national colors following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem from Historic Palestine, displacing more than 500,000 Palestinians and effectively more than doubling Israeli territory. 

In the 1980s, artists in the Palestinian city Ramaallah were forbidden by Zionist forces to use the Palestinian national colors in any capacity. This meant that artworks containing red, green or black could be confiscated by the Israeli police. Not even a painting of a flower, or a watermelon could make it through. This idea lent itself for the watermelon to become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.

This image, and others like it,  of “Not a Palestinian flag,” or “Not a Watermelon” (paired with an image of a watermelon) might remind you of Rene Magritte’es famous image of “This is not a Pipe.” Artists like Rene Magritte were part of the Dada movement in the early 20th century, who made surreal and nonsensical images in protest and reaction to World War 1, nationalism, violence, and modern capitalist society. 

To add another layer of cultural significance, watermelons were a world-renowned speciality of Palestine before the 1948 Nakba when Israeli Zionist forces destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages, killing and forcing out thousands of Palestinians to gain territory. As the IDF and Israeli settler authorities started occupying Palestinian neighborhoods, they also drove the large and remarkable Palestinian watermelons out of competition with Israeli seed companies. 

In 2021, after an Israeli court ruling allowed settlers to forcefully evict Palestinian families from their family homes, the watermelon resurfaced as a symbol of protest and resistance for Palestinian solidarity once again. 

Despite how the 1967 ban was officially lifted in 1993, Palestinian flags are still taken down and banned in Israeli occupied territories in the name of ‘keeping the peace’. And in recent crackdowns, Israel’s national security minister Ben-Gvir, has ordered police to ban Palestinian flags from public places. (Hence, the 2023 Tel-Aviv Bus Protests)  Ben Gvir belongs to the far right Otzma Yehudit/ Jewish Power political party (Described by Professor Eva Illouz as a Jewish fascist group)  and is known for his history of racism and pro-settler stance. The ban on Palestinian flags and colors is just one of Ben Gvir’s continued bids for power in government, including trying to make it his position to direct police policy.

As the saying goes, “where one burns books, one will soon burn people.”  When political powers begin to dictate what is appropriate and inappropriate for society in art, such as Nazis labeling art as “degenerate” it is only a matter of time before people start to be targeted and persecuted. The banning of Palestinian national colors and symbolism during protests in Western countries, even in a painting of a watermelon, is yet another example of how systems of oppression are imitated throughout history. Consider how the censorship of media such as arts and literature applies to the censorship of people’s right to exist, such as the Florida Book Bans, which have removed around 300 books in the last school year.

Now, we see these sentiments reborn once again in watermelon emojis and symbolism in a reaction to capitalism, fascism, nationalism, and violence. Absurdity and nonsense in art, writing, and media function to point out the absurdity of the injustices we face in the world. 

What can we do to support Palestine?

A special thank you to contributor and reader Rowan M. for her help with compiling research and writing out ways to help and protest. Read her article “5 Palestinian Films and Documentaries to Watch” on The New Absurdist. 

There is a place for all forms of protest in the face of oppression, and we’d like to emphasize our take on efficient or sustainable protest. For example, protesting in the streets may not be an option for disabled people. For People of Color, speaking out publicly may affect their livelihood much more than white counterparts.

We encourage you to ask yourself what is the way that I can help best: Is it a conversation with your peers? Is it monetary? Is it using your art? Your writing? Are you a good speaker? Do you have a platform? We have compiled some resources on ways that you can make a difference below. 

BDS! Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions 

• BDS is a Palestinian led movement for freedom, justice and equality. This movement uses economic and cultural boycotts against companies that financially support Israel’s apartheid regime and violation of Palestinian human rights. 
• The three main goals of BDS are to urge nonviolent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law by meeting 3 demands.

1. End Israel occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the wall
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab- Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality
3. Respecting, Protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194. 

• Check out the official BDS website to see what major companies to boycott. 
• You can also use https://bdnaash.com to identify which companies do and do not support the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. 

Donate to Doctors Without Borders to provide much needed medical care to people in Gaza and the West Bank

• Unlike Israel, which has strong emergency and health care systems, Gaza and the West Bank urgently lack medical personnel and supplies. As Doctors Without Borders puts it, “Medical facilities and personnel must be protected and respected, hospitals and ambulances are not targets”— not that that has stopped Israel militia from bombing hospitals and necessary public infrastructure. 
• Doctors without Borders is completely funded by independent donors to mobilize and save lives when a crisis strikes. Click here to Donate to Doctors without Borders. 

Send an E-sim to Palestine

• In addition to killing thousands of people in the Gaza Strip, Israel has been cutting off power and fuel supplies to more than 2 million people in Gaza. These internet and electricity blackouts mean that families cannot communicate with their loved ones and Palestinians cannot contact the outside world. 
• The internet has been key in debunking falsehoods, and helping spread first hand information and experiences. These blackouts serve as covers for human rights violations in Palestine, preventing people from both receiving and broadcasting vital information and updates. 
• Sending an E-sim helps connect people to the internet, their loved ones, and communicate with the outside world. E-sim cards are pieces of software that act like traditional SIM cards that allow people to activate a new cellular plan with  phone and internet access on their existing phone.
  • To buy an Esim: 
  • 1. Download one of these eSIM charging apps: Holafly, Nomad, Simly, Airolo. HolaFly is the most in demand right now, but all are needed.  
  • 2. Choose the location and number of GB you want to purchase. Over 30 GB would be great, but all amounts are helpful. 
  • 3. Email a clear image of the QR code (not the link, but the QR code itself) to gazaesims@gmail.com. Then @mirna_elhelbawi and the @connectinghumanity_ team will distribute to folks in need on the ground in Palestine
  • Slideshow Instructions from @bintmeetsworld  

Buy from Palestinian Businesses

• Buy an original Palestinian Keffiyeh from the last keffiyeh factory in Palestine here, from Hirbawi.
  • The Keffiyeh is a traditional scarf traditionally worn by nomadic peoples and villagers in Palestine to protect wearers from the harsh sun and sand. Nowadays, it has become a symbol of Palestinian pride, identity, and resistance. 
  • Along with Pro-Palestinian Protests, the Keffiyeh has been banned in many Western countries.
  • While visiting family for Thanksgiving, 3 Palestinian students in Vermont were shot while wearing keffiyeh, and a woman charged with a hate crime assault attacked a man who was wearing a keffiyeh with his 18 month old son. 

• Use Palestine Portal to buy Palestinian goods
• Palestine Online Store is an activist-run store whose mission is to promote Palestine through its handcrafts, foods, films, books, and solidarity apparel.
• 8 Palestinian businesses for you to support

Contact your Representatives

For our US readers, Jewish Voices for Peace and US Campaign for Palestinian Rights both offer instructions and caller scripts for how to contact your representative and senator’s office for a permanent ceasefire and refusal to send American weapons and funding to the Israeli military. 

Consume, Elevate, and Support Palestinian voices and content. 

For example, consider these independent journalists in Gaza who are showing their experiences first hand, in a raw and powerful way on instagram:

• @hindkhoudary
• @byplestia
• @wizard_bisan1
• @motaz_azaiza
• @ahmedhijazee

You could also follow other influencers on social media who are sharing updated information on the ongoing genocide. Some examples of who you can follow on instagram are:

• @wissamgaza
• @rosypirani
• @jenamatari
• @quillmistress
• @voice_of_palestinians_
• @resist_zine 

• Watch Documentaries and Films by and about Palestinian people. See Rowan M’s article “5 Palestinian Films to Watch” on The New Absurdist. 
• Read both Short and Long Form Content about Palestine. The following links have reading lists for books regarding Palestinian history and perspectives, including colonization, violence, economy, LGBTQ, culture, and fiction.
  • Decolonize Palestine Reading List
  • Haymarket has a Free Palestine! reading list. All of these books are currently 20% Off, and come with a free ebook where available. 

Protest

We invite you to print this cover and use it freely at Pro-Palestinian protests.

• Shut it Down for Palestine has information on marches, walkouts, sit ins, and other forms of direct action
• Resist Zine has visual guides for:
  • Dealing with Police at Protests 
  • Guide for Youth Protesters 
  • Protest Anxiety

Resources and Useful Links

• Jewish Voices for Peace
• STOP GAZA GENOCIDE Ceaasefire Now Public Tool Kit 
• Contact the White House 
• American Friends Service Community 
• The United Nations: The Question of Palestine: Timeline of Events
• Reuters: Mapping the conflict in Israel and Gaza

Thank you for reading. Once again, at this time, we’d like to invite artists and writers who are passionate about anti-fascism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, and Palestinian support to submit their work to The New Absurdist, and as always we will do our best to elevate these underrepresented voices on our platform.

The post This Is Not A Watermelon appeared first on The New Absurdist.

September is the start of New York Fashion Week, making it a prime time for brands like Dove to launch their new advertisement campaigns. With these subway ads, a quippy hashtag, and the help of Dove pop-up stands – or “pit stops”— giving away free merch and MTA cards, it makes sense that the ad campaign has gotten lots of praise online in the last few days in the press.

If Dove’s ad campaign was the final drop in the bucket of confidence you needed to bare your armpits with pride, that’s great! But it’s important to understand that Dove cares more about your wallet than your pits. Dove is not aspiring to create a social movement that makes women feel confident unless they are spearheading the ‘movement’ with their own merchandise. 

The first red flag is that for a campaign that claims to be about not judging armpits, especially unshaved ones, there’s not a single bushy armpit in the bunch. At most, there’s a slight hint of stubble.

Ad images of Dove’s #Freethepit campaign sourced from Ogilvy

It’s no coincidence that Dove has chosen NYC and Times Square to debut #freethepits when this is a central location to #freethenipple protests. And with women’s freedom to go topless, or even braless still being a controversial social issue, it feels as if Dove has chosen to appropriate one women’s liberation movement in the name of creating their own social media campaign.

Dove’s #freethepit campaign is just the latest, local example in what is called Commodity Feminism, also known as “Femvertising” and “Empowertising.” 

Commodity Feminism

Commodity Feminism refers to the way companies will align themselves to feminist ideas and imagery, all because it will help them sell more products. Similar to how companies use Greenwashing to create a false public image of being eco-friendly, companies use feminist buzzwords to sell products to women, such as alway’s #likeagirl campaign.

If you’re not thinking too hard about it, these campaigns may seem full of liberal or progressive ideas, but keep in mind these are giant multi-billion dollar companies. These movements come out of allegiance to their investors, not grassroots activism. Logically, it only benefits companies to keep women, their main clientele, happy and buying. If dissing women would have made these companies money instead, you can bet they would have.

The way these commercials work is to associate women’s power in society with their buying power. Since women have money, they have power, and with this money they can buy things to pamper themselves. 

These ‘pamper products’ tend to be geared towards unpleasant ‘luxuries’ like shaving, waxing, disguising odors, and dieting- all things to make a woman more conventionally sexually attractive, if not to men, then at least themselves. This in turn increases a woman’s self confidence. Femvertising creates the illusion of an equal society, where the more money women spend, the more power they have. 

Often, this ‘type’ of ‘feminism’ is targeted at middle to upper class, heterosexual white women and neglects the experiences of BIPOC, trans, and disabled women. But where there’s money to be made, the ‘inclusion’ will eventually follow, if femvertising is not an example in itself!

A deodorant by any other name would smell just as sweet. Whether you call it Commodity Feminism, Femvertising, or Empoweritsing, the fact remains that the visual and written language of this advertising still is meant to obscure how Dove is still marketing off the insecurities of women.

How Feminist is Dove, Really?

In the same survey that Dove sources to use as slogans and quotes for its advertising campaign, “80% of women believe society promotes an ‘ideal’ underarm; most say the ‘ideal’ underarm should be hairless, smooth, odorless, and even-toned.” (Dove Underarm Confidence Survey).

You don’t see the mention of anything other than hair in Dove’s slogans because… well, to encourage women to not judge armpits based on odor would be a bit counterintuitive to the interests of a deodorant company.

This isn’t the first time Dove and OgiIvy’s partnership has encountered controversy for their ads. In fact, the debut of the “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty ” in 1994 is considered to be one of the first ‘Femvertising’ Campaigns.  As part of the “ Dove Campaign for Real Beauty,” there is no digital retouching in any ads, and all photographs are approved by women. And yet, in their casting calls, Dove has continually searched for women with “no tattoos, perfect skin,[and] bodies that aren’t too curved or too athletic.”

In this new #freethepits campaign, we see that the ‘no tattoos’ rule has been lifted, but the models chosen still fit within a restrictive standard of beauty (light, clear, unwrinkled skin and uncontroversial body types.)

And for an ad campaign based in New York City, there are no South or East Asian women featured in the photographs, with South Asian/ Brown girls being one of the primary demographics in America historically especially to be ostrasized for having body hair. The ad campaign also didn’t consider representing anybody older or visually disabled.

Compared to the other full upper body shots of the ad campaign, there is one close up of an ethnically ambiguous woman that perhaps is meant to serve as an all encompassing diversity figure for any body that wasn’t otherwise represented. 

Femvertising aside, when we dig a little deeper and recognize that Dove is the baby of its much larger parent company, Unilever, Dove’s integrity regarding its pro-women campaign seems compromised Unilever has come under fire for human rights issues in its supply chain, including slavery and forced child labor in palm oil and cocoa plantations.

I’m all for freeing the pits, but I think Dove should work on liberating people – or not enslaving them– before it “liberates” women’s armpits.

If you’re interested in learning more about Commodity Feminism, I recommend “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of A Sensibility” by Rosalind Gill, where I sourced much of the information about commodity feminism in this article. I also sourced information from “The Rise of Femvertising: Authentically Reaching Female Consumers” by Elisa Becker-Herby.

The post Something Stinks with Dove’s New #freethepits Campaign appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Quinn (they/he):

To start, can we just go around and Introduce ourselves, our names, pronouns and artistic and creative practices and projects?

Jason (they/he):

Sure. I use they/he pronouns. I am a senior, at Tisch Drama at NYU and I am a playwright, I’m an actor, voice actor and creative leader of interactive, immersive and experimental projects, video games too.

Anisha (she/her):

I figured. Awesome.

Sally (they/she/he):

My name’s Sally. I use they/she/he pronouns in that order of preference. I mainly illustrate and write poetry, but I also dabble in sculpture work and animation. I mostly make work about identity, home nostalgia, intimacy, and fantasy. And I’m a senior at Parsons School of Design, majoring in illustration and minoring in psychology.

Anisha (she/her):

Oh my God. I was a psych major. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. To kick it off, well, we just kicked it off, but to kick it off again, we just want to know, how did you guys meet, how did you guys start collaborating and what were your various roles in making untitled gamer play? We can break that up since I know it’s a loaded question and I always forget part twos!

Jason (they/he):

Sally how did we meet?

Sally (they/she/he):

We met in our high school Japanese class and in junior year when we got assigned to be partners, we also became best friends and started dating. We started collaborating because we had to at first, because of Japanese projects and stuff like that…but you put two artists together and you constantly want to keep working on things together or be each other’s partner in crime or whatever. And I always joke that they’ve been my muse for like five years now. My role in untitled gamer play or UGP (however you want to say it) was at first just as a cover artist/event artist, but then after I finished my thesis, Jason reached out to me again and was like, “I heard you have free time. Do you want to be my codesigner?” That’s what I helped do co-set designer and co-set paint.

Anisha (she/her):

Nice. Nice. The sets were beautiful. Just throw that out there. I saw a clip of the video. It was really good.

Jason (they/he):

I wouldn’t call Japanese exercises collaboration, but I think we started … Wait. It is. we started collaborating in a real collaborator sense, I guess a little bit later when I decided to pursue art going into my second year of college diving right in there. And it’s just like whenever a project would pop up, for example, like rank choice dating popped up last September and it would be like an opportune time to bring Sally on. I brought Sally on about it and of course the muse part is definitely true for both of us of a lot of the art we make, I guess, is inspired by each other’s lives and the lives in our community and can’t wait to chat more on that. I am the writer of untitled gamer play and I’ve been, I guess I started writing this in my first year at NYU, which is like two and a half years ago. I wrote like a 10 page version of this as well as several other like 10 page plays that eventually …

The first version of this was just about “Oh, Gamer’s toxic.” And it was just a bunch of gamers in a room bantering and the one eager in their group that they were trying to woo, which did not end well. And then it eventually turned into this after many, many, many, many different drafts and iterations of this. And that’s where it went up.

Anisha (she/her):

That’s amazing. That is major props. Quinn, sorry. Did you have anything to say?

Quinn (they/he):

No, same. Just the script was a really amazing read. I had a great time and I had a great time watching what I could of the video that was sent too. And I also wanted to say that the set design was so beautiful and so good job both of you. I guess for the next questions, like for those who are listening and aren’t familiar with the play, can we just get a quick synopsis and also a little bit about Albert and what his character is indicative of?

Jason (they/he):

Untitled gamer play. It’s this play that revolves around Albert. He’s this 17 year old Chinese American kid who’s closeted and he’s sad and lonely. He plays video games all day to the extent that he’s paying this kid with the same first and last name as him to go to school for him and get good grades for him so he can impress his mom while also just playing video games. And he does that alongside his best friend Kevin who’s this like two or three years older, just big brother figure to him who hypes him up, cheers him along. And they go along this big adventure where Albert overcomes his fear of risks and tries to become a professional video gamer. And he does make this choice where he can’t go back by cutting ties with the guy that’s been going like ransom … Now at this point, like blackmailing him. If you don’t pay me, I won’t go to school for you and I’ll tell on you.

And he gives that up fully commits and then don’t want to spoil anything, but that choice changes how he views himself, how he views his mom and Kevin and at its core, this play is about saviors and what we do when people go out of their way to help us and we have no choice in the matter as so many of our parents do, immigrant parents do. And I wouldn’t say Albert’s character is indicative of anything. When I write, I normally just like to think of these people as real people and how would they want to their stories to be serviced and told, and reach as many people as possible.

But I think the best way I can answer this question is Albert is this amalgamation of gamers that I have met online and in-person and grown up with much, much more on that later. The naturalistic dialogue to him came really, really easy to me when he was just this huge conglomerate of just these voices that I’ve grown up with. And I hope that I’m able to service those stories and those memories of what was once just this massive part still is of my childhood.

Anisha (she/her):

Well, honestly I loved everything you said, it was very inspirational because I think I’m very big on storytelling as we all are especially at The New Absurdist and as creatives. I really just appreciate the thought and effort that you put into building out this character and really just not being like, this person symbolizes this one thing, but if it just comes to that, then that’s kind of what happens, but just letting the person be authentically.

And you touched on this a little bit so feel free to elaborate more or if you feel you answered it already. But you touched a little bit on this. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of writing this character? I know you said you pulled from some of your experience and the play in general. How did that look for you?

Jason (they/he):

Yeah. I think the process of writing this character is definitely tied in with the writing the play. This play revolves around Albert and well, it does revolve around Albert although every single character I hope has a really emotionally fulfilling arc. And I would say Albert started off as this idea of when I was in my first year playwriting class, I went like, “I have this massive part of my life that I’ve shut down in order to be here.” And whenever I look back on that gaming life, it’s like these people said slurs, these people hacked and bullied others, was there any good to these 10 years of my life that I spent online or was there anything good I could pull from that? And of course there’s a lot of bad and I had to really, really search for the humanity.

And I’m so glad that I found it because it made me be a little bit more compassionate to myself. These gamers are just really lonely kids for a lot of … And one place where this play did come out of is all the media especially in plays right now or historically is rarely about people of color with some exceptions chat out to black feminist video game. But it’s like the gaming and like D&D like table tabletop RPG setting in playwriting is dominated by white men. And no one’s really talking about how Asian games are. There are so many Asian gamers, there’s so many Asian kids and friend groups that live in these little channels on discord. And that’s how they grow up because they all want some kind of escape from their really, really tough lives.

And that escape is much, much different for them. Because they’re escaping a lot of expectations and a lot of rigorous classwork, stuff like that. And sometimes it feels like their entire family’s dreams are on their shoulders. And so when they escape that to play video games, they feel guilty. And there’s just so many parts of this that I was so grateful to find. And so the process of writing this was started out as this little exploration and then I explored many, many things about what this play could be. I think there was like a 120 page version at the beginning of last year. 1.5 years ago of where it was like this play was structured around money and enterprise of this professional league of legends esports system, where it was so much more focused on that.

Because if you think about it, esports is a cult. esports is like professional video gaming and it’s biggest in league of legends, which is where my background. League of legends is like the world’s most popular game, I guess. Don’t fact check me. It’s the most popular esport and the cults following. And there’s a lot of those professional gamers happen to be Asian. And no one really talks about that. I think where that draft started from is, oh, these gamers are Asian. Where do they come from? How do they end up here? Are they just heroes of their hometown? Do they have like these dreams? A lot of these gamers are coming from low income backgrounds and using these games that they love to support their families as opposed to all the other players who are just doing it for fun and they had their luxury for doing it for fun. And that was a whole exploration of that because in the end everyone’s competing for the white man’s dollar.

But then I circled back, found out, really explored the emotional lives of each character and ended up here much more to come many, many more edits to come. But I’m really glad that I took a step back rooted this in the people that I cared about because it was getting a really hectic and hard to control. And I think I made something really great.

Anisha (she/her):

You did. You did. I will attest to that…I second that.

Quinn (they/he):

I agree. And I also really liked finding the humanity in the gaming world. From what I understand, when you’re gaming, other people are just little voices and characters. And so extrapolating the human out of that is just so cool. For the next question, we’re wondering how..And you already touched on this too, but how Albert is relating to and exemplifying changes or lack of changes within the gaming community?

Jason (they/he):

There’s this really, really great article by my friends that I want to plug. They wrote a paper about Albert as a character. And in relation to being a gamer and the multiple identities he holds as an assignment for class. Her name is AJ, we have a playwriting class together. I think at its core, the gaming community in [untitled gamer play] is incredibly homophobic. And I think the sentence in this paper that hits me the most is…let me find it.

“Albert’s fundamental existence as a gay gamer is that his passion lives in an environment that is inherently unwelcoming to him.” This article beautifully explains that this community is degenerated and I often say gamers are the worst of people. They throw these slurs around, they have no fear of consequences because they’re often very self indulged in the fact that they’re trying to escape. For that reason, they get away with a lot. Albert is just this little kid trying to exist in this hard world that is unwelcoming to him. This play in particular, I think does capture a lot of humanity and goodness in video gaming community and it does definitely give a little bit of light, a tiny little bit of light to the bad I would say.

I think what I explored in terms of like Albert being a character and homophobia in this play was that like the bro-gamer and bro culture is often like, “Yeah, yeah bro.” How is this not gay? How has no one ever talked about this? Like being remotely suggestive of these gamers being gay. So Kevin will go off and do these really obscene things and bait Albert and lead Albert on in these sexual crude acts of humor as well as their online connection, they’ve never seen each other and yet they have this brotherhood and the way that both of their masculinities benefit from this relationship and just those two things I think are very, very key parts of this gaming community. Men will get really, really close and they will be very strangely straight. Let’s talk about that. Very long tangent feel free to cut.

Anisha (she/her):

No, no, I loved it. I loved it. I don’t know if you saw because Zoom’s a little hard, but I was getting a little emotional as you were talking about humanizing people. I think that’s so important. And honestly I’m going to be completely transparent. Prior to reading your play, I’ve had friends growing up who are very much in the gaming world and they would tell me so much about the toxicity. It was honestly really refreshing to read your play.

I was like, whoa, this is a whole other side to this world that I’m not in, but I can almost empathize with. It was just really a little jarring, but in the best way possible. And also I love the threads of homophobia that you touched on throughout the play, I think was very seamless. Thank you for that. It was very refreshing on my part, very enlightening for me as a person. And also along the lines of integrating homophobia, you also spoke about immigration and really touched on the life of immigrants. I was wondering, was there any particular reason why you chose to incorporate this? How does it relate to gaming and how does it relate to the gaming world in general? I know that’s a loaded question-

Jason (they/he):

Definitely.

Anisha (she/her):

-so take it in parts if you have to.

Jason (they/he):

I have many answers. Don’t worry.

Anisha (she/her):

Excited.

Jason (they/he):

This definitely came, like I said, came from like the fact that so many of these professional gamers are Asian gamers and children of immigrants. For part of my visual research I took these pictures of pro gamers when they entered the scene, like in 2013-2014. They have bull cuts, they have glasses, they’re fucking ugly. But then give them five or six, seven years as they come into massive amounts of wealth and they support their families and they completely change.

There’s this story of one of one very controversial gaming in figure. But I do look up to him. His name is Doublelift in the League of Legends Community. He entered this scene really early, in 2012, he was really, really poor and he was playing this game to support his family to which he had a very strange relationship with. His mother gave him up because he was playing video games and he had to live in this journalist friend’s apartment for many, many years because his parents kicked him out, but he still had this dream.

He still plays this game. He’s very controversial because he is toxic, but he still plays this game a lot. And in, I believe that around 2017, 2018, his mom died. His mom was murdered by his brother. That was heartbreaking because we followed his life and he’s talked about his family. Around that time he reconnected with his mom and was starting to heal their relationship, but she died before they were able to fully do that. And the thing is, he went through that. Two weeks after that happened were the regional finals in North America and he played through it. And like, God, I was watching this stream choking up. Right before that game, right after that game, you can just hear the entire crowd in that stadium, just shout, “Doublelift. Doublelift.” And it was just like, wow. That’s that.

I think there’s this huge part of…all the Asian video gamers have this relationship with their mom. I’ll say that. Like I will be on call, I will hear my friend’s mom literally say something like, “Don’t call me bro.” You could ask east Asian men if they’ve played league of legends and most of them will say yes. I think every single one of them who has this relationship with gaming and their mom play this game to fit in and find community. They actually find a lot of other Asian kids who are doing the same thing. Playing this game is an escape like I said before, from like the strict expectations of their parents.

And their parents desperately want to stop. And there’s this constant tug of war of, “Stop, stop, stop, stop.” And they go like, “I’m doing fine. I’m doing fine. I’m doing fine.” There’s also these more intricate interactions. One friend, Yusuf, talked about me about how lots immigrant kids to try to confuse their moms with technology and say something like, “Oh our grades are on the student portal, go check it,” That’s the only thing that they can leverage against their very smart, very cunning parents. They have this knowledge of the online world and they can use it to confuse. There are just so many parts of this, but I think I foiund a synthesizing thought.

Anisha (she/her):

Go off if you have to.

Jason (they/he):

I guess at its core, when it comes to gaming and immigration, you play this game to escape your parents because they want the world out of you. Sometimes you just want to go into something where you can feel like you’re progressing, you can feel like you’re powerful, you can feel like you have friends, because you definitely don’t in school if all you’re doing is doing tests. There’s just so many things that help this online world, both in terms of a social world and in terms of immersion and escape, make you powerful in a sense. There’s so many things that make the online and gaming world attractive to children of immigrants. And there are so many children of immigrants that play. And I will say immigrants too. It’s just alluring, it’s new, and it makes you feel like a person when the world doesn’t.

Anisha (she/her):

Well said. Well said. And also thank you for making me cry at nine o’clock in the morning-

Jason (they/he):

This is normal for me.

Anisha (she/her):

That was very touching. Thank you so much for sharing.

Quinn (they/he):

I can totally understand why your friend wrote an essay tracking Albert’s experience as a gay gamer. You could write so many essays about what you just said and about the play as a whole. I really appreciate everything you just said and also for the very emotional gaming background too. I guess the next question is for both of you. I was just interested, what was it like to see your play move into a physical space. What was that process as a writer and then also as a set designer?

Sally (they/she/he):

Well, for me, Jason sent me like… 50 different versions of this play  in the past two years that they’ve been writing it. Reading through all the different versions, I think the one thing that I kept thinking about was projections, really fun lighting, and this idea of solitude. I kept thinking about that. When I saw that they were thinking about a modular set design, especially with cardboard and stuff like that, I had this idea that the cardboard boxes were a bit like pixels. They would move and shift with every iteration. For me, even though I thought of it as such a high budget play being portrayed with such low tech, it was still really endearing when you think about the meeting of cardboard boxes and play. In both the digital and real worlds, we play into ideas of what our parents want and also play into ideas of how we should behave in school and to our friends and stuff like that. It made a lot of sense. Seeing this play move from just words that…I still cry when I think about it. The visuals…and everyone coming together I thought was really heartwarming.

Jason (they/he):

It was very, very heartwarming. I think the main thing tying together this experience for me is the amount of respect other people have shown in bringing this work to life. Not to discredit the many, many, people that have feedback for my play and who have given me such amazing affirmations throughout these years, but I’ve always felt that my work has not been respected, especially at NYU. I will be in a playwriting class and when I present my work, the white people in the room will turn their cameras off on Zoom because they don’t know how to interact with it. Or  people will not know how to approach this work because it just like belongs to a culture other than theirs. For the longest time, I’ve just felt so undervalued and that no one would pay attention to me.

I started to have this bitterness, I had to fight for everything…I have to make people turn their heads. So I was getting really bitter and, in a really unhealthy way, just feeling that I have to fight for my voice to be heard in every single kind of space. I have this baseline expectation that no one will listen to me because of how this curriculum is structured and because all the playwriting teachers are white, but then to have my work…

I was so pessimistic going into this that the Asian people would not be there, that noone would want to work on this. But then to be met with an amazingly large and diverse team and for my work to be handled like that, with an insane amount of respect, it’s just like, wow, that was … Throughout those years, I guess I was getting something done. I was heading in a right direction. I was doing something right. It’s very, very affirming. Shout out to all those collaborators and to the level of communication on this project because people were so invested, facilitated by our amazing stage manager Tatiana. We had so many amazing artistic conversations that really just showed how much people cared to me. I think like one really, really big thing coming out of this project is a newfound confidence in myself. Also shout out to director Jonathan.

Sally (they/she/he).:

Literally the entire cast and crew felt like family and it was so … I just felt like even if I worked on it in-person for maybe a week or two, I felt so connected to everyone, they were so sweet. Everyone was so dedicated.

Anisha (she/her).:

Oh my God. That’s so heartwarming. I feel like when I hear stories about spaces where there isn’t a strong sense of like community, it’s usually the opposite where it’s like, “I felt very left out. I was running and putting things together, but I didn’t really talk to anyone.”  So I am relieved. You guys actually built a little community so, shout out to you two.

Honestly, shout out to you guys for like really carving out spaces for others…because especially as people of color, just navigating the space as belonging to a marginalized community, it can be so, so difficult. I’m also getting emotional again, so don’t mind me if I start crying. But that’s something that hits home to me, but it’s just so inspiring to see you guys. Really just carry on as a force to be reckoned with in this space. You guys are really making movements and it’s just really amazing to see. Applause to you guys. I think that’s amazing.

Jason (they/he):

In many ways, this thing went so fluently. I have had many bad collaboration scares and that just made this one so good. In many ways, I feel like we proved a lot of people wrong and we subverted a lot of expectations going into this. Now people know what we can do. People are treating us differently and it’s a big culture shock. I’m really, really proud of this. My ego is not normally this high, but we really subverted every narrative about us.

People are coming into this process with really similar stories to mine, about never feeling seen or appreciated for their talents in their cohorts throughout their arts education. Then this happens and they get to see just how wonderful their community (and themselves) can be when they are supported. And they have the support that has been denied to them for so many years.

Anisha (she/her):

Obviously I wasn’t there when you guys were doing this, but just hearing about it, you can see the love and appreciation you have for the project and the rest of the team as well. It’s really a shining through. I think that’s really important to build a community within a community sometimes because it can be so isolating. It can be very much  like… you think you might have to diverge past a little bit. You’re like, “Maybe this isn’t the right field for me.” I don’t know if you guys ever thought that, but I did at some point.

And so when you see that community come together, you’re like, “Oh wait, no. I got this, we got this.” It’s very inspiring. Thank you both for being very vulnerable and sharing those parts. I definitely really appreciate it and we really appreciate it in general. We touched on the art and all this stuff. Sally, you also touched on this. We both really enjoyed your art and I really love the idea of the whole like pixels moving.

It’s so crazy because like, I don’t know, Quinn if you also have this thought, but I had the thought. I was like, “Oh this reminds me of something, but I can’t quite put the puzzle pieces together,” and then you said “ it’s like how pixels movie.” And, that’s exactly what I was thinking I just literally could not find the words to describe it. It’s really cool. We both really enjoyed your art and we would love to hear about what it is like for you in terms of intersecting, like that storytelling aspect with the visual, narratives and how that all comes together. Also I think you mentioned, if I’m not mistaken, you worked in different mediums of art as well, but how does that also relate to the whole experience? And once again, loads of questions so we can take that in parts.

Sally (they/she/he):

I’ve always been drawn to visual art and storytelling because growing up, I was the youngest child, and youngest daughter of a family of immigrants. My brothers are 4-5 years older than me, and they’d be gaming together, going to school together, doing big things and I’d be stuck in this gender role of, “Oh, you’re not allowed to do those things. You can’t get addicted to games like they are, and you can just read books and watch cartoons.” For the limited amount of time that I was able to game with them or watch cartoons with them, especially with things like in the more sort of like Asian, especially east Asian sense of anime and manga, I was able to see more stories like mine with people that looked like me like Crayon Shin-chan and Chibi Maruko-chan. 

Growing up with those was really important especially because I wasn’t allowed much screen time. Reading a lot, getting immersed into those worlds through children’s books especially because it was the first time that I really encountered stories that were meant to uplift me even if the characters didn’t look like me yet. Shout out to Eyes that Kiss in the Corners Oh my gosh…

Coming from that perspective of being really inspired by children’s books and wanting to get into them since I was literally five and since I figured out how to draw, because I only thought writing was an option, I guess it was always my preferred medium and storytelling and adding words to that really came naturally. So sorry, what was the rest of the question?

Anisha (she/her).:

Totally good. The intersection between storytelling and visual narratives and different mediums and stuff like that.

Sally (they/she/he):

I guess I always stuck to almost the cheapest materials I could find because growing up in an immigrant family, there wasn’t really much, and art materials were so expensive. At the time, I didn’t feel like my art was worth investing so much into especially as I was still a kid and I was still practicing and we couldn’t afford any art classes. I treated it as a hobby and I just practiced and poured my soul into it, even if it was just pencil and paper.

And then when I was 14, my brothers chipped to buy me a Wacum tablet that I’ve been using ever since. I asked for that specifically because digital art is so much more accessible than other mediums in a way that you don’t have to keep paying for paints and brushes and things that break down, like a canvas, you could just keep using the same tablet as you were seven years ago.

All the colors are there, really everything is there. That’s all you really need. That’s what I’ve been using since really. And as for other mediums, I do ceramics, I do soft sculpture, I do animation stuff like that. All that has been as I’ve grown more confident in storytelling and my skills, technical skills as an artist where I’m more willing to invest in it especially as I…Well that confidence only really came to be as I started applying to art schools and college. I really hadn’t invested a whole lot before then, but I do think that everything comes down to storytelling. It doesn’t really matter if it’s visual or just writing, I think that stories are just really important.

Quinn (they/he):

I wanted to just say, both Anisha and I looking forward to what’s next and definitely looking forward the eventual Broadway production. But I also just wanted to say, I feel like I’m a big believer in art as a space where power and hierarchy can be subverted and where community and lifting each other up is really important. So I just wanted to echo what Anisha said earlier, thank you for being so vulnerable about talking about this process and everything. But anyways, I have another two- part question for you, Sally. I know that you talked about your thesis earlier, I’d love to hear some about that and just that process of working on a long term project and how that has been for you?

Sally (they/she/he).:

My thesis is titled One Day the Sun Won’t Be Wounded and it’s a growing collection of originally written and illustrated poems of about Chinese mythologies, dieties, spiritualism, family history, queerness, transness, and myself. Showing up for thesis, we started like five years in, no, my gosh, five weeks into our first semester, at the time I was incredibly burnt out. I had this whole grand plan of last year thinking about like, “Oh, I’m going to make this super cool, illustrated chapbook” and also I was thinking of an accordion book and that it would be huge and at least 30 pages or something like that. I thought I planned out all the subject matter that I was going to tackle. But when it came down to it, that first semester I was so burnt out that I couldn’t get anything out of me really other than one piece, the first one.

And I guess it was mostly a process of trying to find compassion for yourself, especially in a world that’s so capitalistic and it’s so driven by productivity. I was punishing myself every single time. I couldn’t start every week where it was like, “Come on, just write some things,” or like, “Just like dress sketch. It’s not that hard. You could do it if you like.” You felt the pressure too and yet nothing was coming out. And because of that cycle of like, “Oh, you have to do something.” And yet, I’m not allowing myself to do anything enjoyable until I start and being paralyzed. And that was difficult to get out of, but then when winter break came and January came, I was able to let go of that a little bit and also be more motivated by seeing what other people were creating in class and being able to let go and play Stardew Valley for a while was exactly what I needed and so I just started thinking of like, “Who cares, it’s thesis, not like it’s the last project that I’m ever going to do.”

And that was what my professor said too. Like, don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s not your last thing. Sure, it’s bigger than any other project that you’ve done, but that’s not the end all of your career. I just took it step by step and drew out. I saw it as a work in progress and something that I’m proud of rather than something that is more of a punishment in trying to prove myself to people that aren’t particularly my audience.

Quinn (they/he):

I’ve been working on my thesis too for the past year and so I get the struggle. I guess that’s something that has to come out of me at some point. For the last question, we’d like to open it up to both of you again, and we were wondering, what advice would you give to aspiring artists and playwrights and what would you have liked to hear when you started working on untitled gamer play? I’m sure it’s a lot.

Jason (they/he):

Do you have an answer Sally?

Sally (they/she/he):

You can start.

Jason (they/he):

I got it. I would say at the beginning of this process, I wish I knew that my problems were big. For example, we Asian artists have executive dysfunction as evidenced by everything I just said. We have a very poor relationship with our work, especially creative work because of the anxieties passed down to us. And I think I belittled myself a lot for not being able to write. I wish I had more compassion for myself and knowledge that the artists that are able to work through this create even stronger art stronger, what does that mean? 

Our executive dysfunction problems are big, treat them like big problems and when you get to overcome them, give yourself a bigger reward. What I like to say to people is: you’re up against a final boss, not just another slime. And a word of advice would be on that related note, you need a hype squad if you are a writer from a marginalized background, and people will be like, “Ah, you don’t need validation.” But you need validation, it’s human, it’s one of your needs. Belittling that need is belittling yourself. Yes. Many people will make you feel like you’re nothing. Especially for Asian artists, they will reduce you to being proficient or uncommunicative or rude. And a lot of things will eat away at you and you deserve having a community that will vocally support you often to just keep you afloat and keep you writing.

Sally (they/she/he).:

I totally agree with that. I would say trust in yourself and also trust in your community and rely on community, support your community because they’re the ones who are always going to be there for you too. Especially with illustration and writing, of course, these are usually really solitary acts and you usually do them alone. It’s like, oftentimes you really don’t feel that support unless it’s right in front of you and you’re going after it to talk to people and hear each other’s voices, sometimes you really don’t feel like that support is real. It’s just like, again, like pixels on a screen doesn’t really mean anything to you, does it have any value? But working on things like untitled gamer play and being in a team environment, you really can see how the emotions that you put into the play reflect through how everyone else is experiencing it and the care that they have for you and your work is also the same care that you offer to other people.

And that’s what really keeps everyone creating things and building things and trying to make a better future for everyone I think. That’s the big goal, I guess. We’ve all started writing stories based and we wanted to hear ourselves and see ourselves in our communities represented. And so I feel like supporting each other is just one other aspect of being an artist.

Anisha (she/her):

Oh my God. I love. Sorry. I think you were going to say something. I just …

Quinn (they/he):

No, I was just going to say the same exact thing. Thank you so much you guys. This has been so wonderful and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and-

Jason (they/he):

I found out a future project.

Quinn (they/he):

Yes, please.

Anisha (she/her):

Oh my God.

Jason (they/he):

On June 11th, 2022, I will be performing and Sally will be costume designing for untitled waifu play. It is directed by Jonathan and the playwright is Char Nakashima-Conway, who I love with my entire heart and who inspired this playwriting journey in me of writing for small groups of people that have never been seen before. Come see it, it’s about incels who materialize their anime wife into real life and try to go on dates with them and we’ll see how that goes. 

Anisha (she/her):

That’s so interesting. Oh my God. Well, thank you for that. If I can make it, I probably will. Try to start my schedule out. But no, that sounds amazing. I see the gaming thread there, which is also really just enlightening, like I’ve said a million times, but that’s honestly how I’ve been feeling. But thank you guys so much. It has been such a pleasure, like Quinn said, just to have this conversation. Thank you for being so open and vulnerable with the entire process and also being very transparent because I think that a lot of times people, especially when they come on platforms, they’re like, “Yeah, it was a wonderful ride.” And you’re like, “Okay, it was, but let’s be real. It was a struggle to get to this point.”

Really appreciate your transparency and your honesty throughout the entire thing. You guys did a phenomenal job with the play and bringing it to life. It was really, really eye opening. And I think that these stories, like you said, they need to be materialized a lot more and just brought to a lot of different audiences. Really appreciate you guys bringing it to the New Absurdist audience as well. Really look forward to sharing your stories. We’ll be in contact about the whole process of things like that and once it gets posted and all that stuff, but honestly, thank you guys so, so much. I know it’s bright and early on this gloomy morning, so really appreciate you guys plowing through and being the resilient people that you guys are. Really appreciate more power to you and honestly look forward to seeing the amazing work that you guys continue to put out.

Jason (they/he):

Thank you both.

Sally (they/she):

Thank you so much for your time.

Anisha (she/her):

No, of course. Thank you guys.

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