TBH the ’80s was the best decade.
Thứ Sáu, 31 tháng 10, 2014
18 Times "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" Made You Ugly Cry
Grab Mr. Pointy and some ice cream and get ready to cry.
When Buffy finds her mother dead on the couch.
“You’re not supposed to touch the body!”
Why You'll Cry: Joss Whedon likes to break your heart until you need to lay down and eat ice cream... and then stab you in the gut with the Slayer Scythe while you're too busy crying to notice you're being stabbed. That's what this scene is.
How Long It’ll take You To Recover: 10–24 hours.
WB / Via btvs-reaction-gifs.tumblr.com
When Anya walks down the aisle... alone.
“I, Anya, promise to love you, to cherish you, to honor you, ah, but NOT to obey you, of course, because that's anachronistic and misogynistic and who you do you think you are, like a sea captain o-or something?”
Why You'll Cry: SHE’S STOOD UP AT THE ALTAR BECAUSE NOTHING HAPPY CAN EVER HAPPEN TO THESE CHARACTERS EVER.
How Long It’ll take You To Recover: A solid 48 hours. But you still won't ever fully forgive Xander.
UPN / Via fanpop.com
Tara getting shot by Warren.
“Your shirt.”
Why You'll Cry: Because you aren’t a robot devoid of emotions and Tara and Willow were arguably one of the best couples on television and Amber Benson can break your heart with just one line.
How Long It’ll take You To Recover: You will literally never recover from this heartbreak. Your world will come crashing down.
UPN / Via tumblr.com
Angel getting his soul back, right before Buffy has to kill him.
“Close your eyes.”
Why You’ll Cry: Willow does her job and gives Angel his soul back after spending nearly the entire season without his soul (and tormenting Buffy) — but it’s too late because everything is always terrible for everyone on this show.
How Long It’ll take You To Recover: A whole summer.
WB / Via elle.com
25 Important Life Tips We Learned From Dwight K. Schrute
“Bread is the paper of the food industry.”
Of all the members of The Office, Dwight held a special place in our hearts.
NBC
Not because he was on-point with pop-culture...
NBC
... but because he taught us so many important life skills.
NBC
Don't be afraid to try new things.
NBC
The Definitive Ranking Of "Star Wars" Films
You decide which film the force is strongest with.
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Best part: The scenes that featured Palpatine’s rise to power.
Worst part: All of the scenes that take place on Geonosis (sans Yoda’s fight scene). Also, the B-movie sounding title could've been stronger.
Lucasfilm
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Best part: The final intense duel between badass Sith Lord, Darth Maul, and, Jedi’s Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. And it was all set to a pretty epic score.
Worst part: The introduction of Jar Jar Binks, who is arguably the worst thing about the entire film.
Lucasfilm
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Best part: The final 20 minutes of the film; which are the only scenes from all three prequels that felt connected to the original trilogy.
Worst part: The cheesy dialogue, stiff-acting, and nonexistent chemistry between Anakin and Padmé.
Lucasfilm
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Best part: The final showdown between Luke, Vader, and Palpatine.
Worst part: The fact that the Ewoks beat the Empire with sticks and stones.
Lucasfilm
18 Arguments Every '00s Teen Had With Their Parents
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF KNOCKING?
When you legit had no idea how you went over your monthly text limit.
youtube.com / Via mashable.tumblr.com
When you couldn't understand what was so awful about wanting Fall Out Boy lyrics tattooed on your arm.
#angsty
SNL Studios via blomskvist.tumblr.com
How Well Do You Know The "Friends" Halloween Episode?
Howdy, Space doody!
Warner Bros. Television / Jaimie Etkin for BuzzFeed
You Won't Believe What America's Favorite "Friends" Episodes Are
It couldn’t BE any more surprising.
For as long as humans walk the Earth, they will forever debate which episode of Friends is the best. But which episodes did America actually tune into the most? These are the 20 highest-rated episodes of Friends ever, according to NBC's Research Department.
"The One With All the Poker" (Season 1, Episode 18)
This showdown between the men and women over a game of poker is one of the first classic episodes of the series where every character gets a chance to shine. This solidified the hang-out vibe of the series, and it's no wonder it was watched by so many — it sets the tone for the rest of the series and the way the characters feel like your very own friends.
Total Viewers: 30.362 million
NBC / Via misadventuresfromthebrink.blogspot.com
"The One With Two Parts, Part 2" (Season 1, Episode 17)
This episode lured in viewers with a pseudo ER crossover. George Clooney and Noah Wylie show up, but not as their characters Doug Ross and John Carter — they play two doctors who flirt with Monica and Rachel.
Total Viewers: 30.476 million
NBC
"The One Where Ross Finds Out" (Season 2, Episode 7)
Since Ross never found out that Rachel raced to the airport to say how much she loves him, Ross started dating this perfectly nice and perfectly boring girl Julie. But he doesn't break up her with he finds out Rachel's secret, of course, because where's the drama in that?
Total Viewers: 30.512 million
NBC / Via saraalea.tumblr.com
8 Historical Witches You Need To Know This Halloween
Because there’s more to witchcraft than ‘Hocus Pocus.’
When most people think of witches, they think of drugstore Halloween decorations or movie and TV witches. But historically, witches were real people accused of a serious crime, and most were poor and already-marginalized women. BuzzFeed Life talked to Katherine Howe, author of The Penguin Book of Witches , to learn more about the real women (and occasional men!) behind witch folklore and mythology. Here are eight you should get to know.
Originally pub./prod. in Edward White: London 1579 / Via British Library/Robana/R/REX USA
According to Howe, "Ursula drew unwelcome attention after a woman named Grace Thurlowe declined Ursula's offer to nurse and care for Grace's newborn daughter. The baby fell out of the cradle and died from her injuries, leading Ursula to say that Grace should have take her up on her offer. As Ursula's trial unfolds, it establishes many themes that would recur in North American witch trials a hundred years later, including a strange concern for children, and an accused witch having her body searched for a telltale teat." Ursula Kemp confessed to witchcraft and was hanged in 1582.
Originally produced for R. Royston: London 1647 / Via British Library/Robana/R/REX USA
This Is What The Cast Of "The Craft" Looks Like Now
How has that Glamour spell paid off?
The Craft, the beloved '90s film about a group of angsty teenage witches, is a Halloween classic.
Let's take a look back on what its cast looked like back in 1996, and what they look like now, shall we?
Columbia Pictures / Giphy
Columbia Pictures / Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images
How Well Do You Know The Lyrics To The "Golden Girls" Theme Song?
Grab some cheesecake and put your Golden Girls knowledge to the test.
Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed
~And if you didn't do so well, here's a refresher:~
NBC / Via youtube.com
Which Book Scared You The Most As A Child?
Why did our parents even let us read these?!
Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed
56 Toys That Will Make Every Girl Feel Nostalgic
Including fashion plates, a Dear Diary, and scoubidous.
Fashion plates
Fashion Faces
Dream Phone
whiteliesandblacktruths.wordpress.com
A gem tree
19 Celebrity Fashion Lines You Totally Forgot About
They can’t all be Jessica Simpson.
Mblem by Mandy Moore
Post-pop Moore launched this line of knitwear aimed at taller ladies in 2005. At the time, Moore told the AP she could never find T-shirts long enough for her 5'10" frame. Apparently there wasn't a big enough demand for the high-end knits ($50 and up) — the line shuttered after four years, despite being in most major department stores. Moore suggested some behind-the-scenes drama forced her to shut down the line, saying she would love to return to fashion if she had "a great partnership that could represent a true reflection of me and my ideas." Five years later, Moore has yet to make a clothing comeback.
Mark Mainz / Getty Images
Fetish by Eve
The rapper created Fetish at the height of her fame in 2003, the same year her eponymous UPN sitcom premiered. The "sexed-up urban wear line" featured bold logos and prints, including ones inspired by Eve's infamous paw print tattoos. While successful at department stores around the country, the line ran into licensing issues and was shut down a few years later. Eve relaunched the brand in 2008 with more upscale, logo-free apparel, but the new look lasted less than a year. Fetish folded for good in 2009. Eve told BET in 2013 she had no plans to revive the brand, adding that it never really represented her.
Mychal Watts / WireImage
Paris Hilton for Dollhouse
After The Simple Life ended in 2007, Hilton took her talents to the fashion world, with this short-lived denim and casuals line for Dollhouse. The line, which featured T-shirts plastered with Hilton's face, was sold at one-time celebrity hotspot Kitson, as well as Nordstrom and Macy's. It lasted less than a year, but Hilton went on to launch an accessories line that's proven popular across Asia.
Ethan Miller / Getty Images
FuMan Skeeto by Chris Kirkpatrick
Because if you had to get style advice from a member of NSYNC, you'd pick Chris Kirkpatrick. No? That might explain why this "casual line of urban-inspired women's streetwear with an Asian influence" lasted just three years. The line, surprisingly sold in high-end department stores, disappeared in 2002 — the same year NSYNC disbanded. And, as for the name? It apparently came to Kirkpatrick when "a mosquito landed on one of his lopped-off braids, making him think the mosquito had a [Fu Manchu mustache]." Yeah.
Evan Agostini / Getty Images
Thứ Năm, 30 tháng 10, 2014
Jian Ghomeshi And The Danger Of Accessible Celebrity
The sexual assault allegations against radio host Jian Ghomeshi are all the more painful for Canadians because he seemed to represent our cultural scene so well.
Jian Ghomeshi
Getty Images Todd Oren
In 2009, I dressed up as Jian Ghomeshi for Halloween. I wore the former CBC radio host's classic attire: a leather jacket, second-day stubble, headphones and the broadcaster's logo. Only one person guessed who I was. At the time, his arts and culture program "Q" was just two years old, and nowhere near the mammoth success it would be become. But I was already in love with program, and like so many young women in media to come, I crushed on him professionally and personally.
Of course, it feels wrong to admit that now. On Sunday, the CBC announced it would part ways with Ghomeshi, amidst an investigation in the Toronto Star that he abuses women. Overnight, Ghomeshi has gone from being a Canadian cultural icon to a source of national shame. Now that nine women have come forward -- two with their names -- with allegations that involve non-consensual violence -- our country is processing what it means to turn our backs on a beloved figure. In addition to the women who have come forward, others are reflecting on the close calls they had with Ghomeshi and how a national treasure managed to abuse his position of power for so many years.
In 2008, Ghomeshi wrote me an e-mail. I had sent him my all-female rap group's C.D. accompanied with a handwritten note. My dream was to get our band on his show. He complimented my penmanship "hot. want to marry the handwriting" and wrote "we'll see what we can do about getting you on Q some time. keep me in touch if you ever tour 'round these parts (toronto). yours, j." At the time I peed my pants. Looking back, it makes me feel scared how excited I was to be in contact with him. From what many of the women who have come forward described, Jian has a consistent MO: meet a fawning fan in her 20s, charm her on Facebook or over drinks and then wait for a private moment to punch, choke or slap her without warning. He calls it BDSM. They call it abuse.
It's impossible to overstate how entrenched Ghomeshi was in Canada's arts scene. During interviews, musicians loved to reference his '90s-era band, Moxy Fruvous, whose first full-length album went platinum in Canada. His show, which is now continuing with other hosts, has an hour-and-a-half long Q&A format and lands diverse A-list interviews with the likes of Louis C.K., Julian Assange, M.I.A., Quentin Tarantino, Lena Dunham, and Drake. "Q" had the highest CBC ratings ever in its 10 a.m. time slot, and since 2010 has aired on more than 180 U.S. stations. Outside of the studio, Ghomeshi hosts Canada's most important literary events and recently wrote a memoir about growing up in the '80s. He was always hobnobbing in Toronto at the book launches, film premieres and the concerts of the guests who frequented his show. If there had been a flag for Canadian culture before last week, it would have featured his face.
His show singlehandedly attracted millennials to CBC, a station with an audience that was 70% middle-aged when "Q" began. He used Twitter voraciously, often flirtatiously responding to fans. In jeans, a t-shirt and a blazer he stood out from many of the other hosts who felt more like your parents (though at 47, he is firmly Gen-X). But the main attraction for a Ghomeshi fan was his interviewing style. Rather than the robotic delivery that characterizes many CBC personalities, his dulcet tones and stuttering sentences made his show feel like it was happening in your living room. He could switch from asking Jay-Z about his greatest vulnerability to conducting a fast-paced media panel analyzing the downfall of Rob Ford with seamless intelligence and wit. He was a master of both the cool and the cerebral, of the new and the nerdy. As a celebrity he existed among us, not above us. You could walk up to him at a party and start talking to him like a friend.
Interview with Keira Knightley
He felt accessible; he was not someone you had to admire from afar. In fact, since he wrote me that e-mail, I've met Ghomeshi a handful of times. A friend introduced us after a conference he hosted soon after I graduated from university. A few years ago, another friend dated him and brought me to his birthday party (that friend was not a victim of sexual assault). I remember wanting to get his attention, but settling for a conversation with Kelly Cutrone. In what I used to think of as one of the high points of my journalism career, I recently interviewed him the in the "Q" studio before he left to cover the Sochi Olympics. I posted a picture of us smiling to my Facebook wall.
While Jian had a sterling reputation with CBC viewers, many of us in the media or arts scene had heard rumours that he was a bit of a creeper, and certainly, you could ask why the alleged victims ignored rumors about him, shrugged off signs of lechery and, in at least one case, went back for a second date. But a forward and somewhat sleazy demeanor is exactly what many young women expect from a powerful man full of ego and charisma. His power was part of his appeal. For those in that arts and media scene, Ghomeshi was an idol, the type of person you wanted to be and who could help you get there.
The openness that characterized Ghomeshi is what makes the allegations against him especially hard to stomach. In his public life, he embodied so much of what makes Canada a diverse and accepting country — he's the son of Iranian immigrants with progressive politics who made himself accessible. What's more Canadian than that? So to think he may have used the platform Canadians gave him, the platform he earned with his work, to abuse women feels like a nation-sized betrayal. It's why so many people rushed to his defense when the CBC cut ties with the host, and believed his excuse that the allegations were all about a "jilted" ex and the network's prejudice towards the kinky. We didn't want to believe it. But now, as the violent allegations continue to pile up, the overwhelming likelihood is that we've been duped. And there will certainly never be another Halloween when I can wear a Ghomeshi costume with pride.
What We're Really Afraid Of When We Call Someone "Basic"
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
“My grandma’s so basic she buys multivitamins at Costco,” a friend joked with me the other day.
“My grandma’s so basic she reads the Parade inserts in the Sunday paper," he continued. "She’s so basic she owns Harry Connick Jr.’s entire discography. She’s so basic she calls Folgers Coffee ‘the good stuff.’" He was joking, but in so doing, he touched on the crux of the rise of the 2014 version of the basic: She's laughable because she consumes boringly.
According to our current definition of “basic” — a shortening of “basic bitch” — a “basic” is a millennial who is inescapably predictable. She (and it is always a she) cherishes uninspired brands — a mix of Target products, Ugg boots over leggings, and Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes (the ultimate signifier of basicness) — and lives a banal existence, obsessed with Instagramming photos of things that themselves betray their basicness (other basic friends, pumpkin patches, falling leaves), tagging them #blessed and #thankful, and then reposting them to the basic breeding grounds of Facebook and Pinterest.
A grandma who shops at Costco, reads Parade, and loves Folgers is, then, just her generation’s version of predictable consumerism. In the ‘50s, basics were called “men in the gray flannel suit”; in the ‘20s, they were “Babbits.” Back then, the object of anxiety was men’s patterns of consumption, in part because men were still the primary consumers, even for the home; today, women aren’t just consuming more, they are consuming more visibly — which is part of why they’ve become the locus of this generation’s critique. That’s how “basic” is used today: as a means for people anxious about their position within both the purchasing and cultural currency to denigrate the purchasing and cultural habits of others.
And as Noreen Malone pointed out in New York Magazine, “basic” is primarily a label wielded against a particular type of woman: one who “likes being a woman, or at least she buys the products that are so inherently female-skewing that they don’t even NEED to be explicitly marketed to women ... she delights in all the things that men dismiss as unserious or that don’t even register for them as existing — celebrity gossip, patterned disposable cocktail napkins that mean something sentimental.”
Malone’s reading is correct, but if a certain swath of millennial white girls is basic, so, too, is a larger swath of white, middle-class grandmas and white, middle-class moms, many of whom live in suburbs. They just consume in feminized (and thus readily dismissible) ways appropriate to their generations: my mom, who lives in northern Idaho, is so basic that she drinks decaf single-shot lattes at Starbucks, shops online at Chico’s, and posts pictures of her heirloom vegetable garden to Facebook. She drinks slightly more expensive white wine and goes to a slightly more erudite book club than the basics half her age, but she too is basic.
Getty Images Photodisc
“Basic” is, at bottom, a stereotype. And like all stereotypes, we fling it at others in order to distance ourselves from them. These people are this thing; therefore, I am this other thing. Stereotypes are deployed most fervently — and with the most hostility — when the group wielding them is most anxious to distance itself from another group that, in truth, isn’t so distant after all. See: “Fresh Off the Boat,” “White Trash,” “Hipster.” These stereotypes are explicitly rooted in race, but implicitly, and most powerfully, are rooted in class distinction. By calling someone “white trash,” a certain segment of white consumer person distinguishes themselves from another segment of white consumer, thereby bolstering their position within the capitalist hierarchy.
But that’s not how it was used even five years ago. According to a Google Trends map of the word’s usage, "basic" entered the vernacular around 2011. But that original usage had nothing to do with middle-class white girls. Instead, “basic bitch,” like so many things that become commonplace within mainstream (white) culture, was appropriated from black culture, where it had long been deployed in a slightly different, if generally class-centric, matter:
As stand-up comedian LilDuval explained in 2009 YouTube video,
“If you’re a black girl and your weave is red, green, purple, or blonde, you’s a basic bitch.”
“If you bend your ass over in all your pictures just to make it look big even though you ain’t got one, you’s a basic bitch.”
“If you sing any Beyoncé song, all day, every day, something like 'Upgrade' and there ain’t nothing been upgraded about you since high school in ‘92, kill yourself, and you’re a basic bitch.”
This original usage has more to do with posturing and performance, but that doesn’t mean that class isn’t at its root: If you’re pretending to be something you’re not, especially when you don’t have the means to “upgrade,” you’re a basic bitch.
Kreayshawn’s’ “Gucci Gucci,” released in 2012, articulated the same values, only with a white female voice: “Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada / Them basic bitches wear that shit so I don’t even bother.” The video for “Gucci Gucci,” which became a viral sensation, seems to mark the beginning of the gradual rise in usage of the word that would eventually spike first in April 2014, when Emma Stone told Vogue that, after googling herself, she’d found herself described as a “bland basic bitch,” and again in October, as pieces ridiculing “Things Basic Girls Like” — including nearly a dozen on BuzzFeed — went viral; the most popular of which (“25 Things That Basic White Girls Do During The Fall”) has been viewed 4.9 million times.
Which is all to say that “basic bitch” was a commonplace adjective within black culture, albeit with slightly different connotations, for years before it went “mainstream” over the course of the last few years. It’s crucial to acknowledge that just as “basic bitch” was primarily used by black people, toward black people; the deracinated “basic” is primarily used by middle-class white people toward middle-class white people.
So what are those who make fun of basics actually frightened of? Of being basic, sure, but that’s just another way of being scared of conformity. And in 2014 America, the way we measure conformity isn’t in how we speak in political beliefs, but in consumer and social media habits. We declare our individuality via our capacity to consume differently — to mix purchases from Target with those from quirky Etsy shops — and to tweet, use Facebook, or pin in a way that separates us from others.
To make fun of the basic, then, is another way of displacing concern over the increasing difficulty to do so, to cloak concern over the flattening of American consumer and mediated culture in the form of a meme. I’m basic, my mom is basic, and my friend’s grandmother is basic because we all grew up in rural or suburban towns where, over the course of the last 50 years, the chain store has come to dominate. My mom shops online at Chico’s because her only other choice in her 30,000-person Idaho town is Macy’s or Walmart; as a result, she chooses one basic option over another. And she gets a latte at Starbucks because it’s the only coffee shop in town. For one of her college-age students to be excited about the September arrival of the Pumpkin Spice Latte isn’t an indicator that that student has no taste as much as it's about how there are few other outlets accessible to her.
Getty Images Photodisc
Unique taste — and the capacity to avoid the basic — is a privilege. A privilege of location (usually urban), of education (exposure to other cultures and locales), and of parentage (who would introduce and exalt other tastes). To summarize the groundbreaking work of theorist Pierre Bourdieu: We don’t choose our tastes so much as the micro-specifics of our class determine them. To consume and perform online in a basic way is thus to reflect a highly American, capitalist upbringing. Basic girls love the things they do because nearly every part of American commercial media has told them that they should.
Basics are good and steady consumers of good and steady American businesses, which is another way of saying they’re good Americans. But to look around and realize that all of our lofty ideals about the rights of the individual under democracy have in fact yielded a society in which “choice” — at least for a certain demographic — is the difference between two forms of scented body wash... well, that’s existentially terrifying.
Instead of grappling with the fundamental principles that have wrought this system, however, popular culture has transformed it into a way of disciplining the women who manifest it most vividly. To call someone “basic” is to look into the abyss of continually flattening capitalist dystopia and, instead of articulating and interrogating the fear, transform it into casual misogyny. And that’s a behavior far more troubling — and regressive — than taking pleasure in all things pumpkin spice.
42 Amazing Things You Will Only See At Hello Kitty Con
We went to the first-ever Hello Kitty Con in Downtown Los Angeles. This is what we saw.
First, you are welcomed by a giant Hello Kitty sign welcoming you, because DUH.
Justin Abarca for BuzzFeed
Pretty much every Hello Kitty fan in the world is there*. Because this is Hello Kitty Mecca, and they were here to make their Hello Kitty pilgrimage.
*not actually true, but we were told 25 to 30 thousand people were expected to attend over the weekend. And they were ALL decked out in Hello Kitty gear AND were of all ages!
Justin Abarca for BuzzFeed
There is Giant Hello Kitty graffiti, natch.
Justin Abarca for BuzzFeed
A Hello Kitty ATM, so you can spend money on Hello Kitty things!!!
Justin Abarca for BuzzFeed
9 Celebrity #TBT Photos You May Have Missed This Week
Mario Lopez and Will Smith hanging out together in the ’90s kicks off this week’s #Throwback Thursday.
Mario Lopez posted this cool photo of himself hanging out with Will Smith in 1993.
Barbra Streisand remembered the time she had President John F. Kennedy sign an autograph for her.
Stevie Nicks took us back to her "Gypsy" days.
Knitting Myself Back Together
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
When I decided this past summer to move into my own apartment after years of living with roommates, my anxiety took over completely.
“Idiot,” it hissed after I signed a lease on a beautiful little place in a not-quite-nice area. “How the fuck do you think you’re ready for this? You can’t afford it, it’s not safe, you’ll regret it, you chose wrong.” Really, what it translated to was this: I hated not knowing the future, not being able to chart the edges of my life and promise myself it would all be OK. One day, shortly before I moved, I stayed home from work because I had such a strong panic attack that I threw up mucus all over my sheets. I put the sheets in the bathtub, called my mom, and then, in order to stave off another wave of nausea, began knitting a mustard-yellow sweater.
My knitting predates my anxiety by about a decade. I learned when I was 6, making washcloths and coasters and doll blankets (which are actually all pretty much the same thing) and years later moving on to lace cardigans, Mad Men-style dresses, and a lifetime supply of mismatched mittens. Those began in 2008, the summer after high school, and the only time in my semi-adult life I’ve been truly unemployed and truly depressed. I was competing for part-time jobs at Victoria’s Secret and Sephora against people who had degrees in fashion merchandising. I felt formless and invisible, so I spent those three months waiting for my high school boyfriend to get out of his lifeguarding job. I would then pick fights with him and stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning watching cartoons alone on my ancient laptop. And even though I was over the moon about college, which I’d be starting in upstate New York in the fall, the present muck of it all made me feel nothing if not useless. I had nothing concrete to point at to prove that I was doing OK; I was claustrophobic and tense, all of a sudden scared of driving and blindingly angry (at the world but mostly at myself) that nobody wanted to give me a job, that nobody seemed to be able to see me.
About a month into this listless, lightless summer, I pulled out my knitting needles. I’d never really gotten past that first washcloth-shaped phase, occasionally making things that kind of looked like hats or sweaters but not quite a garment anyone would actually wear. I couldn’t read patterns and that alone felt like it walled me out from all the knowledge and inspiration floating around on the internet, among people much more skilled than me who knew how to speak that secret language.
Knitting, then, became my task. During one of those nights of cartoons I started to pore over books and YouTube videos, figuring out what it meant to seam a shoulder or turn a heel. I knitted my first real sweater, a bright-yellow cropped cardigan I don’t think I’ve ever worn, in a blurred week of near-insomnia. It didn’t matter that the sleeves were too bulky or that the buttonholes didn’t line up — here was something that was 100% mine, that seven days prior had been nothing but a pile of exceedingly raw materials. Nobody had asked me to knit or had given me permission; I just did it, and that power was enough to propel me into a summer of unbridled, fibery productivity. I could, in some small way, stop waiting to be chosen.
Still, over the last few years, my anxiety has expanded and mutated. It gorges itself on mistakes I make at work and feasts on fights with the people I love, anything that makes it look like the happiness I’ve harvested could all of a sudden disappear. My good, logical self tries to wrestle the twisted and bloated version or at least make it listen to reason: You will not be fired, he will not leave you, that had nothing to do with you so please slow your heartbeat. More often than not, these arguments don’t work.
But making things dims the roar. The rhythm of stitches, the steadiness and the solidity of the ever-growing project — these are REAL, the antidote to the made-up apocalyptic extrapolation that is my anxiety’s bread and butter. What’s more, they’re under your control, progressing at exactly the rate and (sometimes) in exactly the manner you choose. Crafting is a lot like sex or yoga, how it shrinks your immediate world down to this cozy, manageable size where all you have to focus on is what’s right in front of you; unlike sex, at the end you get a new pair of socks or a coaster. I can graph my life by the pile of finished (and not-so-finished) knitting projects nestled in the back of my wardrobe: a chunky lace shawl from my first summer interning in New York, a pair of leg warmers from a winter break spent worrying over a test I’d kind of sort of cheated on, a single slipper for an ex (the relationship ended before I could make the second one). They’re all imbued with a certain energy from the period I spent working on them, and that helps me trace how far I’ve come and how far I have left to go. They anchor me.
The moment you know you are a real knitter, for good and for keeps, is when you fix your first mistake. Before that you are a little helpless, seeking out the aid of teachers and internet walk-throughs to take you back to the place before you made the hole, quadrupled the stitches, yanked out the needle. That first summer I learned how to read my knitting, to know which loop had to be repaired in order to create the next one. It’s good practice for what I try to do every day in my non-knitting life, with my therapist and with my family and with myself: Trace the troubles back to their source so I can better know how to fix them. So often my defensiveness or my irrationality spring from that fear of not knowing what’s next, of not being in control of a given situation; so often a gaping hole in a sleeve just needs a little tug a few stitches back.
When I moved into the new apartment, one of the very first things I did was unpack my yarn. It’s arranged in rainbow-ish order on a bookshelf across from my bed, and so when I wake up in the morning it’s often the first thing I see. I like having all those colors around, all that squishy, toasty goodness, but more than that I like the potential of it. What will you be? I wonder of a large pile of marled green wool, three balls of unbleached cotton, a tiny skein of silk picked up at a festival near the college I’ve since graduated. The not knowing isn’t actually so bad. In fact, it could be the best part.
36 GIFs That Perfectly Capture Your '90s Childhood
Nostalgia is good for the soul.
Wanting to have everything in Arnold's room.
Is there even anyone else on his level?
Nickelodeon / Via peteneems.tumblr.com
The emotional blow that was this scene.
"Help.. somebody... anybody..."
Disney / Via fuckyeahthelionking.tumblr.com
What The Spice Girls Looked Like In The 1990s, 2000s, And Now
The race is on to get out of the bottom / The top is so high so your roots are forgotten
Richard Young / REX
Getty Images MJ Kim/Spice Girls LLP
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