Although the ‘awakening of long buried hurt’ overlaps, the feelings here are…. different….

Meet Punch-kun , a baby Japanese macaque/monkey that had me fighting for my fucking LIFE at 9 am sharp.

For the (blissfully) uninformed, Punch-kun, a (now) 7 month old patootie, was initially abandoned by his birth-mother, (now) raised by zookeepers at Ichikawa City Zoo, given an Ikea Orangutan plushie as an emotional support ‘animal’(so like… ‘human’ for him??) and since has been filmed getting dragged, scolded, beaten, tossed, flung, and generally tormented by his fellow brethren.

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The context, layered for the gods like baklava, gets more and more harrowing the deeper you go within. ‘Subsequently, he was abandoned by his mother, who lacked interest in raising him’ in itself is enough to make a grown-up (unlike myself #youngho) sit down and check for 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can….. Before you even get to the ‘present’, you are already at the precipice of emotional turmoil. ‘Who lacked interest in raising him?????’ LACKED INTEREST? YOU BIRTHED HIM!!!!!

Side note: The zoo’s statement that they hoped visitors would “support his effort rather than feel sorry for him” is a perfect mirror to how we selectively ration our empathy. Support his “EFFORT”… EFFORT??? That is a BABY right there, and you’re trying to label his survival instincts as “EFFORTS”????????

(Barely) Moving on, we’re introduced to ‘Oran-Mama’ (government name Mrs Orangutan Mother), the Ikea plushie entrusted with his ‘wellbeing’.

The most heartbreaking bit of it all, to me (even beyond the abuse), is watching Punch-kun clutch that plushie with the grip of someone who has nothing (else) to lose. Mind you, the plushie is absolutely lifeless. It is only the alleged association of it being his ‘mother’ that makes him cling. Not to make this about me, but this is lowkey what it felt like opening up to my mother about homophobic bullying growing up. I will not elaborate, I love my mother despite it all (Ladybird, 2017) and this essay isn’t about me (for once). Or…. is it????

Now get to the hellish bits where Punch-kun was introduced to the ‘Salty Spitoon’ (his enclosure).

According to the internet, “he is subjected to normal, harsh social conditioning by other monkeys. Admittedly, the zookeepers did ‘their best’ (war flashbacks), and Punch-kun was introduced to the existing monkey group in a similar way that most of us were introduced to the world — unprepared, emotionally under-resourced, and (emotionally) holding something soft for comfort. They also say he is not truly “hated” (THEN WHY DO THEY ACT AS IF HE OWES THEM MONEY) but rather subjected to normal, harsh social conditioning by other monkeys. The videos of him repeatedly reaching out for a hug and being violently rejected awoke something deeply angered and feral within me. “Lacking a mother to teach him strict troop hierarchy, he fails to understand social signals, leading to rejection and “bullying” as the troop tries to integrate him.”….like okay we’re expecting WAY too much from a baby. And maybe.. just MAYBE, too much from ourselves too….

I couldn’t help but wonder (yep, I’m doing it again), a world adept with monkey business, almost smugly mistakes clinging for weakness. We’re taught to release, but nobody taught us where to land. Through every enclosure never built for us, every social signal we misread, every troop that weaponised our setbacks, we’ve made ‘numbness’ our religion and quietly agreed to ‘let go or be dragged.’ But if ‘monkey see, monkey do’, why do we all then secretly have a ‘plushie’ of our own? And if it’s ‘not my circus, not my monkeys’, why does witnessing this feel like a ‘punch’ to the gut?

Honestly…. I’m not really ‘wondering’… I know exactly why…. God forbid a girl wants to feel a little Bradshaw sometimes and don her scriptural Manolos.

ANYWAY…..

It’s because we’ve all been ‘Punch-kun(s)’ at some point(s) in our lives. What makes this ordeal all the more painful is this ‘livestream’ of his humiliation and then having to fight our own minds to somehow accept the things we can not change while wanting to change the things we can not accept.

In my (shallow) dive, I read about Harry Harlow’s experiments in 1950 (TLDR: White Men being White Men) wherein infant rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers and given two surrogate ‘mothers’: a wiry (literally) one that dispensed food and the other, a soft cloth one that did… nothing (at least for us). The baby monkeys chose the cloth mother. Clung to her when frightened. They chose warmth and softness over sustenance, just like Punch-kun, and maybe also like us?

How else does this overlap with us? Running back to the familiar bitter ex? Expecting new tricks from the same old rabid dogs? Choosing the familiar pain over the terrifying possibility of better — or just quietly, shamefully, settling?

Somehow, always, we are desperately running to the soft thing. In our hearts, we are all scared little monkeys clutching something warm in the enclosure of life that keeps dragging us across the floor. We are all, in some deeply embarrassing yet deeply human way, Punch-kun.

Enough sweet talk and relax those tented brows of yours… It’s time to be messy

Garnered sympathy towards Punch-kun, to me, is not necessarily JUST a ‘aww poor tormented baby’ moment. We as observers are human, and we are also… incredibly narcissistic….. (Ouch)

We felt compassion (dare I say simply?) because we saw a ‘mirror’. A mirror to our vulnerabilities, a mirror reflecting our past (and present), a mirror held uncomfortably close.

The hashtag #HangInTherePunch trended. IKEA Japan’s president personally donated eleven replacement plushies (because of course our consumerist minds could only fathom giving the monkey 11 fucking ‘mothers’) People cried. People made fan cams. A baby monkey with a stuffed toy became the unwitting mascot of every person who has ever tried, been rejected, tried again, been dragged — literally or figuratively — across a floor, and somehow kept the plushie.

But here’s where I want to slow down.
Remember the narcissistic bit I spoke about?
There’s something more to unpack here….

Aside from the added parasocial projection of our own unmet attachment needs onto a small primate who did NOT consent to being our emotional avatar, I can’t help but notice this ‘empathy economy’ that Punch-kun has found himself absorbed into. As if he needed any more of life’s burdens… (he needs a GUN (for legal purposes, this is a hyperbole)).

Funnily, the same internet that ranks, rates, judges, discards and drags actual humans, is now going feral for a helpless monkey many miles away. Don’t get me wrong, despite our narcissism, we are definitely capable of juggling and holding multiple complex emotions. But how much of this ‘concern’ do we actually extend to where it matters?

Again, don’t get me wrong, I’ll take ANY shred of empathy in these trying times. The overarching sentiments are certainly positive; unfortunately, with a few exceptions, as seen below

(Am I going to hell for laughing at the last one? I promise I feel for the monkey though)

Back to the ‘mis’directed empathy… It feels like, to put it gently, the internet (read: us) finds it easier to love things that cannot answer back.

Punch-kun cannot log in and have a cancellable take (I would add him to my close friends tho, IMMEDIATELY).
He can’t disappoint us politically (looking at you…Moo Deng >:| ).
He can’t weaponise incompetence.
He can’t therapy-speak his way out of accountability
He may never actively feel the burden of having to please us, and eventually, he may just be forgotten.
But what he CAN do is be a figment of our projections.

All he does is ‘cling to his plushie’ despite it all, and we get to feel good about ourselves for caring without any of the actual inconvenience of intimacy. I have said it once and I’ll say it again, ‘Price of community is inconvenience’. The kind of real connection that actually heals the Punch Kun in all of us. But it costs something. It requires showing up. Being dragged occasionally. Choosing the ‘cloth’ mother even when she can’t offer you anything immediately useful.

Anddd what about Punch-kun himself? What does he teach us as the unwitting prophet of our collective wounds?

I may have been a bit harsh criticising the zoo in asking us to support his ‘efforts’ (still hate them a little bit tho but whatever). They want everyone to support his ‘efforts’. Not pity him. That distinction does a lot of heavy lifting.

Unfortunately, being pitied keeps you small. It doesn’t disregard your circumstances, but neither does it help. Pity frames Punch-kun as a tragedy. A motherless, rejected, perpetually-dragged victim whose story ends in either uncomfortable acceptance or chronic heartbreak. Pity is passive, pity is voyeuristic. Pity is the equivalent of watching his misfortunes, going “aww my baby :(“ and scrolling away right afterwards.

But EFFORT, that’s a bitch to be reckoned with. Effort implies agency. Effort humanises (monkeyises in his case??). Effort implies that Punch-kun is not merely a victim of circumstance but also a participant in his own story of trying, failing, trying again, plushie-in-hand on his own terms.

It may harden him. It may make him morally corrupt. It may make him a tyrant in his realm. Fortunately, it won’t make him an incel (looking at you MEN). But all we can do is respect his efforts.

Making it about me (I, too, am a baby monkey on the inside), I think about the things I held on to when the enclosure felt hostile. The people I clung to despite actively harming me. The bad (yet comforting) ideas that took me to places I wouldn’t go to without a gun. The coping mechanisms that left me slightly worse off. But also the soft things, the warm things, the plushie(s) I still hold close to me. I wonder if the advent of hyper-visibility (owing to the Internet) ever put me on a pedestal by others. Did they respect my efforts? Was it just drama to them? Were they the active tyrants? Or were they just apathetic? Did they watch me blossom (or harden) and grow appreciative? Do they see me as a whole or am I still a projection of their ideals?

I may never know, and honestly. I do not want to.

Maybe that’s the most punch-kun thing about us all, we may never know who is watching us. We perform survival and call it living. We cling to our plushies and call it coping. We get back up and call it resilience. We do not owe anybody a redemption story, and yet we persevere. We get up, we hold on to the soft thing. We try again, not because anybody is entitled to our persistence, but because, underneath it all, we still want to be let in. We still reach for the hug, knowing it may not come.

Okay fuck me that got dark. Sunshine, rainbows, kittens, happiness yaaaay. LIGHTEN UP damn it.

I started writing this, as I start most things, from a place of mild chaos and a tweet that lodged itself into my skull. I end it, as I end most things, without spell checks and perchance regretting oversharing.

Just remember. The enclosure is loud and often unkind. Clutch the plushie. Try again. You got this.

Thanks for reading Dambiss Mag by Chaitanya.
Subscribe if you’d like more of this specific affliction.

I deeply admire my intuition when it comes to deducing, or rather,r extrapolating think pieces from internet brain rot. A singular tweet has prompted this entire article. One of those that instantly become load-bearing walls of your lexicon. A string of words so singed into my cerebrum that it can only be sedated out of me. Without further ado, the tweet in question…

The LAYERS within this gem of a tweet… A ‘Rosa Parks Stan Account’ presents us with a rather unethical conundrum, and then we have the iconoclast Hedi Slimane being the poster child of this rebellion against the ‘norm’… MUCH to think about here…

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I doubt anybody is oblivious to the concept of ‘twinks’. The internet’s enduringly favourite trinket just after the Labubu. From being revered in mythology, to having their presence immortalised in paintings during the Renaissance and Neoclassical eras, right up to being photographed, scantily clad, by the local (up and coming creep) “photographer”, twinks have heralded eras of disruption, enchantment and erosion since time immemorial. But this noticeable and well-documented recognition of ‘twink death’ seems to be concurrent only with the digital Age of Aquarius. Unless we haven’t yet fully translated the Harappan Script or overlooked the unstudied hieroglyphs. Wouldn’t be surprised if Cleopatra had a solid harem or if a village was razed in a war fought over a twink.. A certain je nai se quoi that can only be experienced instead of described.

In the interest of education, Wikipedia loosely defines a twink as ‘a gay or bisexual young man with a slim build and youthful appearance.’ In my words, a twink is an amalgamation of physiognomical privileges; a living carcass of bones with a snappy attitude wrapped tight in skin with just enough flesh to sustain life and a polarising bravado that either inspires or irritates. An almost sickly build with charming boyish features, the reckless abandon of young adulthood, seldom with its ramifications; a kid-dult if I may call them so. Notoriously outgoing or mystifyingly inscrutable, it’s really difficult to describe a twink without making them sound… mythical. Such magnanimity in such tiny bodies. ‘Well-behaved twinks seldom make history’, and our scriptures are proof of it. The modern-day definition of twink has generously moulded itself to loosely encompass heterosexual males too, but the physical requirements are still stringent as yet. Eligibility for the Rush MV Casting, simply put.

Now let’s look into what makes these (us..???????) Twinks an entity of interest?

The most obvious one is their alignment with conventional colonial beauty standards. Despite the garb of inclusivity, a token twink yet remains a slender white man with the social capital of beauty. Troye Sivan has found himself as a representative at the epicentre of this cohort, and the cluster is still dominated by his likes- Timothee Chalamet, Connor Franta, Joe Locke, a young Tom Dale,y etc. The cover image of the infamous NYT Article, ‘Welcome To The Age Of The Twink’ garishly renders a ‘paper-bag’ test through a collage with only FOUR out of THIRTY-SIX of its ‘model’ twinks being BIPOC (five if you look closely). Stringencies of physical composition aside, BIPOC often find themselves in a muddled spot or find themselves as outliers in the twink discourse. ‘Ethnic’ features or traits aren’t necessarily welcomed.

The traits of having pale skin, slimness, hairlessness and soft features have been historically seen as ‘superior’ and these standards have been determinant of who is allowed to be visible, valuable and desirable.

I can’t help but notice solid overlaps between Twinkness and White Womanhood. Though I’m nowhere near an expert on the latter, a blanket perspective on social narratives and chatter is enough to realise their existence at the confluence of hyper-visibility, vulnerability, cultural centring and weaponising victimhood as capital. These might just be generalisations, but both seem to equivocally be seen as a ‘default’ in their respective demographics, with over-representation in media, monopolisation over conversations by overriding actual violent lived experiences, and both are complicit in the reproduction of exclusionary standards.

The perks of twinkdom specifically however, alike most socio-political ones aren’t necessarily inherent but rather bestowed. Their behaviours are leniently excused, identities unfairly deified, and they often get the much larger slice of the empathy pie (the eating here is likely only theoretical). Life becomes somewhat easy when you exist at the intersection of beauty, fragility and non-threatening queerness. Twinks’ gender presentation or performance is often androgynous and borrows the best of both binaries. Soft Masculinity allows them to exercise the privileges of maleness without much of the accountability. Many a twink is equally complicit in misogyny (along with other gay and heterosexual men) without repercussions, owing to their ‘boyish’ charm by aestheticising fragility. They borrow the ‘acceptable’ bits of femininity but present them in an almost ironic way to subvert the repercussions of misogyny, a burden often felt and experienced by BIPOC women (inclusive of butches and trans femmes). It’s like Femininity but only in drag. This performance halts at the threshold where reverence finds hindrance.

It’s no surprise that the subcategorisation of twinks leans towards the chaotic and increasingly unhinged. ‘Demon’, ‘Goblin’, ‘Feral’ and ‘Messy’ are some of the better-known suffixes and safe to say these labels are just as eponymous as they are self-explanatory. Volatility has situated itself at the centre of a twink identity, and most of it is permissible on account of age, privilege and preference. I would even say twinks are ‘expected’ to be the harbingers of chaos, with the twunks too busy portioning their meals, the daddies too busy at their jobs, and the bears too cosied in to bother. One must also remember that most ‘twinks’ (in this context or not) are also adult teenagers or young adults. While most of their mischief can certainly be attributed to age, there’s also an undertone of deliberate ignorance in their modus operandi. Existing within and as a part of a larger queer space warrants a baseline of extrospection. Most of these labels aren’t assigned in thin air. While the self-referential camp, aka leaning in heavily on the twink trope and deliberately ‘gilding their lilies’, may be responsible for this notoriety, these behaviours, like most, seldom exist in a vacuum and have direct consequences on others. “That Evil Twink Will Pay” doesn’t exist in a vacuum either. From spewing fat phobia, misogyny, ‘shade’ and even irony-laced longing, twinks have sanctified their behaviour and the world seems to celebrate it, at least most of it….

But what if this meanness is an armour? Criticism without compassion is just cruelty, and it’s time to reel in the meanness a bit. Despite the plethora of privileges as aforementioned, twinks can and do still exist as a minority. Don’t let the chronically online feral ones distract you from the real consequences of being a slender effeminate man. This very ‘commodification’ of their identities can also be looked at as a very real survival mechanism. Going back to the ‘bestowed’ privileges, their hyper-desirability isn’t necessarily their own erotic agency, but rather a reflection of the desires of others. They tread a tightrope instead of crossroads where their gender-performance has to delicately balance expression without demanding, balance desire with passivity and balance attracting power with claiming it. Not too much of either. Portray the aesthetic, but don’t be the author. A ‘twink’ identity is redundant without an audience. It is, like much of ‘gender’, only a performance.

This act, alas, also has a finale.

An identity forged on a bedrock of the ticking sands of time. What happens when one’s too tired to perform? When age is against them (us?). When real adulthood sets in. What happens when we hit the twink-spiration date?

At this point, I have to admit, this essay is somewhat of a cry for help. Having recently turned 27 and despite only briefly being a ‘twink’ in most senses, I’ve been made well aware of the incoming ‘twink reaper’. Maybe as a silver lining, I DO actually know what it means to be a not-twink, but I have doubts about its familiarity with my current brethren. When an assigned withering identity has shaped your life so dramatically, what happens when it inevitably goes away? What happens when the ‘twink’ dies but the body lives? Who exactly is ‘killing’ the twink, and what can one call this transition?

Well it’s nuanced…

Akin to most (queer) life experiences, this process of twink death, though certain, is not a linear one. Its onslaught is assured, but the timeline isn’t. There are myriad factors responsible for this, and instead of looking at it as a singular violent change, it’s better understood as erosion. ‘Twinkness’ can be looked at as a coalescence of privileges and predispositions, and each silo within gets hammered away at a different pace. Different reasons too..

The most obvious one in my eyes is just ageing. The allure of the once ‘boyish’ charm is bound to fade, and willingly or not, one has to get serious and more ‘adult’ about things. Being gaslit into believing Michael Tucci (31M) playing Sonny (Highschool Teen M) in Grease is the closest I can imagine to witnessing a mid-30s twink twinking. Now again, there’s no fundamental morality in being a twink, so calling out its ‘retrofit’ shouldn’t be seen as ridicule. I blame the force of habit of only witnessing twinks twinking young and our obsession with youth in gay male spaces. We associate growing older as a ‘loss’ instead of evolution, and that’s where this derailment of identity and self begins.

Bodily changes as a by-product of age are obvious and unless you’re trying really hard to ‘maintain’ yourself, you’re bound to look different and HEY GUESS WHAT…. THAT’S PERFECTLY NORMAL. Here’s where the nuances of twink death show up with Twinks ‘dying’ and moulting into muscular ‘twunks’ or athletic ‘jocks’; some may take the ‘daddy’ route, and on the other end of the spectrum, some may become ‘femme elders’. The former are all exempt from the ramifications of twink death because they’ve made the shift into another hard silo of desirability. Twink-Death is nothing but the death of desire and a convoluted form of capitalism’s obsession with newness, intertwined with the commodification of queerness into rigorous roles.

I speak for the twinks turned ‘average’ or ‘normal’ body types. The ‘outcasts’ and those lacking the social currency of sensuality. Where do they find themselves? Fundamentally, desirability is a bitch that keeps on giving. Lauds you with attention and love when you look ‘right’ and instantly spews vitriol when you digress. Even if the subsequent isn’t obvious, validation being snatched away in an instant is bound to feel violent. They find themselves in this destabilising limbo where the previous adoration festers into invisibility. Their identity feels suffocated. Their former self lingers like a ghost, but no doors are opened. The gaze moves on, but the desire to be seen remains stagnant. There’s an envelope of anonymity surrounding the self, and the cloak of invisibility chokes the sense of self out of you.

This ‘death’ and ‘loss’ feel like a social homicide. Who exactly is murdering these twinks? Who is the twink reaper?

Well, the same people who once lauded and celebrated the twinks. Other twinks and the twink chasers. Their gaze turns cannibalistic. It feeds on youth and discards it when it no longer mirrors desire. Twinks are made obsolete not because of their personal failures but are murdered for not aligning with the volatile metrics of relevance and desire. It’s a purported ‘norm’ but feels more like an intentional allowance of decay. The status quo dare not be challenged and there’s very little room at the top (figurative and literal - the waistlines on these demons I tell you)….

Back to the tweet that started this all, even in ‘death’, the twink is expected to perform. 

Once the walls of androgyny collapse, the (former) twink is expected to quickly adhere to either of the gender binaries. The dumbbell, representative of the hyper masculine and the wig, an odd representative of the repressed feminine. Unsurprising how we’re immediately pushed into choosing sides between this dichotomy. Almost as if the only exemption is for those with a radical and solid sense of self or those who have submitted to the labels and tags assigned to them.

Reinvention or Resentment: What’s the path ahead?

Unfortunately, we have no cultural roadmap to navigate this grief. We’re left to our own devices and therapists to navigate this mess. What does one do when faced with ego death? Twink Death is ultimately a forced rite of passage. It’s a reckoning. Some resist, some oblige, and some transcend it. There’s no easy way out of this coercion. What lies next is entirely up to one’s judgement and decision-making, but it’s not all bleak. There is meaning, life, bravery and agency beyond hyper-conformity. The sheer power of unbecoming of what was told and becoming what one truly wants to be. There’s nothing as joyous as reclaiming authority over one’s own life and identity.

Despite the think piece preceding this, I’m just as unsure as what my ‘twink death’ will bring. Unintentionally or so, I have certainly reaped the benefits of twinkhood, and maybe life will tell me exactly what they were in a few years. But hey, if that means being free of any labels and forced performance, let the twink death begin. May it be sharp, sudden and cathartic. Strip away the gaze and burn the expectations. Not a death, but let it be a clearing. End it with grandeur, and may the (former) twink rest in peace.

God may have made the earth in 7 days, but men have sworn it hell every day. For themselves, by themselves. Being a gay man exposed me to many a horrors in this abyss, but surprisingly, I left unscathed from some peculiar ones. (He) (is) br(OK)en! Slowly dropping the burdensome rigour of conventional masculinity has given me enough time and more to get a birds-eye view on things, and let’s just say things are… funny. Our (as in ALL men, YES ALL MEN) phallic predisposition inadvertently takes us all to places I personally wouldn’t go to without a gun (a massage gun at the very least) – I mean, even god rested on the 7th day. So one such accidental algorithmic detour landed me in the land of ‘Moggers’, and shiver me timbers is that a road that (should be) less travelled…

Now, what exactly is ‘Mogging’? Merriam-Webster defines
‘Mog’ | Verb as “To look or perform far better than someone else”……

They further elaborate with
“Mog is a humorous Internet slang term meaning “to outclass,” used especially to describe one person as appearing far more attractive than another. It was originally used to praise one man as being taller, more muscular, or more stereotypically handsome in direct comparison to another man. Related forms included mogger, moggee.”

A rather weird take on a straight man’s virtual pageant…. But moving on…

Should you dare, a (consensual & at your own risk) search for ‘mogging’ on Instagram flocks you abreast with hordes of men that share eerily similar features- chiseled jawlines, hollow cheeks, small noses, ‘Hunter’ Eyes, thick wavy hair, and they seem (claim) to have it all. Everybody is trying (their worst) to morph into this singular carb-starved alpha entity that, apparently is, the ideal to be (ew).

Let me get a bit more specific about the average mogger. He is an overgrown late teenager or young adult with a protein abuse problem and has a secret desire (rather a conviction) to be the next Patrick Bateman. His closet is primarily athleisure compression clothing with a side of ‘old money’ outfits (from H&M in all likelihood; no shade tho). He’s very enthusiastic about ‘fitness’ and the proof of this pudding is ironically NOT in the eating; causation derivative of his almost sickly lean build. Not to forget the overarching sense of ‘superiority’ over others. At least, some permutation of these, if not all.

Ex-children with god complexes and unrestrained access to the internet, what could go wrong?

Well… so much and so easily…

Now, what is the ‘Pythia’ of these moggers? ‘Mogging’ promises to take you to the ‘next level’ through a superficial physical transformation. It wants to chisel away at your ‘imperfections’ to reveal the real ‘alpha’ hidden underneath, and it seeks to address almost every problem in life, with one clear solution, aka’ looksmaxxing’. Exactly what it sounds like, looksmaxxing wants you to do everything in your control to ‘max’ the ‘looks’ of your physical attributes. And what does that get you? Allegedly everything, or so they say…

A reluctant scroll through any moggers profile instantly reveals that the end goal of ‘having it all’ really starts and stops only at your physical attributes. The premise of every video is either a current process of looksmaxxing or dunking on your old self (old self being 16-17 years of age btw) and comparing how ‘far’ you’ve come or just making fan cams of yourself. That’s it. They’re convinced that physical beauty is all that one needs to get anything in the world, and that’s all they really talk about. I do have to agree partially, ‘pretty privilege’ and all, but there are no real conversations beyond that. It’s almost like they believe that the only thing holding them (or anyone) back were their looks, and now that they’re ‘maxed’, life is up for grabs. There’s echoing validation from within their bubble, and this clusterfuck is nothing but an echo chamber for multiple dumb bitches telling each other ‘EXACCCTTLYYYYYY’.

Long story short, men are admiring their own beauty but making it everyone else’s problem.

But what’s wrong with wanting to look better? Isn’t it ironic to punch someone down who is doing ‘improve himself’ while cheering on self-acceptance and self-love? It seems like unserious child’s play… Seems harmless, doesn’t it? Well, I really wish it were….

Here’s where we enter the scarier bits beneath the razor-sharp jawlines and washboard abs.

A core tenet of mogging involves a great deal of shame and humiliation, mostly towards your (or their) past/present selves. It encourages you to really go out of your way to pick at ‘physical flaws’ through a rather unkind ‘self-assessment. Now, how, why, and who the fuck (pardon my Marathi) is defining these ‘flaws’? Let’s take a relook at the characteristics of the ‘ideal’ man. Wide and sharp jaws, small noses, wavy straight hair and ‘hunter eyes’? Dangerously close to white supremacist beauty ideals and these are fellow Indian men deifying these. Safe to say the ideal mogger is nothing else but someone genetically ‘blessed’ and whose features are aryan-aligning. Big bioessentialism and bigger yikes!

These ‘flaws’ have an exaggeratedly wide range, from the obvious high body fat and skin concerns, to far-fetched ‘low bone mass’ right up to brazen “””prognoses””” like ‘recessed and narrow Maxilla’ and ‘bad Sphenoid alignment’. Some even claim that ‘short height’ is an issue (and there is a ‘fix’ for that of course). Excuse me????? Dare these audacious and borderline anorexic freaks tell me (or others) about any of this in person. It’s no surprise they (supposedly) look their best with their mouths shut. Let’s keep maxing that silence…

Now that we’ve fixated on the flaws, we move on to the fixes.

The ‘fixes’ are termed ‘recomp’ or recomposition. Addressing skin concerns seems the most valid to me and while there’s no morality or merit in having good skin, it’s alright to want to want clear(er) skin. There are no definitive and detailed fixes addressed by them; just the generic hydration and clean eating blah blah…

Recomping the face is admittedly the muddiest and frankly scariest of them all. ‘Big noses’ and ‘narrow’ or ‘weak’ jaws are deemed absolutely unacceptable and the fixes look like they’re straight out of the Medieval European medicine handbook. Squeezing and pulling at your nose, biting on rubber balls, pushing your jaw upwards with your tongue, sucking on your thumbs while pulling your jaw forwards, literally ‘knocking’ at your cheekbones to ‘bonesmashing’ aka lightly hammering at your jaw in hopes of it recomping back moggier… Why did they stop there? What about a Roadrunner and Coyote style roadroller flattening yourself entirely? You might just take rebirth as Zeus. (For legal purposes, this is a JOKE. DO NOT put yourself under a roadroller omgggggg you bitches are crazy).

Not to forget the absolutely tin-foil-hat meets pseudo-science terminologies like ‘Mid Palatial Suture Loosening’, ‘Myospot Suction’ and ‘Vomer Pushing’. Holy Mother Meredith Grey, save us and save us all…

The ‘body’ recomp is the unsurprising 2013 Tumblr th*nspo, for HIM tm. Dangerously low calorie diets and absurd calculations for protein requirements. But they’re somewhat obscure (and maybe even in denial) about it. Being fat is rebranded to just being ‘inflamed’ and is countered by ‘debloating’. Some even claim to have hacked getting ‘taller’ through stretches and losing weight to help with growing taller. Hunger-curbing gallons of water are drunk with bland meals that could be mistaken for Rottweiler feed… I mean, sure, idealise the coloniser’s ‘beauty’ but at spare your palettes please ?!?! Mind you, no scientific or nutritional knowledge or info backing any of this. Dumb bitches telling each other what? EXACTLYYYYYY….

Thinking about this process reveals something inhuman underneath. The jargon of ‘recomp’, ‘optimise’, ‘structure’ and ‘order’ feels clinical and impersonal, devoid of any emotion or humanity. Like a scientific rigmarole established to get a very certain outcome if the input is right. It’s no surprise that looksmaxxing has roots in the Incel community, where one’s masculinity is lauded in an echo chamber and almost demands that it be devoid of all emotions and empathy. Men are becoming machines, and this subtle dick measuring contest has created a bubble by itself where men are convinced that THIS is the way to live the best life possible.

Aside from the personal implications and harm, where does it place itself in a societal context? Circling back to its Incel circle origins, mogging could be looked at as the first stepping stone into the ‘Manosphere’. The Manosphere is simply a cumulation of blogs, posts and online communities talking about men’s ‘issues’ and ‘rights’, with most conversations being about the apparent ‘marginalisation’ of men and how feminism ‘has gone too far.’ The horrors of the internet and the horrors against women, all combined into a single putrid digital space where there’s no real escaping from.

The end, aka the Manosphere, with the stepping stones eventually culminating, takes quite an interesting journey. So-called ‘harmless’ mogging is how most get indoctrinated, and all moggers assume at heart that their physical appearance (or its lack thereof) is what’s holding them back from ‘getting’ the woman of their dreams. One tidbit that I intentionally skipped before is that amidst the plethora of mogging tips, tricks and tutorials, you will find at least a handful of videos where each mogger is somehow trying to get to his dream woman while simultaneously disregarding and disrespecting them in the process. ‘She liked my hair, so I cut it off’, ‘she said I look good clean shaven, so I grew a beard’, ‘she said xx so I did NOT xx’. I don’t know who this ‘she’ is, but SHE definitely needs to find someone better (Girl, stand UP!!!). There’s a pervasive theme of presenting yourself as indifferent towards women and their opinions while secretly wanting to get their attention and validation. The men who were sent to Hunt and Protect are playing hard-to-get on god’s internet.

You will also start to notice how none of them address or talk about women’s real needs or reasonable demands. While yes, this might be out of context in many ways, but a lot of this posturing and apathy is again only towards the superficial things. Nowhere have any of these ‘women’ (I say this in quotes to refer back to the ‘she-s’ and not because I’m a misogynist) expressed any clear desire to want a man with a defined jaw and visible abs. Be it conditioning from the Media or just a shallow understanding of things, men/moggers are convinced that women truly WANT these specific traits that they are chasing to achieve and completely overlook the real emotional bits. Honestly, it’s a much easier task for them to work on their muscles instead of their minds because the former gets them immediate peer validation and the latter is simply too complicated. “Bullying works and I’m the proof”... like okay sir I see you dunking on your ‘old’ or ‘before’ self thrice a week... Nobody here hates you more than you hate yourself… and I’m sorry… but also stay exactly 6 feet away from me at all times… your negative self-talk is wirelessly misaligning my chakras…

Be it selective bias or a lack of critical thinking, moggers eventually get stuck in this loop of ‘bettering’ themselves (their looks, to be precise) and keep getting showered with validation within their circles. Nowhere in the list of followers or comments do you find women praising or validating them. It’s either other moggers affirming their actions or desperate mog-aspirants seeking guidance. No woman that I’ve known has ever expressed a real desire for a partner with only apex of the physical attributes. Do you know who actally wants a partner with those sharp jaws and big arms and bumpy abs??? FAGGOTS!!!! Pardon the slur, but these moggers are inevitably making themselves desirable to gay men (who they vehemently dislike btw.. story and think piece for another day). Women (if I may allow myself to speak for them) are evidently very happy even with the ‘average’ looking men who are kind-hearted and empathetic to the emotions. Alas, they are men and are bound to disappoint, but you get what I mean….

Also interestingly, most of the content around mogging is hyperindividualistic and the semblance of community is scarce and mostly only online. The entire process starts and stops with just them. If anything, moggers merely attract the attention of other moggers, perform and act to impress other men, hence creating a bubble for themselves. Cue the Male Loneliness Epidemic. The ‘getting women’ aspect gets lost almost instantly, and it reveals the real horns of Male-Centricism and looks-based social Darwinism. Men are ranked by their genetic traits and assign themselves a fixed ‘sexual marketplace value’ of sorts. The Chads (aka the ones at the top of this pyramid portray themselves as ‘Womanisers’ and create an aura of invulnerability. The lethal downside is, this paints women as hypergamous objects of desire, and it becomes seamless and rather ‘straightforward’ to paint ‘all’ women as such simply because this becomes their only exposure to the MOs of the opposite sex. There’s a constant stream of comparison, resentment and anxiety that manifests itself in disastrous ways of ‘Red Pill’ (men are useless unless dominant) and ‘Black Pill’ (some men are doomed by birth) thinking, where women become the inescapable victims of patriarchy and the male brain.

On a slightly lighter note, very serious facet of mogging that I find outrightly hilarious of how these moggers very seriously send their ‘progress’ or pictures of their bodies and faces to these so called ‘mogging coaches’ and there’s a very public dissection of their looks by these coaches where they get praised or rated…. I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a bigot or homophobe, but GAAAYYYYYYYYYYY… Men’s Virtual Pageant as afore-fucking-mentioned.

This hoopla of rating and ranking and humiliation-by-comparison reinforces a ‘zero-sum-competition’ view on life. What’s meant to ‘uplift’ one ends up developing deep-seated insecurities and an obsession with male hierarchy. This constant state of ‘lack’ and being forced to persistently and perpetually mog is bound to be disastrous for self-esteem.

That brings me to the part seldom spoken about… What if when mogging…. Doesn’t work?

Maybe before that, does mogging realistically work?

Well, there is no ‘real’ evidence of these ‘solutions’ working, and there is certainly no proof of it being sustainable. Yet to witness a grandpa mogging (with) his son/grandson, and may the floods wash us away before our eyes are witness to this. No, but seriously…. why do they seem to ‘work’ then? How did the narrow-jawed guy get a wide jaw? How did this ‘beta’ become an ‘alpha’? Is there something that we’re overlooking?

Well yes! Going back to the physiognomy/demography of an average mogger, you realise that in most of their ‘before’ pictures, selectively bad ones to emphasise the ‘transformation’, they seem… rather young.

Bushy eyebrows, round cheeks, patchy facial hair, dress code hair… oddly similar and oddly reminiscent of something or some ‘stage’ of life. And then my divas is when you realise that MOST of the burden of mogging is carried by the literal, biological and inevitable…PUBERTY!
P U B E R T Y.

These children (of god) have rebranded growing up into something bigger than what it is!!!! Genius marketing, I’d say…

A lot of the ‘changes’ promised are ones predetermined by puberty. I do agree that not ALL of these are mere byproducts of puberty, but you HAVE to consider that these ‘moggers’ are barely legal adults with lots of disposable time, raving metabolisms and immune systems capable enough to work around the shortcomings they’re being fed.

It makes perfect sense now that moggers are just young adults who have been influenced by beauty standards fairly early and have resorted to disingenuous ways to look and feel ‘better’. And mind you, ‘looksmaxxing’ is offered as a singular best way to transform yourself both physically and somehow mentally. I mean, it seems straightforward, doesn’t it? Lean body (aka beauty standards) = Social Desirability, Social Desirability = Easygoing Life (somewhat), therefore, by the property of transitivity vested in us, we declare Lean Body = Easygoing Life. Pretty Privilege and Desirability Politics disguised as cheat codes to hacking life.

If I had to offer some leeway, I would say, as aforementioned, these ‘moggers’ are just ex-teens with no real understanding of the world, just echoing what fits their belief systems the best. Admittedly, life is somewhat easier when you can align with the beauty standards, but this illusion is bound to shatter sooner rather than later. The immaturity is glaring when these inexperienced moggers (surprisingly, a lot of them not even in their final ‘form’ yet) offer personalised mogging courses to help ‘transform’ one for the better. Blind leading the blind, except some of them have abs..

Now what if when mogging just…. Doesn’t work?!

At this point, I’m sure that it doesn’t, and the selected few who someone did make it work (by grace of genetics or maybe privilege) are the ones taking the spotlight and claiming it to be effective. I may not be a medical or looksmaxxing professional, but I do know a fair bit about its fallacies. Getting a bit vulnerable here, but I have myself undergone a softer version of looksmaxxing (before it had a label). Got a grip over my emotions, lost a bunch of weight, walked a few more steps and lifted a few heavier weights. But it didn’t do much except change me physically, and that’s not the real shortcoming here; it’s rather the only intention. The real transformation was brought out by 45 minutes of uninterrupted, steady-paced psychotherapy, a loving and accepting community, and hours in the cerebral gym undoing the done and doing the undone… Despite the physical changes, the emotional wounds needed their own time to rid themselves. Makes me wonder about the emotional fragility of these moggers. It’s apparent in the negative self-talk and constant comparison and ranking. Radical introspection is warranted.

Seldom do these moggers talk about emotional and mental health, and again, we’re looking at their lives through a very curated lens. So much importance is given to the ‘controllable’ physicality that no one bothers asking or thinking how they might actually be in real life. Are they pleasant? Well-mannered? Empathetic? Kind? HUMAN even? One must imagine a mogger happy, and hey, if that’s what they’re claiming, so it must be true, right?

I doubt it….

To be under constant scrutiny of oneself by oneself and others, a looming fear of ‘falling out’ (owing to the unsustainable methods and fixes), realising that there will always be a chad at the top and the whiplash of reality on finding out that none of these methods are really helpful, effective or rather… true… Mogger crash outs then present themselves as anon / faceless profiles on the internet calling women all sorts of names and writing fanfics about their dream woman who is accommodating (read: subservient), understanding (read: compliant), and emotionally available (read: exists solely to meet their needs without asserting her own).

And funnily, when women don’t end up falling for these moggers, guess who gets blamed? WOMEN!
Divided by self-made social hierarchies, united by misogyny.

To lighten the mood, I do have to specify, none of this is personal. Hate the sin, love the sinner. When you have swaths of directionless men grasping for straws to make sense of things, all it takes is a meatheaded messiah to guide you. It’s a mix of outdated belief systems and indoctrination that has misguided most youth, and eventually, they are all in for a shock. Only time can tell about the men that once looksmaxxed… To the moggers, I have nothing against you personally, and bless my stars, I don’t know any of you personally. Try a 3x12 split of introspection with a superset of critical thinking. It will do so much more for you than a protruding masseter ever will.

Conclusively, there’s no easy way of undoing this. No sling will bring this Goliath down, and honestly, I cannot think of a solution. It’s centuries of conditioning against one discerning mind, but thankfully, there are one too many of such minds. I wish I had something to offer, but there’s wisdom in knowing that I may not be the best one to answer that. If anything, I guess empathy, body neutrality, and a strong sense of identity beyond your physicality will lead you down the right paths. Share your vulnerabilities and build your communities. And yeah, certainly look at women beyond merely objects of desire.. That might help… or not ….I’m not doing your emotional labour.

After almost certainly ruining my algorithm in researching for this, I hope I’ve made sense, or some difference, or nothing at all. I don’t care!

Lots of Love

Oh skincare!

My personal favourite invention of mankind right after the wheel, the vape and the hot pink iPod. From striking stones for fire to tubing miracle creams that heal one and heal all, it’s truly remarkable how far we’ve come as a species The witches and their potions never really ceased to exist, they just market them for $199.99 a pop now. Conversely they’ve managed to secure insecurities that have never been insecure before!

(Undereye) Sticks and (Guasha) Stones may not break by bones but that marketing jargon will certainly hurt me.

This quite literal topical miracle of the 21st century has me in an emotional and financial chokehold. McDonald’s Sprite may not kill a small Victorian child, but a separate cream just for elbows will certainly confuse her (and me too, on most occasions). How lucky am I to have been born in an era where it’s possible to PEMDAS the life-benders off with Retinol. Life has never felt more like a cosmic lettuce where we’re hyper-aware of our emotional and epidermal layers. How blessed are we all <3.

At its essence it’s about caring for our skins. But what came first? The skincare or ‘skin’ care?

Sparing you (or rather anyone with a basic sense of discernment) the etymological deep-dive, the rigmarole of skincare has radically evolved from being a mere deverbal noun of the act of ‘taking care of your skin’ into an almost symbolic and self affirming stipulator, where all roads lead to self fulfilment and where the real treasures (for Big Skin) were the complexes we acquired along the way. Pores have never been tighter, and the supremacy selling us beauty standards has never been whiter.

The haves and haves-not have turned cares and cares-not.

But how exactly did we find ourselves here? Cold Cream connoisseurs turned Cults certainly shouldn’t be the zeitgeist. But it is. And it’s scary.

We’ve found ourselves in a time where skincare (perhaps thankfully) is almost an indispensable part of our lives. Ideally, ‘the balance must be respected’ but there has been a MORE than slight misuse of the Substance TM. From Mario Badescu-fying the 2019 VSCO girl to ‘sleeping ugly to wake up pretty’, I still fear we may NOT have seen it all after all.

Why has skincare become such an integral part of our identities?
At what point does an extension become an essential?
How does an accessory become an absolute?

And are we (rhinoplastically or not) cutting off our noses to spite our faces?

I’m sure you’re asking, “what sadist deduces cynicism from cosmetics?” Me! But as always, to me, it’s 7 layers deep (wink wink!)

Where did this boom begin?

Historically, it was about achieving pale and blemish-free skins. From the Egyptians ‘not ussing’ themselves from their pyramiding counterparts to the Elizabethan-Era gentry white-lead masking their pox (divas would’ve lovedddd a star-shaped pimple patch) skincare seems to have always been an agent of social stratification with the implied undertones (no pun intended) of racial superiority and biological essentialism.

This pursuit, in the 1900s, led to some wild bathroom-cauldron potion-making, with mercury, arsenic, and lead making guest appearances in skincare in an attempt to achieve a pale complexion.

I’ll take the trade-off off microplastics over whatever the hell THAT was. But it’s not so much of the actual products that scare me (except for La Mer; no shade like who hurt you) but rather what we’ve made it into.

In recent history, skincare had its main character moment right during the Rona-issance World Tour of 2020 (the Covid19 pandemic for the literate ones not here). Amongst the many horrifying realties we faced (hehe), the intentional isolation of the time really brought us face-to-face (heehee) with ourselves. When not masking, our faces, which we so fervently basted to maintain an ironic sense of authenticity, were all there for us to poke, prod and ponder over. Just like slugs, we were all slimy, misunderstood and naked.

We were all broken and we were all looking for a fix.

Our perma-itch to scramble for a sense of normalcy led us to experiment with our faces and, in a way (intrinsically or not), mobilised us to start ‘mending’ the fundamentals.

I’d also partially attribute our new-found love of slathering and lathering to the Lipstick Effect, which in essence suggests that we gravitate towards more frivolous and more accessible luxuries like lipsticks and cosmetics during a period of economic downturn. But somewhere, were we also trying to be bullish about an emotional upturn? Retrospectively, it’s hilarious and almost sardonic that when the world was up in plumes of pathogenic flames, we found respite in slapping ourselves pretty. Some convoluted perspective of wanting to be the most fuckable one at the then yearned vaccination booth queue.

But it all went downhill when the first influencer was sooooo excited to partner with Big Skin to make the most of our me time!!! Use her code PandemicPamper20 for 20% off your sense of self! xoxo

What began as a mere ripple soon became a storm.

It all became about having the most elaborate routine and trying to undo every marker of our mortality. When we were not Dalgona-ing our coffees and Chloe Ting-ing our bodies, we were persevering for the next-best fix. It stopped being about our actual skin and faces and instead became a desire to be, even remotely, a part of something bigger than ourselves. We found ourselves in this rejuvenation turned rat-race where somehow everything we’ve ever done was wrong, and Big Skin had the Big Fix.

Again, I have ZERO qualms with skincare as a concept and practice. I enjoy the process thoroughly and, like most, am absolutely elated and thrilled with the impact it has on our skins and moods. But when a 14-year-old poses with her Sephora Anti-Ageing haul… I’m okay to be weirded out… right?????

RIGHT!

Big Skin then started selling all-encompassing kits of hope and youth with a freebie of trepidation. The path to sublime skin is an unhallowed asymptote, and we were (MADE) more aware of our flaws than ever. Somehow, someone always had the magic eraser to get rid of it all. We were the Ordinary pawns being sold the Glow Recipe to easily Face Reality, herded by influencers who Rhode on their Drunk Elephants. Everybody became skincare experts overnight and sold us simple solutions to complex life problems. Under the facade of being #authentic and #real, we were presented with yet another beauty standard of daring to baring it all with (y)our ‘real’ skin.

Here’s where we go back to the biological essentialism aspect.

Skincare suddenly had a face. It was porcelain, self-effacing, serene and could do-no-harm. It almost seemed to good to be true and almost certainly, the ‘skin’, which likely was just a byproduct of genetic predisposition, was paraded as the ideal. Just when the ground was levelled with who concealed the best, it became about who has the least to conceal. Who has it the best underneath it all. Maybe she is born with it, maybe.. it’s mayhem!

Divas living in glass skins were throwing Guasha stones and toners at others! With a discount code of course they’re kind (of greedy) like that xx.

This manufactured consent for untaintedness is yet another facet of the line manufactured bleached beigification of life - devoid of undulation, uniqueness and personality. To keep us steady on this trajectory, we were offered the slop of solace with #skinpositivity, where YOU diva, are PERFECT the way you are for 3 days of the marketing campaign but here’s someone better suited for the rest of the actual year xx.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the concept of skin positivity, but when actual ‘normal’ faces are quirkily celebrated for brownie points of inclusivity, it’s a BIG problem. Ideals and reality can’t coexist because the former is held up by fabricating faults in the latter. When such ideals are rampantly promoted and paraded, it is easy for us to fall prey to their tactics, and maybe great skin is all we needed to be happy. Create a problem and sell a heftily priced aspiration!

It’s yet another form of disguised privilege, after all.

Speaking offffff privilegeeeeeee….

We’re back to the ‘not ussing’ parts of it.

Skincare has made its way as a class signifier in many apparent and sneaky ways.

Let’s knock out the obvious parts. Ridiculously priced elixirs that infuse technology, biology, cosmetology and somehow theurgy. Most of its ‘vanity’ appeal comes literally from placing it on yours. Well, that’s how it’s marketed at least! Maybe they just radiate positivity or at least a pretence of it. All the air of godlikeness in just one airless pump!

Now to the sneaky ways.

As a consequence, the skin has to speak for the skincare, but why stop there! The growing trend of skincare-on-the-go guised as convenience and life-hacking is conveying more than what it pretends to. Planes, buses, trains, cars, walks, museums, supermarkets and all; no stone unturned. I’m all for creative ways of making our lives just that much easier, but all THIS is not about that.

In trying to convey the ‘amiss’ in your life of the next-best, we are also being warmed up for (while ironically being distracted from) the bigger and real-er misses. On closer inspection, you’ll notice most, if not all, of these are carried out in very personal, sanitised and controlled spaces. First-class seat tray tables in airplanes, ventilated backseats of sedans, bathrooms of boutique hotels. All of these warrant space and, in turn, individuality which is afforded to only few. They’re less of alternate perspectives to convenience, rather more of a subtle gloat with more aspiration to chase. It all seems like a part of a much larger stratagem in action that’s intended to keep us on our toes, purchasing momentary cures for actual abyssal problems.

Then come the elaborate hauls and spreads and routines. Lip balms on keychains and phone cases, logo stickers on iPads, extravagant PR kits, under-eye masks and sheet masks as literal accessories and identification through brand-led aesthetics…. We’ve STILL not seen it all.

Heavy is the head that wears the red-light LED mask amirite girlies?

But wait, what about the actual ones doing it unconventionally? Doing it in crowded buses and sardine packed trains or those nesting in not-so-pretty vanities? What are they offered? Crumbs of inclusion! We're so blinded by this aspiration—one that has us walking around like "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"—that the unaware among us become agents of Big Skin, shunning and ridiculing those who dare to portray a version of their reality that isn’t so Pinterest-perfect. And a lack of representation in media is simply the cherry on top.

We’ve come full circle in pitifully applauding those ‘bold ‘enough to post about their very real (and unironically very normal) lives and bravoing and more-power-to-youing them.

In the words of Nicki Minaj - These bitches washed up, but ain’t no fucking soap involved!

Quickly summing it up, why is this a cult? Well, it checks all the boxes! Charismatic leaders that enthral us with their magic fixes, intense devotion from their followers, secretive teachings of the ‘undiscovered gem that has taken them by storm’ and the psychological control and assertion of lacks and ever-ready posing with the quick fixes being preached to the congregation.

As always, I ask, is there hope?

As an avid enjoyer, connoisseur, and slather-er of skincare, I’ve had to make multiple conscious detachments from this ever-growing cult of skincare and remind myself that this mere addendum to (my) way of life can’t make itself an identity of its own. There will always be a forgery of ‘needs’, and it’s really up to our discernment to not let this get to us. Take what YOU think you need, and just for precaution, see if there’s a cheaper dupe available. It likely does the same job with just clout missing from the ingredient list. Don’t shy away. Skincare isn’t inherently unhealthy. The flip side of the coin does get you actual healthier skin and hey, who wouldn’t want that! In all likelihood, your routine is just fine the way it is…Go outside and touch some grass! And do NOT do your skincare there…….

Moodboarding, or as I like to call it, foraging in the age of Aquarius often leaves me puzzled once I get over its aura.

Now, before the title throws you into a loop making you wonder what kind of a sadist deduces catastrophe from a mere collage, allow me to finish my thought.

Simply put - moodboards, physical or virtual, are a manifestation of and for manifestations where you piece together objects, ideas, narratives, faces, pieces etc etc, the end goal of which, is its materialisation - tactile or metaphysical. There are moodboards for clothes, shoes, homes, lives, aesthetics, haircuts, boyfriends (ew), diets (ewwwww), and even careers! Who knew there’s all that to wish for and who-er knew-er that it warrants stylising?
It’s a harmless little ‘addiction’ where no fantasy is too big and nothing is out of reach.

Aspiring for a Scandi-Portugal colour-pop wardrobe? Moodboard it away!
Your dream kitchenette? Take inspiration for free. There’s plenty where it came from!
The new snazzy haircut? Other divas ran so you could crawl.. Off to the salon!
Making coffee? See how beautiful something so mundane can be…..

Brought to you by Pinterest. Pin it to Win it (#unsponsored)

Now that the collage has pasted itself dry, back to the catastrophe bit.
I write this with a big slice of consumerist fatigue on my not-so-curated platter.

To me, this birth-child of Pinterest has always hinted towards something sinister. This modern-day transmutation of Rocco and Romanticism, aimed at taking our attention away from reality, often serves as an opaque veil to disguise and distract one from the consequence of consumerism all while ironically steering and guiding us towards it.

After another round of (unrelated-ly) binge-watching Sex and The City, I couldn’t help but wonder, in a digital world of easy and endless access to aspiration, banality is bound to be a thing of the past. Where limitless experiences and experimentation should be the only way forward, why do we subconsciously curate a facade, trying to be something or someone we’re not? Why do we let these boards decide our mood and exactly when, do we put a Pin in it?

In my early early days of Substack-ing (a few months ago; I am but a child), I thought Substack would act as the much-needed respite from being bombarded with the next hottest thing to have in your arsenal. Enough with these all-encompassing VIP-entry-ticket hottest sneakers that let you into the sanctum sanctorum of the uber-cool IT girls.
The Sartorial Social House if I may call it so.

Pinterest (and Instagram by extension) persevere to act almost like a cheat sheet that helps one climb the Sisyphean Social Ladder of Panache where everyone is the manifestation of IYKYK and if you don’t know.. hurry! There’s lots to lose.

Confused about your next outfit? Pinterest it.
Confused about sprucing up your room? Pinterest it.
Confused about the next hottest thing? Pinterest it.
Confused about your identity and place in the world? PINTEREST IT!

The deeper I nosedived into Substack and foraged my own berries of interest I inevitably found myself bound by vision boards and moodboards, which to me, subtly say ‘Well, something’s amiss in your life and THIS is it’

I am very cognisant of the fact that it’s mostly, a 100% pure and unadulterated Projection. It’s impossible that all the art and desire in the world is curated strictly as a vendetta against me. And hey, it’s just people living their lives!
Everyone’s foraging their own berries and twigs, so why AM I making this about me?

But if anything, I’m going with my gut here. There IS a reason it destabilises me slightly and there HAS to be something deeper. Didn’t take so long before it became crystal clear. It was, is, and will always be… about consumption. Period.

Because at the end of the day, it isn’t just about who curates it the best. It’s about who owns the best.

I find myself in this dichotomy often - I either look at Pinterest as a strict outwardly aspiration and make peace with living a derivative life from it, or look at it as a goal, as something to look forward to rather than shy away from.

Life imitates art but when ‘art’ wears only designer, maybe it’s time to step back, stare, scrutinise and segue towards reality.

It might just be a self-inflicted ‘grapes are sour’ moment and each passing day makes me less and less Pinterest-ed in it all. Chasing to know the next best without a semblance or possibility of embodying it seems a little…… fruitless.

Again, as a precedence, I confess, I often do enjoy loom-scrolling on the fashion side of Pinterest. The only chew-and-spit of the high-fashion world I’ll ever partake in, and what’s meant to enrich interests only develops one kind of taste - a bitter after. That downer of reality is no joke.

The solution is almost evident. ‘Stack your bread yo!’ And I wish it was this simple. I wish I could Payola my desires. But I wish it stopped there.

Moodboards are glaring evidence of the growing gap. Well, not the GAP (that’s being mood-boarded too; fun times indeed) but the gap in access, aspiration and permission. Who exactly gets to be cool and who doesn’t? Why is derivation, deviance? What does cool afford us? Who pieces the fragments together the best? Are we just running the haberdashery of curation while revelling in none of it? Miu Miu cardigans with Matcha on a Monday. Does it signal just that? What does being ‘cool’ afford you? There has to be something deeper

Allow me to explain

‘You are what you eat’ has transmuted to ‘You are what you consume’.
A moment on the lips forever on the hips. A moment in the mood but the reality makes you brood.

Now, how does this little change-of-synonym transmute the essence so radically that it warrants a 3500-word think-piece?

Let’s go back and examine the essence of moodboarding - aspiration.

There are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see and there are aspirations everywhere for those with voids to fill.

Aspiration, since the origin of societies, has always been commanded and controlled by few. Scarcity makes the heart desire harder indeed. There’s always a room at the top and moodboards have always ensured to remind us of it. The cogs of the capitalist world are ever-turning and ever-churning the newer and nicer things and people to look up to. SS26 in calendar year 25, time and style wait for no one!

This charming pochette keeps revealing many trinkets of desire.

Endlessly. Constantly. Tirelessly. But again, aspiration is what you make of it. It’s cool if THEY say so, and moodboards seem to be the agent of this sweatshop-manufactured consent.

After every loom-scroll, I find myself… lacking. Lacking the next cool shoe or the next cool jewellery trend or the next new aesthetic or the next new kitchenware or the next new version of myself the next new next new… just very.. lacking.

It takes me a physical shakedown (head, arms, and legs with an intense stare at myself in the mirror) to get me out of this funk. But what exactly am I missing out on? Being cool? Well maybe, but what’s so cool about being cool? It’s just an Aperol Ailment (swapped Champagne Problems for a more delectable metaphor). I mean what’s the worst that could happen? One less trend in the stock keep? Five fewer awes and gawks at my lewk? But that’s it? Can’t be that bad, can it? Well, you see brands and individuals alike have taken absolute liberty to bombard us with what’s new and what’s cool and have ENSURED that the ‘uncool’ is shown its place.

But what’s again the consequence of being ‘uncool’.
Whomst doth I needeth to proveth anythingeth toth?

Isolation. In a radically self-centralising world, isolation is the most painful consequence of it. Then arises the question - why do I want to surround myself with someone(s) so shallow that all it takes is a misstep in trend hopping to be completely thrown off?

It’s not that simple.

Social Currency (no not Bitcoin) has afforded one a LOT more than realistically imaginable. Humans aka Social Animals need socialising to live and being online has made that access easier than ever. I’d let OOMF perform heart surgery on me before I ask someone IRL to move out of the way on a busy street.
I GOT THOSE OOMFS I DON’T PLAY ABOUT!!
Enough about me. Back to the catastrophe bit.

In a (bubble of a) world where aesthetics are identities, it’s easier than ever to fall off the wagon, and like trends and closets, humans are easier to replace than ever. Social Currency affords one access. Affords desirability. Affords respect (a semblance of it mostly). It affords human interaction. It affords to build a wall of aspirational inaccessibility AND affords one invulnerability.

If bigger the hoop bigger the hoe, then bigger the collection… the more vulnerable the hoe??? (Am I THE hoe??? We’ll get to that another day)

Are we just guarding our vulnerability with the facades that we put up? Where grounding necessities like housing, groceries and community are growing more and more inaccessible by the day, are we fighting tooth, nail and budgets to guard our remaining most prized possession of vulnerability?

One seldom bothers going beyond the ‘coolness’. Once labelled cool - one’s exempt from the tribulations of establishing any other aspect of their identity. You’re everything yet nothing but cool and other aspects of your personality are then just ‘quirks’. This manufactured coolness and its aura give one access to sartorial and emotionally gated communities, but it’s a very literal high price that we pay for it.

‘They not like us’ - well yeah because they’re cool and we’re not!

Now to the question - ‘Who gets to be cool?’

Conventionally, the privileged. Physically privileged, monetarily privileged, intellectually privileged, geographically privileged. The. Privileged.
I won’t get into this much because the evident beauty standards and the multiple steps backwards in the light of recent political events speak for themselves. Despite this growing trend of conservatism, there are many yet few who continue to be ‘uncool’ and live life on their own terms.

But but but.. ‘If everyone’s cool, then no one is!’ Coolness’ is a ‘White’ Elephant (in every sense of the term) and there’s a massive price of upkeep. The easiest way to make someone’s line shorter is to make yours longer, and that’s the rat race. We might be inclined to believe that things are merely material, but this warfare is psychological.

Unless you’ve spent a great amount of time fine-tuning your algorithms and making it VERY evident that ‘I’m not like other girls’ most cycles of trends and aspirations are monolithic. Centred and catered towards the aspiration of the rich thin white body and any deviation is acceptable as long as it checks some if not most of the boxes.

‘Coolness’ is now a controlled experiment almost and the messages are getting subtler by the day.

The influencer that lives her soft life? Probably has millions in types of accounts we don’t know.

The shredded gym-fluencer bro who manages to stay lean all year long? Spends more on his body a week than most make in a year.

The fashion icon who seems to have the perfect outfits but somehow never repeats a thing? Renting or Wardrobing.

This might seem like a dig at the individuals while everything before has been about moodboards, but again, moodboards are a man-made construct. They’re after all snippets of real life (or fabrication thereof) and have managed to set in motion rampant consumerism and smeared an illusion of almost-fatal consequence if you fall off.

These fabrications distort our sense of reality and invariably our sense of self. It’s a very easy and rather intentional outcome to feel out of place with life and self after a loom-scroll.

This brings me to the subtle messaging.

With everything around us feeling so unpredictable and shaky, the Big MoodBoard manages to snag at our sense of identity while simultaneously offering a quick fix. Nobody’s perfect except what’s on Pinterest, and if you don’t have it, you better go and fix yourself.

Big Wellness - aka matcha, vitamins and co-ord sets, has managed to convince us that the sole motive of life is to fix. Fix your face, fix your body, fix your habits, fix your life. This evangelical messaging has convinced us that the Original Sin is just us being us and the salvation is the next purchase. Much akin to Godmen, Big Moodboard has successfully managed to distract us from the real and bigger societal problems and have convinced us that the solution is (not) so simple as fitting the standards. How? That’s a personal problem. Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made; just make it ‘aesthetic’.

It’s easy to get lost in the bubble of it all and it demands radical introspection, which, like most necessities, warrants privilege.

But is there hope?
Was it and has it been shit all along?

Absolutely not!

The other side of this coin of awareness has opened up more avenues than ever. We’re witnessing things now with ease that were almost impossible to do a mere 20 years ago. Beyond the force-fit identities, we’re now blessed with words, labels and visuals that help us understand ourselves better. It’s allowed for avenues such as remote stylists, designers, and curators. Distantly so, but we all feel like we belong. The castles in the air, now have better floor layouts than ever!

With it all, beauty blooms on us daily, it allows us to see an alternate perspective to life and sometimes.. romanticising isn’t all that bad. There’s nobility in radical awareness but there’s kindness in letting things be and if anything, we owe that kindness to ourselves. If everything is anyway going to shit, I might as well be dressed in my best while witnessing everything crumble. If there’s respite in viewing everything through rose-tinted glasses, they might as well be Bayonetta.

Hacking my own branch while sitting on it… but make it Vogue!

All said and done, maybe we’re living the reality of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ where we’re coerced into upholding this coolness under the fear of rejection. After all, almost everything boils down to wanting to belong. Unfortunately, the very essence of living has been commodified and we all do our best to scrape and piece together, a semblance of fulfilment.

Will it ever end? When do we put a metaphorical pin in it?

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. I can’t predict the future. Hopefully neither can you because I’m not sure we’ll like what we see. Maybe just operating from a tad bit more sense of awareness is the antidote to it all. In a world where ‘to repeat is to be radical’, maybe let’s repeat this new-found knowledge of reality to ourselves until we’re fully convinced. Amid these blaring messages, living your truth doesn’t seem easy, but it isn’t impossible either. Hopefully, there will soon be a world where there’s pure joy in just existing but I understand it’s very hard to imagine.

How do we imagine it? We moodboard it!

Before you have anything to say about the morbidity of the title and everything it represents, please know that I regularly shake and shame my mind out of this thought too. It doesn’t help that I decided to write about this at an arguably low trough of the ebb and flow of life, but I believe stellar words and heightened emotions are often the correlation that is the causation hat the world seems to often deny. So who is she (yes SHE.. cheers to women in mafle dominated spaces) and how does her eventual and likely death have anything to do with what I feel at any moment?? Rather real question (that I ask myself too) is.. Is it REALLY that deep? What queer joy could one possibly derive from this and is it ‘queer grief’ or grief received for BEING queer?? Allow me to be a little Dambiss here.

For context and at the risk of oversharing with complete strangers , here’s me - born and raised in Mumbai, attended a State Board Curriculum school who (in)voluntarily decided to go for extra coaching, (colloquially tuitions)for Math and Science. The teacher, Mrs D, was deemed the best there is and tutored only six students every academic YEAR (okay miss lower acceptance rate than Harvard!). Anyway, I’ll spare you the rest of the details and if you haven’t already figured, I had a horrible time at hers. Being closeted, tall, fat and femme never benefitted me and for some (not so) absurd reason(S) she hated me.

For some added context she was about 70+ at the time, 10 years ago, about 5’3”-5’5” (strongly believe still so),a frail yet force of nature. A very headstrong, skilled and learned woman who (confusingly) was quite ahead of her time yet confined by the bounds of tradition and familiarity. A staunch feminist who could command most rooms that she was in; alas homophobic. Win lots lose some I guess.

I do remember most of it and the kindness was scattered and scanty. I mean hey, it’s not easy being (around) a flamboyant diva (myself) but it’s honest work I guess. Most of the taunts towards me were snarky comments about my weight, my demeanour, my lack of a mathematical aptitude, my flamboyance, my speech, my limp wrists, my hair, my annoying pen-pencil, my handwriting, my emotions, my laugh, my nose, my walk, my talk, my neck, my back, my…my… me? ME!

GRANDMA HAD IT OUT FOR ME OMGGGGG… In the clerb we NOT ALL fam I guess!!

Back to something that is serious; I do remember being restless, anxious and hating myself.

Why did she do it?

Projection? An instinctive response to the unfamiliar? I was I just that obnoxious? The same deduction of Galileo’s hatred (could not stand a bad bitch)?

WHO KNOWS

Just a gentle reminder that I have decided to pour my heart out about an INTRUSIVE THOUGHT. Let that be made abundantly clear. A small part of my self-aware and five-years-into-therapy-brain does, strictly rationally, understand why she may have inexcusably acted the way she did. Never about me, always about her and her prejudices.

I’ve always wondered why this specific thought? Why her amongst the plethora of homophobes that unwillingly surrounded me and my business? Why death? Why not just a sharp pain in the lower abdomen left untreated and eventually catching up? And mainly.. why STILL after all this time?

Let’s get into my relationship with death here.

My grandmother, 2012. Painful. Guttural. Unprocessed.

I lost a lifeline and I’ll stop at that.

But this, and death in general, started to signify something….. something finite. I was made aware of the temporariness of life and death became a catalyst for transmuting feelings into their superlatives. Posthumous labels and anecdotes are often painted very black and white. Despite the tint of kindness draped over the memories and actions of the departed, feelings about them eventually stabilise into polarised ideas of them. Almost as if that becomes an excuse to ‘talk shit and NOT get hit’.

Why talk shit posthumously? Rather why wait? The world is your echo chamber and gossiping is free. Maybe if she hears it, she will regret her actions and I will be avenged… But what if.. she believes she’s right?

All this waiting and longing for a morbid yet predictable act of nature just to…. not be invalidated? Seriously? Was therapy just about warming her couch and paying to yap?

I have come to a certain conclusions and yes, I will eventually tie everything to queer joy in queer grief..

First is powerlessness.. What are queer people if not control freaks shimmying and ‘grapes must be sour anyways’-ing away from bouts and instances of powerlessness? There’s sufficient reason and evidence behind why we’re valid in feeling this way. Growing up had always been some form of getting the shorter end of the stick while simultaneously being expected to pole vault over your shortcomings (read queerness) with just as much grace and efficiency if not more.
Openly or allegedly gay? Be too masculine to compensate!
Openly or allegedly gay? Let your career compensate!
Openly or allegedly gay? Actively distance your queerness from your life’s motivation to compensate?
Openly or allegedly gay? COMPENSATE! ATONE! REPENT!
It almost feels like you’re handed frayed reigns to your own life and somehow expected to reign life just fine.

What I remember the most from my time with Mrs D, was feeling powerless. Everything she said and did to, towards or about me… was… justified? Rather encouraged.

(at this stage I do realise that she simply happens to be an object of easy projection for all that’s and everyone’s that’s wrong.. but I’m in this too deep so I shall proceed with feigned unawareness)

Maybe reclaiming the narrative and my story allows me a semblance of gaining control. Back to my compensation, she always reminded me that I have a lot more to compensate in life for than my homophobic heterosexual peers do.

So what role does her death signify here?

It feels almost like an excuse to reclaim the narrative and act all gritty and shirk it off as something minuscule. “Oh how sad.. anyway can I get this in size M please?”
Maybe its to illustrate a facade that it was all superfluous and how could all of that have EVER gotten to me.. (yeah.. 2500 words and years of brainpower of ‘gotten to me’ but that’s between us squirrel friends)

Would it allow me a chance to act nonchalant and finally end that chapter on a ‘the cold never bothered me anyway’ note?

Would that stand as a testament to my evolution in life?

Would that be the moment where I can finally openly express ‘joy’ and make those around me wonder just how much of a tyrant really was she?
Would that be my ‘gotcha’ movement (for legal reasons it’s not what it sounds like.. I still hope she lives whateverly every after)

Many a great romance and revenge movies and novels have embellished this hopeful future for those wronged. The good guys always win.

But then.. why chase the public identity of ‘good’?

Who really cares if I’m ‘good’?
Those who do, hopefully already see me that way.

Then who exactly do I want to look good to?

Drumrolls pleaseeeeeeee….

Myself! (Insert mind-blown noises)

Years of shame and guilt and reining with frayed ropes conditions the queer mind to aspire for the ideal. Not necessarily the objective ideal, but the ideal that’s expected of us. We’re allowed and sanctioned a finite vessel of joy and we MUST usurp wisely.

According to this article, Queer Joy is “Happiness against insurmountable odds, and being your authentic self.”

Personally, in the earlier days of my life, I had to strictly handpick events and moments where I allowed myself to experience queer joy. I was and am not yet the ‘radical kind’ as I hope to be. There are many odds overcome, many battles fought and once you tackle the present and repress the looming future of queerness.. the mind is bound to wander into the past.

It’s a metaphorical crossword where we intersect reasons and justifications to make and extrapolate a sense of closure. It always seems like the next link will bring the answer and the next ‘gotcha’ shall be the sweetest.

Is this a never-ending spiral? Is there no word-limit to this verbose mess?

What does closure get you?
Queer Joy?

But would something so beautiful rely on a foundation of something so morbid? Or are our expectations justified? Do me wrong and die?

Maybe a simple sorry will do!
But does a lacuna of it warrant someone’s life to end?

It all seems like a Rubik’s Cube in plebeian hands.
Yes, there are the turns and sometimes the colours connect. Maybe we get a whole face right… But what’s looming in the background?
What about when we move to the next perspective?

Are we willing enough to reshuffle a closed chapter to make sense of the newly discovered?

WHERE
DOES
IT
END
QUESTION MARK DOUBLE EXCLAMATION

Being queer is so much more complex than understanding the motivations of a man in a skirt or a woman in a suit. So much of our life has been about submitting and making peace and excuses with what the quicksand of circumstances handed to us that eventually we either succumb or turn. This unwritten expectation the handbook of queer life binds into rationalising and accepting everything because.. that’s just the way things are.. But even a ‘girlfriend suddenly turned worm’ will turn.

Unfortunately, a lot of queer joy is still on the backbones of grief. Maybe we’re being petulant when normalise this or maybe everybody wants to get away with homophobia without consequences.

It may not be very evident but almost every queer person you know has two faces (maybe they’ve been putting the good makeup on the other one.. love ya Jinkx Monsoon)

Every queer person carries with them the grief of all that’s been and a mask to hide it all and create an aura of normalcy. It is not insane to warrant justice or reparations. Maybe it’s getting a bit too out of hand. But who set the limits? Why follow the tyrants’ rulebooks? When has accepting the norm ever benefited us?

As radical as this all may seem, all we, as queer people, demand is to be humanised. The metaphorical (and maybe literal) longing for someone’s death has always just been about being seen and treated as an otherwise normal human being. How bad is the world exactly that one’s humanisation comes at the expense of the loss of someone’s?

TLDR (and I’m thankful if you did R all this along) it’s always been about acceptance. A wishbone of acceptance thrown here and there does wonders for the fragile queer mind. There’s certainly a MUCH larger conversation already being had about this and we are certainly taking strides, some forwards and multiple backwards, in the right direction. But I shall refrain from preaching that here. I do not have the emotional or intellectual bandwidth for it at present. Maybe some day.

Rather maybe there will be some day that queer joy can just be. Some day, that queer joy will just be what it is and won’t be on the backbones of morbidity. Maybe queer joy.. will just be joy.

If this habit of vaping doesn’t take me out before that, I will gladly come back and refer to this substack as a hieroglyph of the past. The one that vividly spoke of the great terror that ceases to exist anymore.

After all, one must hope. We queers must hope. Without hope, there’s nothing and yeah.. maybe someday I will finally be at peace and Mrs D will still exist.

One.. must… hope…..

You will find me referencing and talking a lot in meme-lese and I’m not ashamed of it.

Not touting myself as a meme-messiah here, however, I have been told that my internet voice/speak is hilarious (+++ non-controversial) and I implore you to imagine me as a watered down incarnation of Pythia.

Apologies for this sidetrack, let’s back to business (partnerships)

You will find me referring to and switching back and forth between brands as individuals and Influencers. At the end of the day, Influencers are brands themselves. While they may not exactly be two sides of the same coin, from a consumerist gaze, however, they’re much of a muchness and I believe both fall prey to similar shortcomings.

Of course, there’s a clear power dynamic here. No individual has a sliver of influence (also read power) as compared to that of a million-dollar corporation trying to sell to you the next-best of everything. I am not trying to engage in argument Ad Hominem and desecrate identities of individuals with limited influence (Influencers); rather I talk about those (influential individuals) who are aware of their substantial platform and yet choose to turn a blind eye towards the unethical and choose to actively be catalysts instead of mere cogs in the wheels of consumerism.

History of Influencers

At an interview for an internship at a reputed Influencer Marketing firm, I was asked, “What do you know about Influencers?” I did my best and name a few famous folks and sprinkled in a little razzmatazz by saying “There have always been Influencers, we have just been calling them by different names. Gurus, Leaders, Presidents, Popes, Teachers and Preachers etc are all Influencers of their own kind. They just sell the next-best of different things.” Safe to say that I got the internship which converted to a full-time position and after nearly 4 years of complaining while being complicit, I think (and sure as hell HOPE) that I have seen it all.. because it’s not that rosy and pretty.

So who WERE the first Influencers? According to Google, it was the Queen and the Pope. Their influence began by advocating the use of medicine to the masses… I immediately thought of and saw the parallel

Welcome back Queen, she never died she just promotes Flat-Tummy shakes now!

Influencers have since taken many many shapes, forms, guises, disguises, professions, personas and more. A quick search on Google tells me that under the unending designer tarp of ‘Influencers’ stand Queen Elizabeth I, Albert Einstein, Coco Chanel, Santa for Coca-Cola, Taylor Swift and Addison Rae to name a few.

Juxtaposition or Just-A-Position?

The pope is in on influencing now. Pope Francis in his tweet has called Mother Mary an Influencer even. What is even real anymore? Have Kims and Kylies always been around? Who were the IG Baddies of Mesopotamia? Did Cleopatra’s Bob and Bang reveal truly gag ancient Egyptian gays?

Maybe the Etymology will help us understand better

According to etymology.net - (The word Influencer) It is a composition governed by the verb to influence, given in Latin as influĕre, composed of the prefix in-, from within, and the verb fluĕre, to flow, from the base given by the Indo-European *bhleu, to sprout or to flow.

What does this tell us? What exactly is flowing in and from within who? My take is that Influencers have always wielded the power to sway and convince you in ways that influence your intuition and intentions (not getting into the Illusion of Free Will here, I MAY sub that stack some other time) The ‘flow’ that we think ‘go’ with is carefully tailored and fabricated to make it seem like most choices are intrinsically ours and not a byproduct of conditioning.

What Exactly Allowed Influencers to Influence us? The Aura of Mystery.

Influencers benefit from /propagate their preachings via - Word Of Mouth. Be it your favourite YouTuber, that niche Fashion Critic, your local Guru who once saw God in his bread, your neighbourhood MLM Boss Babe (no shade to my Tupperware aunties, you’ve saved me and my belongings more than once), your favourite (secretly exploitative) Zero-To-A-Million Finance Maven, to heck, even the best Relationship-Advice babe in your friend circle who is singed with scars from a different type of ‘partnership’ (here) - have all always been influential because of their words and what they have to say.

Such influencing takes many forms and a lot of ‘actual’ professionals like lobbyists, critics, politicians and God-Men make careers from being ‘Influencers’. Influencing in its sinister forms is not beyond lobbying, hate-mongering, and cult leader-ing and sometimes takes very subtle forms like fabricating one’s identity and ‘posing one as what one isn’t to sell something that is not ‘one’ of their likes’ (which is very scary mind you)

For the context of this substack, I will focus primarily on Social Media Influencers as its the hottest, most happening and most visible form of Influencing.

Most of the appeal of Influencers is because of the aura of mystery and raises questions that we (not me) are too polite to ask

1. HOW does she afford it all?

2. HOW does she eat a burger and STILL look like this?

3. HOW is she always on vacation?

4. WHO is paying for her lifestyle?

5. Do these gummies REALLY work?

6. IS she just.. better than me?

I use ‘she’ here intentionally, not because of a misogynist vendetta; but rather simply because we, as a society, subject women to unfair amounts of scrutiny that their male counterparts have respite from.
You see being an ‘Influencer’ is considered icky because most associate that with female individuals. Their male counterparts take on a plethora of labels like Coach, Guru, Guide, Boss, Sir, Mr. etc and absolve themselves from the shame (that they’re complicit in causing) while reaping the same benefits of the profession/art/facade.

How Safe/Dangerous are Influencers really?

Influence works in many and funny ways. Picking up Kin Euphorics because it’s the ‘Bella Hadid Juice’ is because of influence. Buying the next ‘It’ thing without heed to an already dwindling bank balance is because of influence. Hating yourself because you do not look a ‘certain’ way is because of influence. Being okay with waging wars and hating someone for no real reason is because of influence.

Digital Influence is really a double-edged sword. The easier the access, the easier it is to influence. In this sub I am limiting my focus to influencers and influencers of conventional wellness and lifestyle domains, let’s not forget that influence is and can be a lethal geopolitical weapon.

Influencers and individuals ought to tread VERY carefully down this path and discernment is your best ally.

How do Influencer/Celebrity Endorsements Work?

On paper, it’s simple. With or without middlemen (agencies) brands reach out to ‘creators’ that they deem suitable to promote / sell their products. The process of selection is highly subjective; however, some basic quantitative metrics, such as followers (or subscribers) and engagement rate, which simply show what percent of your total followers actually interact with your content, are considered. Interaction can include Likes, Shares, Comments, Saves, Views, Reposts etc (it is highly platform-dependent)

Usually, the goal of any Influencer Partnership / Collaboration / Endorsement is to primarily generate sales. This often is an ‘end’ goal and brands, in an Influencer ‘campaign’ (oversimplification - how many total Influencers promote the same product at the same time), can tweak, stagger and alter content and choose different Influencers that align specifically with different marketing metrics in the Sales Funnel.

To put it (over)simply - Think of each content piece as a mini, virtual, static or motion billboard and YOU (Influencers) are the face of the brand for those in your town!

The most challenging aspect of any partnership is the picking and choosing of the right people. With policies and laws related to Influencer Endorsements getting stricter around the world, it’s extremely important to identify the right people to align your brand with, especially if you’re just starting out or are at a pivotal make-or-break point in your trajectory. In a world of rapid trend cycles, misinformation, cancel culture (of the unnecessary kind), and fads the right Tik can Tok your campaign out of the park. It can be extremely counterproductive too. Each corner of due diligence cut can (and empirically has) stack a high bill of crisis management.

So even with the stringencies and employing the best and most creative minds at work - why do most, if not all, Influencer campaigns just.. suck?

Where/Why Most Influencer Campaigns Fail…

You see, ideally, what you SEE is what you should GET and what are we seeing here? The reason why most Influencer Campaigns aren’t taken well is because people have started seeing right through the BS, and sometimes, brands just don’t care!

Watch this unserious journey unfold, explained via memes

If this tweet (X?) doesn’t explain the irony of it all, then god bless us all. Albeit a joke, this is precisely how most brand collaborations sound when trying to preach a ‘relatable’ message through outliers and aspirational cohorts. What brands need to realise is that a retrofitted narrative will almost always backfire.

You see, the whole act of ‘Influencing’ already puts you on a pedestal by others. There’s a reason why someone’s an Influencer. You can influence if you have appeal, if you have appeal - you live aspirationally, if you live aspirationally - you’re an outlier, if you’re an outlier - you aren’t like most people, if you aren’t like most people - you’re unique, if you’re unique - you can influence… and the cycle repeats.

‘Relatability’ should be used curated very very carefully. Nobody is at the expense of endless mockery more than someone (now exposed) pretending to be something that they’re not... Silver lining? You get to make more content about being ‘mocked’ and ‘bullied’ and find yourself amidst others shunned for similar reasons supporting your ‘noble’ cause and you then try to hold on tightly to the left over righteousness more and more and eventually go deeper into this rabbit hole and guess what’s at the end of it? HA! BIGTORY! The topic that has managed to amass the MOST audience so far.. All that glitters isn’t gold and this tale is old and now let’s look at some examples where pseudo-relatability TRULY backfired.

If you’re curious to read more about hilarious Influencer Partnerships that failed, here’s an article for you.

BRANDS. TRYING. TO. BE. FUNNY

I sketched this little flow chart to help you understand if you can be funny

To summarise

What’s The Tea On Brands Trying To Be Funny?

It’s nasTEA (I know I ate that). A multi-million dollar corporation trying to be relatable presents in itself is an oxymoron. Genuine humour from social media is produced by and within sheltering groups of individuals (focus on the word INDIVIDUALS) trying to escape the harsh realities (inflicted by corporations?) and finding respite in a doomed world.

A quick search on twitter (presently X) will only bring forth massive negative sentiments and almost no one, and I mean NO ONE Finds Brands Funny. Period.

This is what it feels like when a ‘joke’ from a brand account makes its way into my feed.

R/GA on twitter (presently X) perfectly summarises why we feel repulsed when brands try to be funny

You see, only most Gen Zs can Gen Z and make Gen Z humour. How many Gen Zs are there at the top……….???? zero

(Hint: To make your brand truly funny. Please stop. If persistent still, hire more Gen Zs at Senior Creative positions.. Let’s witness that for once and see how it goes)

Polished sanded-down PG-13 humour seldom slaps. What leads to most corporate humour being sanded down and padded to not offend, is brands trying to make jokes out of character and without any direct stake or relevance to the intended target.

What happens when a brand doesn’t sand down its humour?

This nonsense

In a now-deleted tweet (X?) Dbrand, a company famously known for making skins and cases for electronics, prided (hopefully not anymore) itself on being a very tongue-in-cheek brand whose tweets were (for a brand) funny.
Here’s where they took things too far. As a non-sentient persona, it’s natural for a brand to be blind to its own socio-political privileges (maybe cue to actually hire diverse people???) This instance of racist humour severely backfired and as ‘compensation’ the brand offered a sum of USD 10,000/- to the aggrieved.

Was that fair compensation? Who knows. Should Bhuwan Chitransh have taken it? Oh absolutely. Did he take it? Remains a mystery to me.

Let’s look at some rare positive instances of brands actually being funny (without trying too hard)

Clever. Smart. Simple. Moisturised. Happy. Flourishing. In its own lane.
This is Fenty announcing their status as a premier partner for The 2024 Olypmics

Here’s when brands were UNINTENTIONALLY hilarious.

Is this how brand humour should be? Let’s get a little philosophical.

Should brands, that create appeal by fabricating lacunas, that perpetuate consumerism and reap from the insecurities of those that they pretend to care for, be allowed to have the privilege of being joy bearers and have a rightful seat at the same table?

I will let the brainy ones debate this.

Till then

Respite. Solution Ahead? What’s the way to go?

Enough of being a Negative Nancy. All hope is not lost. Even though I FEEL like I have seen it all, I know that I haven’t. Influencer Marketing (Social Media only) is a relatively new phenomenon and if anything, it’s going to grow in importance over the years to come. A silver lining is that a levelled playing ground has allowed individuals from remote corners of the world to find their global community and safe havens. More and more people take pride in being their authentic selves on Social Media and have deservedly amassed a loving audience.

Now should some of these Influencer partnerships have been annulled? Absolutely. Should they ALL be annulled? No.

You see, not all Influencers are bad. There have been ‘Influencers’ working MIRCALES and have made knowledge, education, safety, law, medicine, politics, aid, reform, and communities more accessible. I’ll admit - I do have many ‘emotional support’ Influencers. I (blindly sometimes) swear by them and their words. If not for them and the ease of access that led me to them, I wouldn’t be the same person that I am.

Now what CAN we do better?

1. Brands:

   Keep it real and keep it simple. The Streisand Effect always shows itself.
   

2. Influencers & Celebrities Alike

   Be aware of your privilege, influence and impact. Inspire ethically and honestly
   

3. Audience

   Be discerning. Trust your gut. Things are and WILL be too good to be true here.

To better days ahead hopefully?

This is the second Sub that I have Stacked so far. If you like it please let me know, and if not then

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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Be it during group dinners, timezone-adjusted conference calls, incidental yet perhaps implorative tête-à-têtes or on a random hump day afternoon, we’ve all been confounded with the question, “Should we… start our own Podcast?”

For those who may not know, Oxford Dictionary defines ‘Podcast’ (/ˈpädˌkast/) as ‘a digital audio file made available on the internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically.’ It is also a portmanteau, a made-up word coined from the combination of the words iPod and Broadcast.

So why have I decided to sub a stack about it today?

The way I see it, simply, a podcast is democratised Radio - it’s digital, it’s everywhere, it’s accessible, and much like Plato’s opinions of its actual governmental Athenian parallel - it’s criticizable as ‘a danger due to excessive freedom’.

Quickly getting into the history - What started in 2003-05, for podcast enthusiasts by podcast enthusiasts, gained mass popularity only 2019 onwards - (we could attribute the sudden uptick to the COVID-19 Pandemic where a big chunk of we craved was to listen and to be listened to; safely so). I’d say it’s one of the easiest and most affordable ways to propagate your thoughts - with negligible overheads and infinite yappabilities.

May I coin and claim the term yapogate here?

Now, why would an encrypted broadcast from (possibly) a studio to (possibly) an iPhone sound like danger? You see, in my experience, I’ve witnessed the worst oral and vocal spews of ‘brainrot’ via podcasts. The same few controversial narratives regurgitated to quench a bigoted thirst of validation. I saw, what could have been, the best minds of my generation destroyed by podcasts (thank you Allen Ginsberg)

Taking a step back, WHY do we, as a collective, want our OWN podcasts?

1. A temporarily non-judgemental listen: With the access to and advent of critics, experts, opinion leaders and opinionated pea-brained loudmouths, we’re all witness to torrential streams of projections and criticism of and on every bit of unique media consumed. Cynical is the new normal and appreciation is cringe. While podcasts are certainly not beyond the aforementioned, they offer a somewhat immediate respite from the instantaneously platforming hate trains.
   

2. Scratches the itch of the desire to be a (Cult) Leader: Hear me out, as a somewhat entrenched person in the ‘Influencer Marketing’ domain I’ve seen seemingly nobody be on the minds of everybody almost overnight. More of an exception than the norm, any version of democratised media opens you up to the possibility of gaining instant and overnight fame. Just preach the right (in some ways wrong) message to the right audience and you find yourself on a virtual throne padded with validation and fended with desperation. When everyone’s scratching your itch - why let it fix when it can fester!
   
   In a world where nothing seems to be going right anymore, we’re all desperate for answers and in some ways seek validation of our delusions. We’re more number-oriented than ever - who cares if the Blind leads the Blind - as long as they outnumber the sighted (reality check would like a word here)
   That got too negative too fast (remember.. cynical is the new normal! I’m a self-inflicting victim myself) but to summarise - As we continue to feel more directionless, more hopeless and more powerless by the day, we will cling on to any semblance or hope of safety; anything that will tell us that we are right and the world is wrong.
   

3. We want to sound smart: As do we all. As do I. Hence the Substack (micdrop) in ya FACE!!!
   (Alleged) humour aside, as Plato does, all that most social media does is reinforce/remind us that ‘I know that I know nothing’ Although some love to spin it as ‘YOU know nothing.. but I do.. more than you.. link to my get-smart course in my bio teehee xx’. Knowledge IS Power and both hold (fabricated) true fantastically well if you create the right illusion. “Any man who must say ‘I am the King’ is no true king” (GOT S3E10) presents itself here for the rational ones among us. Of all the labels available to use to choose from, miscreants and luddites alike love to emerge as the neo-smart and become kings of their kingdoms and in every sense of the personhood shield and guard their castles of opinions and wage war at the drop of an opposed opinion. Much like ‘The Frog of the Well’ we seek shelter in and spew our beliefs (delusions) and don’t exactly like being contested.
   

   

   A tweet summarised what I couldn’t have in a thousand words. Can’t hear your valid perspective over the sounds of our exactlyyys.
   

4. Spew Vitriol: Now here’s where things get dark. Most podcasts going ‘viral’ are for the wrong reasons. An ever-increasing bigoted world that cherishes (and rather enables) hardheadedness is bound to gestate hostile spaces. ‘The Pen is mightier than the Sword’ has somehow evolved into ‘My Voice takes precedence over your Choice’. This in itself can be interpreted in more ways than one, but now as we see the blatant manifestation of 'Unlimited power in Limited hands’ we seek a sliver of that power and it’s no surprise that bigotry is the way to go.
   People take more comfort and liberty than ever to ‘Hate behind the screen (or mic). A silver lining is that most bullies, when personally confronted, often retract into their shells and bear the deserved consequences of their actions.
   
   Some instant red flags that deter me from a podcast

   1. Calls women as ‘females’ in the Podcast

   2. Unrealistic standards of ‘hustling’ and intentional obfuscation of the speakers’ privilege in the Podcast

   3. Men-only Podcasts (sorry not sorry)

   4. Deliberately contrarian Podcasts

   5. ‘Old ways are the best ways’ podcasts

   6. We are the ‘real’ victims (also read - Priviledged folks undergoing slight discomfort) podcasts
      etc etc etc etc etc etc

WITH ALL SAID AND DONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE….

On a more positive note, with power in the hands of few and a rise in censorship of free speech, it’s more important than ever to preserve our voice and find our community. Bless the ease and access of podcasts to digitally preserve our voices and get us in touch with the right community.

NOW.. THE GOLDEN QUESTION….

SHOULD
I
START
A
PODCAST?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Absolutely Y-E- double S if….

1. You’ve asked yourself multiple times “Should I start a podcast?'“

2. You’ve pondered over it for a while

3. Your first instinct is “No I have nothing of substance to say” (spoiler alert - you do!)

4. You take no pleasure in intentionally ruffling feathers

5. You believe that humanity should take precedence over creating ‘value of shareholders’

A H*ll to the No if….

1. You can’t wait to start a podcast (like… sit and think maybe???)

2. You talk louder and think it makes you right when you do

3. You’ve been itching to say the contrarian

4. You think your priviledege is karma and believe purely and only in ‘hardwork’ ‘hustle’ and in unpaid internships

5. If you ‘Capitalism is Right Bro’ and ‘Humans are bioengineered to be competitive bro’ and ‘Survival of the fittest with no support from community and handouts are bleeding my pockets bro’

6. You love Amazon bestselling ‘Self Help’ books <3

(seek help immediately, and, very far away from me, if you identify with either xx)


Before I go, sorry for the slight clickbait in the subtitle; please feel absolutely free to start your own podcasts (maybe refer to the checklist above????) and don’t forget to thank me at The Ambies and Webbies when you claim the fame.

This brings my very first and lengthy lengthy substack to an end. I hope this sub stacked your interest and if you love it please let me know, and if you don’t - ask yourself why? reread it and repeat until you start loving it.


Bye!

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