Featuring dressing for death, bed bath & beyond coupons, and the Spears Sisters.
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Talkin’ About Some Generation (Gen Z Is Dressed for Death)
Apparently, there is a Tumblr community of people (mostly Gen Z) who are dressing up like bubonic plague doctors. This includes a woman named Alexandra who has gone so far as to own pet leeches! It’s all very of-the-moment, in the sense that it lines up with the cottagecore and “dark academia” trends that have dominated Tumblr and TikTok for the past year (both of these trends are also explained in the link), as well as the whole “new plague” pandemic we’re experiencing.
This beak mask situation is vaguely what plague masks look like. Chic!
A Less Serious, More Lovingly Capitalist Item (A History of Coupons)
One of the more random things that’s happened to me this pandemic is that I’ve become a Bed, Bath, and Beyond fanatic. Partially spurred by guilt surrounding ordering things on Amazon, I moved into a new apartment and began to order things as I needed them from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. First, I started small — a bath mat I bought on a whim at Target ended up being a bust, so I turned to Bed, Bath, and Beyond because of the aforementioned Amazon guilt and because the reviews felt more reliable. Success with a plain, white rubber bath mat! Next, I think it was funnels. Then, a dish rack. The fanaticism has escalated so much that I just ordered two large bookcases from BB&B (did you even know they sold bookcases? They do and they’re great!). But the other thing that kept me coming back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond was the discounts. I didn’t even need to use the physical coupons (although I’ve been getting those in the mail since I ordered some handy, well-priced shoe racks three years ago), my online account always had some kind of coupon waiting for me at online checkout. Which is why I loved this New York Times oral history of the Bed, Bath, & Beyond 20% off coupons. The details of how they started (in 1971, as one department store in New Jersey), and how they escalated (shipping 32,000 pounds of paper at a time in service of the billion pieces of meal they sent per year) are extremely fun, and so is the entire oral history.
And don’t worry, they also cover the coupons in popular culture.
This Week’s Theme: Coping and the Consequences of Coping
I know we were just UP on capitalism with the Bed, Bath, and Beyond stuff, but consider that that article ends with BB&B going under new management who might stop the coupons, because the next section is decidedly down on capitalism.
First, read this. It’s a soft meditation on how a habit of daily swimming in cold water every day during the pandemic (and the West Coast wildfires) offered a deeply pleasurable escape for a woman who lives in Nevada.
And then, if you want to destroy any sense of comfort you achieved from reading about a woman’s coping mechanism, you can read this cultural analysis of the ways the pandemic has propelled us further into a culture of “nothingness” and “numbness,” spurred by our coping habits.
All of life’s randomness and surprise were replaced by smooth, predesigned corporate systems and commodified, automated feeds through which we received the next thing to consume, inducing one of the most disturbing psychic features of 2020: that a substantial portion of the population could float on in a state of lulled passivity, even in the middle of a global disaster, thanks to those who could not.
We have leaned further into the cultural trends that encourage us to think about anything but what’s actually happening, and the more neutral that thing is, the better. And the author is coming for every salve you have:
Much of recent pop music sounds as if it’s coming through layers of heavy gauze, maybe a consequence of the addictive anti-anxiety drug of choice, Xanax. Billie Eilish’s fuzzily lilting 2019 track “Xanny” mourns that her friends “just keep doing nothing/too intoxicated to be scared.” The biggest stars are the unhappiest, even in their excess. Drake is all depressive lounge beats, mounting excuses for not showing up, constantly in a state of bemused anhedonia. In music as well as appearance, the Weeknd casts himself as bent on glossy self-destruction, like a sports-car crash personified. Frank Ocean croons to himself in autotune and releases music only rarely. Phoebe Bridgers, the indie-music breakout of 2020, transmutes her personal angst into downbeat songs accentuated by the self-consciously intimate stream of depression posts on her public Instagram account. One of her side projects is called Better Oblivion Community Center.
None of your smooth-brained, dissociation jokes are safe:
There is a budding fetish for “dissociation,” a word stretched far beyond its clinical origins and used to describe a generalized state of being in the 2010s. But if you really want to dissociate, you can do so with ketamine, the veterinary anesthetic turned recreational club accessory turned therapeutic medicine. The drug targets multiple receptors in the brain and can cause hallucinations as well as euphoria in a general loss of self; the drug encyclopedia Erowid describes a “fragmentation of reality.” Ketamine is now presented as a tool for treating depression or even a form of self-care: The start-up Mindbloom promotes low doses as a way to “achieve the clarity you need to live the life you deserve,” the same way LSD has turned from revolutionary psychedelic to productivity hack in microdose form.
Or your “healthy” Twitter addictions:
Our imaginations, after all, are limited by the platforms that dominate the distribution of culture; we feel more than ever that we’re in control of these streams of content, but in reality we are in thrall to the rules and patterns they create.
We’re all victims of this search for anxiety reduction, of this effort to ignore the ever-growing noise that is what’s happening around us, but the coping does eventually have to have consequences. Not totally clear what those ARE yet, but the author does remind us of a jarring quote from Fredric Jameson: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
And here, my darlings, is a gentle gif to help smooth your brain back over.
Politics (Give The Guy Who Wrote This a Pulitzer)
I can’t believe what a perfect little essay Jim St. Germain wrote for Vulture about “Via Getty” aka that guy who was photographed grinning like an idiot after stealing Nancy Pelosi’s podium during the coup (AKA the Capitol Riots on January 6, 2021). It runs maybe 1200 words and explains that the America that faced an insurrection is the America black people have always known. And now it’s black people’s turn to be entertained while the stomachs of white Americans churn at the thought of their precious democracy being destroyed.
A Celebrity Thinger (Spears Sisters Edition)
On the one hand, we have a Vanity Fair article doing a little bit of explaining regarding the #FreeBritney movement, comparing the followers of the movement to those who follow QAnon. Don’t worry, it’s not really the same, but there is a common undercurrent of believing that the conspiracy is hurting the young and innocent. The article gets into the fanatical monitoring of Britney Spears’ Instagram account (where she posts intermittently, usually dance videos in crop tops), but it also chronicles the legitimately disturbing details of the 13-year long conservatorship her father has held over her assets.
On the other hand, we have Jamie Lynn Spears accusing Elon Musk of killing her cats. Which is a lot more fun, in my opinion.
Would You Rather? (That’s a Little Rough Edition)
Would you rather be a cutout of actress Ana de Armas in a trash can or a dude down bad?
A Recommendation (More Short TV Seasons)
I’m late to the party on this one, but I just watched all 10 half-hour episodes of Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso in two days. The title is fairly confusing (I straight up thought it was some kind of satirical western because of the word Lasso for a few months), so I’ll explain the plot: Jason Sudeikis plays a D2 (American) football coach from Kansas (named Ted Lasso) who gets hired to coach a British Premier League soccer team without having ever coached soccer. Alarmingly, this concept is actually based on a series of NBC Sports commercials from 2013 where Jason Sudeikis plays “An American Coach in London,” and yet, despite being based on a commercial, Ted Lasso is a fantastic sitcom. It packs in multiple jokes per minute, and each character has a great, cartoonish attribute that makes them an invaluable part of the ensemble. Plus, it takes its character motivation from one of our best sports movies, Major League — the owner of the the team Ted has been hired to coach is trying to tank the team to get back at her ex-husband, whose only true love is the soccer team. But Ted Lasso is a relentless optimist, determined to help his players and their team be their best selves.
Ted Lasso and his #2, Coach Beard. C’mon, don’t they look fun?
I understand if you’re still not sold. So I would like to offer this official review from The Ringer which explains that, against all odds, this show rules.
P.S. If there are any other Mumford and Sons fans out there (forgive me), the music and theme song for the show are courtesy of frontman Marcus Mumford.
Donation Corner! (For You to Ignore or Engage With As You Please!)
Hello! Welcome to the newly established Donation Corner of the Good Links! Which you are free to ignore or engage with as you please — it will live at the bottom of the newsletter!
Here are your donation opportunities for the month:
Puentes De Salud - a 501(c)(3) organization that promotes the health and wellness of Philadelphia’s rapidly growing Latinx immigrant population through high-quality health care, innovative educational programs, and community building.
Racial Justice Philly - a fledgling organization fighting for racial justice, which I am specifically suggesting this week because they’re doing fundraising for another “groceries for philly” event, which brings groceries to Philly communities in food deserts.
The Marian Anderson Historical Society in Philadelphia is on its last legs thanks to a devastating basement flood — they’ve been unable to qualify for COVID relief and one of its employees is trying to raise $40k to save it.
P.S. If you have an organization/mutual aid fund/individual in mind that you think would be good to highlight, feel free to email me directly with information about it!
P.P.S. Why three places each week?
The first donation opportunity will always be a a 501(c)3 organization that I have done some due diligence around to try and ensure they’re a real non-profit organization that 1) does good work and 2) is tax-deductible!
The second donation opportunity will be a mutual aid fund (s/o to the politics good link!), which FYI is probably not tax-deductible.
And the final donation opportunity will be an individual in need of funds who has a GoFundMe or a cashapp (or however the kids are accepting funds these days) where you can donate. Also likely not tax-deductible. Note: I’m going to do my best to share GoFundMes that have not yet reached their goals!
The Interactive Bits (Interact with me!)
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