a culture of buzzwords, humming

Buzzwords.

Trendy, flashy, in your face. Each time the magic word is mentioned it is like the striking of a hammer coming down. Hireability! Experience! Success! Internships! Contribution! The list goes on and on as young students look on in a packed room, it is a college admitted students day, and the buzzwords fly through the air with wicked speed.

The topics of every speech are really nothing special or new, “At x university, we pride ourselves on Y and our continuing contributions to the field of Z.” An almost dull robotic tone repeats the pros(and definitely never the cons), going over all the fantastic things a student could do! Study here at our proprietary on campus coffee shop™, we know the art students among you will love that one!

A student panel is brought out. Clearly pre-rehearsed questions are dished out in a manner that could not be less authentic. The crowd raises their hands to ask questions, and yet it couldn’t be more predictable. Hireability? Experience? Success? Internships? Contribution?

Buzzwords repeated in a repetitive, monotonous tone.

There is now tension in the room. The obvious questions were of course those which they were least prepared to answer. A-ha! A genius distraction, perhaps we should play kahoot for cash prizes, kids which clearly have no attention span will love that, who doesn’t love money?

It’s hard not to feel sad, as you see the effects of a capitalist system of education bleed through in the very way these young prospective students view the college as a paycheck, and even sadder how the college views them the same.

An asset. A tool to be used to advance one’s career, kids with no other choice convinced fully that they must play this game and win capitalism. The academy is no longer for learning.

You may be wondering why I’m bringing this up, or why I’m being so terribly negative towards this process. You see, my sibling will be graduating from high school soon, and I’ve been helping with the college application and touring process. I’m simply describing exactly what I’ve been seeing right now in the education system.

A system which I escaped from quite recently myself, and believe me, I’m still working damage control.

As sad and cynical as my perspective may be, I really am no longer surprised to see this.

After the disillusioned speeches are given out from chosen representatives trying very hard to appear either funny or approachable, but never quite sticking the landing on either, the students are funneled into seminars to talk about their prospective career choices.

My sibling is looking to follow in my footsteps as a Graphic Designer (Oh no, what have I done!?), so we are brought to one of the art buildings on campus and sat down to talk about the various art programs.

Now we are face to face with the real professors who teach here, a sigh of relief as the authenticity is breathed back into the dialogue between staff and students. With authenticity, however, comes the awkwardness.

These professors have not interacted with students at this early of a stage much, and that clearly shows. A young student looks defeated after asking a simple question, “how would I, as someone who’s never done any design, begin to get an early start?” he asks nervously. The answer is a confusing mixture of “learning to see design” as well as “identifying good and bad design.” Now we are trying to break design into meritocratic categories before the student is even able to start.

Once again the buzzwords rush on stage, painting the picture of the designer as part of the logocult, an organization which wishes to see the designer as a tool for others with no autonomy of their own.

It seems the process of stamping out the individual is done early, as the many alumnx referenced are never mentioned for their work, but instead who they work for. Accolades are the premier currency here, it seems.

At the local university, I am invited in for a day to overlook students who will embark on their first thesis project. During my time there, I view students at the senior level preparing for the world, and teachers who are attempting to prepare them for this jump.

Many improvements have been made to the classroom and project structure since I’ve been there, but a glaring issue arises. What is a thesis meant to be? Many seem lost, unable to understand what it means to make work based on their own interest or wants. It’s too late to introduce creative autonomy, as we’ve already spent years eliminating it.

Some students decide to ask ChatGPT for answers. Others claim they don’t really know what they’re passionate about in the field in the first place.

Who could blame them, when they’ve successfully been made tools up until now?

This culture of buzzwords, humming.

The caterpillar which never learns to fly, warped and shaped by a cocoon spun with golden chains.

is dystopia dead?

When broken windows and rusted cars litter the streets of rural and urban areas alike, a cabinet of oligarchs worthlessly barks orders down the line of a government quickly collapsing in on itself. What used to be the early warning signs of a potential future danger now seem laughable for how close to home they often hit.

Is dystopia dead? Killed by the bullet of capitalist realism?

When working on a collection of short stories set in a far off future entitled The Wanderer, I couldn’t help but think about the world I was crafting and its relation to reality. It’s hard to really call what I’m doing “Dystopia”, and really, I feel it’s hard to call anything “dystopia” anymore.

The reality of our world is that when we view these classic pieces of dystopian fiction is that we always perceived them with this level of wonder or amazement, a certain opposite of immersion and suspension of disbelief which created the ability to feel as if we were simply an observer of the commonly terrible lives lived in these fictional worlds.

This way, when we saw the Mood Organ from Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Read of Electric Sheep, we would think of how ridiculous it would be to simply dial a mood or feeling and let that overwrite our entire personality regardless of our previous mood. Then, we developed medicines, patches, or drugs that were capable of very similar attributes to the mood organ.

Similarly, we used to view the idea of our lives being monitored or tracked daily as something beyond horror, a level of existential or even cosmic form of horror seen in the likes of Orwell's “Big Brother”, which was inspired by Foucault's Panopticon.

Now, our governments can access information on exactly every action we’ve made in society whenever they feel the need to access it, our texts, what we have bought, where we have been. Surprisingly, instead of feeling horror, most actively support this. We upload our lives to social media to be viewed willingly in the eyes of the societal panopticon itself.

Perhaps something which scares you is propaganda and the nature of indoctrination, where you can look no further than Huxley's Brave New World, where children are separated into social classes from the moment they are born. Most live laborious lives in unsettling discomfort as the higher class of society enjoys rich lives filled with luxurious soirees, higher standards of education, and total individual freedom.

Authoritarian regimes, environmental crises, fascist control, lack of bodily autonomy, class disparity, social manipulation, etc. etc. etc. It’s just all too familiar now, isn't it?

So how do you write dystopia when the world you live in is dystopic? What new and crazy concept about totalitarianism or authoritarianism can even begin to be weaved from the future, when the thread is already in the past?

In my opinion, I think this is a major contributor in why we have fallen out of love for dystopia, or why it may feel overplayed in modern culture. We feel sad when engaging with dystopia now simply because we see ourselves in the mirror of what was supposed to be fiction.

This is why the time for dystopia is past. But what comes next?

Would the world be better off if we turned the lens inwards on an introspective journey through the disasters of our own creation?

When the world as the pianist begins their final performance, how would we tell the story? 

Would it remain a sad and dreary piece which travels across notes weepingly as it swims in minor chords?

Would it be grandiose in nature, exploring the bombastic yet short existence of our history in crashing percussion and screeching violin?

What if it was a soft melody, a concert gracefully exploring our diverse history, playing both the good and bad of us in acts?

What if the leitmotif of the world carried with it sprinkled accents of hope?

Maybe then we will have begun to see a post-dystopian world.

kakistocratic lullabies

The young child lays in bed

Awaiting a story

Rhetoric slithers slowly 

The naivety of new life

Lullabies whispered gently

Unto ears unaware

Governments and leaders 

Wars and power

Dreams of youth poisoned 

Sinister true intentions

Relax, breathe, rest easy

Slowly close your eyes

An all too familiar scene

Our work here is done

We transition comfortably 

Into fascism

the classroom and personal aesthetics

The Classroom

The classroom sits dry and quiet, where a usually casual atmosphere is now rigid and tense. The occasional shuffling of feet can be heard as the students fidget in place. 

The collective anxiety of the room can be felt by the professor, yet he dismisses it. The real world is harsh, the students must learn so themselves. It is my responsibility to do so. He thinks to himself in a self-asserting manner.

It is critique day in the Two Dimensional Design class.

Professor Rush, who has been teaching for 33 years now, is considered essential to the curriculum at his university. Many of his peers view him as “the one who wrangles in students,” his pedagogy revolves around tough love and harsh criticism, but inside he feels that he truly deeply cares about the students he teaches.

It is not uncommon to hear tales of happenings from his classroom, students do love to gossip after all. 

“Professor Rush was talking to Sarah about her use of the grid, and he was getting pretty livid, he started yelling pretty loud and Sarah left the classroom crying.” says Jenny at lunch to her fellow peers. 

Interestingly enough, these stories, although usually horrible sounding for the student within, are always viewed with a level of “Well, that’s just how he is.” as a resignation to this method of teaching. 

Some may have personal issues with it, but it gets results.

“I honestly feel that if I hadn’t had Rush early on, I wouldn’t have gotten my shit together as an artist” Violet says leaning back into the uncomfortable cafeteria chair, “I was the best in the art department at my high school, so he gave me a dose of reality. I would have been an egomaniac if not for him!”

Something students always felt they took away from his class was a recognition for the arts. Professor Rush was quite adamant about what was art and what was not. He enforced rigid definitions of “good” and “bad” in his classroom. A slightly off skew line or perspective would be cause for beratement in front of the rest of the class.

Traditional art was the cream of the crop in the Professor's eyes, he quite regularly talked down on digital arts and abstract forms of creation. He would often call out Graphic Design and Animation majors for even daring to take him, claiming they would be better off with different, more “sensitive” professors.

What was art and what was not? It seemed Rush had a very clear answer, and that to question him was absurd.

It is no surprise that many had ended up dropping out towards the end of the first project. Many left the class crying and never returned over the years. If the project a student created was wrong in his eyes, they would have to redo it until it was right, sometimes upwards of 10 times. The workload was strict, after all it wasn’t Professor Rush's problem that the students were taking 18 credits of classes. 

Rather than adjust his curriculum, the professor instead chose to blame the students who left for not being strong enough.

“I remember that after Sarah dropped out, Rush made fun of her for not being able to handle it. He said she’d never make it in the real world!” Said Maurice to another student sitting at the study table.

Professor Rush believed students should be grateful to even earn a B in his class, as almost nobody ever gets an A. He believed in standard grade deviation with students, enforcing the meritocracy of ability over improvement in the classroom setting.

Only so many could be graded high, and just as many must be graded low. The scales must balance. It was only natural.

It seemed that, even those who were often mistreated or bullied by Professor Rush's words, the class often found themselves viewing the class as a necessary step in their career. Rush knew his stuff, and although he was often apathetic and intolerant to the students' conditions outside of the classroom, he was just showing them a slice of the real world.

Personal Aesthetics

At this point you may have wondered why I am telling you this story, or why I have decided to create this fictional professor at all. Except that I have not created a fictional professor, but instead told the story of a real tenured professor I have encountered in my educational journey. Only with randomized names for privacy sake, of course.

“Professor Rush”, in my opinion, operates a pedagogy that is not only damaging to the students who take him, but also to the educational institution as a whole. A professor once told me that there is no such thing as bad pedagogy, but instead just differences in teaching styles, as no one teacher is the same.

I can’t help but disagree, specifically when I think of Professor Rush. The apathetic approach to the students of the classroom creates a disengaged learning environment where students are taught the wrong lessons.

Being one of the first professors ran into by an incoming student in the arts, students are met with a crushing template which breeds a rigid conformity into what they view as essential for “good work.” 

Masked as “teaching the students the real world” the professor crushes and squeezes students out of every last drop of creativity and individuality in favor of reproducing artistic machines. Those who create only to please the professor who claims unwavering authority over them.

Overloaded in work and removed of any creative choice, the students suffer through an extremely dense syllabus of black and white, lifeless work. They emerge into many branching art programs ranging from painting to graphic design already molded into the template, the rest that comes after is simply a continuation of the process. This barcode is transplanted into the DNA of each artist early.

This method of teaching also reinforces Paolo Frieres “Banking model of education,” as Professor Rush views each student as an empty or hollow shell that must be filled with information. There is no room for the student to offer their own suggestions or feedback. They must not speak out against the master of the classroom. Education is no longer a practice of freedom.

This damage is so small and yet so overwhelming, students now understand that to enter the classroom environment is to please “The Master”. To look towards the professor and create what is wished for, not what could be their own creative identity.

The classroom is now dictated by personal aesthetics.

we have failed you

In the streets, we have failed you

Warm meals, thrown out still full

Vacation homes rest empty, still warm

Yet you suffer and weep on cold sidewalks alone

While doctors turn you away

Appalled by your appearance

Scaring away the good customers

You are bad for business, to exist

Justifications for your existence

Chased from place to place rapidly

Medical conditions out of control

Oh, how close we all are to being you

Yet the most we do is see your story

We feel bad for you, reading in our comfort

Complacent in your warnings, gracefully

We have failed you, just like we have failed ourselves

election night

Here we stand on the edge, below us a rocky and perilous cliff face with which survival is impossible. We have willingly chosen to make this leap, smiling as we fall into the dark below.

That darkness is fascism, to be blatantly obvious about my own analogy, as if that wasn't obvious already.

Today has been unprecedented and honestly unexpected in the arrival of a complete red wave, and while sitting and watching coverage of the election I could not help but wonder about the moment we have found ourselves in and its consequences for the future.

It feels as if vivid images showing crowds of mass deportation signs are masking the intention of an America clad in white robes. I believe this will be studied for generations to come, as the early signs of the fall of the planet's biggest empire.

I know I can be quite “doom and gloom” in my writing style, however I find it hard not to see that we are accelerating at near the speed of light towards both an inevitable rise of true, terrifying fascism and the subsequent end of our nation that comes with it.

What lies beyond this end? 

After the fires have died out, what will the flowers that grow here look like? 

Will the roses of revolution bloom in fields of freedom? 

Will the echoes of an empire in decay signal the end of an era of capitalism?

Or will history repeat its vicious loop, revealing our inability to learn?

Where will I be in this future unwritten? 

Selfishly, maybe I view this insanity with excitement, a feeling that freedom is coming that allows my escape from this cage. Perhaps what should be a feeling of fear is instead replaced with a drive for change?

I am not as naìve as to think that everything will all go perfectly. I know there will be struggle, I certainly know that the bad will come many times before we can even begin to arrive at the good.

But in the end, I can only hope and believe that we will be alright. I choose, even if it's in contrast to my written character, to have faith in humanity. 

I choose to see a future written in hope and love.

those who have given up

Let me begin this short writing with an acknowledgment of those who have no choice but to be slaves to a system that has reaped them no reward or leisure. To those that find 3 jobs barely enough to support a starving family. To those that work for the hope that comfort might be awarded for once in their life.

This criticism is not aimed towards you who are oppressed in these chains by creation of capitalistic, imperialist colonizers. You are beautiful, may your liberation one day come.

In every sense of the phrase, all power to you.

Throughout the years of my short life I’ve encountered many personalities and attitudes, many share unique perspectives and thoughts on what it means to be alive.

All around me, so many seem to have given up. 

In Appalachia I see towns which have given up on eachother, communities lost.

In schooling I see teachers who have given up on educating, passion lost.

In design I see workers who have given up on being artists, creativity lost.

In society I see citizens who have given up on making change, freedom lost.

But the most frustrating part of this is when those who have given up focus their attacks onto those who haven’t, treating them with contempt for wanting change. 

We who see things that are not yet real and ask ourselves how to make it reality.

We who dream for better life and greener pastures should not have to sit idly by as we listen to the complacent tongues of those who have given up.

It seems that, to those who have given up, to love something is seemingly to have no issues with it whatsoever, as if love something lives only inside a margin of black and white. 

I am asked the question “If you don’t like creating, or making design, then why are you pursuing a masters in design?”

To lay out my feelings on the design field as a posed answer to this question in any short time is impossible. It is a more complicated relationship with that.

Is it wrong to critique something you love, something you feel empathetic and passionate towards? That which you have dedicated so much time and effort into understanding?

And when I look around, I see many things to be critical of. I see a eurocentric educational system which touts the qualities of the modern designer as a reproducible tool which should follow the cookie cutter form of modern design. 

I also see the beautiful, talented work of peers making beautiful design solutions. I’ve said before, in my glorious hypocritical tendencies, that the very corporate design field I attempt to undermine does not stop me from looking at a brand on a shelf and going “Ooooh! yeah, that’s very well made!”

How common is it to see those who claim empathetic quality conveniently choose how their empathy can operate. Or, those which understand the importance of empathy actively claiming they lack enough to care about this problem you pose.

I was raised in that system which told me to be that student who worries about nothing but hire-ability and logocultism. I once saw myself, young and bright eyed at the prospects of working my time away at a studio 9-5 each day.

I snapped out of that trance when I realized how unhealthy the design field has become to the people who sycophantically worship this career path. 

I chose not to give up on a healthier life as a designer. 

This is my mantra, my essence. If you attempt to beat me down, I will fight. I will burn brightly in my defiance until my last breath. I am an eternal flame, an infernal engine. I’d rather suffer an eternity in the hell of knowing this world than live in blissful ignorance of its truths.

I recognize fully that I am not like others in this sense. To clarify, I am not so naive as to believe that I will most definitely make change in the world. This does not stop me from spreading my ideas and thoughts in hopes of improving this field which I’ve dedicated much of my time, energy, and money towards.

I do not look down upon those who have given up, however. 

Feeling dejected in a system which is built to remove your autonomy and choice, this is simply by design. This is the modern society working exactly as planned. In other words, I know exactly what has caused this “epidemic of giving up” and am empathetic towards that.

However when you are actively trying to shut down the words of those bringing issues or criticism to power, perhaps it is time for you to sit by and listen while those who have not yet given up speak for the hopes of a better future.

Perhaps in time the fire in your eyes will ignite again, and you will find yourself fighting for a better future in which so many of us attempt to envision.

logocultism (poem)

With digital tools I carve myself

For society to look upon me

The panopticon of social media 

Gazing coldly down, judging my worth

Creativity crushed by consumerism

I navigate through Metamodernity

Without monetary gain I cannot live

I research trends and copy styles

I read metrics to distill my personality

Cutting away pieces with sharp scissors

My worth grows more through followers

I filter my life to appear perfect

With this brand, I become a slave

Oppressed by tools which declare freedom

Born of creativity, dead of design

I am the modern designer

do designers dream of vectored sheep?

A designer gets home, work long and dull

Excitements from the past now forgotten

Instead the thought of bed brings glee

So the designer lay down, sleep drifting

Deadlines pervade this peaceful moment

Even here we must be problem solvers

Begrudgingly awake, the designer counts

In attempt to force about quick rest

Vectored sheep leap along illustrator files

Vaulting over fences of em-dashes

The counting is displayed in Helvetica

A quick glance finds the pen tool outlining clouds

Our designer awakes in cold sweat

They can’t help feel the forming of tears

Spending so much time in love with this field

And now they cannot escape from it

do you have creative freedom?

I

Do you have creative freedom?

This thought stirs in the back of my mind, never-ending. 

Every time that I look at work made in the modern lens

I begin again to see; the surreptitious intention, 

slipped behind every logo which we have been trained to view

as if it was with X-ray vision.

Within this mechanical operation of human life; 

One can only pretend to shout the answer into an abyss, 

filled with the answers of many before them. 

Future generations left to survey like archaeologists,

finding forgotten writing long past.

When we arrive at this point, at the singularity of creativity, 

At what point can we call our work unique?

Is it creative in the first place? Is creativity dead, 

killed by this quiet and everlasting hum of consumerism?

Is it just a tool for modernity and capital?

Told we are unique, the pioneers of the future,

we carelessly let our design ego take over.

A danger in and of itself, ego becomes the designer. 

We pack our field into a meritocratic hierarchy,

we convince ourselves that our work is most important.

So why does it feel meaningless? 

Why create work with eyes glossed over, submitting our talent

to the panopticon? In exchange for only enough to live? 

As if to be an infernal engine perpetually fueled by

preservatives and microplastics in which we consume happily?

II

Do you have creative freedom?

Social Media opens its gaze upon every aspect of our lives, 

with which the panopticon looks upon us,

It extracts our personalities and thoughts with little biases,

struggle or joy crunched into 1s and 0s.

Chained to our phones we march towards the singularity.

Potential unlimited, the young mind is handed the tablet.

Like the battery of this device, the potential drains out,

No longer is the classroom required to create this loop.

Machines create machines out of humans. 

Meanwhile humans work to let those machines create art.

This escapism plays a deep role in the new wave human.

So we dive into devices which hold the library of Babel,

Bred in an endless scroll of nonsense, mixing overstimulation and data, creating perfect potions of idle complacency.

Drowned in an overflow of information, how do we begin to think?

An endless sea of doors is set out in front of us,

But oh! The happiness! The work is already done!

We follow the brightly illuminated line to the door,

That which was already chosen for us.

This is simply how it should be, do not question it!

What is reality? What is right? What is good?

Frightening existentiality creates horrible anxiety, 

anxiety which brings us back to the vicious cycle. 

And so we dance in this loop for eternity,
Forget those painful ideas rather than confront them!

III

And so the child, eyes now dulled, sets off to academia,

yet the root of the word is no longer its purpose.

The assembly line has functioned well until this point,
there is no intention of stopping it now.

When passion is gone, a paycheck replaces it.

And with the pursuit of pay, the landscape changes,

Competitive markets, high value clients, broken designers.

No longer is this field viewed upon as art,

“visual marketing,” Aesthetics diluted by accolades.

We copy only that which will only make us more efficient.

Distilled mixture of designer, refined into corporate gain.

Art now twisted, intentions; shifted towards the needs and wants

of a personified company which dictates value.

Designers are not part of this process, instead tools used to

increase gain until they are dried out like natural resources.

Working tirelessly, meaningless careers,

Wearing burnout as a badge of honor,

Teetering on the precipice of happiness and despair.

The world is in motion, so why do we pretend it has stopped?

Maybe we do not see reason in fighting an uphill battle.

Years of cultural conditioning, our shells left empty.

Forcefully giving up hopes and dreams, we are tired.

Perhaps a spark is needed to ignite these fires within,

would that begin to let us start anew?

To be reminded of our uniqueness and ability?

I ask again, do you have creative freedom?

the role of designer

The Designer sits in their comfortable office, happily preparing a Nike advertisement. Never once have they thought about the shoes they happily design for.

The digital png of “Air Max” mens shoes has never had to be produced by human hands. The seams are not real, never sewn by an exploited worker in a factory.

This is nothing out of the ordinary. This is what we have done as designers since the days we first designed. Tools of industry, pens for the ruling class, entities of global consumerism, we have perpetuated capitalism and its systems.

What does an escape from this look like for our Designer?

Will they ever pack up their office and leave, sickened by the company in which they work?

Could they ever make a decision like that without first having the security of a comfortable home and warm food set out for them? 

When that time comes, The Designer notices they are chained to the desk.

Human instinct, the need to break free. The Designer struggles for a while in vain. Eventually they give up. There is a family waiting for them, a good life of comfort and conformity. It’s not like they’ve seen the exploitation firsthand.

Besides, they are just a designer for Nike. It’s not actually the designer who should be held accountable.

The moment of critical thought passes as the machine in front of them hums. The designer rests their hands on the mouse and keyboard, and returns to work.

the news feed

I wake up to check the days news.

Biolabs burn and pollute the air, thick pentachromatic smoke rising into the gray still sky.

I scroll.

Floods ravage homes as instinct leads bears to treetops. Families denied food and supplies by authorities in the chaos.

I scroll.

YouTube creators bicker over the drama of a copycat brand of lunchables, making childish songs about one another.

I scroll.

Children are asked about their ambitions, with glinted eyes all of them reply with money and fame.

I scroll.

Another foreign child dies in the arms of their father. Lost to wars and powers they don’t even understand.

I scroll.

Frustration. We live within this system where we are actively watching everything fall apart, the daily news becomes just another little pastime for the scrolling eyes. We are unphased as death, pollution, destruction, and sadness enters our eyes and our brains at unbelievable pace. 

Is it really a wonder that we can’t see the signs?

A society that would rather hide from these truths. It is uncomfortable to realize we are the ones perpetuating this system. We distance ourselves. Find comfort in complacency and blissful ignorance. The truth nests further and further deep into our consciousness until it is essentially lost.

And so instead we forget and we live happily. 

Dystopia more near than distant fiction

what are the signs? and “the attention economy”

In the late 90s, a young musician by the name of Jun Seba sat in an underground record store he opened himself named Guiness Records in Japan. Formally trained in Graphic Design and digital production, he makes the decision to start making music by releasing single remixes he made himself. 

Adopting the artist name “Nujabes”, Jun slowly began to integrate these singles into his own record store. He would press the vinyls by hand and then place them within the bins of the artist he remixed, with customers not knowing that the owner himself created these beats.

Many years later, after he was taken from this world too early, he would go on to be known as one of the most legendary hip-hop producers in the world. Mixing elements of jazz, rap, spoken word poetry, and hip-hop. Now referred to as the godfather of the modern genre “Lo-Fi Hip-Hop,” Nujabes garners millions of monthly listeners on modern platforms.

To describe the music is a challenge in itself. Distant and serene, melancholic yet hopeful, the use of hip-hop drum loops with the talented features of various rappers, jazz instrumentalists, and hip-hop icons brings you to a world that draws you in with meaningful lyrics and emotions.

In 2005, Nujabes collaborated with the artist Pase Rock for a song on the album “The Sign(feat. Pase Rock”. The song combines spoken word poetry with distinct foley sounds and a simple piano and drum accompaniment.

A small group of jazz musicians stands upon the stage in a ritzy club. Guests chat on as their drinks slosh around in their glasses, laughing and enjoying the world around them. 

Preparing to start their set, the singer in the jazz band clears his throat, preparing to cue in on the drummer and pianist. His hand rises and the soft melody of a piano begins, followed by the light loop of the drums.

The crowd doesn’t so much as flinch, encapsulated in their conversations, stuck in their own worlds. 

The jazz singer begins to speak; The drinks continue, the clank of ice in hard liquor drowns the words of the young musician.

𝅘𝅥 

You wanna watch it all fall apart?

Every time I walk I watch

I look, I notice, I observe

I read the signs

And the signs are pointing in the wrong direction

The signs are not naming the streets

Or leading you to the highways

The signs are naming names

Tombstones to mark the death of children not even born

And I don't mean abortion I mean what is to come

The signs are telling me to turn back around

The signs are telling me to research my past

The signs are telling me to learn from my mistakes

The signs are asking me questions

Do you wanna watch it all fall apart?

Do you have any control?

Is there anything that you can do?

Both of the previous examples are warning signs in the form of music that is used to convey a message to an audience. One talks about the complacency and lack of care from those listening. The other speaks on environmental crises such as global warming.

These “signs” as referred to by Pase Rock are no different from the stories and speculative futures we have seen through history. Yet with the times as there are, it feels as if the understanding of these signs is taken with less urgency.

Laughed off, seen as purely fiction, or denied their true meaning. We now turn these messages from the overtly political and raw to something entirely different. 

We cast them astray, alienize the concept. 

Even something with such surface level ideology such as the songs I’ve used as example can be twisted into something else with weaved narratives that suffocate the original meaning.

This is intentional, however. To live within a society where we are free to learn and consume as we please is a threat. There is nothing more dangerous to a government than differing opinions, the reason we do not truly live in democracy.

And so we arrive at the idea of “Media Literacy”. To give a simple definition of media literacy, it is the ability to view a story's intentions and themes critically and analyze the messaging dwelling beyond the surface level of the work.

Media literacy is a fundamental skill that allows any individual to view a piece of media and take from it the lessons and stories being conveyed. This is backed by the idea that all art, and media by extension, is made with intention. 

If media is “the signs”, “media literacy” is the language of understanding those signs.

And those signs are not vague, they tell the tale of the fall of an empire. Humorously we cast them aside,

“We are the greatest nation to exist at the greatest time in history. We are the exception.”

“The Attention Economy”

When people stop reading further into these signs and asking questions, the flames of curiosity are stamped out.

Commentary on complex political issues don’t change, but instead the people consuming choose to ignore in favor of segmented stories. Narratives dissected and turned into short form content. 6 second videos take over the internet.

So instead we adapt to that content, as designers and as people. We create advertisements with catchy colors and funny concepts. We explain that people do not care to look at our content for more than a few seconds, and we reinforce it.

In bed we lie** for hours, scrolling through unimaginably large repositories of digital content. Monotonous AI voices like the ferryman of the river Styx, as time folds in upon itself.

So much information travels to the brain in short periods that it becomes overwhelming. Stimulation becomes less effective. Now we need more. How about multitasking? You can watch 2 movies, play a game, and listen to music all at the same time!

On Tik-Tok, videos of complex topics are split down the middle with a person playing with sand. Dopamine becomes the new algorithm. “Satisfying” videos of someone cutting soap are paired with reports of a mass shooting in Florida.

People just don’t want to listen to someone talk about conflict anymore, instead they need their brain to be stimulated during it. Everything becomes faster, everything becomes consumerized, everything becomes splashed with vivid colors and catchy songs.

We are trapped in the attention economy. Our eyes gloss over as we stare at the screens that hold us prisoner.

on autonomy

The word autonomy possibly comes from the early 17th century: the Greek’s “Autonomia”(from autonomos) meant ‘having its own laws’, autos being the ‘self’ and nomos being the ‘law’. When you interpret the modern meaning of autonomy we often refer to concepts such as freedom of choice and expression. 

With that context, autonomy is often used interchangeably with the word freedom. Often, we see autonomy as complete freedom, making choices based only on your own environment and not affected by the other conditions around you. 

I think this really doesn’t work for some key reasons.

In the terms of an Anarchist such as myself, I believe that autonomy is something that you choose to sacrifice at the behest of another or of a group. I’ve been asked questions such as “If I am living in an anarchistic society, how can that society have any rules without sacrificing my freedom?” and my answer to that is actually way more simple than it seems.

In a truly free society, you are led by your autonomy to make choices that suit your wants or needs, without constricting upon the freedom of others. When you join a collective, essentially creating a small society, you have decided to withhold certain individual freedoms as your own autonomous decision.

To give an example of this, let’s look at the average relationship between two lovers. Both are free, autonomous beings that have chosen through bonding to be together as a unit. Thus, when one person's needs exceed the other halfs, a “sacrifice” of freedom takes place. 

Let’s say one person wants to cover themselves in tattoos as a form of expression, but their partner does not like that idea, and creates a compromise between the two allowing them to have tattoos, but only an acceptable amount. You could view this action as restricting a partner's freedom of expression, thus reducing their autonomy.

In reality, the person who wanted tattoos in this case is choosing to actively sacrifice this freedom to remain in a healthy and positive relationship. The compromise creates a collective understanding that these rules in place exist to maintain happiness, while still allowing freedom.

This could extend to any aspect of a relationship not only in a romantic sense, but with one's relationship with society. The individual makes sacrifices for a collective purpose that they may believe in, and that sacrifice causes society as a whole to function on a much more free and personal basis. 

This seems like a very simple way of defining any system of government, however there is a very large difference between a society in which you are forced to participate simply by being born, and that of a society in which you are free to join and take part of, but also to exit any any time when the values don’t align with yours anymore.

And that is where autonomy becomes confusing in the modern context. The relationship between the choice of a person and the society they live in is no longer symbiotic, instead, a person is pressured into making decisions within a confined and controlled version of autonomy. This governing society tells the individual that they must actively contribute and participate in the systems it has established, with no free choice to exit.

The worst part is that we are led to believe that we have a choice. In many talks of mine with people who believe in the modern American ideals, I’ve been told “If you don’t like this place, why don’t you just leave?” They don’t realize the systems in place that make that decision extremely difficult, or that there's really nowhere you can go in the world right now to solve this specific issue in the first place.

consumerized, corporate, and grey

I am a designer? Right?

Formally there really is no question, I have a degree in Graphic Interactive Design (or whatever fancy words are on the slip of paper) so of course I am, by trade, a designer. Yet there exists this conflict inside me, am I really a designer?

I’ve grown to hate the world of graphic design. 

Consumerized, Corporate, and Grey.

Everything about my education in the design world up until now has become this: Who makes the best logos? Who has the best rates? Who runs the best side-hustle? Who has the most clients? Who has the largest online presence? Who can etch the values of the corporate world into their hearts best and will make it the furthest in said world.

I’ve only ever enjoyed making designs in the interest of self service, making love letters to hobbies or pieces of media I’ve grown attached to. I feel dislocated from it all, while peers celebrate visiting designers or lectures where we learn about studios, client work, and brand initiatives.

The most comfortable I’ve felt since joining this field is with a pen and paper. I still love the concept of graphic design, I love the type, colors, layouts and more created by others. Rather than seeing it as for the purpose of monetary gain, I enjoy it more as art than I do as communication. I enjoy hearing the unique problem solving and solutions a designer has come up with, yet I hate the systems and clients the solutions were made for. 

I am a hypocrite, but we’re all sometimes hypocritical I guess.

I’ve enjoyed the many writings I have made about the design field before; talking about movements, aesthetics, or how we can do better in the design field. I’ve also written a lot about education and pedagogy, exploring how to foster better environments for students while showing them alternatives from a system hell bent into turning them into a product.

I just love reading and learning, then writing about what I’ve read and learned, in hopes of communicating an idea to others. That doesn't just extend to the design and education topics I’ve addressed, instead, I love to write about much more than that. 

Inside me I begin to wonder whether I’m slipping away from Graphic Design as part of who I am.

I wonder if that’s okay, if I can be an educator in the design field while simultaneously viewing the field this way.

I wonder if I am allowed to talk about things outside of this bubble. Is it okay to simply address freedom, with no intention of tackling some great design issue?

I wonder if any of these feelings are valid. Am I simply acting alone in some self service that society will view as incorrect.

It takes a lot to get these feelings in check, with a half confident grin I tell myself what I am doing is valid, that the problems lie in the systems around me. After a heavy wave of these anxious thoughts, I look back at my paper. My mouth feels dry; I sip some water. 

Once again, without much inner thought, my fingers slide across the keys in a monotonous yet infatuating rhythm.

The original name for this writing before I started was “I just want to write.” That surely is an understatement, I thought maybe that having a writing semester would free me from the chains of needing to make. In my mind, maybe it was possible I would begin to make again without these pressures. 

I think I was wrong. I simply don’t feel the need to make. 

Making feels like it needs to be for something. 

That I need to have some grandiose content or idea to push forward, whether for a client or as activist work or anything. Without that pressure telling me to make, staring at a canvas feels empty. I don’t want to work without meaning, I’d rather be reading, playing a game, hanging out at a coffee shop, writing, or really any other activity that I naturally lean towards when I have spare free time.

This ties in a lot with how I view the field and hustle culture. The need to grind and work outside of office hours is ingrained into society like an ancient curse mark. Since making design has become such a consumerized idea, design has become a system of work for us. To make design feels like work because of that.

What does design freedom look like?

Can you truly be a graphic designer and make only for yourself?

Will it ever not feel like work?

Am I a writer? Am I a Graphic Designer? Am I a Design Writer? Am I a creator? Am I an artist? Am I something else entirely?

These labels don’t matter in the end, but I want to figure out who I am in this world, how I can fit into the puzzle while preserving my own identity and beliefs.

Reading my writing back, I realize the amount of damage that growing up in this system has done. To me, to my life, to my career, to my dreams. The amount of doubt and confusion it has sowed into my life, making living while maintaining these ideals feel like an insurmountable mountain. Lucky for me, I already started learning how to climb. I have the tools and thoughts available to me to find an answer, I just know it’s going to take a lot of time to get there.

the checkpoint at the end of the internet

In the greater void, an expansive layer of content veiled invisibly over our heads known as “The Internet”, one might in their travels stumble across The Checkpoint.

The internet is so massive, it would be fundamentally impossible to explore the entirety of it within the short span of our own human lives. One can easily assume then, that there is troves upon troves of lost media, dusty and untouched, layers of sediment atop content not seen since the early 2000s or maybe even before.

In the modern age, we tend to attempt to archive everything that is tangibly possible to archive. However, it is nearly impossible to imagine that we have truly grabbed every single thing. For example a video could have been uploaded by a creator who met an untimely end, only for the video to be deleted years later due to inactivity or changes in rules. Even with 200,000 views or many more, what guarantees that somebody pressed the download button before it was gone?

Many have taken up the mantle of “internet Archaeologists” and “Internet Historians”, committing serious amount of time exploring the vast open spaces of old MMOs such as Second Life (year), scouring for lost media of television era shows and movies, or digging through old forums, now tombs of old conversations held of people who have passed or moved on from that stage in their life.

Another day with some extra free time, you decided to open YouTube and browse what's on offer, letting the attention economy guide you. Many videos suggested are boring, many you've seen before, some new and from smaller channels, some educational. One, however, stands out. A black sheep, something is odd about it existing here, the title reads as follows:

とげとげクタルめいろすスーパードンケーキング2”

An odd insert of Japanese hiragana and katakana in your otherwise totally English speaking, non-Japanese YouTube pierces the video array like a dead pixel on a screen. The thumbnail a low-quality image of a pattern of vines over a blue and white sky. Something about this video evokes an almost ephemeral and dreamlike vibe, before even clicking in. Of course, now that you are so intrigued, you do decide to pursue further. What about this video is so attractive to you, apart from the fact that it clearly stands out.

As a small flash within the circuit board of the computer you’re on, data transferred from server to machine, and you are there. The video plays a soothing, harmonizing melody, composed of old 90s 8-bit sounds from the era of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The song is, in fact, Bramble Blast from Donkey Kong Country 2 played on repeat for 14 minutes and 52 seconds. Something way more interesting catches your eye, the description says to you:

📌 Welcome traveller. You have reached the checkpoint of the internet.

This is an age-old story beginning with taia777 in 2012, where people from all walks of life would comment about how their life is going. In 2020 that original video was removed. In that video's honour, I have kept both the original title and video, as we have all found the video recommended to us seemingly from nowhere, with a Japanese title and low-graphics thumbnail. Yet, out of curiosity, we elect to watch it and find a beautiful community of commenters.

The comments on the video are fragments of a strangers life. Memories and personal moments flow into a timeline from anonymous commenters revealing how their life is going, what’s happened to them lately, and where they are at. All who came to the video out of seemingly random chance and vague curiosity, leaving behind a fragment of time, shouting into the greater void of the internet.

The Internet can typically be a cold and brutal place for the inhabitants within it. It's quite normal for a person to have a separately existing online identity that differs often greatly from their real world self. This causes those within the space to often hide the traits that they dislike about themselves, or to never appear vulnerable to others. This can often be paralleled to the idea of social masking, where societal pressures cause a person to internalize their feelings rather than speaking their mind.

However on the internet, we can often see rise to a level of anonymity that lacks a tangible form of accountability for ones actions. Commenters on videos can viciously attack a creator for any mean they see as reasonable. Those famous who share personal information about themselves or their location can lead to real world safety issues, they can receive death threats, or be stalked by overly para social fans and groups.

Because of these and many other factors, it can be rare to see a genuine moment of vulnerability from a user of Twitter for example, or a commenter on a video, or even the content creator who made it. The Checkpoint cracks this open, commenters share intimate details of their personal life, the struggle they are going through laid out while others come to aid them and reinforce them, if only for a small moment. There’s something surreal and fascinating about the feeling this evokes, the amalgamation of internet culture and human empathy, a crossroads we often find lacking in modern media.

Across the entire idea, there is a light within these comments. Although many share thoughts of sadness, stress, and anxiety at the future, the people respond warmly and tenderly, showing a moment of care for complete strangers. In this light exists this strange community of travelers, waiting for the next time this video floats its way back to them in the sea of millions of videos. An unspoken set of rules exists here, ones that in a way, I am breaking by writing this;

1 - You are a main character here.

2 - You do not find this video, it finds it’s way to you.

3 - You must not share this video with anyone, it must find them.

4 - You are here to make a checkpoint, saving your progress in this moment in your life.

5 - After your checkpoint, you are here to support other main characters on their own journeys.

This is why, although I am sharing this information with you, I will not link this video to you, dear reader. Nor will I encourage you to try to find it for yourself. Be patient, and hopefully one day, it will come to you. When that time comes, I hope leave your own checkpoint.