LITTLE JOY BERLIN

This article was originally published on TYCI, a collective for women run by women. They’re awesome. They’re our friends. Follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Soundcloud.

For years now I have been threatening to write about Taylor Swift. Friends, family, strangers, my flatmates cat – they’ve all heard it. It wasn’t until one bitterly cold Berlin night, when I heard Mean again, that I realised: obviously, Taylor is an ideal catalyst for revealing the tangilbe effects of hyper-criticism culture in mainstream society. And her song Mean proves it.

I remember when Taylor’s album Speak Now was released. Critics dismantled her through recycled gossip and attempting to humiliate a 21 year old person about their love life. They assumed a lower intelligence, based on a set of sterotypes they projected onto her. They ridiculed her music. At the time I just remember thinking, what are you doing with your life? This is something you do in your day, critiquing something you don’t have any interest in? Giving me great pleasure to notice though, Taylor herself had prophesied the future for the ‘music critics’ on the spoke of the album: Someday I’ll be living in a big ol’ city And all you’re ever gonna be is mean

As time has passed, Taylor Swift is, Taylor Fucking Swift, and all these other people are, just mean. Taylor in this song, paints the perfect picture of the Critic of Everything/Master of Nothing.

And I can see you years from now in a bar Talking over a football game With that same big loud opinion But nobody’s listening Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things Drunk and grumbling on about how I can’t sing

We all encounter these people in our day-to-day lives; those who use their lame social biases to comment on someone else’s life. It’s that moment of rude and unsolicited discouragement, in any form, that sticks with you. It’s unfortunate we as humans tend to want to find a reason to dislike something rather than a reason to celebrate the things we like. The cycle is receiving negativity for something someone is supposedly not interested in. But, weather you carry on and try anyway that person is still going to be that person.

And so, the gossip industry influenced the music industry and we were left with an already sour reaction to anything Taylor Swift. But. Maybe we’d have a better music industry if people immersed themselves in the experience of music and critiqued tht instead. If we focused on the work, it is the work that we would see being changed, not the people presenting it. Maybe in focusing on the work that was created we could truly provide merit to people, and wouldn’t active disucssion and broadening of knowledge ignite progression? I’m yet to read a non-bias (either way), indepth analasis of Taylor’s work on any website that prides itself on being a music authority. And, don’t they all?

The process of dehumanising a celebrity is apparently a right of passage for those in the limelight, and is the common defence of Tay haters. “She chose this life”. But, why does being well known for your creative work make you fair game? She made records and the press made stories. Whip out that empathy and morailty you’re so vocal about and excercise it with someone who lives a life nothing like your own, and consider if it’s then worth commenting on it. Music is so often overlooked as an intellectual persuit especially if it’s in the mainstream, and that does not allow us the appreciate the smartness of a creators work and that’s exactly what has happened to Taylor Swift. It’s a weak moment to invest in, but realising all these music intellects and relentlessly silly people have gotten owned by this very same young womans’ Banjo jam? Fucken beautiful.

You, with your switching sides And your wildfire lies and your humiliation You have pointed out my flaws again As if I don’t already see them I walk with my head down Trying to block you out ’cause I’ll never impress you I just wanna feel okay again

One day, vibrantly discussing a concert experience with a fellow fan, a eavesdropper interuppted me, “You like Taylor swift?” “Yes, do you?” “No, I like good music”

WE GOT A LIVE ONE, I thought.

“What’s the definition of good music?” I asked.

He didn’t have an answer, but again, it’s that moment of thinking ‘What are you doing with your life?’ He doesn’t know what good music is, he just knows what he does and does not like. Which is fine. It’s subjective. Music is also something we experience in our own heads, one of the few moments in which we are alone and can drift into a story world. That is the experience for many people. Bruh, why are you an authority on it all of a sudden? And mostly:

All you are is mean.

At said concert, which I attended in tradition with my younger sister, I saw a stadium full of people – all ages, and lots of youngers girls, perched on their Dad’s shoulders, writhing in delight. Before playing Mean live, Taylor walked around the stage and spoke a little. She said, and I paraphrase to the best of my eager memory: “I want everyone to put your hand up if you’ve ever felt bad about yourself because fo someone else? A moment when you’ve felt small. That’s what this song is about. And I want everyone who put their hand up to remember how that felt, and make sure you never make anyone else feel like that” To see the girls, listening intently to every word, was profound. It was a very real moment, a passing of knowledge in the best possible way. To have them hear that instead of nothing or a superficial, placating speech has to be better, doesn’t it? That has to be a better message – to treat people better, more so than those with fame who simply perpetuate social stereotypes by happily being that for a dollar, the same attitude that leads young girls to believe their value is determined by their tits to hips ratio. Say Taylor fits into that, perhaps, but it’s a case of misperception on the part of an audience, because what she actually puts an emphasis on for herself consistently is not what they’re getting from it. Because, social conditioning.

Hyper-citicism, essentially superficial criticism, is born in what we’re taught to notice and how we’re taught to speak. Hating as it is known nowadays, stems from belief in how something should be. Someone thinks what is right for them is right for someone else. The discussed Taylor Swift saga is a microcosm of this. Often, this ‘right’ is a standard set by ‘society’ and the ‘norm’. For many people, there’s no room in the ‘norm’ for a personal sense of success. There’s no room for progression. Isn’t it sickening to think of every talented human doing something they are not good at nor extract joy from, to survive, unable to invest time or economy into the thing that does? Even if you get it, every day is a small fight to maintain your right to be you.

Success, as an idea, is inconcievable as a subscription-based set of standards. Money and means, all of that. Success, as an idea, must be born from a standard you have set for yourself. That idea will take time though: as in, it would negate all those people who are fighting and who have fought their way into the system, rising steadily as the timeline of their lives could actually suggest. To be outside that system in any way threatens it in every way. In a just world, everyone could be successeful but in our world, success is for the best. It’s concievable that the tides of change could be persuaded by taking genuine responsiblity in defining what success really means to us, and often that entails a chanllenge to ‘the standard’, and actuallt living it. That’s the real part. Deciding it means more to you than someone else’s opinion on you as a successful person and going on tenaciously. If everyone whol felt that way lived like this, sheer mass would swiftly turn the tides, indeed. If anything has led us away from this, it’s hyper-criticism.

London. London is not home, nor do I particularly care for it, but I am here and I am thinking of home. No where in particular, but I am wondering why I do not miss it at all. As though the homesickness simply passed, never to be seen again.

Somewhere between London and Glasgow, to places I’d never thought I’d see, I note the electricity in my body. That keen sense of curiosity that flushes my face – wide-eyed and smiling at the thought of everything I could see and learn. A feeling that buoys rather than weights, when I remember not so long ago the same depth of emotion in my homesickness. After everywhere I’ve been, and everywhere I am on my way to, I feel like an idiot to realise, the only constant is me.

Berlin surely has steeled me – it does that for many, I see that. You are on your own and you know that, but you live in a place that encourages individual to be responsible for themselves. The social freedoms of the city mean that you have a Resident Gold Pass on all the lifestyles you could want to try. It’s your choice and so are the consequences.

Australia made me a capitalist, and I believed in success as so different to what I do now. That said, Australia also made me very friendly. Australians can talk to anyone from anywhere, with curiosity and genuineness and I am grateful my childhood and years there have taught me that. New York made me scared: scared not too be busy, scared of failing, scared of my flaws, scared of anything that could prod my insecurities, and I’d flinch with a chill just at the thought of that sting.

Glasgow. Well, I haven’t lived here but it’s certain I fit. For all of it’s roughness, it’s ageing walls and fences and rubbish filled lanes, it truly is a city that knows itself. Collectivley, as a community – it thrives admits a genuine warmth tempered by its inhabitants. Everything has a prominence amongst the white, white background. The hills are greener and not only roll, but finally have a place in the forefront of my vision. The trees have an added dimension, and become stark reaching skeletons waiting out the cold.

I have learned many of the pains of homesickness stem from the desire of comfort and familiarity – and that in many ways, we can provide those like comforts to ourselves, whereever we are. That’s not to say the distance from those I love does not pain me. The thought of hugging my mother brings tears to my eyes. I picture myself crooking my neck into the comfort of her embrace, standing taller than her, which still feels like a novelty even after a few years of being able to do so. As the days pass, as life happens I more and more think of her fragility and humanity; and of her resiliance and strength that empowers my ambition to seek more from life. The distance from her is a pain like I have never known. This pain affords me an appreciation for her, as a human, that I am incredibly grateful for. So, if this is what distance is, then I accept it. But home is wherever I go, wherever I choose to bring my comforts.

From a thermus of coffee on a long trip, my favorite sleep shirt, to the nightly rituals that see me organised for the next day: home is the habits I create for myself that assist me in seeking my purpose and in the execution of each step I take to fufilling my ambitions. Home will never be another person. Home will never be a place. These are comforts and chapters through which we pass, until we stop passing. To say our temporary homes have not been beautiful or to have learned nothing, would be to desecrate the offerings they made in the honour of our growth. We diminish their worth by deciding they are worth less, because they did not last forever, when statistically, they rarely do.

It’s nice to own your own home, and even nicer to know you can by owning the parts of yourself and the things you can do that bring comfort to your existence.

#FlashFictionFriday: It’s only those who believe themselves as truly and profoundly found, that I see as those who are truly lost. Though I am also without a compass, I do possess a passion for cartography. There amongst the same four walls, where you cover the spilt honey in sugar to hide it, because the flies were getting to it.

The variable is of course the context and the siutation. Often the impasse of so very like minds. Simply though, we cannot think how they feel, they cannot feel how we think. Our likemindedness becomes urban legend in the reveal of divided values.

Indeed, there’s no hope in those four walls. Just the festering of sickly sweetness. We can only hope we are never found, we should always be searching; sustaining the idea of growth as purpose.

When you have an idea you’re excited about, that you believe in, often you’ll find yourself talking about it with others. Their reactions are either a) positive b) dishonestly positive c) negative but honest or d) negative and dishonest or e) indifference.

Ultimately, whilst we must listen with care and respect, these opinions must not matter.

If the opinion reiterates to you that others just can’t quite yet see what you see – then perhaps it is because they have never seen it before. That can be a very good thing and what matters is that you believe in the idea, and respect your creative intuition enough to push forward regardless. You have to get to a point where something sticks, when you finally grind the stone on the wheel and let it spark.

If you see it when others can’t, make them see it once you’ve produced it. You will not have to explain it, if the work does. Make them see it with a true humbleness you maintain within yourself and the pleasure of doing something, doing it right, and doing it to as best fit the vision you had conceptualised.

Just keep the molecules in motion.

When one is yearning for the world to change, it’s of great value to our personal momentum to meet people and learn about people who feel the same way. Bridging the gap as a vocal piece and platform with feminism and equality, is TYCI.

I, Kate (Little Joy do-er-er of things) came across their podcast on Soundcloud and thought they were awesome, I’ve discovered a bunch of rad jams from them. Since many of you have reached out about feminism and thoughts about being a feminist, I feel it’s best send you in the way of TYCI. They produce podcasts, zines, post content daily on social networks, encourage volunteers to contribute their own content, make mix-tips and host monthly events in their base city, Glasgow. Which I’ll also say should be classed as something to do if you ever find yourself in town and an event is on.

Founded with the idea of exposing emerging and prominent female talent in the creative arts in 2012, TYCI has excelled in consistently celebrating the women they set out too. The Riot Grrl vibes are something I could only have imagined in a small town in Australia. Now that I get to talk about feminism, and read the work of others and be exposed to creative women on such a consistent basis, I no longer feel like my interest in it is wasted – by lack of outer interest or even for myself.

The beauty of a platform like TYCI, so entirely digitally accessible, is that you don’t even have to be local to access their content or contribute your own. I implore everyone that has reached out regarding advice about feminism, being a feminist and generally wanting some cool places on the Internet to check TYCI out. They’re brandishing their pink all over the World Wide Web, check them out:

SITE: www.tyci.org.ukINSTRAGRAM: @tyciblogISSUU: http://issuu.com/tyciblogMIXCLOUD: http://www.mixcloud.com/tyciblogPINTEREST: http://pinterest.com/tyciblogSOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/tyciblogSUBCITY PROFILE: www.subcity.org/shows/tyciTUMBLR: http://tyciblog.tumblr.com/TWITTER: @tyciblogVINE: @tyciblog8TRACKS: http://8tracks.com/tyciblog

Good luck to everyone seeking more knowledge about feminism, women and the women’s movement – TYCI is a little joy!

(Image Credit: TYCI (Credit Lesley Cunningham / Jumeau Photography)