Over a year ago, comedian and wife guy Alec Robbins released his smash hit comic Mr Boop, where he tells the factual tale of his life being married to Betty Boop – yes, that Betty Boop. A new panel was released daily, and in a pandemic haze, I was obsessed. Each day we’d wait with bated breath for a new issue. Did he still love his wife? Oh, thank goodness, he did. What started off as a silly comic about a guy who was really into his wife turned into a feminist horror about narratives, control and expectations.
The room is smokey, everything is in black and white, and suddenly we’re all speaking in a transatlantic accent. That could only mean one thing: a new season of You Must Remember This.
In learning the history of the “afterlives” of public women, I have come to fear my own death. I fear the manipulation of my corpse as a means to end Womanhood. I fear that people will champion their desires and use my body to achieve them after my death, and fear that they do it now, while I am still breathing.
Now I could write a nuanced article about how violence is deemed less inappropriate than female gratification on screen, or I could talk about how Hollywood has become so monopolised that it’s accidentally reverted back to the virtuous and sexless ways of the Hays code, but instead, I’m going to write a shitpost ranking the oral aptitude of all the Batmen, because apparently, I’m now the Boshemia Superhero correspondent?
We eventually found ourselves back in Echo Park—broke, lonely, and gay. As these codependent friendships go, we were destined for an end, or a pause. Night after night of drinking and feeling like losers started to wear on us.
Over the past decade or so, superheroes have only gotten bigger and bigger - this has just so happened to coincide with the rise of body dysmorphia in men. There is an increased pressure for men to have washboard abs, have basically no body fat and have a perfect V-shaped body; when the majority of media features men who look like action dolls, it makes sense that men are conditioned to believe that this is how they should look.
Fifty-five days into the first UK coronavirus lockdown, I ended my relationship of almost six years. My ex said to me, “I think you absolutely made me a better person. I’m not sure I did the same for you.” I think that was his way of apologising.
As I write this, there’s a gas shortage in North Carolina. Maybe you’ve heard about it. A pipeline hack led to panic buying and hoarding. Tonight, someone tweeted that 78% of gas stations in North Carolina are out of gas, the worst of any state right now.
The ambient fear of my grandmother’s inevitable death hung over me like deep summer humidity. I knew from a young age how precious our time together was, how fraught the timeline, how scarce the memories would someday be. And all these years later, I still grasp at silhouettes of that summer and they slip through my fingers like rain.
Taylor Swift taught me how to talk about differing-gender relationships long enough to get out of my hometown, and later, my college town, a script that allowed me to appear authentic even as I was struggling to articulate, internally, what I wanted out of my life. And for that, I love her.
Start with heat, the sensation of warmth between your palms. Move slowly onto light, and colour. Picture the flickering flames between your hands. Will them to be.
It was a day of peaceful but powerful protest and people power. In this author and protest attendee’s opinion, police escalation of hostility was what sparked the violent clashes as the sun went down.
So, we hear that you lot are unhappy? Sure, if you were really that unhappy, you could just leave the country, but apparently everyone wants to follow international law and display the right to protest. While we, at the government, respect your right to protest, we also don’t want to see anyone get hurt. With the help of Priti Patel, Boris Johnson and Emperor Palpatine, we’ve created a handy guide on how to protest without being too much of a bother.
Your virtual composite of who you want to be and what you are looking for, your “I’m a straight male, 30s, seeking short term and long term relationships and friends” — I see peppered with us, our memories.
Whenever students get too close to me, I flinch. We leave the doors open for airflow because of COVID and I think of my training for active shooters, but you notice there’s no such thing as an inactive shooter?
It’s been a bloody tough year for creators and creatives. So, we wanted to take today to give a shout-out to some of our favourites. Follow them, engage with them, buy their shit. Support them however you can ❤️
The Royal Family’s preoccupation with the notion of ‘duty’ is a ludicrous artefact. Birth should not determine what anyone does with their life, and anyone born into a royal family (also a ridiculous and outdated concept) should be able to walk away if that life doesn’t suit them.
