ISSUE ONE
DEVELOPED BRAIN WINTER
“developed brain winter” comes from the spotify playlist of the same name.
Photos taken on kent st.
All articles, photography, design, and illustration by Sabrina Sommer
Special thanks to levent cakir and every design and publication department that has rejected my resume.
All rights reserved. Printed in New Jersey. Self-published in New York City. Self-distributed.
This book was set in a variety of fonts but most prominently PP writer from Pangram Pangram Type Foundry.
Written January-March 2024, printed November 2024.
sabsommer.com
with love and curiosity
I turned 25 in a childhood bedroom that had no childhood in it in Houston Texas December 21st. This has been the third house my mother has lived in since I graduated high school. So yes, childhood didn’t happen in it but I’m not sure what else to call it. I spent the childhood of my adult life living in this room, a post-graduate summer in hot humid Houston.
Living life as a fresh graphic design grad in Houston was not how “it” was supposed to go. I had got the internship of my dreams...digitally. It was 2021 but COVID still stalled all real-life plans. I drove home the day after graduating from the University of Nebraska. I was freshly broken up with and had finally grown
my hair out to its perfect length.
Summer has always revived me in ways I always doubted it to. There wasn’t anything I’d say no to that summer. I spent it sneaking around with an old high school crush. At one point I ditched my friends at a circus-themed bar to ride on the back of some random Dutch man’s moped through the Houston Heights. I’d go out at night and end up at some lacrosse team’s frat house watching them try to be funny. To be single in a city you only knew as a child is as strange as it seems. I learned how to make lavender martinis. I started jogging every afternoon fueled by angsty break-up songs. I spent way too much time with my mom. I made an amazing playlist dedicated to ghosting people. I tanned at the pool and listened to podcasts recorded from Dimes Square. I was acting out like a teenager with all the power of adulthood and all the restraints of living at home. I was 22.
And then I moved to New York City where I fell off and in love.
Since living in New York I haven’t finished any design project. I had coded here and there and done little things. But I had barely been able to break even for the first year. I got a god-forsaken job in social media and every conversation I had with anyone in the design team ended with “You have to be a designer” followed by a succinct and unanimous ghosting from the head of the department. I met with him once through zoom as the company’s first and only round of fully remote interns. I was like a terrified hamster who word vomited at him about design so much that he ultimately must have written me off as a person.
Rejection hurts. I have a bad habit of taking things personally and powerfully. I’m not a very sensitive person, but I am a very paranoid one. I take rejection as a plot from the universe played out by people who are scheming my downfall from the moment they meet me. I wish I was just a crybaby instead. It would be a lot easier and, as Lana del Rey once said, I am pretty when I cry. Each rejection was similar in the way that I felt that my knowledge was being used against me. In schooling it was preached that knowledge was power so I learned all I could. I could 3D model, I could code a website by hand, I could illustrate, and I had all the skills any one designer would need. Yet, in every interview, people would tell me they just didn’t know what to do with me. They just don’t know where to put me. As someone being interviewed it’s always such a strange thing to be told. Shouldn’t the person interviewing you know what job you should be doing? Shouldn’t they put me in the position I’m applying to?
I became very existential but instead of dread, it was paired with absurdism. Life became nonsensical to me. I was spending hours of my days coming up with tiktok content for condiment brands. I hated social media. I never had social media listed as a skill and yet here I was nailing myself into a Sabrina-shaped coffin. How did this make any sense?
Thank god I fell in love on my 9th day in the city.
He moved my futon up to my apartment and we went on an 8-hour walk that ended in martinis that I would choke on after each sip, a game of telephone in Grand Central Station, and accidental dining and dashing. He hasn’t left my side since.
I didn’t know what else to spend my time on but this. Being in love became my real 9-5. In a city where nothing seemed to make sense anymore, love was the gravity I was holding onto to keep myself from slipping up into the atmosphere. I blinked and I turned 25.
Of course, other things happened before I turned 25. I had a bitter roommate who hated my guts. I’m still unsure what made her hate me so much. I’m vain so I believe in jealousy but I really do think that. In my first 6 months, I was living a sitcom of a life. All my friends were Romanian regulars at the bar my boyfriend bartends at. I would go almost every night after with a book in my hand. I would meet different people every night. A past editor of The Paris Review, a new millionaire who sold his company that morning and went on a 5 hour walk and ended up at the bar, a couple spending their last night in the States seeking a threesome before moving to Portugal full-time, a Swedish Michelin star chef who got so drunk he invited us all to the roof of his apartment. I did things for the story and for the thrill of doing them. My roommate met up with PR friends from college once a month and stalked a boy band online.
I moved out of my twin-bed-sized room in the middle of the Upper East Side to my studio in Brooklyn where I see the water and a Drive-In movie theater. I had a phase where I was obsessed with furniture. I had a phase where I was obsessed with designer clothes. I went to Paris once. I went to Turkey and Greece and saw the ancient cities I had cheated about on art history exams. This past fall escaped me and ended with the crash of my birthday, December 21st.
Back in Houston. In my adult childhood room.
No one warns you about the side effects of having a fully developed brain.
I’m signed up for half marathons. I have a Google doc of a memoir I write in for fun. After 15 minutes of scrolling on social media my thoughts start screaming “why should I care” until I get angry for no reason and throw my phone at the wall. I own a cookbook and have only eaten out 4 times this year. I keep thinking about the pursuit of grad school even though I still have student loans. I call my mom a lot more often. And most importantly think of my new mission statement every day.
WE HAVE LOST THE PLOT
I can admit this. I have lost the plot as to what I want to do with my life. I’m brainstorming sexy asmr videos for car accessories as my job. WE HAVE LOST THE PLOT. Of course I have. It’s easy to lose the plot when my nighttime routine of trying to be a designer again follows these steps:
- Look up master’s degree programs I can’t afford
- Look up everyone currently enrolled in said program
and compare myself to them
- Look up all the people who work at places I look up to
and see what year and school they graduated from
as an excuse as to why I’m not there yet
- Go to Pinterest
- Feel powerless
- Go to bed, usually 3 glasses of wine in at this point
crying about how out of control of my own life I am
And that’s my Get Unraveled With Me Routine (GUWMR)
It’s not healthy but it’s better than smoking cigarettes. I don’t blame myself for doing this for so long either. As I mentioned I take rejection personally. I feel so lost that people don’t even know how to hire me. WE HAVE LOST THE PLOT.
Before I moved back to my childhood adult room, 6 weeks before I had graduated, and the reason why the fresh post-grad break up happened, I had been coerced and taken advantage of* by a guest lecturer. The guest lecturer met with me outside of class to bring me on as an assistant for a project for a national renowned publication that I can’t name here. It’s stupid. The way I had allowed it to happen, the way I felt afterward. The biggest feeling I had afterward was “holy shit no one can ever know about this”. I was so embarrassed. I felt fooled and outsmarted. I was a statistic now. I couldn’t have just made it out before this. 6 weeks until I graduate and this had to happen. I felt like my work never really mattered to anyone. I had a nauseous feeling that anything I had achieved wasn’t for the right reason. I had a vain sickening paranoia that any man in my field was just trying to trick me into being vulnerable enough for them to sleep with me. I barely finished my capstone and missed so many classes the last two months of school I almost failed out. The summer of 22-year-old freedom was more like a summer of outbursts and cries for help. The main feeling was once again nonsense. My world didn’t make sense anymore, and my drive was halted by a concrete wall. My remaining ambition was really just to survive and float under the radar for a bit.
Yeah. it was depressing. I had run into him the 4th day I lived in New York. I wanted to claw my fingernails into his eye sockets but instead, I smiled and said “Been a while yeah?” and I saw the fear in his eyes grow. I haven’t seen him since, and from what I’ve seen online he’s been blacklisted from all his past employers.
I won. I turned 25 at the end after all.
Sab Mag is my half-brained idea to gain control of the plot.
I’m sick of people telling me what I’m not. I am a designer. I didn’t go to RISD or some random private school in Missouri or Utah with a freakishly good design program. But that doesn’t really matter. I have the belief that what I say and do will come back to find me.
Originally in the last sentence, I wrote “delusional belief” but it’s true. People notice this about me, that I have a certain magic that allows things to come my way. The other day on my hour long train ride to the airport a middle-aged Russian woman deemed me as her train buddy and talked to me the entire way through. She told me I had an energy and excitement. We talked about art and how life is just light bouncing off of things. This kind of thing happens too often to me to not mean anything. I thought about what I wanted to achieve and what the original plot was all about. It was always about everything. I love writing. I love photography. I love design.
I’m aware this magazine doesn’t have much draw. It’s just me. It’s my thoughts visions and orders. There’s no big mission statement. I can’t depend on anyone else to contribute to the magazine otherwise I won’t follow through with it. I’m not trying to save the world, only myself in the process. I’m not a journalist or an expert or a stylist or qualified. I’m 25. The only qualification I can offer is a developed brain.
I know this was all written months ago. The term Brat summer meant nothing, there was no Challengers score, no New York City earthquake. A lot has happened.Through it all I’ve been writing future issues rather than finishing the issue at hand. And although I feel embarassed designing a spread of my new years resolutions 10 months into the year, I am proud of the work I put into this. I’m proud that I made myself finish instead of hiding it away like I do with so many projects. I hope you enjoy time traveling with me.
It’s been misty, which is the romantic way of saying it’s
been shitty.
Since Septemeber New York has seemed to be plagued with a never-ending fog of rain and drizzle and now flurries. They’re not thunderstorms. I wish they were. Nobody warned me that thunderstorms don’t really exist here, I miss them. This rain isn’t torrential it’s meant to be tolerated. You can’t make the excuse to bunker down like you would in a storm. You have to live in the drizzle and debate if you should overreact by carrying an umbrella or take your chances without one and catch a cold.
It’s amazing that even after all of that, I’ve enjoyed it deeply.
Hibernation is a natural thing. Animals always have a sense for what’s actually important. I’ve been inside a lot. I haven’t hung out with people I’d normally reach out to. It’s not of any bad blood or falling out, it just hit me how much I need to be alone. Last year I would average one night in by myself per week if I was lucky. And that one night would be reserved to doing nothing because I was so exhausted from the other 6 nights. Distraction is fun in the moment but ultimately made me feel empty in the end.
The sky has been white every day with no sun for the past 11 days.
It feels surreal like each day I’m respawning into a new version of a game called Earth. The view from my window has hidden buildings in the fog. I can see the ferry come through the white void of the river fog. Almost no one has been in my neighborhood which is usually packed with people coming here to have a “greenpoint day” and cause every place to have lines.
But the mist is starting to rise. It’s a spring February and I’m expected to go out and grab drinks instead of holing up in my studio where I work until 2 am alone. I have to step out of glass fishtank of a home and keep up my loving and important relationships. I’m afraid of spring. It’s when I have to decide things and make plans which result in sacrifices. I’m afraid I’ll lose grasp of the ambitions I’ve reignited for myself and get lost in the maze of plans and commitments of the city. I guess if you’re reading this it means I was just being dramatic and still able to finish working.
I arrived in Princeton fresh into the new year on January 5th 2024.
These are my observations
The commute: On the way there the New Jersey transit betrayed me and I had to take 3 separate trains to make it on time. However, each train came exactly as I transferred. It was a good train day. The train ride back was simple and enjoyable and full of football fans trekking to the New Jersey stadium. It took around 2-3 hours to commute there.
The stay: I went to Princeton to visit my close friend who is currently house-sitting around the country. This was my first time visiting her house sit in which she took over the apartment of two lovely Portuguese gays who left their dogs for her to watch. One was a lion and scratched so much I still have bruises, and the other we nicknamed “piss baby” because it would constantly pee all over the place. However I did have my own room, it was a new apartment, and had a glass-enclosed shower to hotbox
The activities: The main event was doing the only thing there is to do which was visit the campus. This is where things start to get majestic. As we arrive the first snow of the season starts to fall as we aimlessly wander in and out of gothic academic buildings and dorm courtyards. It started to feel like the opening sequence of The Holdovers. We run into families playing in the snow who greet us with “Happy New Year”. This might be the first time I’ve gotten a random pleasant street greeting up north ever. Across from the campus gates is a Rolex store, Lily Pulitzer, J Crew, Ralph Lauren, you name it. It was basically my starting lineup from the weird preppy business casual phase I had in 2015. We walked further into the small town until we found a small cafe where I got a mocha and freshly baked croissant to dip it into. Two old women were next to us gossiping about the literary world on campus. When we walked out we could see the large Christmas tree in the town square still strung and lit up in the snow. Impulsively I bought a Matisse calendar from the campus art museum store. I know Matisse might be considered basic now, but I need to surround myself with simple and joyful things when it comes to my desk decor. When we got back to the apartment we opened all the blinds as the snow fell, feeling like a soulless modernist apartment snowglobe. We got high watched 2 Harry Potter movies and Uber eat-ed a Panera order that took an hour to be delivered through the snow. In the morning I promptly woke up and went on my way.
The ambiance: The ambiance was exactly what I needed to give me my appreciation for the winter season this year. Being surrounded by the town in the first snow was magical. It looked like what I imagined the Secret History to look like. It looked like all the old photos I had reblogged in my dark academia phase.
The week after Princeton I went to Philly to stay with a dear friend and her boyfriend (who is also a dear friend)
These are my observations
The commute: I only commute to philly via amtrak because I’m a train stan and would be completely lost when it comes to boarding at port authority. The trains I take are always before 9am or after 8pm because then they’re only about $30 per trip. Moynhihan hall is a palace with no chairs which I take turns loving and hating. I get my staple train meal each time, a cookie from Maman and a cappuccino.
The stay: I had visited these friends before in Philidelphia but this was my first time seeing their newly moved-in apartment. Every room had a window in it with light flooding in. Across the street, you could entertain yourself by seeing the same bank guard wander about in different spots of boredom. These friends are photographers from Nebraska, so every wall was adorned with beautiful street scenes and Midwest artifacts. There was no visible TV which is always a plus in a space. It was a cozy comfortable home with the perfect balance of midwest century modern grandma.
The activities: I got into Union Station Friday morning when my friend picked me up. After settling and eating a scone I had picked up on the road we walked to an old high school now turned community center/co-working space/coffee shop/vintage store/cool space to get some chai and work done. When we left we saw a hit-and-run in which the couple who hit a parked car got out and ran from the scene. I still have so many questions regarding that. We got home and I became obsessed with the Molly Baz cookbook we used to make breakfast sandwiches. As the day ended, all of us went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for their free Friday night where I took a lot of embarrassing Rocky pictures. At the museum, I watched some great video art about the Korean economy/industrialization and its border with North Korea. They had a piano player in the main hall, we used the music to find the center of the museum when we would get lost. At the end of the night despite my New Years resolution to “go out more!!” at 10pm each of us found each other in the living room draped in quilts holding cups of peppermint as the rain fell outside. This is 25 years old. Still though, we stayed up chatting, talking, and catching up through the night.
The next morning we woke up for a group run through Philadelphia. I’m training for multiple half marathons so I’m trying to be as consistent as I can. This first run hit since the holidays hit me hard, but was enjoyable due to the company and huge dog park we stopped to look at along the way. After the run, we made our way to a Quebecois-run French breakfast restaurant and went home for some showering and shopping. There were some great vintage shops more antique and folk-inspired than many in New York* which I enjoyed. I bought this simple fleece because I love cobalt blue and am always looking to leave a selection of hoodies at my trinity of constant locations (my home → my boyfriend’s home → my office desk).
We slowly ended the day cooking a creamy pasta and splitting a bottle of wine that got us all way more fucked up than expected and of course, resulted in me running to make my train as usual.
*imho, the vintage shops in New York are so loudly “quirky” they typically make me nauseous upon entering (cough cough awoke vintage cough cough)
The ambiance: The ambiance here was comforting. It was seeing friends who’ve known you through it all and homecooked meals and peppermint tea. Philadelphia always feels like a warm hug whenever I visit it. The buildings are lower and the people are more human. The sun shines through windows and isn’t blocked by a skyrise
Me and the Media
JOB the play
I saw the play JOB in mid-January. I bought what I thought was hot chocolate but turned out to be a nut milk blend hot chocolate. My impression started as a disappointment.
JOB the play has just about taken over every edgy New Yorker’s Instagram story. A photo of the playbill with its bold logo and a therapist's office set straight from Wayfair.com dons the stage in the background.
After my disappointing hot chocolate, I squeezed into my seat in the way way back and watched the show. I forgot how much I loved plays, especially one-acts. It’s been a while since I’ve seen content made for my audience. Just about anything coming out movie wise play wise etc. seems to all be made for a Gen-Z audience with brain rot or millennials who still have Hillary merch. This play connected with my pessimistic views on the job economy as well as the negative feedback loop of engaging with technology. It’s great, it’s a trip, it’s nerve-racking. Can’t wait to see it become a soulless streaming original series someday.
Me and the Media
Gossip Girl seasons 4-6 + The OC
In the dead of winter, while I work on a bedazzling craft for a Taylor Swift concert 6 months away, a teen drama is there for me to find warmth in.
Teen dramas are a serious art. As a teenager, everything in my life was dramatic. I didn’t ever prostitute myself for my boyfriend to become head of a real estate tycoon (A la Gossip Girl Season 3 Episode 17) but at times turning in geometry homework felt that serious. I’ve always been afraid of silence since seeing a jump scare in Spiderman 3 when I was 8. Because of this fear of silence, I fill the void with content that not only comforts but can always be ignored.
I had seen Gossip Girl multiple times but had never pushed myself to re-watch the later more ridiculous seasons. These seasons house some cliche gems including but not limited to a secret undercover cousin, Blair marrying a prince, a near-death car crash, three characters that fake their death at different times, oh and at one point a minor x adult relationship. It deters from teen drama and enters the genre of teen soap operas. Once I finished Gossip Girl I started the OC, which was also created by the Gossip Girl writers.
The OC is the cooler Californian version of Gossip Girl. The formula is about the same. They always start the series with a new kid in town who befriends a local hot girl. There’s always a family dynasty involved and of course, the outsider who wants to get out of this “stupid town” which isn’t a town but a suburb for millionaires. The OC is sunnier than Gossip Girl. The yellow tones, tan people, and actual comedy writing made my freezing studio apartment feel a little bit more like being 17 on Newport Beach.
One of the first lines of the OC is between the IT girl and new bad boy. “‘Who are you?’ ‘Whoever you want me to be.’” This is what I would call the thesis statement of teen soap operas. When you’re growing up in a society of status your identity is your entire life. As a teenager, the question of what you want to be when you grow up merges with who you want to be. This is ultimately what makes these shows so relatable even though no one I know is part of a family real estate dynasty. Coming of age is coming into autonomy. The response “Whoever you want to me to be?” drips of that teenage anxiety of wanting to fit in, while also noting that whoever they are actually doesn’t matter to the one asking the question.
Me and the Media
Accidental The Zone of Interest/Wonka Double Feature
Initially, I was supposed to see Zone of Interest as part of a girl's night-friend catch-up outing. Then I watched the trailer and immediately suggested we see something else the next day instead. My showing was at 10 pm on a Tuesday at the Nitehawk a 30-minute walk away. I typically see a Tuesday night Nitehawk movie from 9-10pm because no one is there, it’s easy to sneak in stuff, it’s within walking distance, and I love seeing a movie alone. They also give you a buy-one-get-one-free ticket coupon shortly after your showing in an email.
When I walked into the theater I was relieved that out of the 10 people there, 7 of us planned for this to be a solo viewing experience. The guy one buffer seat away from me had already downed an old-fashioned. By the end of the movie he had 3 old fashioneds and a fried chicken sandwich as if he were watching The Avengers rather than an unsettling holocaust drama but I respect it nonetheless.
This was the scariest movie I’d seen in a while. I know it wasn’t a horror movie, and it doesn’t show much graphic imagery but everything about it made me feel like any minute something was going to pop out and scream. The symmetrical overly bright shots were lasering into me. The sound was the scariest thing I’d heard. As someone who lives in a studio apartment with white noise and strange fridge sounds I had to turn on The Nanny for 3 hours when I got home as a DIY lobotomy to get the idea of the soundscape out of my head. It worked and within 24 hours later, I completely wiped it by watching Wonka at Williamsburg Cinemas after 2 manhattans.
I misjudged manhattans. It’s the perfect winter drink. Leaving this as its own paragraph to remind myself to order them more.
Williamsburg Cinemas it my other favorite movie theater in the area. It’s only theater in nyc I’ve been too that doesn’t feel like a club or a mall. It has shitty popcorn and corny graphics of dancing candy bars before the start. Wonka was 5 stars on my letterboxd. It was fun and stupid and Timothee Chalamet looked ai generated. Noodle Noodle Apple Strudel will be on my spotify wrapped mark my words.
When we see something profoundly sad and horrifying in manners our brain can’t comprehend, it’s normal to chase escapism. A shot needs its chaser after all.
Me and the Media
Tumblr Advertisements
In a fit of New Year's rage, I have deleted all of the social media on my phone. This deters my phone time some, but I still find other apps to kill time on. Strava, GoodReads, r/tennis, and back to my first internet love Tumblr. Tumblr is still here and will never go away. Despite the backlash they got for removing nsfw content (which is barely enforced) and starting to roll out ads on the site, my mutuals and I are still lurking and reblogging like it’s 2013.
It’s Pinterest but less superficial. It’s a vision board but it doesn’t need to be. The algorithm isn’t as powerful. I can still be surprised on Tumblr. I don’t have to worry about who sees what I post because no one does see it. It’s not a social media but a more meditative one. The infinite scroll isn’t bombarding you with flashes of sound and video like the other platforms do so often now.
What enticed me the most about this new Tumblr were the ads. They didn’t distract me or try to sell anything. Most of them don’t even have words. The majority of the ads just have a small rectangle of an image in the upper left corner. Some of the ads themselves are for nsfw sites with .ai-generated images of romance. What puzzles me the most is the white space that surrounds the majority of the ads. My leading theory is that advertisers don’t care enough about Tumblr to edit and produce yet another size for their ads. It’s refreshing though that in a world where ads and social media attempt to take up as much space as possible, there are still ads that say nothing.
Wikipedia Article of the Quarter
Cheesesteak and Birthday Problems
Originally this section was called “Wikipedia Article of the Quarter”. There is one, but I couldn’t ignore and shut out the image of the Cheesesteak page on Wikipedia.
I can not remember why I had Wikipedia’d it. Maybe I was haunted by its legacy after I visited Philidelphia.
Maybe I was hyperlinked from the American Sandwiches page.
The image of this cheesesteak is no longer there and has been replaced by a more open-dissected sandwich. Possibly to help educate the interior of the sandwich, or possibly to give a cheesesteak stand more publicity. What I admire the most about Wikipedia is its air of mystery. It changes without warning and leaves no trace of who or why the change happened. In an internet that has become so predictable and automated, Wikipedia gives a refreshing reminder of life behind the screen. When my viewport was shrunken to a sliver I was stunned to find there was no description anymore to the Cheesesteak. A common and understandable bug created a void to the left of the violent sandwich. This air of nothing said everything. A cheesesteak sandwich with Cheez Whiz on a seeded roll. There’s nothing else to know, for the Cheesesteak speaks for itself until change persists and a new Cheesesteak takes its place.
The Wikipedia article of the quarter is “Birthday Problem”. It’s a probability theory that states in a set of randomly chosen people, at least two will share a birthday. The birthday paradox refers to the counterintuitive fact that only 23 people are needed for that probability to exceed 50%.
I love the oxymoron of the named term. A birthday should never be a problem, although it’s become far too common for people to hate their birthdays. So in both meanings, many people have birthday problems.
One of the least favorite things I’ve grown used to is people hearing my birthday and telling me that so many of their friends have the same birthday. They always phrase like I should know my birthday is common. It’s a diva move, but on the one day that’s supposed to be yours, it’s an existential reminder that a day is just a day.
I only know one person who shares the same birthday as me. I have no birthday problem with them.
In contrast to the cheesesteak, the birthday problem reminds me of what we can’t change. Being born on December 21st, I always fantasized about what day I would want my birthday to be. My birthday home is always some variation of a small family gathering at a Cheesecake Factory in the mall across the street.
I wish I knew all of the others who had the same trials as me. I wonder if all their parties are Christmas-themed, or if they’ve given up and just celebrated in October like I do.
My birthday problem may be lightened if I knew my other birthday problems. In this equation, the birthday problem cancels each other out.
Style Section
The Real Real Rehab
Last year I made it my mission to buy more designer clothing. I won’t try to lie to you, it was as it seemed, mainly fueled by the idea of status and image I thought it would mask around me. However, the status was also coupled with a desire of clothes that would last me. When looking at my closet a year ago I concluded that all my favorite items I had owned since high school. When I like something I really like it and wear it to death. So I set my mission and gave myself a monthly allowance of around $100-200 (albeit with some splurge exceptions) out of each bi-weekly paycheck to buy nice clothes that match how I want to dress in my head. When getting dressed I find I had typically found myself going into autopilot. I wasn’t so much wearing what I wanted but just wearing what I had. My mission resulted in hours of doom scrolling The Real Real, ssense sales, weekly fashion newsletters, and Pinterest boards. Sticking with my mission of only designer and my lower monthly budget, The Real Real was my main haven. On The Real Real you can’t add antyhing to a wishlist, you can only add an item to a folder dubbed “obessions”. At first I thought it was ridiculous to give a black sweater the important title of an obsession, but soon I found myself taking it seriously. It was a lot of work and introspection as I would think and obsess over each monthly obsession I would choose to purchase and how I would wear it.
This year, I woke up and simply didn’t have the effort or money for it anymore. Over winter break I’m always restricted into only wearing the clothing my mom has kept from over the years. Old Abercrombie jeans, high school function t-shirts, target women’s section designer collabs. Doing this seemed to put me on a diet of a sort. I was freed in my restrictions and tossed into the Texas streets around people who simply do not care about fashion at all.
The uniform for the neighborhood was baggy tshirts and leggings. People still wore designer still sure, but only sandals, accessories, or the classic “brand name on shirt”. It’s always put a sour taste in my mouth how elitist fashion in new york is. The people of New York may look better and more alternative but what I was starting to notice was that the competition and buying list never ended. At least people in Texas, as unfashionable as they were, weren’t paralyzed by perception or spending hours choosing an outfit. I had found myself in the real real rehab.
When I returned to new york I was too cold to care. I’ve been working more on personal projects and visiting friends and booking trips. I haven’t worn an outfit I really like yet this year. Mainly I blame the winter but partly myself. As I type this it’s the end of February and I have yet to buy a single clothing item this year. My no-buy isn’t purposeful it’s just how I feel. No item has really seemed worth it yet to me. In fact a lot of the clothes I bought throughout last year were centered on the summer. My mission was focused on all the trips and outings I had planned in the warm months. My fall/winter collection is a bit lack luster, but tackling that will be reserved for another era of time.
Part of rehab is sharing and confessing. So, Here is a list of all the items I bought last year in my search to reshape and redefine my style. Photos of my favorites and most worn are seen above.
Ann Demulemeester crochet vest
Yohji Yamamoto long black skirt, Paloma Wool bathing suit, Proenza Schuler tank top, Ann Demulemeester boots, Peter Do Banana Republic trousers, Birrot tank top, Nothing written trouser shorts, Linen tank top from Turkish vendor, Linen long skirt from Turkish vendor, White linen tie top from Greek vendor, Black one-piece bathing suit from greek vendor, Another two piece bikini from garmentory, Banana Republic sweater, Sandro tunic, Paris Georgia corset top, White pleated skirt thrifted from etsy (Maison Margiela dupe), Marni sunglasses, Auralee jeans, Log purse from ssense, Gray skirt from palmer harding, Lauren Manoogian bucket hat, Ancient Greek sandals, Black fuzzy beanie from Holzwieler, Paloma Wool cape
New Year Trusims
This year I’m abandoning the resolution and embracing the truism. Truisms is an art series from contemporary artist Jenny Holzer. Holzer studied literature and philosophy in nyc during the 70s and describes truisms as her writing her own form of cliches which are slightly influenced by concising down philosophical readings. The truisms are displayed as simple signage in which the text is meant to be the art and image itself. What comes next are my own truisms I wrote on new years day.
STARS ARE BLIND
DOUBT IS DEVOURED
THE PAST IS IN THE PAST
THE FUTURE WILL UNFOLD AS IT LIKES
PUT IT ON YOUR WALL AND WALK AWAY
MATERIALISM IS THE FINAL BOSS
DESTROY AND INDULGE IN MYSTERY
LOOK AT THE MOON IT IS NOT ALWAYS VISIBLE
DIVE INTO SPIRALS DO NOT BE SUCKED INTO THEM
PRETENDING IS POWER
Science and Visions
The Ick to Yum Spectrum
An Introduction to the science and visions section:
If you know me in person, you know I’m always thinking and observing behavior especially online. I wish there was an internet anthropological or sociology job I could do that uses this skill but I really can’t find any. Until I do, this quartley observation of online language will have to do. This section will be devoted to my quarterly musings and theories based on what I’ve been noticing.
THE CREATION OF THE ICK AS WE KNOW IT
In college, around my last year in 2020-21, a phrase called “the ick” was first heard. I believe I first read it on Twitter, and I later found out it was introduced to the lexicon as a small quip coined by Love Island UK contestant Olivia Atwood in 2017. By 2022, it was a cultural phenomenon. Women had found the coined term that describes what we’ve all felt
at some point, a moment when you see your romantic pursuit do something small and insignificant that sucks all of the appeal out of them leaving an icky cringe sensation in your psychosis. Women went rabid. The ick unlike other clear or heinus dealbreakers. An ick is not a cheating partner, being in a situationship, or screaming at service workers. The ick hits you out of nowhere. It’s seeing someone order a frappuccino. It’s running with a backpack on. It’s tying your shoe in the middle of a street. There are hundreds of icks out there.
Here is a small list of examples from a GQ article: Walking on pebbles, Walking downhill, Eating edamame, Ordering a frappucino, Putting on a fitted sheet, Using a shopping cart, Putting on chapstick, Using Siri speech-to-text, Silent disco-ing, Using a trampoline, Making a TikTok, Inflating a balloon, and so on.
Some personal icks I’ve experienced have been stepping over SoundCloud lo-fi beats equipment in a room. When people explain to me in detail their 10+ year plan. Wearing round frame glasses and enjoying Rex Orange County songs. Asking me “Have you heard this before?” and playing me a Gorillaz song. Texting me “Do you hate me?” when you’re left on read.
ENTER THE YUM
With romance being a special kind of physics, we must look to Newton’s third law stating “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. The existence of the ick suggests the existence of the opposite feeling. When you know someone and they’re ok, you’re toying with the idea of them romantically but not really sure, but then all of a sudden they do something small and insignificant that seals the deal for you. They’re suddenly hotter and the love goggles are glued on. This is what I’m coining as–The Yum. The yum is not a foreign theory. Think of all of the enemies to lovers, friends to lovers stories women have been absorbing subconsciously since Disney movies. Men also aren’t foreign to it. This is what gives a man hope to get through the friendzone on top. It’s not impossible to achieve.
However, the yum as well as the ick can not be created or destroyed. You can’t be responsible for giving someone the yum/ick. It’s existence comes from the energy around us and is ultimately all about the oneself rather than the person who’s deemed with a yum/ick. In an ick centered article from Dazed, 26 year old tiktoker Anastasia reflects and admits “Anastasia acknowledges this. “After a while, I realised this is just sounding like a me problem. How come I meet all these amazing people and I suddenly just get icked out?” they say. “After a long time in therapy I realised that I was struggling with intimacy. I was cutting things off because I’d find an excuse to not be vulnerable and deal with something that’s uncomfortable.”
In a “dump him” world, full of people commenting to cancel and run from a relationship at any chance, I think it’s time we start talking about the yums that break through a person.
THE MODERN YUM
The yum is also trying to poke its way through mainstream media. When googling “opposite of the ick” small Reddit threads and TikTok with 20-100 likes come up with one tiktok commenter calling a reverse ick a “yum”. Currently, there is a slew of #reverseicks videos, but instead of explaining or stating a real observation they are phrased as “imagine ____”. Maybe i’m showing my age, but this isn’t a reverse ick, an imagine has already existed with peak popularity being the 1D imagines.The yum fulfills the need of a catchy label, and is even the same exact amount of letters as “the ick”. Phonetically even the way the two words sound is enough to evoke the feelings of both. “The Ick” is genius in its weird harsh and tall vowels, while “The Yum” is a smooth word of similarly placed sounds. The yum even has a semi-celebrity endorsement for example, Justin Bieber once famously said “Yeah, you got that yummy-yum That yummy-yum, that yummy-yummy”.
