Typing tiny thoughts
My first ever experience with blogging started on Facebook, through its now-defunct feature called Notes.
Through Notes, users can write down blog-esque diary entries and tag their Facebook friends onto there. Simple as that.
My sixteen year old self would just write about anything that mattered to him. From losing the Foyles Young Poets Competition (twice), that time he went out with his friend and how beautiful Putney Bridge was, reviews on albums such as Karylle’s 2011 album Roadtrip. He would write to and about people that mattered to him without the anxiety of alienating anyone who’s reading, which is oddly something that people always make me worry about when it comes to “grown-up” writing.
Fast forward to 2021, and my brain has been fused by endless scrolls of TikTok dances, duets and very, very dark Gen Z humour. Among the many songs on loop that played on each video, the chorus to driver’s license by Olivia Rodrigo would be one of the top tracks on repeat. You know the one.
Just like I did Weak by Flo Milli, Disco Dancing by Ayoni, Stunnin’ by Curtis Waters, and Happiness in Liquid Form by Alfie Templeman, all songs I discovered through TikTok, I gave into the ear worm and dove deeper into the world of Olivia Rodrigo, which then led me to her debut album SOUR, which then led me to the horrible rumours going around involving her alleged ex-boyfriend and actor Joshua Bassett, which then led me to his own eponymous debut EP.
Two months deep in their musical worlds, dance crying on the bus to work, angry in between lunch breaks, and solemn on the way home, I was hooked. And upon introspection, I soon found out why.
Something about how these young musicians write is refreshing to me from an artistic standpoint, incredibly grounded from an emotional standpoint but also elevated in terms of its sophistication. The songs may have been collaborations with other songwriters, but the fact that these are creations that started from themselves never get lost in all of its editing, which makes me love their work even more.
By the time I’m writing this, I would be two years shy of a decade working as a published poet. Years of workshopping, rejection letters, acceptance emails, commissions and performing in front of audiences have left me with a strong but subtle aftertaste, a sort of impression that has affected the way I perceive my art.
Yes, there is the growth and the development, the friendships and life lessons that become just as important as the shows and the publications. On the other hand, I find it embarrassing to admit that somewhere along the way, maybe in between wondering what kind of poems get published in the big magazines or finding how to edit my poem so it would be its most audience-friendly, I’ve lost a bit of the magic that made me love writing. Many days poetry has been less a haven for my thoughts and memories to be explored and stored, but more like another errand I have to get done in between shifts at work and commutes to university.
Hopefully for the second half of 2021, and through this blog, I can find that zest back.
But for my first entry back into a new blog space, I would like to thank young artists today like Ayoni, Olivia Rodrigo, Joshua Bassett and YouTuber Aeden Alvarez for being so open, inclusive and experimental. For waking me out of my stupor. For reminding me of the beauty in creating art purely for ourselves, our own healing and the importance of cultivating that space.
To end this entry, here’s Aeden’s sensational cover and rewrite of Olivia Rodrigo’s song favourite crime.
Yes, it’s been making me cry. Like a lot.