Lemmings to the Stars
What to do: surviving the news
I’m sitting on a bench outside a cafe, clumsily eating a lukewarm mushroom and spinach roll on a wobbly table whilst talking to a friend. Every topic leads back to whatever deprived piece of news has popped up in the past 24 hours.
No matter how much we try to swerve the conversation into something positive it naturally reroutes to despair, both of us frustrated by…Everything! I’m sure you’re feeling much the same, so let's have a peek into some of these monstrosities and see if there’s anything we can do about it:
Donald McDumpTrump converts the lawn of the Whitehouse into a Tesla showroom in a PR stunt to re-stabilise Tesla’s fast dwindling stock value. Crouching into the front seat Trump exclaims like a five-year old “Everything’s Computer!”. The tech-bro funded oligarchical fascism in action.
Trump has also threatened a 200% retaliatory tariff on European wines and alcohol, more for us I suppose?
The mainstream press continues to gaslight the general public by covering up Elon Musk and Jordan Bannon’s recent Nazi salutes. Were they both Sieg Heiling? Roman Saluting? Or were they innocently waving? Surely not, no I know, it was probably just autism.
Over this side of the pond Chancellor Rachel Reeves has proposed cutting disability benefits as part of a welfare reform, potentially pushing hundreds of thousands of households into poverty in the process.
Meanwhile fitness trainer Natalee Barnett circled back on her commitment to create a women-only gym that would also be Trans-inclusive. After receiving donations (including from Trans women) and raising moneey from investors the gym will in fact only be available to cis-women. I’m unsure of how she’ll be policing entrance but maybe you can find out by leaving a comment, let me know how you get on.
Lady Gaga briefly dipped into her Jazz Hands closet whilst promoting ‘MAYHEM’, whipping out a red sequined outfit in homage to Liza Minnell for some reason.
Miu Miu put Sarah Paulson in a bucket hat for PFW.
Oh, and it’s winter again.
Donald Trump’s latest hobby is signing executive order after executive order. With every PR stunt Trump’s post-fake-news America is likely galvanising Nigel Farage and his Reform followers, laying the framework for them to follow suit. A recent YouGov poll saw Reform edge in front of the other parties for the first time. Their voters are mobilised and focused on bringing down the UK’s democratic governmental practices and strip the most marginalised of our basic rights. But how can we galvanise a fighting sense of hope to bite back against the torrent of transphobic and homophobic news. What can we do to keep our heads above water?
Uncomfortably Numb
While incessantly swiping through the same infographic over and over it loses all meaning. It’s mind-numbingly counterproductive but I can’t stop. Laying in bed, holding my phone 10 inches from my face and staring into the glowing brick I feel hopeless and unable to do anything with the information being shared. But that’s the point - I’m supposed to be relentlessly absorbing as much information as possible to feel numb to the news, to feel hopeless. I know for sure I’m not the only person who is going through a similar process. But maybe by intermittently relenting from feeding into the shock and awe machine we could alleviate our collective wellbeing. Obviously reducing the amount of time spent doomscrolling is going to be good for us all but I don’t want to bury my head in the sand. Plus I need my fix of leftfield humour I can only find in my phone. Instead of sharing the same infographic over and over we could share more productive links, like sharing how to write a letter to your MP or a petition. Either would provide options for us to become active swipers rather than passive scrollers.
Play them at their own game
I’m not saying she invented the rulebook but Vivienne Westwood had some nerve printing a Swastika on a tee and incorporating a red armband resembling the Nazi’s onto the sleeves. Her shock and awe machine aimed to overwhelm and disrupt the establishment of the time and for a bit, it kind of worked? Via symbolic gestures her shock tactics drew attention (and the press) to Sex which enabled her the opportunity to share her message - Anarchy. Well that was her intent anyway, those initial collections didn’t quite displace the historical connotations of the Swastika in the end but we did end up with her seminal designs changing the world of fashion and her uncompromising attitude influencing generations to come.
This reminds me of a more recent example of a design using Nazi symbolism for attention - Kanye West’s online shop was closed by Shopify after he placed an advert in the Super Bowl commercial break to promote his new online shop. It was selling only one item - a white tee with a black swastika printed on it. But the use of Nazi symbols to draw attention from the press is where similarities between Westwood, Kanye West and Elon Musk diverge. Because although Westwood wished to disrupt an Empire, she did so with her heart on her sleeve, peddling a message to invigorate hope and bring an end fascist values, whereas Elon Musk and Kanye West are utilising fascist symbols to promote only what’s on the surface of it all - fascism as a means to bring an Empire to its knees.
Time to look elsewhere:
Ever since I could remember I’ve endlessly romanticised memories of a long-lost fuzzy American dream. As a child I grew up enamoured by the idea of driving through Route 50 on the long road to nowhere but as I got older the idea of rattling around the piers of New York, indulging in the excesses of loft parties and seedy bars in 1970s seemed more appealing.
But 1970s New York is a fossil, long since dead and buried since Rudy Giuliani’s crackdown on crime. But wherever the stars flew, I wanted to be, it just always seemed out of reach.
In October last year I saw iconic New York critic Fran Lebowitz talk at the Barbican. Slouching behind the podium on stage in the expanse of the Barbican Hall, the entire audience hung onto every word, her presence and charisma palpably filling the auditorium. It was giving grand elder retelling tales of a time long-gone that to Londoners in 2024 sounded semi-mythical, but to her these stories were her lived experience. Her presence alone took on the romanticised American Dream I longed for and I loved every second, listening to her threading fables through us all, retelling us the same anecdotes she’s repeated in every interview for decades (I know because I’ve watched every one of her Letterman interviews on YouTube). For brief moments we’re back in New York with her, reminiscing on a dream of a myth that was never real. When asked in interviews “In what ways was 1970s New York different to now?” she always repeats the same answer: she was in her twenties in the ‘70s, everything feels better in your twenties!
Maybe she’s right, The America I romanticised growing up is physically long gone but maybe it was never real in the first place, lost in reruns of sitcoms and the fuzz of VHS tapes wearing down with each play. Maybe it was real though, maybe the myth was simply their collective state of mind of the time - wishing for something outside of themselves, to play, connect and rewrite the rulebooks of their parents’ culture. Maybe concentrating on our collective well being, checking in on friends and loved ones, allowing space for imperfections, for learning and organising as much as we can through tactile means and fostering support in whichever ways we can will be all we need to get through the inevitable difficulties that are coming our way.
Whatever we can do will be better than feeling numb and hopeless and allowing a bloated cars salesman to muddy the waters of an already bleak UK political climate.
If all else fails, we could all train to be bartenders?