Granted, quite a number of these blogs do offer valuable information on rethinking finances, finding interesting work, and a whole manner of personal development. However, in their frenzy of preaching about how lifestyle design is the BEST THING EVAR, they're overlooking a very important point.
Lifestyle design is something that is only really possible for people with privilege.
I'm not talking about "being a rich dude with a mansion" type privilege. I'm talking about the privilege of not being considered a low-class citizen intent on terrorism because you're brown and have a green passport, the privilege of having your home currency stretch very far around the world, the privilege of still being able to access a whole host of resources if you end up rock-bottom. The privilege to be able to experiment, to have lifestyle design be optional.
Here's a very clear example of this kind of alarming privilege ignorance, from The Middle Finger Project:
What this is about is showing you that the cards you’ve been dealt do not matter. They are irrelevant. What does matter, rather, are the choices you make, and how much guts you've got.
Actually, they do matter. A lot. A lot of these cards are institutionalised - the stuff that makes up privilege, the stuff that makes a difference on whether lifestyle design is a choice or a necessity for you - and won't make a difference no matter how you play them.
Your nationality, residency, and passport make a huge difference on your ability to travel and migrate - with some passports putting you automatically in the "high risk" category for visas no matter what sort of history you have. It's not as easy to just pack up and move; if you can't prove that you have a substantial amount of money and assets beforehand, they won't let you out of the country.
You don't need to be living in poverty to make lifestyle design inaccessible. Currencies from a developing country - including relatively better-off countries like Malaysia and Singapore - do not travel well, both in terms of what it can buy and also in terms of exchange rates. A filling meal costs RM5 in Malaysia, and AUD8 in Australia - about RM24. That RM5 that got you a meal back home only goes to about AUD1.50 in Australia - not enough for a drink. It works in the lifestyle designer's favour when they travel, because suddenly everything is cheap-as, but not the other way. It's funny that there's so much love for hiring outsourced assistants, saying that it's about "US10 for a week of groceries in Bangalore" and claiming that you hiring them is some form of charity social justice work - how about dealing with the global economic inequality that makes it difficult for an Indian person to buy a week of groceries in the first place?
Many countries have restrictions on work for immigrants, and some big employers have a preference for hiring "local" - though interestingly if you come from a dominant Western White background you're usually able to avoid the "immigrant" issues and be protected in an "expatriate" bubble, courted for your money and social power. Working holiday visas are severely limited, and just having an ethnic-sounding name can hinder you from getting a job (even if - and probably especially - if you're in a country with stronger currencies and better-developed social security services). It can be hard to even launch an online-only business when PayPal restricts what you can do with your money based on where you are.
For some people, lifestyle design is necessary, because a lot of the usual options that "lifestyle designers" take for granted aren't openly available. On the surface my life could be an example of "lifestyle design" - I mostly work on my own creative stuff, I set the hours, I'm not in some 9-5. But I'm not in a 9-5 because circumstances I can't control, such as my name and my Bridging Visa, are making it difficult for me to get a job, or to get any sort of assistance. Most of those fancy consulting/education packages that are making top dollar (even though I suspect they are mostly saying the same thing) are too expensive for me, and probably wouldn't apply anyway. I'm having to be supported by my parents - a move that has gotten me called a "trust-fund kid" with disdain by some people, but normal in my home culture - and also pretty necessary, given that my dad's the one with the regular job (and he's supposed to be RETIRED by now). Lifestyle design, for us, then becomes less about how to design the life of our choosing, and more about how to make the best of difficult and challenging circumstances, usually involving bureaucracy of some kind.
Yet many lifestyle design bloggers don't seem to acknowledge how much of an impact privilege holds on their ability to do what they're doing. Instead, they rudely dismiss the concerns of non-designers, not-so-subtly denigrating them for staying in a conventional "template" lifestyle (while also ignoring that for some people, it is their choice to follow a conventional life, and that's perfectly fine.) Their dismissal and ignorance smacks so strongly of the dangers of "positive thinking", of the idea that everything in your life is merely because of your "attitude" and that everything can be solved if you just adopt the right thinking.
Never mind the condescension towards people from "third-world" countries, as well as some crazy appropriating - seriously, "protecting [something] like a father protects his daughter"? Do people still buy into those stereotypes? (And how much of a bad-ass can you really be if you ended up homeless with confusing residency and had to fend for yourself without direct response marketing to save you?)
I used to be a regular reader of Gala Darling's blog, and I have written abouther afew times on this blog, mainly using her as a representative of "niche Internet celebrity". I've also asked about bloggers like her on Ask Metafilter, which has gotten the attention of her friends and fans - not all positive. (A lot of them seem to think that because I'm commenting on the subculture she's in I'm attacking her personally.)
Then in the middle of last year quite a bit of dramablew up around Gala and her blog, mainly relating to her finances. A microcosm of the overall drama can be seen in the comments to this Cut Out + Keep post. I found the drama entertaining and did do a JournalFen report about it, but wasn't personally vested either way. I did notice that I got a lot of the same comments about Gala on my previous blog entries - that she was a trust fund kid, that she was selling an unsustainable lifestyle, that she's possibly a fraudster.
The drama died down, I lost interest, and life went on. However, just today my "Tiara Shafiq" Google Reader alert pinged me to this comment:
smq Says: (March 13, 2010 at 2:54 pm)>p?
tiara shafiq or TS has made it her mission in life to slenderize Gala Darling. She’s lucky she hasn’t been sued yet
...whoa, wait, what? I haven't had anything to do with Gala since July, where did this come from?
I scrolled up to the comments - made mid last year - and realised that most of the anti-Gala comments came from T.S. - my initials. They pop up on the rest of the Internet under different names, and I honestly hadn't even noticed it until this post.
Is someone using my identity to comment on posts by or about Gala to discredit her? I do know that some of my previous online writings about her have attracted negative attention; is smg one of those disgruntled readers? Am I being slandered by being accused of slander?
Weird!
Today's been a completely weird day for various other reasons and this just made it more bizarre. Just so you know - any comments on blog posts claiming to be from me under a pseudonym aren't from me. I tend to comment as Tiara Shafiq or Tiara the Merch Girl. If you know of other places misusing my identity, please tell me!
A lot of people - especially young somewhat-socially-aware people looking for Gap Year work - are really big on volunteering overseas. This especially comes up during times of international crises or natural disasters, such as the recent earthquakes on Haiti. Everyone wants to help, and they feel that actually working there and giving a spare pare of hands would be more useful than giving money, which feels impersonal.
However, as this Ask MetaFilter thread shows, volunteering from overseas can be very counterproductive if the volunteer doesn't come with significant experience and expertise. It is expensive to host a volunteer - food, shelter, insurance, travel, etc - and many volunteers aren't able to deal with the sheer amount of effort and will that is required for the disaster area. Also, there have been plenty of bad experiences of underresourced locals having to deal with well-meaning foreigners who can't cope with cultural change.
What can you do then? Donate to organisations that already have people there - money is a lot more useful than things, as it won't spoil and will be made useful quickly. Volunteer your time locally, even if it means doing grunt, non-glamourous work like handling phonecalls or folding letters - they still need to be done. Work on long-term projects that deal with the bigger issues that make things like Haiti's earthquake such a mess - poverty, water access, corruption.
Here are some choice comments from that thread that should be mandatory reading for anyone wanting to volunteer overseas.
Sidhedevil:
The unemployment rate in Haiti before the quake was something like 75%. Any Haitian adult who can physically be of assistance to their fellow Haitians is going to be a lot more use to others--and benefit a lot more by having paid work--than an untrained foreigner.
If your friend has specific skills in health care, construction, civil engineering, or public infrastructure maintenance, her professional organizations will have information on volunteer efforts. If your friend is just a nice person who wants to help, she will do better by staying where she is and organizing fund drives and blood drives.
CIDI Statement for volunteering on disaster relief:
Volunteers without prior disaster relief experience are generally not selected for relief assignments. Candidates with the greatest chance of being selected have fluency in the language of the disaster-stricken area, prior disaster relief experience, and expertise in technical fields such as medicine, communications logistics, water/sanitation engineering. In many cases, these professionals are already available in-country. Most agencies will require at least ten years of experience, as well as several years of experience working overseas. It is not unusual to request that volunteers make a commitment to spend at least three months working on a particular disaster. Most offers of another body to drive trucks, set up tents, and feed children are not accepted. Keep in mind that once a relief agency accepts a volunteer, they are responsible for the volunteer's well-being - i.e., food, shelter, health and security. Resources are strained during a disaster, and another person without the necessary technical skills and experience can often be a considerable burden to an ongoing relief effort.
Forktine:
The comments above about untrained warm bodies not being needed right now are true. However, those willing-but-unskilled people will be desperately needed a year from now, when the sexy news teams have gone home and the world's focus is somewhere else. Haiti will be recovering from this disaster for decades to come -- your friend could play a tremendously important role in some piece of that recovery.
Right now, however, Haiti needs self-contained field hospitals, search and rescue teams with heavy equipment, and the kind of large water desalination equipment carried by military hospital ships. Send money today, and make plans to go and help with long term recovery when Haiti recovers to a point where a volunteer won't be siphoning resources from the people most affected.
Nothing... and like it:
I'd like to echo what others have said above re: untrained, unskilled volunteers. When I went through disaster relief training with the Red Cross in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, they were very explicit that neither they nor any other reputable relief organizations were in the habit of deploying volunteers who didn't have extensive training and applicable skills in the various areas of disaster relief, even for domestic relief.
For international incidents, they are even more stringent; they generally only deploy people internationally with training, skills AND EXTENSIVE DISASTER RELIEF EXPERIENCE. For areas where the native language is not English, they also require some ability in the native language. I was led to understand that this is the case for all reputable relief agencies, especially for those which respond in the immediate wake of disasters.
As forktine mentions, Haiti will need assistance for a long time to come. Your friend could get the relevant training now, and be able to help in the future. This is similar to the route that I took after Katrina, which ended in my doing family service case work for the Red Cross in southern Mississippi a couple of months later, when people were still recovering from the effects of the hurricane. In case it's helpful, here's what I did:
Katrina hit while I was unemployed (and too broke to donate any money) in the Pacific Northwest. I spent the first 24 hours or so after the disaster sitting on my couch gorging on disaster porn on CNN muttering to myself that "someone should do something." Duh. I'm a somebody. I can do a something.
The phone lines at my local Red Cross chapter were jammed when I called, so I said "fuck it" went down to the office. I walked in and it was pretty chaotic, so I just walked up to someone wearing an ID that said "Volunteer Coordinator" and said "Hey, what can I do to help right now?"
They had set up a phone bank in an unused conference room and desperately needed people to answer phones and process donations and volunteer applications, so that's what I did, full time, for about a week. Most of the people who called in were like your friend. They just wanted to go where the action was. When I suggested that they could help at the local chapter, they often scoffed and hung up on me.
But I was there, every day, helping the Volunteer Coordinator process the massive influx of people and paperwork, so when the chapter set up fast-track disaster-relief training classes (Shelter Operations, Mass Feeding, Family Services/Case Work, etc.) she was able to get me into those classes.
After the classes I went back to helping out in the Volunteer Coordinator office for another month or so of paperwork, filing, and phonebanking. Now some of the calls were actually angry: "I gave you my name a month ago. Why can't I go to New Orleans yet? What the hell is wrong with you people?" After another couple of weeks of that, the volunteer coordinator pulled me aside and said, basically "Thank you so much for helping me out when I was so swamped. Are you still available for deployment?"
Less than 72 hours later I was sitting on couches and front porches in Mississippi, helping some very nice and very devastated people fill out paperwork, giving them useful phone numbers like state insurance regulatory agency's hotline (don't fucking get me started on the absolute scumbag insurance adjustors who had been spending weeks just absolutely ASSFUCKING some of these poor folks), providing them with additional relief fund debit cards, etc.
So the takeway from this should be, really, that the best way to help RIGHT NOW (if financial support isn't possible for whatever reason) is to go down to a local chapter of a relief agency who has people in the field right now and help them. Do whatever they need. They're stretched to the brink organizationally and administratively right now and they need all the help they can get. This also puts your friend in a position where she can gain some relevant experience and training, not to mention making herself known to the agency as someone who is willing to do the shitty unglamorous grunt work. This will be to her advantage in the future if she wants to do some of the less shitty and unglamorous grunt work. (Which, by the way, is much less glamorous than she is probably imagining right now.)
range:
My wife has done development work in Haiti for years, and we have friends there now who are capable, trained engineers doing field work. We're lobbying like mad to get them to come home and fight their extremely noble impulse to stay and help. Unless you have specific training in disaster relief work, you're going to be a danger to yourself -- this is especially true in Port au Prince, where we're already getting reports of increased violent crime (increased above the "normal," very high level). When you get hurt, you'll end up using resources that were supposed to go to Haitians. That's why you should send money, and not accidentally add yourself to the number of wounded.
Dee Xtrovert:
We had such people show up in Sarajevo, during the war. They were - to a person - a great drag on life there for those of us without the ability to leave. Imagine this - the war means all utilities are gone. No gas, water, electricity, phone service, etc. Constant shelling means that a great percentage of living quarters are no longer habitable. Lack of easy access to the city means basic food and medical supplies cannot easily (or at all) find their way into town. In short, Sarajevo's people are cold, dirty, miserably unhappy, starving, uncomfortable, sick, tired, homeless and psychologically drained.
But, above all else, most Sarajevans are hospitable and kind and have some class. So what happens when a good-hearted but idiotic "volunteer" shows up to "help?" My mahala (neighborhood) hosted some of these people, and I can tell you.
1) That person displaces someone else from a little corner of habitation and a humble little sleeping spot. In this way, they were a burden to us.
2) Those of us who'd been living through the war were accustomed to daily struggles. For instance, access to water necessitated a long nightmare of pushing a crude cart up and down steep cobble-stoned hills and across a river, in order to fill whatever one could with water. And then back again. Aside from being a torturous chore, this meant continual exposure to "open" areas where snipers would attempt to kill you. In my case, it meant revisiting the place where my parents were killed while waiting in line. This trip was also a tremendous expenditure of valuable calories.
We Sarajevans knew all this. Consequently, we went to the bathroom once daily (if that), because every time you had to flush the toilet, you were that much closer to having to make the water trek again. Our "heroic" visitors showed no such discretion. They often expected baths! (By way of comparison, I cleaned myself in the river.) Nor were the heroic visitors there to do something as "mundane" as spending half the day collecting water. So we made more frequent soul-crushing and scary trips. In this way, they were a burden to us.
3) Of course, they wanted to stay for months but brought food only for a couple of days. They didn't have rights to Sarajevo's meek rations (as they were not in the city by force), so we shared ours with them. They complained about the food - what we'd been eating for months or years with gratitude - and occasionally would spend some of their cash for black market goods, which they'd hoard for themselves. Then complain about the cost. They were an embarrassment to us. In this way, they were a burden to us.
4) Most of them did not know the history of our country or city or culture. They never knew the language. Frequently, we would scurry around the neighborhood to find someone who could translate Serbo-Croatian and English / French / German / whatever, just so heroic visitors could achieve some basic communication. I remember one fellow, who announced to the neighborhood a deal he'd "negotiated" with the Serbs (who were blockading the city) to feed us. Instinctively, we laughed, though some (irrationally) got their hopes up. The "plan" he worked out was that we would walk to Pale (a suburb held by the Serbs) where they would "give us everything we needed." A fair analogy here would be the Nazis telling the Jews that they'd get "everything they needed" in the ovens at Auschwitz. The stupidity of this heroic visitor only depressed us further, as did other schemes and ideas devised by heroic visitors with no experience, sense or knowledge. In this way, they were a burden to us.
The only things I (or anyone I ever knew) received from these sorts of people were the occasional article of clothing, or a weird treat like a chocolate bar. I was grateful for them, but a check to a helpful charitable agency would have been better.
Bear in mind, we adapted to the war over time. So we had an ability to "absorb" these unskilled morons with some amount of grace and humor. In the beginning, we all thought that - at the very least - these heroic visitors would go home and act as witnesses for what we were enduring. Later, we doubted this was so. I was once reunited with a self-described "freelance journalist" (no credentials, never sold a story) in America, who bragged to his friends about what he'd done for us (which was . . . nothing), and how much the trip had cost him, which was plenty. How I wish he'd spent his time and energy helping to raise funds for us, or simply educating others, or - most of all, just writing a check to the Red Crescent or a similar agency.
What just happened in Haiti was immediate. And they died so quickly - more than died in Sarajevo, and in a single day. These people cannot possibly have adapted to the "new" conditions there as we did in Sarajevo - they haven't had the time. Believe me, their problem isn't a lack of manpower (aside from those with very specific, high-level skills) - these disasters leave plenty of people with nothing else to do but try to help others. So, as much of a burden as unskilled helpers were in Sarajevo, they'd be a much, much greater burden right now in Haiti.
Everytime I see news of a large-scale disaster such as this, I have panic attacks. I know the desperation of the situation, how much help is needed right away. I speak French and even know a few Creole phrases. I have emergency medical treatment and gave aid to Bosnians injured and sick in wartime, under difficult conditions. I've got weeks of vacation time, money in the bank and a longing to help. My sympathy with these poor Haitians is boundless; I've experienced a lot of what they have, and will. So I imagine I'd be a fairly qualified volunteer, with a temperment founded in personal experience and a history of dealing with all the sights and smells of death and misery.
Will I go? Absolutely not. I'd like to; it was my first impulse. But I'd be a burden to someone there, somehow. And Haiti doesn't need even a tiny new burden. So . . . I wrote the biggest check I could afford. I'll save more lives with a shipment of shovels or some treatment for clean water or some powdered milk than I would spending twice as much going there. It's just simple mathematics.
Tell your friend to write a check. Please.
And forktine's right. Haiti's never really been in great shape. It's going to need you more in a year than it will now. So your friend can write a check today, then save up and go back in a year or two, when she will be a true hero. And that way, everyone wins.
dhartung:
The thing is, this recession is creating a lot of people like you -- smart, but idle. It would be great if all that ability could be harnessed the way the WPA and other programs did during the last job trough of this magnitude. But I don't think running down to Haiti mid-crisis is the way to do it. It's taken a while for NGOs to get people to start thinking in terms of giving money instead of, say, canned goods or blankets -- which are hideously expensive to ship to a disaster zone, and often replaceable at much lower cost in country. Giving the Red Cross a blanket and asking them to ship it to Bumfuqua is actually giving the Red Cross a burden and using money that could perhaps buy 2, 5, 10 or 20 blankets instead. Think of your desire to donate labor in these terms and you'll agree with Dee Xtrovert more easily.
* You're a body who needs to be flown to Haiti somehow. * You're taking up a seat on a plane that could be held by a person with expertise. * You're taking up weight that could haul food. * You're taking up money that could buy food. * You're taking up -- in aggregate -- landing slots that could be used by other planes, that themselves could be carrying supplies or water or food or experts. * You're burdening a broken air traffic system that needs to be jury-rigged using battlefield equipment. And that's even before you've deplaned. Once you're there, you're a body that needs to be fed and kept dry, in a country where there are perhaps millions with the precise same need. * If you replace a local worker, you will have greater needs than that local worker: cleaner water, better food. You can't live on what they routinely survive on, I guarantee it. * If you replace a local worker, you may be depriving that local worker of a wage that could support a family. In the end, you'll eventually become someone who needs to go home. Perhaps then you'll be taking up a seat that could be used by someone needing medical care in the states. And so on.
I really urge you to think long-term. Is this something you really want to do with the rest of your life? Then follow Nothing's advice. Is this just a way for you to fight feeling useless? There are a million ways you can fight that staying home. Volunteer at a homeless shelter. Help the humane society trap, neuter and release strays. And so on.
humannaire:
As you are presently unemployed and perhaps in search of direction, I recommend you seek out an agency you see giving help and work to help coordinate ground support from your present location and community. There is where your work will do the most good.
Where you live, you have infrastructure you can re-program and re-route to brilliantly switch on and consciously turn into an assistance network.
Align yourself with reputable peers, preferably people who are experienced and committed. There is no need to build something new yet. After you have some hard-earned credibility and time in, you may see something the rest of us are missing. Then perhaps we will follow you.
Helping others as a life-direction and also as a career is immensely satisfying and rewarding. This is an amazing opportunity to explore this direction. As the challenges such work brings inspire personal growth in ways that are literally indescribable, I wish you well.
As for insight, I have a program where I collect, repair, ship, and re-purpose discarded computers for Jamaica. I have been doing this successfully for two years. The program I created (and personally fund) has enjoyed success that I won't go into here.
But I would not have been able to pull it off without incredible friends who have life-long and generational roots in Jamaica. In fact, were it not for the facts that I was 1) invited, 2) escorted, and 3) bringing and giving without strings or expense, my presence would have been unwelcome. People have their own lives, their own dignity, and their own world. People appearing unannounced and empty-handed, no matter the intention or occasion, are not well-received anywhere. Well, maybe somewhere, but not somewhere I know of.
One other insight. Based on the success of the one program in Jamaica (I got lucky), I attracted the attention of others who invited me to do the same for a school in Haiti. Feeling confident based on the one success, I agreed. Somehow it turned out that I was to be taken to Gonaives. It is no place I would have been welcome or safe. It was only through the intervention of a number of friends of mine of Haitian descent, that I staved off this disaster. You see, the likelihood is high that unintentionally or intentionally I was being taken.
This is the danger of going off with good intent but without connection or means to some other place that is far removed from our experience and understanding.
I encourage you to help. I also encourage you to (presently) do so from where you are.
Moral of the story: think about how useful you would *really* be to the country - the country's not there to satisfy your need to feel useful.
This was originally posted at The Merch Girl, where I tend to post more often nowadays (Tumblr makes it easy to post snippets). I figure I'd post it here too - there's a few of you that read this site regularly, but don't know about The Merch Girl, so here's some goodies!
So Problogger recently had a list of 30 bloggers to watch in 2010, mostly in the personal development/lifestyle design/Law of Attraction area. (Man, I remember when productivity and GTD were the big blog trends.) After a couple of people made their own lists, Problogger asked their readers to make up their own lists and share.
I follow 900 (!!) feeds on Google Reader, and there's the posts I find through Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, or even just friends emailing me things. It's difficult to create a performance-art based list, let alone a burlesque or circus-based list of blogs, as there aren't that many blogs in those areas that update regularly or have content outside of self-promotion. There are some blogs I am especially keen on though, and I think they need more attention, so here's my list (in no particular order):
Jim Munroe has been pretty busy working within the DIY scenes in Portland - he's published books, comics, even his own movies. He also provides all sorts of resources for those wanting to publish the indie way, with guides on indie publishing and indie movie-making, as well as essays on zine culture and events, non-profit counterculture shops, and a ton of other issues. My favourite thing from him is Time Management for Anarchists, an awesome guide to getting your act together that doesn't sound like every other personal development blog's 10 Ten List.
Jim's deeply motivated by indie creativity and supporting communal culture, and he demonstrates that by providing consulting and webhosting services to alternative creative productions. He graciously gave me some feedback on my site and asked for my thoughts on his too! I was looking for someone who had good project management sense but wasn't a capitalist suit, and he was just the ticket.
I found Bridgett while looking for other Tumblrs tagged "dance" and we now have a creative friendship full of reblogging interesting shows and workshops to each other. I've learnt a lot about bellydance, performance work, and being a professional both literally and in character in the arts. She is so full of passion - she obviously loves what she does and loves sharing it with the world.
Her main Tumblr is a scrapbook of inspiration and observation; the other one's for her External Oblique show at the Adelaide Fringe Festival 2010. I'm so excited for her, I wish I could be there, and I greatly recommend you follow her to learn the process and heart of true performance artists.
Marie was another person whose Tumblr I found through random Directory-hopping. Her original username/title was "girls, books, food, art, love" which pretty closely describes her Tumblr's content.
What I love about her Tumblr is her recommendations of zines, books, and other media that inspire her, as well as her personal reflections on her influences. I'm not a big fan of picspam Tumblrs, but I get a strong sense of personality from hers, and I've even bought some zines on lucid dreaming thanks to her Tumblr posts! Her posts are always delightful and inspiring and I always look forward to see what she's found next.
Natalie will say what's on her mind, and sometimes I've been guilty of enabling her by sending her articles that will make most of us go "OMG WTF". I trust her opinion on most things and know that even if we don't agree, she's thought through her point strongly. At the same time, she isn't afraid to be vulnerable or personal, sharing her challenges and downtimes (with our hugs in return).
I was shocked to discover today that Autostraddle was less than a year old. What?! They are tons more professional and entertaining than many "pro" blogs that have been running for years - and the design's top notch too! It's a pop culture webzine geared towards lesbian, bisexual, and queer women, but there's something in it for everything - from insightful commentary on the hidden dangers of the lawlessness of gay marriages, to good-natured perving at Hollywood actresses that play gay characters (or should).
It is largely US-centric, due to the location of most of the staff, but there's a vibrant community of commentors, editors, and interns from all over the place that keep Autostraddle fun, fresh, and friendly. I think this will become one of the most influential media sources for current-day young queer women - a voice that's interesting, quirky, silly, and also smart & solid. So much fun!
The Bakery, run by Jaime of Design Milk and Erin of Design for Mankind, provides consulting to creative businesses - from getting a business plan up and going to promoting yourselves. It was from consulting with them that I got this blog set up and running while I developed my site.
They're currently busy running a 6-week course, Half-Dozen, which guides you through setting up a creative business from the ground up. Because of this, their blog's a little quiet at the moment, but I feel that 2010 will be full of more great posts on business for the creatively-inclined.
Danielle LaPorte writes some great inspirational posts on rocking your creative self, especially if you're entrepreneurially minded. I like that she can empathise with those of us who don't fit the norm, and - like The Bakery and Jim Munroe - can talk about creative businesses without being all "suit"-y about it!
I would love to have a Fire Starter session; it seems like I would get a lot out of it. But if only I had $300 spare!
kSea has pretty much single-handedly managed this magazine (from when it was known as Big Top) to share his passion for circus, steampunk, and carnival culture. I'm a new reader, but I can appreciate the effort and passion he goes into documenting his subculture. The CultureFlux rebranding is very recent and I'd love to see what he has up his sleeves for 2010.
Another person whom I can't believe has only been in business just under a year. James does some funky, creative tights and leggings (I'm personally more fond of the stuff he made at the beginning - too bad they're discontinued!) and it was a delightful surprise to find out that he's based in Brisbane. He writes about his creative process, the items that inspire him, and the occasional copyright battle. He has an eye for the unusual, which I appreciate. I'm waiting for his catsuits - I bet they'll be gorgeous!
The people behind Mission Paradox (I don't know their name/s offhand) share a lot of inspirational resources for arts management and arts marketers. They're big on innovation, on moving away from stodgy old responses and rethinking the value of arts in the world. A lot of their content is more conceptual and visionary, rather than "here's how you make a budget" practicalities, but I really like their direction and I always gain a lot from their posts. While they're geared towards arts institutions - galleries, theatres, and so on - anyone who works in the arts will find inspiration from them.
Chris Guillebeau travels the world while living off the knowledge he shares with his readers - creating a sustainable online business, using frequent flyer miles effectively, dealing with money as an artist. What I love more about his work is his open, welcoming eyes to international cultures, and his pragmatic wisdom. He is very intelligent, friendly, and has given opportunities for other people to live their dreams and express themselves. Out of all the "location independence"/"lifestyle design" blogs proliferating the Internet, I think his is most earnest and sincere, and is definitely my favourite.
As you can tell, I enjoy blogs about business and project management that don't sound like typical blogs about business or project management. KPIs, asset management, quality processing...not my bag. Tara Joyce's blog deals with entrepreneurship from within - creating a business that you are personally passionate about and running it by your own principles. She's also lovely and friendly, and will give a listening ear to anyone in need of some encouragement.
I first met Rachel Hills when she interviewed me for her post-grad thesis on young people and sexuality. However, it wasn't till later that I found out that she was a pretty accomplished writer on her own right. Her Tumblr shows why - it's full of clever insights on pop culture, gender, culture and society, creativity, personal life, and anything that intersects through them.
There's so much stuff in her blog to share that it'd make this already-long post even longer - so I'd suggest looking at her personal favourites. And join in the discussion.
OK, I'm biased - Mithi's my older sister. She's finishing up her BA in Illustration, and over the past few years she's built up an eclectic portfolio of all sorts of art. It's interesting seeing her evolve; she didn't use to be confident with drawing people, and now she draws these really cute illustrations of kids and animals and people playing music & dancing.
She's also started to go pro and be internet famous (the lucky woman). I'm looking forward to seeing what she does after uni (probably go back for the seven-hundredth time). Also: SKUNK.
If you're into fashion or food blogging, and you haven't heard of Luxirare, where have you been?!? She may have way too much time on her hands, but man she makes the best of it.
I personally quite like what she does with food - everything from the ingredients to the packaging is original and inventive. Crayon granola bars (that you can actually colour with), mojito tablets, blue pyramid cake...what else will she come up with? If she ever comes up with a shop she'll make an instant million.
The Lady of the Manners's really entertaining. Her credo is that being Goth doesn't have to mean being surly and rude, and her blog is full of in-depth advice about fashion, dealing with people, and even random questions like "Is Lady Gaga Goth?" (Answer: no.) She's even got a book out - a great present for the baby bats in your life.
Megan M. is something of a multitasking powerhorse. She sings, she manages projects, she writes - and, with Ideaschema (and That Idea Blueprint Girl before that), she comes up with stacks of ideas for whatever project or dilemma you have. Right now she's selling her Idea Catalyst kit - tons of pages and audio of practical ways to come up with and implement her ideas. She's even got free ideas for random things on her blog too, if you'd like a preview.
Amelia Arsenic has a wild, crazy sense of style - macabre punk goth glam futuristic rock & roll. She's committed to her style and provides lots of tips and guides on how she achieves it - from fashion stylings to mood boards to makeup tutorials. She was on hiatus for much of 2009, but she's back and I'm greatly looking forward to seeing what other creativity she has up her sleeve.
OH MY GOODNESS! This list took a while to make. My computer's groaning from the work, otherwise I would keep going. Check out these blogs, and if you have any other favourites, tell me about them!
What was originally going to be a proposal for The Edge at the State Library of Queensland to hire me became a somewhat extended CV about getting involved with the Brisbane Creative Industries. (Not just Brisbane either but that’s a starting point.)
Do come by, check it out, and please pass the link on to anyone you feel will benefit. Thanks so much!
Racism is generalizing about the nature of a race of people. You know, “Black people act/think/feel/smell like this, white people act/think/feel/smell like that.” The interesting thing about this sort of generalization is that half the time, it’s straight-up false — confirmation bias, skewed sampling, whatever — and the other half, it’s a valid observation about culture being dishonestly packaged as one about genetics. Empirically speaking, if you look for cases where race itself — not culture or class or life history — determines a person’s behavior, thoughts, feelings and so on, you just won’t find any.
But then there’s this other kind of generalization, where you talk about the treatment of a race of people. You know, “Black people are hired/fired/trusted/paid/filmed/indicted at this rate, white people are hired/fired/trusted/paid/filmed/indicted at that rate.” Generalizations of this sort are often correct. If you look at the data, even adjusting for class and life history and so on, white people are more likely to get the job, make the grade, be waved through customs or what have you.
Talk about “white privilege” falls into the second kind of generalization. It doesn’t involve the claim that white people are assholes, or that they think bad thoughts, or that they smell funny, or whatever. It just involves the claim that white people are, as a group, treated differently. And that’s just demonstrably true.
I have been silenced and banned from a community that I helped to build and that I am extremely passionate about. I invested three months of my blood, sweat and tears into promoting someone else and I feel as though I was forced to walk away with nothing. This isn’t the first time getting involved in someone else’s community has turned out to be a complete waste of my time, and it won’t be the last.
His post contains a comprehensive list of ways that companies and high-profile people end up misusing the goodwill of their fans – from filtering out the competition, to not trusting their fans. The post is an emotional but also well-reasoned plea for people to treat their fans with respect, and the consequences of not doing so.
I can empathise with him – there have been at least a couple of times in my life where I’ve spent a lot of energy and effort promoting something I loved, only to be – as Cody put it – royally fucked over. It’s one thing if they don’t acknowledge you, that’s somewhat normal if you’re dealing with a MAJOR name (like, say, Angelina Jolie – she probably doesn’t even know), but it’s another thing when this group claims to be totally supportive of your work…only to drop you hard at the last minute and leave you in the dust.
It’s moments like these that make you realise that even the best concepts and movements have humans at the core, and humans are inherently flawed.
I hope Cody finds his peace. It’s taking a long time to find mine, and just when one thing’s sorted something else comes up. At least he’s learnt quite a bit from this unfortunate experience, and has passed it on to others – so it’s not a total waste.
My friend (and the designer of this website) Natalie Perkins is very vocal about body acceptance and positive self-image and Health At Every Size. She wrote a post about loving yourself through 8+1 really hard steps and it’s REQUIREDREADING. Because I say so.
She’s also just done a vlog about it, which is equal parts entertaining and informative:
ABC TV Show The Gruen Transfer, which comments on media advertising, recently did a feature on size discrimination. They asked a couple of agencies to come up with and The Foundry’s contribution was deemed too shocking for television.
The ad basically told 3 racist/homophobic jokes, then a fat joke, closing with “Discrimination is ugly and wrong”. ABC did not let The Gruen Transfer air the ad, but they have made up a special website to air the ad and the related discussion. Disclaimer: Content is rather offensive.
The idea behind the ad – and the related epiphany from the ad director that inspired the ad – was that if we consider racist, sexist, homophobic jokes bad and ugly and unfunny, why do we laugh at fat jokes? Why are they suddenly OK? It’s putting shape discrimination on the same level as the other forms of discrimination; it’s still regarding someone as lower than you because they’re different.
Sad to say, I still hear those kind of jokes from time to time in different situations. Even from people who I figured would know better. Even sadder to say, I sometimes find them funny. I see what they are poking at, I understand the reference, and sometimes I feel a laugh come from my belly. Then, like the aforementioned ad director, I choke and go “wait, this isn’t right.”. I hated it when people made jokes at the expense of Bengalis, or on whatever alternative group I happened to identify with or be close to; why do I find random jokes along similar lines funny? Why am I laughing? Because they poke at stereotypes? Because in some way I might agree with it? Because it’s just so bad that the only way to diffuse the awkwardness is to laugh? Because if you don’t react you explode?
In the related discussion one of the panellists comments that the people referred to in the earlier jokes – black women, gay men, Jewish people – may be too shocked by those jokes being aired to be able to process the rest of it. Given that they did not publicly identify themselves on that show as black, gay, or Jewish, I don’t think they’re quite the right people to comment about whether they’d be shocked or not. (“WHATTHEYLETTHAT ON AIR?!”) I have heard the sentiment that it’s ok for stereotype jokes to be made only when it’s the group being stereotyped that makes the joke; they’d be able to provide the cultural context. (Which also explains why I was rather uneasy after hearing my burlesque teacher’s idea of a Buddhist strip show – as far as I know, having a Comparative Religions class in university does not make you able to relate to Buddhism.
But it also doesn’t exclude the idea that people who face discrimination aren’t also discriminatory. We all have our ugly prejudices; often they’re ingrained and we don’t notice them until we have to confront them. I was homophobic as a young teen because it wasn’t explained to me what being homosexual meant, aside from “bad and icky” – and who wants to be near someone “bad and icky”? I used to think models were all airheads. I sometimes reflexively have issues with Malay people (growing up, most of the discrimination I faced came from Malay people, mainly due to percentage of population) and have to catch myself and say “no, this is a person, not a representative of their race. Respect them as a person, as you would wish them to do to you.”.
My dad asked me the other day to stop my gay rights activism because it was freaking Mum out. Because she doesn’t understand. I don’t know what idea my parents have of gay people (“bad and ugly”?) but I would like them to know that I support gay rights because I know how much it sucks to be denied of your humanity and dignity because of who you are. Being gay doesn’t make you bad; it doesn’t make you good too. Bad people and good people come in all sorts of shapes and forms. How they express their sexuality doesn’t have a bearing on their morality.
If it’s bad to be discriminated against for your race, why is it OK to discriminate others against their sexual identity? If you frown at religious jokes, why laugh at shape jokes? And what do you do when you recognise the (often black and crude) humour and instinctively laugh, but really disagree with the underlying sentiment?
Man, this blog is overdue for a bunch of posts. So excuse the potential postspam.
Jamie over at Starshyne Productions is doing interviews. You comment on her blog and she’ll pass you 5 questions. Similarly, if you comment here I’ll give you 5 questions to answer.
Here’s her 5:
1. Who is someone you love deeply?
Oh goodness. I’m slightly hesitant to mention any one name here because others may think I’m excluding them!! But for now I shall mention my boyfriend Mark . He has patience beyond reckoning, especially since I’ve tested him sooooooooo much!! Even when I’m being stupid and down and weird he still shows me so much love and respect and care. I feel most comforted when I’m in his arms. He brings a sense of safety, comfort, companionship. I can talk about anything with him. Yay Mark :D <3
2. What talent or skill would you love to develop?
German wheel! It’s a giant gymnastic wheel that you can use to do tricks or spin around and such. I saw a group use it at Woodford and it looked fun and incredible. It’s probably very dizzyfying but whee, you get to spin and roll! Here’s a video:
3. If you could go back in time, what moment would you revisit?
My Up with People tour . By far. It was the best time of my life. Other than that – any show I’ve done really. Vagina Monologues, RaGTaG, any other performance moments. SO MUCHFUN.
4. What would you love to be famous for?
For being awesome :D Mainly through being creative and unusual and supporting other creative unusual people. For living my own life. For my eccentricness. For some sort of really creative idea that makes people go “WHYDIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?!” But mainly for being an awesome interesting person.
5. What’s a lesson you think you’re here to learn?
Possibly how to deal with negative people since I seem to be surrounded by them all the time _;;
Again, if you’d like an interview, let me know! Just leave a comment with a working email address.
So today there has been a major storm over Amazon’s weird decision to remove the Amazon rank of books related to themes of GLBT sexuality, feminism, or sex education. There’s up to the minute updates (and flailing) through the Twitter hashtag #amazonfail and I particularly like Jezebel’s roundup of related links.
I like Amazon as a resource, and have kept extensive wishlists on there, though I’ve never really bought anything because shipping wasn’t very reasonable. There were some mentions of Amazon alternatives scattered around the Internet, but no collective resource, so I decided to start my own.
Please share these links (those above, and to this post) and fill up the form! Hopefully this will be of help to anyone seeking other sources of books.
According to Robin Dunbar and his study on monkeys, our brains can only maintain strong social relationships with about 150 people (or “monkeysphere” or Dunbar’s Number). Everybody else is an abstract concept; it’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that we can’t really handle more people than that.
Dunbar’s Number explains how many campaigns – from social justice to advertising – succeed or fail: they rely on tapping into the personality of your 150. We’d be more likely to do something about an issue like the war in Iraq if we knew someone who was there or was from Iraq, than if we hardly knew any Iraqis. We think “oh, this issue is close to someone I deeply care for; if it’s important to them it’s important to me too. I want them to be happy.”.
It becomes more than “What’s In It For Me?”; the question is now “What’s In It For Me and My 150?”
Pace Smith, half of The Usual Error, proposes a way to use Dunbar’s Number to make deep changes in the world: diversify your 150.
This is why I enjoy going into different circles and connecting people to each other. All the varied people in my 150 (or 1000+ if you believe my Facebook account) would be able to connect with each other, with me as a common link, and create great things of beauty. It’s awesome when I see it happen!
The nature of Dunbar’s Number means that as life progresses, those in our 150 come and go. Someone important to us in the past may just be at the periphery now. Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace make it easier to keep track of everyone we’ve met, but even so we can only make the most fruitful connections with about 150 people at a time.
That doesn’t mean the other hundreds of people have to go away or ignore us. It could mean checking in every so often to see what they’re up to, and see how you can help. It can mean making introductions and letting them take it from there. It may mean finding out what your other 850 stand for, being educated, and seeing how you can support them too. It means learning from the people you’ve met, 150 or not, and using that to make change with the people you’re meeting and will meet.
I’ve just read Seth Godin’sTribes, about building and leading groups passionate about a cause, idea, product, and so on. Being a Seth Godin book, it does mainly relate to marketing and commerce, but the concept also works for all sorts of situations that involve teamwork, collaboration, and support.
I have been semi-unofficially leading a tribe of young people (and supporters) who want to veer away from the Malaysian status quo in education and career development, through EducateDeviate . Just recently I was asked to promote and contribute to the totally awesome What’s After SPM? project, which collects stories of what young Malaysians can do after secondary (high) school. WOW. I wanted to do something similar but I’m so glad that there are other young people out there that are taking the reigns and leading their own tribes. I’ll get a story soon, and I’ve proposed a fund to support a young person with their own interesting post-school plan – just waiting to hear from the committee about it. This was the sort of thing I was hoping to see after forming EducateDeviate and I’m so glad it’s taking place.
Now that I’m moving along to a different focus – creative performance, with a hint of sexuality and taboo-busting – I’ve been mulling over building a tribe of my own to support my endeavour. As Chris Guillebeau describes, I’m trying to recruit my small army of remarkable people.
There are a couple of selfish reasons. One, there is a certain wish to be an Internet cool kid (though I’ve recently been reading Hipster Runoff and saw just how ridiculous the whole thing is) and get to do fun stuff without worrying about how I’d able to afford it. Which brings me to my second selfish reason – I’d like to get some support to fund my creative journey . I’ve had some people say that they’d be interested in paying for some exclusive content related to my circus journey.
There’s also a not-so-selfish but not-so-altruistic-either reason. I like to see my friends from different circumstances and contexts interact with each other and create great partnerships – whether in work, love, friendships, or anything else. Sometimes this happens without me being involved (for example, two people I know from very different circumstances got married to each other last year); sometimes it happens when these people meet in the same situation and forma partnership there or soon after. A good example: I live with Nicole Jensen and know her from college; I used to work with Sarah Moran in the QUT Student Guild and bump into each other on projects often. They met at my birthday party, then again at Edgeware’s business creation workshop, and got along awesomely. w00t!). I’d like more of that to happen – get together a group of people whom I admire and trust in their personalities, creative work, success, etc, and get them to inspire each other and create something interesting. Be friends.
The thing is, though, that the truly effective and powerful tribes and small armies are led ultimately by a common cause. Seth Godin’s version involves a product or service (just look at Apple) but a more common version involves an activist cause for change – civil rights, gay marriage, no smoking, etc etc. Something that people believe in, something that matters to the world.
In comparison, a tribe of People Who Think Tiara’s Awesome doesn’t have the same pull. It benefits no one except me (aside from the networking opportunity). Ultimately their support will go towards me being more creative – and then what? It’s not like I’m running a business or advocating for human rights or curing cancer. Heck, I don’t even have enough design chops to give advice like Nubby Twiglet. I’m just hoping to lead a life of creativity, passion, and fun – and inspire others to live their own lives with fire and zest.
I seek my legacy project. Something that lives on beyond my happy memories and warm feelings. Something that leaves an impact, creates a wave of happy memories and warm feelings and positive change. Something that saves a young girl from despair or a just-grown-up guy from boredom. Little things turn into big things.
Can my life be a legacy project? How would I do so? How would I live a life that is inspirational, creative, life-affirming not just to me but to others that support me?
I would like to build a Bat Colony:
A group of interesting, fascinating, somewhat off-beat people whom I respect and who support me. Independent on their own things, but also social, happy to interact with each other to share ideas, find resources, feast on sweet fruit. Carry each other’s babies when the other needs help. Be eager to journey into the darkness using alternative senses.
I’ve already thought of a few people I’d like to invite to this bat colony. Nikki.Mark.Spidey.Kakak.Megan.Sarah.Lena.HannahHavi.Pace and Kyeli.LeonieBritt.Darren.Richard. (ok, the last two’s a bit of a longshot.) Some other people, famous, not famous, friends, acquaintances, muses, whoever – people I’d love to have in my bat colony, whether as core members or as visitors on the edge.
I’d love to welcome others who are interested in joining me. In supporting a vision unfurled slowly through each night of dreaming, dancing, playing, exploring. In sharing their selves with each other. In providing some sort of material, financial, emotional, mental, creative support for me and for each other. To hunt for and delight in strange fruit.
What would you like in this Bat Colony? What would compel you to join this Colony? What would make it worth your while, especially when it comes to payments and in-kind support? What would chase you away from the Colony? What would you need from us, from me? What ca:n you give?
I meant to write such an ad, but never got round to it. (I also lost out on being a copywriter! damn laziness.) But Havi wants us to give it a go , so here’s my go!
Are you awesome? I want you.
Creative, cosmopolitan, energetic, silly, random, earnest young woman with a love for shimmy sparklies and a desire to make people happy, looking for all forms of awesome.
You are highly creative, open to experimentation, and have a silly, witty, clever sense of humour. You do not take things too seriously nor too lightly. You are affectionate, loving, and always great with cuddles. You look at opportunities and go “Why not?” instead of “Why?”. You’re accepting, diverse, magical, and can make me feel excited, inspired, and engaged. Ooh!
I am a complete ham who loves prancing about and trying new things. I get distracted by the shiny but can also spend ages on something meaty. I work for the greater good but am working on not sacrificing myself so much. I’m a hugmonster and cuddleslut. I like to explore new worlds, live with the locals, and spend hours on filling dinners chatting about ideas for a new world. I have a book obsession and can often be found in my second home on the Internet.
We will balance on top of each other and practice handstands till I can hold a pose for longer than a second. We will dress up in black and red and sequins and struff our stuff at burlesque balls. We will commune with artists and break the bread of inspiration. We will launch other people’s feathered dreams. We will collectively build an island of Awesome, surrounded by seas of nourishments and relaxing beaches where we consecrate our magic tools for the Goddess.
Anyone or anything – people, experiences, jobs, media, spirit – welcome to apply. Totally looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Maybe I should make a page called the Hall of Awesome, where I can link and profile my Awesome Crew and showcase examples of Awesome. How about Tiara’s NING Network of Awesome? Would you join?
Malaysia and Australia don’t tend to use the term “liberal arts”. In Malaysia, it tends to get smooshed into Arts (really Business/Accounting/money issues) or Humanities (the “leftovers”). Even there it’s heavily limited – no theatre or performance studies, logic is covered in a subchapter in Form 3 Maths, rhetoric and astronomy are unheard of. Indeed, Malaysians have a big stigma against those who don’t do Maths or Science (or, currently, traditional Business) – such students are seen as “not smart”, under-achieving, ne’er-do-well. The classes that offer Humanities/Arts in schools are generally for people who’ve failed their exams. I caused such a huge controversy in my school for moving to the Humanities class because they offered Literature (“you’re wasting your grades!”) but at least now more people are following my lead!
Heck, if you bring up “arts” with anyone there you’ll usually get “Oh, so you’re doing graphic design?” WHY IS IT ALWAYSGRAPHICDESIGN I CAN’T DRAW MY WAYOUT OF A PAPERBAG.
In Australia such subjects usually fall within Humanities, which in my university (and possibly some others) is being phased out due to budget cuts, lack of faulty, and general prioritising. There was a lot of hullaballoo two years ago when QUT closed down the Humanities faculty and reshuffled some subjects around. I was in the Student Guild at the time and the party line was “QUT’s evil, all proper universities must have Humanities, BOO”. My main concern was with whether international students (them being my portfolio) were being dicked over – arriving for a course that doesn’t exist, missing a few subjects, changing faculties and campuses, etc. However, I didn’t disagree with the principle of closing down the Humanities school. Unlike most of the other Guildies, I didn’t think a “proper university” only existed when they had Humanities in the curriculum. Why not build on your strengths? If you don’t feel that Humanities is your strong point, why not reprioritize?
The QUT admins were planning to make Creative Industries “the new Humanities” and I can see where they’re going with that. The creative industries, as I understand it, is the expression of arts and creativity through business; using creative skills as avenues for making money or providing value to local and global economies. It’s not just ‘how to write a story” or “how to paint a picture” or “how to act”; it’s about how publishing companies select pieces, how to use rhetoric in your work, how to organise galleries, how directors create innovation.
Those principles – innovation, opportunity creation and seeking, interdisciplinary studies, collaboration – are those that can definitely transfer across fields, and connect fields together. We have tons of knowledge and experience in our hands. We’re exposed to more cultures than before. What can we do about them?
DUDE. I’ve been wondering why there isn’t a “pet rental” service for a while – for people like me who love pets but can’t keep one for various reasons. This is like a dream come true.
This is the most awesome thing I’ve seen this week. By far.
Some time ago I noticed a growing popularity around what I called “personality based design/art/fashion blogs”. They seemed like a blog version of a teen or women’s magazine, except that the content tended to revolve around the life and personality of one person. They had similar regular content – What I Wore Today, Link Love, Things I Love Thursday, How Tos. They gained fame on the strength of their personality. Some made a living off blogging. In some cases the layout looked oddly similar to each other.
Who are they? Why do they blog so similarly? Are they friends? Did one or two start off a trend? Is this the next wave of teen/youth blogging? I remember similar waves in my teenage years – poetic domain names, fanlistings, vector pictures (“vexels”), random pages of “content”, web-based TCGs. Was this similar? Had someone else noticed this?
It turns out that most of the people I linked to in the question were friends. . I inadvertently caused a flurry within the “lady-blogosphere” (their term not mine); some of the commentators thought I was somehow mocking them or decrying them. The original bloggers weren’t necessarily that charitable either, which turned me off, but I did manage to spark a few interesting conversations.
I asked my question mainly because I found the whole group rather intriguing. These girls lead rather unusual and obviously self-designed lives. Just 10 or 15 years ago they wouldn’t have received much mainstream attention. Yet now it seems they decide where mainstream attention falls. They could write an article about anything, and get a gazillion comments. Passionate fans who defend them at any perceived slight. Copycats and imitators. Some of them are able to subsist on blogging alone, spending their time having great adventures and writing about it, without worrying about having enough to eat or live on. They get interviewed by mainstream and indie press, hailed as the voice of their generation.
Frankly, I’m jealous. I mainly envy the opportunities that seem to fall on their lap. Gala Darling gets to speak at SXSW – I can’t even afford to go. They can easily get companies to sponsor their ventures at a tip of a hat; I was having a hard time getting people on my side to begin with. . I’d like to go off adventuring around the world too, without worrying about exchange rates or running out of beds. I wouldn’t mind having a group of passionate fans.
In some ways though, I may not be all that different from them opportunities-wise. This gets whacked into my head by others when I whine about not being “Internet famous”. I did manage to snag a free book thanks to another Ask Metafilter question. I received a DVD for review on EducateDeviate, where I’m currently fending off an online marketer keen on “buying an ad” for his spam site (never mind that Wordpress.com doesn’t let you show ads in the first place). And I have spoken at conferences – once was of my own doing, a year before EducateDeviate came about, and the other was because my boyfriend’s mum was participating in a Teaching & Learning conference (she works at a university) and wanted people to share their experiences of being university students.
Those seem like lucky one-offs though. The Internet Cool Kids/Manic Pixie Dream Girls/etc get them all the time. It’s almost part of their job description.
Be influential.
Be known.
Be gifted amazing opportunities.
Be adored.
Be heard.
Be respected.
Be free to be you.
Who wouldn’t want that?
It could all just be a matter of perception though. There isn’t necessarily an objective measure for “cool”. Isn’t it something that other people define on you? But then again, there has to be some quality that makes you more accessible to free trips and public speaking opps. Looks? Personal branding? Luck?
Think you are the Ultimate Dance Master? Itching for someone to face you in a Dance-Off? Want to pick up new dance skills and get special Choreo-Powers?
Grab yourself a disguise, join an alliance, and make a video for a danceoff – whether it’s dancing upside down or with a secret partner at least 100 miles away from you. Each video gets you points, and you get special Choreo-Powers (such as +1 Unreal or +1 Boldness) from the rest of the crew.
Here’s my first Dance Quest video – the quest: to introduce myself with my feet planted on the ground.
So a lot of blogs have a weekly meme where they round up their favourite posts from the rest of the Internet. I share a lot of links via Twitter/Facebook, so I thought I’d do the same (if only there was a more automated yet pretty way of doing this). For now I’d be doing them on Sunday nights, but I might change them around if I feel like it.
I was helping a friend look up food delivery websites in the UK, and this candy shop made me absolutely hungry. Which is an achievement, considering I’m not a candy person.
Jim Munroe has been pretty busy working within the DIY scenes in Portland - he's published books, comics, even his own movies. He also provides all sorts of resources for those wanting to publish the indie way, with guides on 
I found Bridgett while looking for other Tumblrs tagged "dance" and we now have a creative friendship full of reblogging interesting shows and workshops to each other. I've learnt a lot about bellydance, performance work, and being a professional both literally and in character in the arts. She is so full of passion - she obviously loves what she does and loves sharing it with the world.
Natalie designed 
I was shocked to discover today that Autostraddle was less than a year old. What?! They are tons more professional and entertaining than many "pro" blogs that have been running for years - and the design's top notch too! It's a pop culture webzine geared towards lesbian, bisexual, and queer women, but there's something in it for everything - from insightful commentary on the 
Danielle LaPorte writes some great inspirational posts on rocking your creative self, especially if you're entrepreneurially minded. I like that she can empathise with those of us who don't fit the norm, and - like The Bakery and Jim Munroe - can talk about creative businesses without being all "suit"-y about it!
kSea has pretty much single-handedly managed this magazine (from when it was known as Big Top) to share his passion for circus, steampunk, and carnival culture. I'm a new reader, but I can appreciate the effort and passion he goes into documenting his subculture. The CultureFlux rebranding is very recent and I'd love to see what he has up his sleeves for 2010.
Chris Guillebeau travels the world while living off the knowledge he shares with his readers - creating a sustainable online business, using frequent flyer miles effectively, dealing with money as an artist. What I love more about his work is his open, welcoming eyes to international cultures, and his pragmatic wisdom. He is very intelligent, friendly, and has given opportunities for other people to live their dreams and express themselves. Out of all the "location independence"/"lifestyle design" blogs proliferating the Internet, I think his is most earnest and sincere, and is definitely my favourite.
As you can tell, I enjoy blogs about business and project management that don't sound like typical blogs about business or project management. KPIs, asset management, quality processing...not my bag. Tara Joyce's blog deals with entrepreneurship from within - creating a business that you are personally passionate about and running it by your own principles. She's also lovely and friendly, and will give a listening ear to anyone in need of some encouragement.
OK, I'm biased - Mithi's my older sister. She's finishing up her BA in Illustration, and over the past few years she's built up an 
If you're into fashion or food blogging, and you haven't heard of Luxirare, where have you been?!? She may have way too much time on her hands, but man she makes the best of it.
The Lady of the Manners's really entertaining. Her credo is that being Goth doesn't have to mean being surly and rude, and her blog is full of in-depth advice about fashion, dealing with people, and even random questions like "
Amelia Arsenic has a wild, crazy sense of style - macabre punk goth glam futuristic rock & roll. She's committed to her style and provides lots of tips and guides on how she achieves it - from fashion stylings to mood boards to makeup tutorials. She was on hiatus for much of 2009, but she's back and I'm greatly looking forward to seeing what other creativity she has up her sleeve.
