A two-parter on what happens when cottagecore goes goblin mode.
Part one: The gallery wall that ate
What respectable gay didn’t do at least a little redecorating at the start of the pandemic? It was the perfect time to bachelor-pad the bedroom and put in a home office with requisite gallery wall (I am still as shocked as you are right now). But this isn’t about me. It’s about the consequences of too much fucking cute-ass content.
As if Instagram wasn’t flooded enough with hygge-hyped white chicks showing off their latest at-home latte art, the Internet became a breeding ground for crafty pandemic prisoners flaunting their DIY skills to a captive audience of not-so-crafty lockdown lookey-loos. Even the most rigorous of media diets began to include massive servings of bland, beige influencing. New instafriends Kayla and Michael Shawn were comforting, familiar characters at first but their endless, highly stylized, and formulaic reels began to reveal the darker shades of home making. Add Krista’s felt #BLM cat toys and Jade’s tedious, hand-beaded fertility objets, and you reach peak cottagecore pretty quickly.
Aspiration turned to disgust, as house hobbyists’ seemingly effortless lifestyles began to feel like a form of witchcraft, summoning the deepest expressions of our animal id. Enter the goblins and the stench of goblin mode, the Oxford dictionary’s word of 2022. I totally called it way back when Juniper’s tweet began making the rounds. You might wonder how people so cottage could possibly get so craven. I will tell you how … next week. I’ll also share a tasty recipe for a family Thanksgiving favorite: grand mal seizure.
Many of us rolled up to the intersection of passion and pride at during our rides through the pandemic. “Do I keep going where I was going, or should I bang a sharp left here to pursue that thing I denied myself so many years ago?” some folks asked themselves. Lifelong haircutters and vocationers were afforded a pause that could change the trajectory of their lives. One friend vowed to never set foot in a salon ever again. Another traded going back to a desk job for contact tracing in the field. The sources of our purpose and subjects of our focus either stopped delivering or choices were made for us. Or both, in my case. Ask yourself where you feel valued and heard. Follow joy and see where the road leads.
Last Friday night, the Red Line was a mental health crisis on wheels. Curled up in a ball in the middle of the train, a partly nude woman sang an a cappella mash up of “Hero” by Mariah Carey and Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” while a guy in baggy old-man boxers, t-shirt, and slides (it’s winter in Chicago) set a giant ball of paper ablaze. In that moment, everyone in that car needed some sort of saving.
“I Need a Hero” or “Holding Out for a Hero” (as it’s actually called) is, for me, the ultimate hero song. Bonnie Tyler’s got some high expectations for her hero. Strong, fast, sure, soon, AND fresh from the fight. Good luck with that! I’d settle for strong and soon, or maybe just soon. I used to categorize “Send Me an Angel” as a quintessential hero-type song, too, but was recently informed that an angel’s duties are much different than those of a hero. I’ll likely need the services of both.
The hero archetype is said to value honor over everything and will do anything it takes to win. While these two characteristics aren’t mutually exclusive, today’s hero is likely more concerned with not losing the fight rather than sacrificing some honor, betraying himself, or losing his religion, as it were. Compared to other archetypes, the hero can be perceived as inspirational and represents change catalyzed by sacrifice — no matter how great that sacrifice may be. The question of the day is how low to go or how high to stay when your opponents are coming at you from all angles. The thing to remember is that one person’s hero is another’s villain. It’s all a matter of perspective, where your loyalties lie, and what happens when the wind starts to blow.
Next week: The Innocent
Any space could’ve become a COVID-19 testing site with enough signage and folding chairs. This was the most striking example I encountered:
The first day of lockdown my French press broke and my sink clogged. That’s when I knew I was probably going to be in for it. Single since the previous summer (or my Yrsa Daley-Ward era, as I like to call it), I felt reasonably capable or capable enough during non-Covidtimes to take care of what needed taking care of. I’d lived on my own much of my adult life, but this was different. In midlife, I find myself feeling pretty green when it comes to this new hybrid, mixed reality we’re living in. I’m not averse to change by any means, but I’ve been slow to pick up certain things knowing that we’re all test subjects in a crude beta. As an “X-ennial”, I’ve found refuge in the hidey-holes of various cultural and societal inflection points. The last high school class to take typing and relegated to a college life of basement computer labs and printing cards, I would’ve enjoyed Wi-Fi only a few years later, when the youths could sit, compute, and print from wherever the hell they pleased.
So when I wanted a lamp in my kitchen to turn on and off on at specific times, the thought of Alexa or Siri or some other disembodied automated assistant never even crossed my mind. The kids and older early adopters would go straight for a smartbulb or an app. I went and purchased one of those clunky birth-control-shaped timers that plug into the wall. I’ve been known to activate a whole house — lamps, TV, coffeemaker, humans — at 2am by accidentally initiating a preprogrammed “Good morning, Google” sequence and am prone to interrupting a bop I know everyone’s enjoying with a curt “Alexa, next song” from the toilet. While it can be fun provoking the Internet of Things, I’ll take a French press any day. It may not automagically brew my coffee at 8am, but it won’t talk back when I go breaking it.
She’s torn. And here’s the original version of the song you might be thinking of: Torn (by Ednaswap).