#gettingthevapors

Pop quiz! Everyone’s heard of manspreading (at least if you live in NYC), but what about misogynoir, platisher, or narcissistick?  These are just some of the words that were selected last year as candidates for the Word of the Year award held by the American Dialect Society. What these words all have in common is that they are portmanteaus – a linguistic term that means taking parts of two or more words and combining them into a single new word with a whole new meaning.

If one reviews a running list of portmanteaus on Wikipedia it’s easy to see how these custom words have permeated our culture and become more heavily used in recent years: from a slew of celebrity christenings like Kimye and Brangelina, to movie titles like Sharknado, and inventions like tofurkey. Many custom words are being created to describe patterns of behaviors and feelings that while familiar are unique when taken into context of a more digital and politically sensitive world.  Textperate and colombusing are just a few examples of an expanding clever list that reflects larger cultural themes at play.  

While portmanteaus aren’t anything new, our culture seems to be latching on to these word trends because we’ve become so accustomed to having all kinds of information at our fingertips. In the recent Noah Baumbach film “While We’re Young” there’s a great scene where four of the characters are trying to remember a word that none of them can recall. One of the characters whips out his phone to look it up and the other says, “No! Let’s just NOT know.” and they all resign themselves to be ok with not knowing. It’s a moment that pauses to reflect on how we interact with the world, technology, and each other. A similar theme is found in the story written by the most recent winner of the New York Times modern love essay contest. Here it’s easy to see that how we might be in a constant search for new words because they aid in defining the increasing vagueness of our modern day relationships.  But sometimes there is no deeper reason for these new terms, other than being fun and creative flourishes to language.

Brands have also been known to adopt this type of linguistic device because it has the potential to create very memorable campaigns, slogan, and names. As is the case with company names like Groupon (a combination of group and coupon), there’s a benefit to having a catchy ownable name that reflects the brand’s offering or ethos.

There are also past examples that make it questionable whether a product would have been as successful if it were not for the name. One instance is the cronut invented in 2013 by Chef Dominique Ansel at his bakery in NYC. The cronut is exactly as it sounds – half croissant and half donut. The cronut gained so much popularity at the time that it spawned a black market where cronuts were selling for $100 a piece. It’s doubtful this heavenly hybrid of a pastry would have also landed a feature on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon if it were called something as banal as “Dominique’s Beignets”.

That’s not to say portmanteaus are always a great idea. In fact, they can lead to badvertising. A case in point: Burger King’s “Satisfries”. These low-calorie french fries were expected to be one of the biggest fast food launches in recent years but failed miserably.

It turns out free love isn’t so free. I recently listened to a fascinating podcast from the guys of Stuff You Should Know that explores the world of polyamory and was surprised to learn that there are so many rules you would think it was the NFL.

While the podcast is mostly concerned with explaining the nuances of polyamory, the most compelling argument they present for this lifestyle is that it’s delusional and unfair to expect any ONE person to fulfill all of our emotional, physical, and cultural needs.

Polyamory of course comes with pretty significant drawbacks. First of all, it requires highly evolved communication skills and levels of empathy. So if you suck at talking about your feelings and suffer from pangs of jealousy, you’re probably not cut out for this kind of thing. Plus, while it seems to be a “trendy” topic of conversation (at least in my Brooklyn based social circles), it would be far fetched to say that it’s a socially accepted practice. And then there’s the obvious – if one person can be a handful, just imagine the kind of resolve it takes when you add a third person (or more) to the mix.

I spoke to a friend of mine who grew up in a polyamorous household to get his take on all of this. During his teenage years his mom became involved in a triad with a man and his brother. I shyly asked him if the man and his brother “you know?” to which responded, “God No! That would be incest.” This confirmed the point the episode made repeatedly which is that polyamory takes all kinds of different forms. It’s not necessarily a three-way sexual relationship. The only common thread is that it is a closed circle between three or more people.

In case you’re wondering, my friend grew up to be a well-adjusted successful human being. He explained that his way of rebelling against his very liberal “sexually disoriented” parents was to take a pretty traditional path in life – go to college, get married, find a good job, buy a house, etc. “All I have are tattoos!” he exclaimed in describing the only thing that was apparently different about him – which made me laugh since tattoos are if anything ubiquitous these days. He does, however, defend his parent’s choice saying, “It’s easier to stand on three points, than two.” When I asked him if he would ever consider introducing a third partner to his marriage he replied in a matter of fact tone that he couldn’t imagine going to therapy with two people, let alone one. So no.

But this is all to say that what’s making me crazy about this topic is not whether or not I would want to seek out a polyamorous relationship for myself. That’s not really the point. What I’ve been chewing over is the debate about whether or not monogamy is a natural part of the human experience. The podcast seems to side with the camp that says it’s unnatural because it lowers the chances of males spreading their seed. As if the world needs more overpopulation! It also points out that most of the animal kingdom is not monogamous. In fact only 5% of mammals, in addition to cockroaches and birds, mate with only one partner their entire life.

There are two theories that attempt to explain how monogamy developed for us. The first says that males needed to stick around in order to protect their offspring from getting killed off by another sexual male predator. And the second has to do with low density of females and the male becoming preoccupied with ensuring that their female partner wasn’t running around on them. As someone living in New York experiencing the exact opposite, I can see how this one could be true.

However, I would argue that just as men want to spread their seed all over planet, women have an inherent desire to sit their fertile ovaries wherever they can. Sure, there’s a 9 month lag time but why not? And the problem with the second theory for me is that if it were all biological, why would the male care if the woman was running around? Sounds like a case of jealousy to me. Jealousy exists for a reason. Perhaps the intimacy we desire, if not biologically natural, is made up of the supernatural kind that makes the human experience what it is.

That said, just like anything else in life, like choosing a political party, for example -- everyone has the right to choose where to belong or who to affiliate with, but once you do, you should probably live life according to those rules.

Anyway, the podcast is definitely worth a listen. If anything you’ll learn what it means to be “hunting the unicorn” and how to properly “spice” up the bedroom.

"Phoebe Bridgers is a musical unicorn. When I listen to her sing and play guitar, it feels to me like what it feels like when I listen to Bob Dylan. It’s like having an experience that seems devoid of bullshit. There’s a taste of blood in the words and she is separated from the pain but a few tiny silver threads. The threads are probably the hair of some wild animal she killed with her bare hands and turned into an animal cape that flows behind her as she rides her stallion, Mortimer through the dusty wasteland of modern music.” - Ryan Adams

If anyone ever comes across a more colorful translation of a music experience, please send it my way. 

Imagine a world where we obtain mentors, friends, and lovers simply by installing them onto our phone. This is the concept being explored by UK based art group Blast Theory. They are a group of interactive artists that developed Karen, a fictional life-coaching app which just launched that blurs the line between computer and human relationships.

Karen is designed to be experienced over the course of a week, and consists of HD video interactions between an actress, posing as life coach, and the user. Participants begin the experience by answering personal questions that dig at the users general worldview and emotional attitudes: Do you consider yourself an optimist? Did you have a happy childhood? In addition to answering a string of personal questions, participants willingly allow Karen to closely monitor their daily phone activities. She lures you in with the promise that the more you share with her, the more she'll reveal things to you about yourself that perhaps you never knew. The experience develops differently for each user based on the information provided to Karen. She is also programmed to gradually reveal things about her own life and cross professional boundaries. At the end of the experience, participants receive a psychological assessment and are left with a presumingly uncomfortable feeling that begs us to examine our relationship to our devices. It’s a social art experiment resembling the Turing Test, which proposes that the threshold for artificial intelligence is when we can no longer judge whether we’re interacting with a computer or a real person.

For the art community, the app is an interesting proposition in that it’s one of the first apps to provide a new stage for performance art – highly conceptual art that explores basic elements having to do with time, space, and the relationship between performers and their audience. In true meta fashion, the artists behind Karen are making a statement about the dependencies created by the role of technology in our lives, but are using that same technology to express it.

For brands, this is as a cautionary tale. The more people are willing to share their personal data (and this is especially true of Gen Z) the more the data can be used to tell a compelling story that transforms to become highly individualized and personal. At worst, the data can also be used in ways that come across manipulative and insincere.

We can all credit social media for surfacing national holidays that we never knew existed. Last week it was National Siblings Day (sorry sis!). Today is National Equal Pay Day. I know this because I woke up to Matt McGorry 3-part Instagram post on my newsfeed. While this blog is dedicated to outstanding women, this man deserves a high-five for championing women’s rights while remaining decidedly masculine (he used to be a body builder) and ever so charming.

In my personal life, I’ve dated men that make less money than I do (not by choice). And I know many friends who earn more than their boyfriends or husbands. It’s an unfortunate reality that exists due to our fucked economy. I don’t believe in overcorrecting. I believe in equality.

But you can’t ignore this reality: nationally women earn only 78 cents to the man’s dollar. Recently, Sarah Silverman shared a personal story about the reality of being a female comedian. I was shocked and saddened to hear her story because I’ve performed at the same club, for the same owner that she calls out in her video. Don’t get me wrong – as a complete amateur comedian, I’m surprised owners don't ask me to pay them for stage time. But for an industry begging for more female comedians it’s discouraging and humiliating and misogynistic. And as Silverman said, it’s not about the money - it's about the respect.

My white girl fantasy is to one day participate in an epic rap battle. But let’s be real.

So when I came across the young English rapper, Little Simz I was totally blown away. This kid is the definition of fresh. What I love about her music, in particular songs like “Mandarin Oranges Part 2”, “Devour”, and “Time Capsule” is that they open with a very dreamy, almost melancholy sound – a feeling that for me evokes a sense of defeat. And just as you think she’s about to start going on about loss and love, she hits you with a massive beat and strikes like a ninja. And if that’s not gangster enough, her songs evolve to a point where I’m not sure whether I should start a mosh pit, break out in an African dance, or recreate the Harlem Shake.

If you can manage to keep up with her speedy lyrics, she’s surprisingly not rapping about sex, drugs, money, or other generalizations about “thug life”. She explores themes of youth, the music industry, and staying true to herself and her dreams. She sings about the kind of encouragement and resilience that we can all benefit from listening to. I find it a welcome change after tiresome lyrics like “And I impregnated your mouth, girl”.  Some of my favorite lines from “Devour” take a stab at a male dominated rap and hip hop culture:

Many many men will attempt to devour my throne I empower my own I’m just tryna be the best me but in gold they will shower my throne If a rebel tellin’ in a city young people Wonder what the fuck’s down I won’t even try to explain The best way around is to sing my songs, ah

In a recent interview, Little Simz expressed her distaste for being labeled a “female rapper”. She made a valid point that people don’t preface male rappers in the same way. But you can’t help admire her for being one of the only female artists listed in countless lists of rappers to watch this year. Personally, I want to high five this shit out this kid.