I saw my first content creator in the wild a few weeks ago. I was walking the dog when she ran past me with her phone held aloft, talking animatedly. She could’ve been face-timing a loved one I suppose, but I had this sense that she was performing. It was like looking through a window into the future. I’m insulated from the creator revolution in my suburban pocket of a small town at the bottom of the world, but I would love to visit New York, London or Seoul one day just to see TikTok dance videos being filmed in real life.
I saw my first content creator in the wild a few weeks ago. I was walking the dog when she ran past me with her phone held aloft, talking animatedly. She could’ve been face-timing a loved one I suppose, but I had this sense that she was performing. It was like looking through a window into the future. I’m insulated from the creator revolution in my suburban pocket of a small town at the bottom of the world, but I would love to visit New York, London or Seoul one day just to see TikTok dance videos being filmed in real life.
I really like the band Young the Giant. I discovered them thanks to the idiosyncrasies of the streaming age, in that they kept appearing on my song radios and playlists until I realised that they were the masterminds behind all my favourite songs. My Body. Superposition. Simplify. Cough Syrup. It’s anthemic indie pop rock and that’s my jam. I feel like I’ve been looking forward to their new album, Victory Garden, for an age. It dropped May 1.
I was mindlessly scrolling TikTok this morning and a creator I’ve recently started following (for BTS reasons) told me it was okay to wake up one day and say to myself, “I’m so back.” Thank you, random lady in Florida. I really am so back. Is it a coincidence that my return coincides with the first F1 race in 5 weeks? Probably. Nice to see the papaya boys back on the podium. None of this intro is related to the intended topic of this post.
It’s come to my attention that I’m burnt out, which is not a clinical diagnosis. If I went to a medical professional I’d probably be told I have mild depression and slightly less mild anxiety as a result of acute stress from my life choices. Also, the world is falling apart and everything is terrible and humanity is a disease. I’m not planning to go to a medical professional, though, because I’ve been here before and I know how to get out of it. Plus I’m foolhardy. In fact, I’m everything I accuse my parents of being. Or worse.
I told my work friends last week that my two favourite BTS genres were ‘obnoxious Korean hip hop’ and ‘introspective power ballads’ and that’s why Arirang is the best thing I’ve ever heard. Every song has multiple moments that scratch my brain just right. I’ve decided to timestamp them. Think of it as an interactive tour of the album. I read a Guardian review of Arirang which called it a ‘dumb fun pop album’ and the writer is not wrong but also not remotely right. Therin lies the genius of Arirang. If you only dip a toe in you can have a great time pretending it’s a silly, horny, fun hip hop / pop album. But if you dig deeper you realise that it’s still fun but also smart, clever, outrageous, ironic, angry, sad, hopeful, beautiful, replete with yearning. In short, a modern no-skip masterpiece.
I’ve been reading a book of essays on writing by Phillip Pullman and there’s one particular nugget of wisdom he imparts that will not let me live. Don’t burden your readers with your embarrassment. It’s safe to say he would hate whatever it is I’m doing here. In a desperate attempt to heed his advice I’m going to stop explaining this so much, but before you continue, you should know about the line between fact and fiction in this story. The source of the narrative is a real person experiencing true events, but by necessity I’m inventing some of the nuance since I’m not in Willa’s head, just her DMs. Did I even need to say that? Am I not respecting your intelligence enough? I agree I’m not off to a good start.
