Dear Internet,
A few days ago, a friend of mine looked at herself in a dance room mirror with a grimace. "I'm so pissed," she announced, "because I was so skinny my senior year and now I'm just...not." I stared at her slim frame, trying to find the fat she was talking about. I came up empty. Another friend began to chime in with her own self-criticism: "I know, right? I'm pretty sure I've gained like, 10 pounds in the past week. I mean, I just feel massive." They both turned to me expectantly, waiting for me to have some negative comment about my own appearance, but all I could manage to get out was "I haven't weighed myself in two years, so I don't know how much weight I've gained, really." And then...silence.
Now let us be very clear about something. I am not a small person. I will never be the skinniest girl in the room--it's not how my body was built. I used to spend long hours in mirrors tearing myself apart for this fact, until I realized that, no matter what I did, it would always be just that: a fact. And so I began the journey to acceptance. I started living the healthiest, happiest lifestyle I can. I make kale salads and finish them off with homemade chocolate chip cookies. I exercise every day and get as much sleep as possible. I no longer rely on makeup to make me feel happy with my appearance. I feel more comfortable with myself than I ever have in my life. So why, in this moment, did I suddenly feel that it was a requirement to look in the mirror and declare something I hated about myself?
There's a famous scene in Mean Girls just like this, where all of the girls stand in front of a mirror and declare the things they hate about the way they look. One girl finds herself unable to say anything, and she's seen as self-centered and vain for it. But why? Why is it that girls can't say that they look and feel beautiful, regardless of what they're wearing or how much time they spent on their hair that morning, without being seen as self-obsessed? Is this some sort of standard we've set, that girls must give up their humility to acknowledge their own attractiveness? And is this standard the reason that so many have fallen victim to eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and severe anxiety over their own appearances?
I would like to believe, for the sake of girls everywhere, that the answer to all of these questions is no, but I fear that it's the opposite. For as long as I can remember, it's been sort of cool to think you're unattractive. You instantly became prettier if, when someone told you you looked pretty, you denied it. A simple "thank you" instantly became a sign that you were admitting that you identified as attractive, and therefore that you were incredibly self-centered and vain. But what if this isn't the case? What if, in accepting the compliment, you are not confirming your vanity but instead confirming your confidence in the part of yourself that others could see? Nobody self-deprecates if someone tells them they have had a good idea, or seem nice or smart, so why do it when someone tells you they like the way you look? Why look in the mirror and tear yourself apart as if that's the expectation, when you could accept your appearance and move on to the things inside of you that could change the world?
I hope that the girls I was with in the big dance mirror chose to go home and look at themselves as if they were queens. I hope they took the time thank themselves for all of the wonderful things they do in this world with their bodies as vehicles for the impulses of their dreams. Because in reality, the way they weigh in on a scale doesn't matter. The way they weigh in on the world does. And I know they won't want to do it lightly.
-mk.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Why New Yorkers Aren't Afraid of ISIS.
Dear Internet,
The other day, an article was published entitled "Things New Yorkers are More Afraid of Than ISIS." The article, inspired by a slew of tweets, provides list after comical list of things that the residents of New York are supposedly significantly more afraid of than the threat of the terrorist group ISIS. These things include falling air conditioners, your friend becoming a member of an improv troupe, being hit in the face by a flying cockroach, or being stuck with your ex on the subway. The lists are hysterical, reflecting the resilience of New Yorkers with a friendly wink. But something about these lists struck me as slightly off-putting, especially since they were published the day after a pipe bomb exploded in a dumpster in Chelsea 3 blocks from where I live, and another bomb was discovered just a few blocks from there before it could detonate. It shook me to the core, and when I saw these articles I had to ask: am I a bad New Yorker if things like this are number one on my list of fears?
*****
I'm not exactly a going out person, so when my roommate and I decided that we were going to get dressed up and go somewhere fun, we were stoked. We spent an hour doing hair and makeup, excited to have some place to be going. As we were putting the finishing touches on our meticulously crafted looks, however, we heard about the bomb. The next thing we knew, we were at a friend's, sitting on the floor and blankly staring at the news on the television screen. Within minutes we were in pajamas, our plans of going out swallowed by bigger, more important things. We did our best to contact friends and family members to let them know we were safe before they could see the news that anything had happened at all, and reached out to those we knew who may have been near the explosion to make sure they were all okay. It was, to be honest, terrifying. I'm not used to being so close to tragedies such as these, so when it happened, it seemed to make everything else going on seem completely insignificant. Suddenly, the drama with our roommates or the quality of our curls was petty compared to what was going on in the world around us. We were scared. If we had decided to go out just an hour earlier, how could things have been different? Would we have been near the bomb? These are the things we asked ourselves as we stared in amazement at the news, waiting for answers we would never receive.
But were we bad New Yorkers for being so afraid? Are there really hundreds of other things in the city scarier than threats of terrorism occurring just blocks from where you live? I'm not so sure. Even funnier to me than these lists of things to be more afraid of in this city than ISIS is the idea that there are things to be more afraid of. Perhaps that's what makes these lists so amusing for me: there really isn't anything scarier than terrorism in the city, but it's simply more fun to pretend there is, isn't it? Perhaps it isn't that we do not fear these things at all, but that we are so open about fearing them that we allow ourselves to be in on the joke of these articles.
The community in New York City has a deep resilience unlike anything I've ever seen before. The second word of a bomb going off got out, my phone started to blow up with texts from close friends and mere acquaintances asking if I was okay. Everyone started to check up on each other--and I mean everyone. I don't think I could say that the same thing would happen in every place. When this happened, the people of New York started to rise up to protect one another to ensure that tomorrow we could go on living our lives as we did yesterday. This is the magic of Manhattan that so many talk about but can never quite put their finger on. The reality of these silly articles, I've begun to realize, is that they actually have a sense of truth to them. It is my personal opinion that everyone has terrorism on their number one list of fears, especially when it starts to hit so close to home. The difference for New Yorkers, a difference that the tweets of lists of fears use satire to put their finger on, is that we keep on living. When things like this happen, we may stay in the night of, but the next morning, we go outside. We go for quick jogs and grocery runs and brunch. We hug friends we see on the street and avoid catcalls from desperate men on park benches. We fear these things without allowing them to interfere with how we live. And that, I think, is something for the terrorists to be afraid of. They use their violence and ignorance in the hopes of scaring us to stop our lives and stay inside.
Unfortunately for them, we will be going out.
--mk.
The other day, an article was published entitled "Things New Yorkers are More Afraid of Than ISIS." The article, inspired by a slew of tweets, provides list after comical list of things that the residents of New York are supposedly significantly more afraid of than the threat of the terrorist group ISIS. These things include falling air conditioners, your friend becoming a member of an improv troupe, being hit in the face by a flying cockroach, or being stuck with your ex on the subway. The lists are hysterical, reflecting the resilience of New Yorkers with a friendly wink. But something about these lists struck me as slightly off-putting, especially since they were published the day after a pipe bomb exploded in a dumpster in Chelsea 3 blocks from where I live, and another bomb was discovered just a few blocks from there before it could detonate. It shook me to the core, and when I saw these articles I had to ask: am I a bad New Yorker if things like this are number one on my list of fears?
*****
I'm not exactly a going out person, so when my roommate and I decided that we were going to get dressed up and go somewhere fun, we were stoked. We spent an hour doing hair and makeup, excited to have some place to be going. As we were putting the finishing touches on our meticulously crafted looks, however, we heard about the bomb. The next thing we knew, we were at a friend's, sitting on the floor and blankly staring at the news on the television screen. Within minutes we were in pajamas, our plans of going out swallowed by bigger, more important things. We did our best to contact friends and family members to let them know we were safe before they could see the news that anything had happened at all, and reached out to those we knew who may have been near the explosion to make sure they were all okay. It was, to be honest, terrifying. I'm not used to being so close to tragedies such as these, so when it happened, it seemed to make everything else going on seem completely insignificant. Suddenly, the drama with our roommates or the quality of our curls was petty compared to what was going on in the world around us. We were scared. If we had decided to go out just an hour earlier, how could things have been different? Would we have been near the bomb? These are the things we asked ourselves as we stared in amazement at the news, waiting for answers we would never receive.
But were we bad New Yorkers for being so afraid? Are there really hundreds of other things in the city scarier than threats of terrorism occurring just blocks from where you live? I'm not so sure. Even funnier to me than these lists of things to be more afraid of in this city than ISIS is the idea that there are things to be more afraid of. Perhaps that's what makes these lists so amusing for me: there really isn't anything scarier than terrorism in the city, but it's simply more fun to pretend there is, isn't it? Perhaps it isn't that we do not fear these things at all, but that we are so open about fearing them that we allow ourselves to be in on the joke of these articles.
The community in New York City has a deep resilience unlike anything I've ever seen before. The second word of a bomb going off got out, my phone started to blow up with texts from close friends and mere acquaintances asking if I was okay. Everyone started to check up on each other--and I mean everyone. I don't think I could say that the same thing would happen in every place. When this happened, the people of New York started to rise up to protect one another to ensure that tomorrow we could go on living our lives as we did yesterday. This is the magic of Manhattan that so many talk about but can never quite put their finger on. The reality of these silly articles, I've begun to realize, is that they actually have a sense of truth to them. It is my personal opinion that everyone has terrorism on their number one list of fears, especially when it starts to hit so close to home. The difference for New Yorkers, a difference that the tweets of lists of fears use satire to put their finger on, is that we keep on living. When things like this happen, we may stay in the night of, but the next morning, we go outside. We go for quick jogs and grocery runs and brunch. We hug friends we see on the street and avoid catcalls from desperate men on park benches. We fear these things without allowing them to interfere with how we live. And that, I think, is something for the terrorists to be afraid of. They use their violence and ignorance in the hopes of scaring us to stop our lives and stay inside.
Unfortunately for them, we will be going out.
--mk.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Don't Tell Me I'm Pretty, I Don't Want to Know.
Dear Internet,
Imagine this: a girl is walking down a Manhattan avenue early on a cloudy morning. She's on the phone, but is talking using headphones because if she held the phone up to her ear it would get drenched in the sweat from her recently finished run. Her hair has frizzed in the humidity, pony tail half fallen, remnants of mascara that her makeup wipe missed the nights before ashy under her eyes. Her shirt is darker than it was when she left the house, a different hue from the wet of her sweat, and her walk is wobbly from today's awareness of tomorrow's sore legs. She is speaking to her mother, when a man steps in front of her path, attempting to stop her. "Hey pretty," he growls, "come on over."
When this happened to me this morning, especially in the wake of a pipe bomb that went off just blocks from my home last night, I felt like my skin was covered in spiders. It was like someone had stepped inside my body without my permission, or had put me blindfolded on a roller coaster with a vertical drop nobody had warned me about. My voice wavered as I spoke to my mother, my steps quickening on the pavement towards a soon-to-change walk sign at the nearest cross walk. I wanted more than anything to be anywhere else in that moment, but there I was, frozen as I willed my body to scurry away from the man's outstretched, grimy palm.
This is what it means to be a girl in New York City. It doesn't matter what you're wearing, or what time of day it is, or what situation you happen to be in. If you're alone, or even with a friend or two, as I was a few days ago when a man announced to us that he was going to "fuck you and then fucking kill you" as he chased us down a few blocks of our normal walk home, you are a target for catcalling.
When you google the word "catcall," what comes up is a definition: make a whistle, shout, or comment of a sexual nature to a woman passing by. But this definition doesn't seem like enough to me. A catcall is much more than a simple whistle or shout. It goes far beyond a compliment (as some have told me I should take these catcalls) into the realm of the invasive. It takes an ordinary moment to the extraordinary, feeling as if somebody has crawled under your skin and made themselves a home there without your permission. It sinks your heart into your toes. It makes you want to turn around and fight and run for your life all at once. It's the most unwelcome feeling in the world, and I've heard these types of sentiments about catcalling from everyone I know who's been catcalled.
There is not a woman in this world who, when asked how she met the love of her life, will respond "Well, he shouted that my red lipstick made him know exactly what he wanted to do to me from a street corner, and in that moment I just knew he was the one for me." (Yes, I've had that screamed at me on the street.) So why do men still catcall women? What is it about screaming obscenities that they know will make women uncomfortable that's fun for them? Do they intend to invade the woman's privacy, or do they genuinely think they're giving a compliment?
In my opinion, it has nothing to do with the woman at all, and has everything to do with the man wanting to boost his ego. How low does your self esteem have to be before you feel comfortable screaming a sexual obscenity at a stranger walking past you on the sidewalk to get their attention? I can't imagine that the man who told me I was pretty and to come over to him this morning actually thought that it would work out for him. On the contrary, he may have been so desperate for attention that he thought that stepping in my path and saying something he knew could upset a girl in a big city would get him noticed. I once walked past a drug addict on the street as he begged me to give him my wallet. When I refused to look his way, he screamed that the skirt I was wearing, that was blowing in the wind to reveal the shorts I was wearing underneath, made me look like a major slut. He knew this wouldn't get him the money he wanted--why would it? But he had to believe that saying something like this to someone he didn't know would get him noticed, would get a rise out of a stranger purely for his own enjoyment. And as unfortunate as it is, I don't think catcalls will ever stop. There will always be some guy out there hoping to get a rise out of a girl just to see what she'll do, just to see if maybe he'll finally be noticed.
But as women, how can we minimize the catcalls we get? The short answer is, we can't, really. The best we can do is refuse to give them the satisfaction of the acknowledgement that they crave. Instead of hiding under big sweatshirts and hoping nobody yells about the exquisite bodies and minds we are hiding underneath, we must go out in the sunshine in the vibrant colors of the clothes that make us feel the most ourselves. We must wear our skin as if it were a satin glove that cannot be bothered by the touch of those that don't deserve it, and let our hair down as we have always wanted it to be. We must walk the street free of the fear that we don't belong there, and hold our shoulders higher than those who will try to make us feel small. We are bigger than them. We are stronger than them.
So hey mister, why don't you move your ass over.
This is my goddamn street, too.
-mk.
Imagine this: a girl is walking down a Manhattan avenue early on a cloudy morning. She's on the phone, but is talking using headphones because if she held the phone up to her ear it would get drenched in the sweat from her recently finished run. Her hair has frizzed in the humidity, pony tail half fallen, remnants of mascara that her makeup wipe missed the nights before ashy under her eyes. Her shirt is darker than it was when she left the house, a different hue from the wet of her sweat, and her walk is wobbly from today's awareness of tomorrow's sore legs. She is speaking to her mother, when a man steps in front of her path, attempting to stop her. "Hey pretty," he growls, "come on over."
When this happened to me this morning, especially in the wake of a pipe bomb that went off just blocks from my home last night, I felt like my skin was covered in spiders. It was like someone had stepped inside my body without my permission, or had put me blindfolded on a roller coaster with a vertical drop nobody had warned me about. My voice wavered as I spoke to my mother, my steps quickening on the pavement towards a soon-to-change walk sign at the nearest cross walk. I wanted more than anything to be anywhere else in that moment, but there I was, frozen as I willed my body to scurry away from the man's outstretched, grimy palm.
This is what it means to be a girl in New York City. It doesn't matter what you're wearing, or what time of day it is, or what situation you happen to be in. If you're alone, or even with a friend or two, as I was a few days ago when a man announced to us that he was going to "fuck you and then fucking kill you" as he chased us down a few blocks of our normal walk home, you are a target for catcalling.
When you google the word "catcall," what comes up is a definition: make a whistle, shout, or comment of a sexual nature to a woman passing by. But this definition doesn't seem like enough to me. A catcall is much more than a simple whistle or shout. It goes far beyond a compliment (as some have told me I should take these catcalls) into the realm of the invasive. It takes an ordinary moment to the extraordinary, feeling as if somebody has crawled under your skin and made themselves a home there without your permission. It sinks your heart into your toes. It makes you want to turn around and fight and run for your life all at once. It's the most unwelcome feeling in the world, and I've heard these types of sentiments about catcalling from everyone I know who's been catcalled.
There is not a woman in this world who, when asked how she met the love of her life, will respond "Well, he shouted that my red lipstick made him know exactly what he wanted to do to me from a street corner, and in that moment I just knew he was the one for me." (Yes, I've had that screamed at me on the street.) So why do men still catcall women? What is it about screaming obscenities that they know will make women uncomfortable that's fun for them? Do they intend to invade the woman's privacy, or do they genuinely think they're giving a compliment?
In my opinion, it has nothing to do with the woman at all, and has everything to do with the man wanting to boost his ego. How low does your self esteem have to be before you feel comfortable screaming a sexual obscenity at a stranger walking past you on the sidewalk to get their attention? I can't imagine that the man who told me I was pretty and to come over to him this morning actually thought that it would work out for him. On the contrary, he may have been so desperate for attention that he thought that stepping in my path and saying something he knew could upset a girl in a big city would get him noticed. I once walked past a drug addict on the street as he begged me to give him my wallet. When I refused to look his way, he screamed that the skirt I was wearing, that was blowing in the wind to reveal the shorts I was wearing underneath, made me look like a major slut. He knew this wouldn't get him the money he wanted--why would it? But he had to believe that saying something like this to someone he didn't know would get him noticed, would get a rise out of a stranger purely for his own enjoyment. And as unfortunate as it is, I don't think catcalls will ever stop. There will always be some guy out there hoping to get a rise out of a girl just to see what she'll do, just to see if maybe he'll finally be noticed.
But as women, how can we minimize the catcalls we get? The short answer is, we can't, really. The best we can do is refuse to give them the satisfaction of the acknowledgement that they crave. Instead of hiding under big sweatshirts and hoping nobody yells about the exquisite bodies and minds we are hiding underneath, we must go out in the sunshine in the vibrant colors of the clothes that make us feel the most ourselves. We must wear our skin as if it were a satin glove that cannot be bothered by the touch of those that don't deserve it, and let our hair down as we have always wanted it to be. We must walk the street free of the fear that we don't belong there, and hold our shoulders higher than those who will try to make us feel small. We are bigger than them. We are stronger than them.
So hey mister, why don't you move your ass over.
This is my goddamn street, too.
-mk.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Stepping Out.
Dear Internet,
My relationship status is...complicated. I could write about it for pages and pages, but here's a brief summary. An amazing person and I were in a relationship for four years, and it was wonderful. However, for a lot of reasons I won't bother you with, this summer we decided that maybe it would be a good idea to take a break from the intensity of our fully committed relationship, and essentially be in whatever sort of configuration was best for us without the pressure of a label. He's still my best friend, and I still love him, and we still talk every day. But we're not technically dating, and therefore have full permission to see other people if we so desire. This is working beautifully, but it started to bring up a looming question: what happens when one of us actually does choose to see someone else?
Well, internet, I now have an answer.
When he asked me if we could talk about something last night, I immediately knew what it was about. I felt it in my gut. He was horribly nervous to tell me that he had gotten coffee with a girl he knew from school and then gone to hang out with her at her apartment. And I understand why he was nervous, but he didn't need to be. This was a natural product of the way our relationship stands right now, and that's a good thing. We were together for four years and I haven't even turned 20 yet. I want him to know what it feels like to be with someone who isn't me. I think a part of him was curious about that, too. And he enjoyed himself hanging out with this other, new person.
But how did it feel to be on the other side of things? I had heard rumors about how it supposedly would be: awful. People said I would suddenly hate him, or hunt down whomever he'd been with and rip out her earrings or key her car. A coworker swore to me, "You'll think you can handle it, but in reality you'll be like, screw you! Get out of my life!" But in my reality? I didn't feel that way at all. I mean, it was incredibly emotional for me to talk about with him, as anyone might expect. I burst into tears. But the tears were happy ones. This is what I wanted for him--the opportunity to know what this felt like. And even though initially it was difficult for me to process, I was overwhelmingly happy that he had taken the chance he had, and been brave enough to be so open with me about it. It was what I might imagine giving someone away at a wedding is like--it's difficult, but you know the person will still always be in your life and there will always be love in your relationship, no matter what. It felt strong, somehow, and open. It felt like a step forward, not a slap in the face.
A part of me still can't help but wonder what happens next. What will this feel like in two weeks, or two months, or if he sees this girl or any other girl again? But it doesn't matter. It will happen how it happens, and our communication about it will hopefully continue to strengthen, and we will continue to move on living our life as whatever it is we choose to be to each other. The reality is, I can't think about all of that now, which is hard because I'm the type of person that can't wait to see what's coming for me in the future. For now I just have to live life and love those in my life for everything they are, and not worry about what may (or may not) be coming next (it sound cliche, I know).
At the end of my conversation with him, after we shared how much love we still have for each other but before we reverted back to talking about other aspects of life, he told me that the moral of our conversation was that he had given me some good material for my blog.
He was right. As always.
-mk.
My relationship status is...complicated. I could write about it for pages and pages, but here's a brief summary. An amazing person and I were in a relationship for four years, and it was wonderful. However, for a lot of reasons I won't bother you with, this summer we decided that maybe it would be a good idea to take a break from the intensity of our fully committed relationship, and essentially be in whatever sort of configuration was best for us without the pressure of a label. He's still my best friend, and I still love him, and we still talk every day. But we're not technically dating, and therefore have full permission to see other people if we so desire. This is working beautifully, but it started to bring up a looming question: what happens when one of us actually does choose to see someone else?
Well, internet, I now have an answer.
When he asked me if we could talk about something last night, I immediately knew what it was about. I felt it in my gut. He was horribly nervous to tell me that he had gotten coffee with a girl he knew from school and then gone to hang out with her at her apartment. And I understand why he was nervous, but he didn't need to be. This was a natural product of the way our relationship stands right now, and that's a good thing. We were together for four years and I haven't even turned 20 yet. I want him to know what it feels like to be with someone who isn't me. I think a part of him was curious about that, too. And he enjoyed himself hanging out with this other, new person.
But how did it feel to be on the other side of things? I had heard rumors about how it supposedly would be: awful. People said I would suddenly hate him, or hunt down whomever he'd been with and rip out her earrings or key her car. A coworker swore to me, "You'll think you can handle it, but in reality you'll be like, screw you! Get out of my life!" But in my reality? I didn't feel that way at all. I mean, it was incredibly emotional for me to talk about with him, as anyone might expect. I burst into tears. But the tears were happy ones. This is what I wanted for him--the opportunity to know what this felt like. And even though initially it was difficult for me to process, I was overwhelmingly happy that he had taken the chance he had, and been brave enough to be so open with me about it. It was what I might imagine giving someone away at a wedding is like--it's difficult, but you know the person will still always be in your life and there will always be love in your relationship, no matter what. It felt strong, somehow, and open. It felt like a step forward, not a slap in the face.
A part of me still can't help but wonder what happens next. What will this feel like in two weeks, or two months, or if he sees this girl or any other girl again? But it doesn't matter. It will happen how it happens, and our communication about it will hopefully continue to strengthen, and we will continue to move on living our life as whatever it is we choose to be to each other. The reality is, I can't think about all of that now, which is hard because I'm the type of person that can't wait to see what's coming for me in the future. For now I just have to live life and love those in my life for everything they are, and not worry about what may (or may not) be coming next (it sound cliche, I know).
At the end of my conversation with him, after we shared how much love we still have for each other but before we reverted back to talking about other aspects of life, he told me that the moral of our conversation was that he had given me some good material for my blog.
He was right. As always.
-mk.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Swipe Right.
Hey there, internet.
The other day, I played a game of chance with a friend who looked at me with a sly smile and told me that, if I lost, I had to get a Tinder.
I really didn't want to lose.
The Tinder website declares it to be "The World's Hottest App" that is "how people meet." It's based on instant attraction--if you like the way a person looks in their picture, you swipe right and hope they do the same, and if they do, a conversation between the two of you is started. If you decide in your split second of judgment that they're not for you, you simply swipe left and move on to the next contender. It's marketed as a simple way to meet new people, but what it's known for being used for is not broadcasted on Tinder's website. The app is famous for promoting hook up culture, giving the twenty-somethings of the United States (not the world--it's not uncommon for Tinder to be banned in other countries) an easy way to meet person on the app one moment, and meet them for a quick date or, in many cases, casual sex the next.
I can count on one hand the people I know who don't have a Tinder, myself included. So I really want to know: what is it that makes Tinder so fascinating to my generation? I don't quite understand it myself. After an experience where I messed around on my friend's Tinder pretending to be a hyper-feminist version of her to a well-intended, unsuspecting potential suitor (when he asked my interests, I said reading Gloria Steinem manifestos and smashing the patriarchy), I felt like the app was a total sham. How can I be sure, I wondered, that the people who I'm talking to on an app like this are who they say they are or are being genuine? If it's so easy for a nice, normal person like myself to pretend to be someone they're not, what's stopping someone with less positive motivations to do the same?
Men, I soon found out, run into this problem all the time. See, there's a massive gender imbalance on apps like Tinder, where there are more men looking for women to hook up with than there are women looking for men. This leaves Tinder with a problem: how to they keep men on the app? The answer? There are internet bots posing as beautiful women with minimal personal information automatically swiping right to begin false conversations with interested men. It keeps the men occupied with someone they'll never actually meet, but, nonetheless, it keeps them on the app.
On the other hand, how does Tinder make sure men don't overuse their app so much that they run out of women altogether? There's an answer for that, too: they limit the number of swipe rights a man can have in a day, while leaving the daily swipe right opportunities for women unlimited.
I have to wonder, though, what this says about how Tinder causes men to function in relationships in the real world. If men only have a limited number of real-life swipe rights, will they go for the women that they find the most attractive on the surface before they'll go for the women that they have the best conversations with? On the contrary, if the Tinder unlimited swipe rule for women was applied in real life, would a woman have to take whatever it is she can get because she's under the assumption that she may not have the sex appeal or social prowess to be as selective as her male suitors?
There's something in that imbalance that makes me feel uneasy somehow. But even more unsettling to me is how people actually are using Tinder. A friend of mine will switch phones with a group of friends and they'll all swipe right or left to choose mates for each other, in a sort of blind dating game. Another male acquaintance says he only uses Tinder when he's bored, using it as an absent-minded time-waster. A girl I share a class with even said that she and her friends will participate in "The Tinder Draft," where you take 30 seconds to swipe right as fast as humanly possible, "just to see who we get." So is Tinder a meeting app, or is it a game? Wouldn't you rather play Candy Crush? How is this app any different than a game like Angry Birds where you throw different kinds of birds just to see what you might hit? It seems like there's the same level of attachment to real humans on apps like Tinder as there is to the tiny greedy pigs in glass houses that you punt pigeons at in a game.
It seems to me that Tinder is a waste of energy and a waste of time, and what I find especially interesting is that all of my friends who have Tinders seem to, on some level, agree with me. Why mess around moving your thumbs across aptly angled selfies when you could go out and actually talk to someone in real life? Why not go to a park with friends and happen to stumble across someone reading a book you happen to love, or strike up a real life conversation with someone at a mutual friend's party or in a class you share? Isn't human connection something we all need more of in our lives, or has social media completely desensitized us from feeling the importance of being a part of someone's life outside of the on their Facebook wall?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, I think that, against the requests of many a millenial, I'll be staying out of the Tinder scene for now. Maybe forever. I don't need another app on my phone, or another game to worry about whether or not I'm winning. I would rather play fair, and I would rather play for real.
-mk.
(by the way, I won the game of chance.) :)
The other day, I played a game of chance with a friend who looked at me with a sly smile and told me that, if I lost, I had to get a Tinder.
I really didn't want to lose.
The Tinder website declares it to be "The World's Hottest App" that is "how people meet." It's based on instant attraction--if you like the way a person looks in their picture, you swipe right and hope they do the same, and if they do, a conversation between the two of you is started. If you decide in your split second of judgment that they're not for you, you simply swipe left and move on to the next contender. It's marketed as a simple way to meet new people, but what it's known for being used for is not broadcasted on Tinder's website. The app is famous for promoting hook up culture, giving the twenty-somethings of the United States (not the world--it's not uncommon for Tinder to be banned in other countries) an easy way to meet person on the app one moment, and meet them for a quick date or, in many cases, casual sex the next.
I can count on one hand the people I know who don't have a Tinder, myself included. So I really want to know: what is it that makes Tinder so fascinating to my generation? I don't quite understand it myself. After an experience where I messed around on my friend's Tinder pretending to be a hyper-feminist version of her to a well-intended, unsuspecting potential suitor (when he asked my interests, I said reading Gloria Steinem manifestos and smashing the patriarchy), I felt like the app was a total sham. How can I be sure, I wondered, that the people who I'm talking to on an app like this are who they say they are or are being genuine? If it's so easy for a nice, normal person like myself to pretend to be someone they're not, what's stopping someone with less positive motivations to do the same?
Men, I soon found out, run into this problem all the time. See, there's a massive gender imbalance on apps like Tinder, where there are more men looking for women to hook up with than there are women looking for men. This leaves Tinder with a problem: how to they keep men on the app? The answer? There are internet bots posing as beautiful women with minimal personal information automatically swiping right to begin false conversations with interested men. It keeps the men occupied with someone they'll never actually meet, but, nonetheless, it keeps them on the app.
On the other hand, how does Tinder make sure men don't overuse their app so much that they run out of women altogether? There's an answer for that, too: they limit the number of swipe rights a man can have in a day, while leaving the daily swipe right opportunities for women unlimited.
I have to wonder, though, what this says about how Tinder causes men to function in relationships in the real world. If men only have a limited number of real-life swipe rights, will they go for the women that they find the most attractive on the surface before they'll go for the women that they have the best conversations with? On the contrary, if the Tinder unlimited swipe rule for women was applied in real life, would a woman have to take whatever it is she can get because she's under the assumption that she may not have the sex appeal or social prowess to be as selective as her male suitors?
There's something in that imbalance that makes me feel uneasy somehow. But even more unsettling to me is how people actually are using Tinder. A friend of mine will switch phones with a group of friends and they'll all swipe right or left to choose mates for each other, in a sort of blind dating game. Another male acquaintance says he only uses Tinder when he's bored, using it as an absent-minded time-waster. A girl I share a class with even said that she and her friends will participate in "The Tinder Draft," where you take 30 seconds to swipe right as fast as humanly possible, "just to see who we get." So is Tinder a meeting app, or is it a game? Wouldn't you rather play Candy Crush? How is this app any different than a game like Angry Birds where you throw different kinds of birds just to see what you might hit? It seems like there's the same level of attachment to real humans on apps like Tinder as there is to the tiny greedy pigs in glass houses that you punt pigeons at in a game.
It seems to me that Tinder is a waste of energy and a waste of time, and what I find especially interesting is that all of my friends who have Tinders seem to, on some level, agree with me. Why mess around moving your thumbs across aptly angled selfies when you could go out and actually talk to someone in real life? Why not go to a park with friends and happen to stumble across someone reading a book you happen to love, or strike up a real life conversation with someone at a mutual friend's party or in a class you share? Isn't human connection something we all need more of in our lives, or has social media completely desensitized us from feeling the importance of being a part of someone's life outside of the on their Facebook wall?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, I think that, against the requests of many a millenial, I'll be staying out of the Tinder scene for now. Maybe forever. I don't need another app on my phone, or another game to worry about whether or not I'm winning. I would rather play fair, and I would rather play for real.
-mk.
(by the way, I won the game of chance.) :)
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Hello, Internet.
Hello, internet.
I'm writing to you with a question. A perhaps too-topical question for this particular situation: what does one write when they're first starting a blog? Are the opening lines the time to acknowledge how silly it is to have so many thoughts in your head that you think someone out there in cyberspace may find them to be worth reading? Maybe it's the right moment to bring up my greatest passions in life, or to mention my recent break from my long-term relationship (which you will undoubtedly roll your eyes about) or my newfound anxiousness as I attempt to take on this crazy world. Do I try to make you laugh, to win you over with my fast cracking wit and effortless charm so you're sure I'm just as funny in real life as I am on screen? Or do I feed you a deep, enticing story about my darkest secrets?
Maybe I should just start with something simple: my name.
Hi! I'm Madison. And Kitchen is my last name. Really.
I decided to call this blog The Kitchen Sink in part because of my last name. I also thought it might be amusing to have somebody stumble upon this thinking it was some sort of cooking or kitchen advice blog, only to find a wide eyed college student blogging about her life experience, but I digress. I mostly was drawn to the title because of that common phrase we hear when talking about cookies made with a plethora of random ingredients or simply when trying to encompass everything imaginable: "Everything but the kitchen sink."
But why leave out the kitchen sink? What is it about the kitchen sink that doesn't fit in with everything imaginable?
The question turned existential more quickly than I had expected when I asked the same question about myself in the context of the world. I didn't like thinking about it, that idea that there's something in each of us that doesn't fit in with everything imaginable, something in each of us that makes us our own kind of kitchen sink. It felt like being left out of some sort of exclusive club. But then I wondered if perhaps the state of wondering was a magical place to be, and an interesting thing to explore in--you guessed it--a blog.
And now here we are. I will be using this blog as a way to express and investigate my thoughts on things that I think are like the kitchen sink: unusual, misplaced, left out. What does it mean to be newly single and repulsed by Tinder, or be in a social situation with people you love that makes you really uncomfortable? How do you function when you give up social media when everyone around you uses it? Why does catcalling feel so different from a compliment? How do you get job experience when every job requires 2 years of job experience?
Those silly little questions are just the beginning. But I'm not sure where this will go. I guess I'll have to figure it out as I go along.
When you're just shy of 20 and living in a big city, everything is up in the air.
Have a good night, internet.
-mk.
I'm writing to you with a question. A perhaps too-topical question for this particular situation: what does one write when they're first starting a blog? Are the opening lines the time to acknowledge how silly it is to have so many thoughts in your head that you think someone out there in cyberspace may find them to be worth reading? Maybe it's the right moment to bring up my greatest passions in life, or to mention my recent break from my long-term relationship (which you will undoubtedly roll your eyes about) or my newfound anxiousness as I attempt to take on this crazy world. Do I try to make you laugh, to win you over with my fast cracking wit and effortless charm so you're sure I'm just as funny in real life as I am on screen? Or do I feed you a deep, enticing story about my darkest secrets?
Maybe I should just start with something simple: my name.
Hi! I'm Madison. And Kitchen is my last name. Really.
I decided to call this blog The Kitchen Sink in part because of my last name. I also thought it might be amusing to have somebody stumble upon this thinking it was some sort of cooking or kitchen advice blog, only to find a wide eyed college student blogging about her life experience, but I digress. I mostly was drawn to the title because of that common phrase we hear when talking about cookies made with a plethora of random ingredients or simply when trying to encompass everything imaginable: "Everything but the kitchen sink."
But why leave out the kitchen sink? What is it about the kitchen sink that doesn't fit in with everything imaginable?
The question turned existential more quickly than I had expected when I asked the same question about myself in the context of the world. I didn't like thinking about it, that idea that there's something in each of us that doesn't fit in with everything imaginable, something in each of us that makes us our own kind of kitchen sink. It felt like being left out of some sort of exclusive club. But then I wondered if perhaps the state of wondering was a magical place to be, and an interesting thing to explore in--you guessed it--a blog.
And now here we are. I will be using this blog as a way to express and investigate my thoughts on things that I think are like the kitchen sink: unusual, misplaced, left out. What does it mean to be newly single and repulsed by Tinder, or be in a social situation with people you love that makes you really uncomfortable? How do you function when you give up social media when everyone around you uses it? Why does catcalling feel so different from a compliment? How do you get job experience when every job requires 2 years of job experience?
Those silly little questions are just the beginning. But I'm not sure where this will go. I guess I'll have to figure it out as I go along.
When you're just shy of 20 and living in a big city, everything is up in the air.
Have a good night, internet.
-mk.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)