hayley williams, censorship, air quality
The original title of this post was "hayley williams, google docs, air quality" but censorship has expanded beyond google docs so rapidly that I had to rename this thing.
Hayley Williams sent Paramore fans into a fucking frenzy when she recently surprise released a collection of singles on her website, took them down, and then shared all 17 of them on streaming platforms as singles a few days later. The concept of these songs is "Ego"; what it feels like to wrestle one and mental illness at the same time, being the subject of someone else's, how it sounds when it dies at a racist country singers bar etc etc... I still have the files from Archive.org saved on my phone.
Folks are already babbling about how strange Hayley's movements are Post-Atlantic and how different this rollout has been compared to her first two bodies of work ("Petals For Armor" and "FLOWERS for VASES/Descansos"). Normal people who make art announce their art, set up a pre-order system, maybe offer a preview, and release their new content all at once. As you can guess, Miss Williams bypassed all of this standard etiquette. It's been almost 2 weeks since we got "Ego" and all we have is one music video plus Hayley is still working on the tracklist for a physical release. Any random white executive in a suit would say she's reckless for neglecting tried and true music industry marketing methods. Some Paramore fans say Hayley is a genius.
The day I experienced "Ego" for the first time, I also realized that my car had been hit the previous evening. Working with insurance, trying to find a place for repairs, and just accepting that my car has another battle scar kind of ruined my day. Listening to the new Hayley project at a nearby shop while I handled some of my tasks helped me feel a little better. Over the past few weeks, this project has been my anchor and my alternative to immediate YouTube brain dumping first thing in the morning. It has been the soundtrack to my life. It has been my joy. It has inspired me to start writing fanfiction again. Just like Hayley, I don't know "What in the living fuck I'm doing here" (from "Glum"), but I'm here, and so happy that "Ego" is here, too.
About the same time that "Ego" became a thing, I started seeing posts on Substack and Tumblr that people's Google Docs accounts were being externally changed without their consent. In particular, those who made NSFW content would log onto the application to find that their works could no longer be accessed. This immediately set off my alarm system.
I used to write my fanfiction in my Notes app until I realized it was eating up all my storage and made the move to Docs. I'm preparing to move somewhere else. I've checked out CryptPad.fr and Proton. A friend has recommended LibreOffice. I will give all of these a shot, just to have my content in as many spaces as possible, and probably have an update in the future about which I like most. It fucking sucks that a public platform is randomly censoring users, but this isn't the only space where this is happening.
During a recent lunch break, I watched "The Impending Death of Queer Indie Games, Censorship and the Morality Policing Lie" from E on YouTube and found myself literally horrified that some random white woman feminism organization from fucking AUSTRALIA had (seemingly without any legal backing) pressured MasterCard and Visa into pressuring Steam and itch.io into removing thousands of NSFW games from both platforms. I've heard that some of these games were genuinely disgusting. They deserved to get taken down and Steam and itch.io were always responsible for managing that content within their Terms of Service. The fact that this allegedly targeted movement against "rape and incest games" has snowballed into censoring all NSFW games and endangering sex workers is pissing me off. It's not enough that they don't want us to have our adult content as adults or books that can change our lives at any age, but now, these bastards don't want us to have our games or for adult workers to safely make a living, either. Check out yellat.money for actions you can take and a comprehensive resource list. People are resisting and we will continue to resist to protect our communities.
The air quality in Minnesota has been bad most of the summer due to wildfire smoke drifting south from Canada. During most of July and the beginning of August, the AQ was so severe that I had to wear a mask just to step outside safely. I'm asthmatic, so I'm considered as a 'sensitive group' who needs to take more precautions. No windows down during drives, mask on no matter how sweaty my face gets during my 20 minute walk to and from my job (I work downtown and I'm too poor to pay to park), and no excessive movement if I am going to be outside, which is essential to my mental health.
I borrowed "Hell Followed With Us" by Andrew Joseph White from a friend last month and was surprised while reading that the narrative constantly mentioned the need for the characters to wear masks. Their world had been ravaged by a disease outbreak, much like ours, and not masking was not an option if one wanted to avoid infection. I recently shared with a coworker something that terrifies me: "That I won't be able to step outside without a mask indefinitely." With local and federal governments failing to take the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic seriously despite the millions that were lost and current spikes in infection rates, attacks on vaccines, and worsening general AQ right outside my window, my fear doesn't seem far from being recognized.
Americans exist in a simulation where we still have to convince folks that masking is necessary for our collective public health and disease prevention and beg people to protect their children and others against the measles by having them receive safe and effective vaccinations. Masking has become a matter of personal opinion/comfort and one of my beloveds has contracted COVID-19 so many times that they developed a heart condition that requires them to regularly use a wheelchair. Measles vaccinations are a matter of personal opinion/comfort and I still can't stop thinking of the Texas parents that watched their daughter die because they "Did their own research," refused to protect her, and had the gall to go on the news after her preventable death to convince other parents that they should make their own decisions. The millions that were lost to COVID-19 would have loved a vaccine or to know that they needed to be masking and social distancing before the US government acknowledged the outbreak. The parents that had no choice in losing their kids to measles before there was a vaccine would have loved a vaccine. How ignorant, how selfish of us to think that life saving developments in science, medicine, and public health are simply a matter of personal opinion and comfort when so many have been and continue to be lost. My fear is already real. There is no public space that I can enter where it is safe for me to be without proper PPE (especially when most others already are and America continues to lack basic level etiquette around illness-related masking) and I have to check the weather every day before I step into the nature that grounds me during all this chaos.
That was my brain on hayley williams, censorship, air quality.
until next time
moon ✰