While he's widely hailed as a visionary director, James Cameron likely had no idea just how unwieldy the Terminator franchise would become when he first sent a from the future to eliminate Sarah Connor in 1984. Since then, the Terminator timeline has grown into the past and the future through four more movies and a TV show not to mention numerous books, comics and videogames.

That expansion has meant a lot of time travel and rewriting of history, meaning the Terminator timeline is now a complex beast far less linear than the chronologies of the Star Wars and Star Trek universes. History is repeatedly rewritten and character fates routinely altered as the Terminator saga branches off into numerous alternate timelines there are at least three dates given for the world-ending Judgment Day, Sarah Connor has died a couple of times, and some instalments even pretend that previous movies never happened.

Indeed, the upcoming Dark Fate (the first Terminator movie to boast the involvement of Cameron since 1991s Terminator 2: Judgment Day) is a direct sequel to T2 that acts as if Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009), Terminator Genisys (2015) and the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-09) TV show never happened. This is a continuation of the story from Terminator 1 and Terminator 2, Cameron told the Hollywood Reporter back in 2017. We're pretending the other films were a bad dream. Or an alternate timeline, which is permissible in our multi-verse.

For those looking to understand every Terminator, weve pulled together all the disparate strands of the Terminator timeline into one coherent history, all the way from the birth of Sarah Connor to the death of her son, John aka the saviour of humanity. To make it a little easier, weve flagged up which of the sagas many timelines the event is taking place in: the Prime Timeline is the one established by James Camerons first two movies; the Terminator 3 Timeline follows on from Rise of the Machines; the Sarah Connor Chronicles Timeline shows the arc of the TV show; and the Genisys Timeline reveals the rewritten Terminator history established by the 2015 movie.

So boot up for the ultimate ride through the Terminator timeline and remember, there is no fate but what they make Warning: spoilers for every Terminator film other than Dark Fate, which reaches UK cinemas October 23 and US cinemas November 1.

The Prime timeline

The Terminator (1984)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

The Terminator 3 timeline

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Terminator Salvation (2009)

The Sarah Connor Chronicles timeline

The Terminator (1984)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-09)

The Genisys timeline

Terminator Genisys (2015)

1965-ish Sarah Connor, mother of the hero of humanitys resistance against the machines, is born.

Why is the Terminator timeline so vague about the date? The script for The Terminator specifies that shes 19 years old in 1984, suggesting she was born in 1965, which could also tally with psychiatrist Dr Silberman saying in Terminator 2 that shes 29 in 1995. But in Terminator 3, Sarahs gravestone says she was born in 1959, while Terminator: Genisys reckons she was nine in 1973, which suggests a birth year 1964. Thats what living your life off the grid does to you

1973 (GENISYS TIMELINE) A shapeshifting T-1000 arrives from the future to kill a nine-year-old Sarah Connor, but luckily a T-800 has also come back to protect her. Sarahs parents are killed by the T-1000, leaving that particular T-800 model to become an unlikely father figure known as Pops and kickstart a whole new Terminator timeline. (Terminator Genisys)

1984 (PRIME TIMELINE) A T-800 cyborg from the future arrives in mid-80s Los Angeles, and embarks on a killing spree whose victims include several women named Sarah Connor, and a police station full of cops. Ultimately, however, the Terminator misses its target, failing to assassinate the one Sarah Connor whos essential for the future survival of humanity it ends up crushed in a hydraulic press, though crucially, a processor chip and an arm survive... Kyle Reese, who travelled back from the future to protect Sarah, dies. (The Terminator)

(GENISYS TIMELINE) Kyle Reeses mission to intercept the original Terminator is instantly made a hell of a lot easier when another version of Sarah Connor and her Terminator dad, Pops, intercept the cyborg assassin on its arrival in 1984. They also save him from a T-1000 whos come to sample the joys of the mid-80s. Based on the Genisys is Skynet message that Reese hears during his journey back in time, Sarah and Pops alter their plan to time travel to 1997 to prevent Judgment Day. Instead, Sarah and Reese set their time coordinates to 2017, where a new computer operating system called Genisys is about to go live (Terminator Genisys)

1985 (PRIME TIMELINE) Future military hero John Connor is born on February 28 and spends his life dealing with the impossible expectations placed on him by his mother.

(Image credit: Fox)

1995 (PRIME TIMELINE) Another of Skynets cyborg goons arrives in the 20th century the difference this time, however, is that the target is 10-year-old John Connor, and that the T-1000 is a liquid metal mimetic polyalloy shapeshifter perfectly placed to make the most of ILMs pioneering CG technology. A reprogrammed T-800 who looks a lot like his 1984 predecessor arrives to serve as Johns protector, and follows the boys order to break his mother, Sarah, out of the secure psychiatric hospital she now calls home.

In the ensuing carnage, the trio destroy the Cyberdyne Systems research facility thats developing Skynet from reverse-engineered parts harvested from the 1984 Terminator inventor Miles Dyson is killed in the blast. With Judgment Day seemingly averted and the T-1000 eliminated, all is seemingly well though the cuddly T-800 takes his newly installed casual vocabularly to a fiery grave. No problemo! (Terminator 2: Judgment Day)

1997 (PRIME TIMELINE) The US government gives Skynet full control of strategic defence on August 4. After learning at a geometric rate, it becomes self-aware on August 29 a key date in the Terminator timeline, because at this point, its too late for humans to pull the plug. Calculating that all humans are a threat to its survival, the super-computer launches a missile attack on Russia, who subsequently retaliate in kind. Three billion people are killed on Judgment Day, initiating a decades-long war between humans and machines. (Terminator 2: Judgment Day)

(TERMINATOR 3 TIMELINE) At least, that was the original plan, but the Skynet trampling events of 1995 postponed the apocalypse at least for a few years. Even with Judgment Day averted, however, its still a bad year for the Connor family. Suffering from leukaemia, Sarah lives long enough to see the world not ending on August 29, but dies from her illness before the year is out. (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)

1999 (SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES TIMELINE) It turns out Sarah Connor wasnt dead after all, as the short-lived TV show pretends erases the events of Terminator 3 from the Terminator timeline. Instead, Sarah and John are still on the run from law-enforcement authorities who think theyre responsible for Miles Dysons death when they meet Cameron, a reprogrammed female Terminator sent back to protect John. She transports the Connors forward to 2007 to continue their fight against Skynet because you just know that, er, itll be back. (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

2003 (TERMINATOR 3 TIMELINE) Just before his execution, death row inmate Marcus Wright agrees to sign his body over to Cyberdyne Systems Genetic Research Division. Its not the last well see of him he survives Judgment Day in stasis. (Terminator: Salvation)

(PRIME TIMELINE) Kyle Reese is born at least, he is in the original Terminator timeline, as James Camerons script says he was 26 years old when he travelled back from 2029. However, in the 2017-set Terminator Genisys, Reese meets his 12-year-old self, which suggests hes born in 2005.

(Image credit: Fox)

2004 (TERMINATOR 3 TIMELINE) A T-X Terminator arrives from 2032 with a mission to wipe out figures wholl be key members of the humans resistance. With his mother having passed away seven years earlier, John Connor is living off the grid in LA, and hes done such a good job of disappearing that its pure coincidence the T-X finds him she gatecrashes an early meeting with his future wife (and future military leader) Kate Brewster.

With a reprogrammed T-850 acting as a guardian angel (yes, this one looks like the original 1984 Terminator as well), they go on the run. Meanwhile, the US military activates Skynet to counteract a computer virus that in a cunning ruse has actually been unleashed by Skynet itself. So Kates dad, a military general, gives them the location and access codes to Crystal Peak, a facility John believes houses Skynet. However, hes unable to destroy the computer. Crystal Peak is really just a shelter to protect the couple from Judgment Day, which is, by now, unavoidable because Skynet has become totally integrated with the internet. After a couple of false starts, the world belatedly ends on July 24 leaving John to take up his mantle as the saviour of mankind.

Bizarrely, this is possibly when the Schwarzenegger-esque design and voice of the T-800 model Terminators is established though this hilarious deleted scene may not be strictly canon (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)

2005 (SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES TIMELINE) According to Camerons knowledge of the past/future, Sarah Connor dies of cancer in this particular branch of the Terminator timeline. (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

2007 (SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES TIMELINE) Kyle Reeses big brother, Derek, arrives from the future with a mission to eliminate the architects of Skynet, and joins forces with the Connors and Cameron as they fight a succession of Terminators who knew thered be so many? And that so many of them would be so bad at their jobs? (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

2009 (SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES TIMELINE) Derek Reese is killed by a Terminator. John Connor travels forward to 2027 with Catherine Weaver, a T-1001 whos the spitting image of the lead singer from Garbage. Theyre trapped there for all eternity thanks to a threat even greater than Skynet the cancellation of a TV show. (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

2011 (SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES TIMELINE) Skynet goes online yet again, gains self-awareness and, according to what Cameron tells Sarah Connor in 2007, initiates the latest iteration of Judgment Day on April 21, 2011. Dj vu, anyone? (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

(Image credit: Fox)

2017 (GENISYS TIMELINE) After their journey through time Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese hook up once again with Pops whos taken the long way round and aged accordingly. Their efforts to stop the Genisys operating system designed, coincidentally, by Miles Dysons son, Daniel from becoming Skynet meet a formidable obstacle in the form of a Terminatorised John Connor, whos in San Francisco to ensure his digital paymaster goes live. Sarah, Kyle and Pops defeat John and think theyve destroyed the Cyberdyne facility, but unbeknown to anyone Skynet survives and becomes self-aware. Reese also pays a visit to his 12-year-old self to remind him that Genisys is Skynet a piece of information that may just come in handy later on (Terminator Genisys)

2018 (TERMINATOR 3 TIMELINE) John Connor, a rising star in the human military, discovers Skynets plans for T-800 Terminator units covered in living tissue, along with a load of human prisoners captured by the machines. He also learns that he and an unknown teenage fighter named Kyle Reese are top of Skynets hit list. Meanwhile, Marcus Wright awakens from stasis and discovers that the medical experiments he signed up for have given him an entirely mechanical endoskeleton causing John Connor and his wife, Kate, to suspect hes been sent to kill them. They eventually team-up, however, and embark on a mission to destroy Skynets T-800 facility. John is fatally wounded in the battle when a Terminator stabs him through the heart, but saved when Marcus donates his own still-human heart for transplant. (Terminator Salvation)

2022 (PRIME TIMELINE) Despite having at least two recorded deaths and even a gravestone, Sarah Connor is still very much alive in a movie set 27 years after the events of Terminator 2. Connor will team up with an ageing T-800 and Grace, a human soldier turned into a cyborg, to protect a young woman named Daniella Ramos from the latest Terminator model known as the REV 9, it can split itself into two distinct bodies. (Terminator: Dark Fate)

(Image credit: Fox)

2027 (SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES TIMELINE) Derek Reese and Terminator Cameron are sent back in time to kill Terminators/save the Connors. And no, we have no idea why or how this happens before Skynet uses prototype technology to send the first Terminator back in time from 2029. Its wibbly, wobbly, timey and wimey. (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

2029 (PRIME TIMELINE) Skynet sends the first Terminator back to kill Sarah Connor in 1984; John Connor sends Kyle Reese to protect her. (The Terminator)

(GENISYS TIMELINE) a super-advanced T-5000 Terminator named Alex infiltrates John Connors team, and infects Connor, turning him into a Terminator.

(PRIME TIMELINE) Skynet sends a shapeshifting T-1000 back to 1995 to kill John Connor as a kid; Connor sends back a reprogrammed T-800 to protect him. (Terminator 2: Judgment Day)

2032 (TERMINATOR 3 TIMELINE) A red letter day for the Terminator timeline, as Skynet finally gets its man When a T-850 with the original Schwarzenegger design assassinates John Connor, Connors wife, Kate, reprograms the unit and sends it back to 2004, to protect the couple from the T-X. (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)

Read this article:
The Terminator timeline explained: Every key event from the franchise in chronological order - GamesRadar

Forgive me for this, but real quick we need to jump back in the pool with Chris Holmes, then lead guitarist for heavy metal gods W.A.S.P., as he conducts one of the more harrowing (and rock n roll) interviews in film history. Say hello to the drunkest man who ever lived, and yes, harrowing as this infamous clip from Penelope Spheeriss 1988 L.A. music documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years might be, this is ultimately a tale of survival, for the man and, even more improbably, for the rock n roll ethos that tried to kill him.

Anyway, yikes. Im a full-blown alcoholic, Holmes concedes, slurring cordially. He estimates that he drinks five pints of vodka a day, although: Five quarts? Pints? Who cares? Yeah, Im a happy camper. Hah-hah! He blames, or rather credits, rock n roll for this: If you can tour one year, itll take four years off your life. There is a Santa glass in the cupholder of his pool chair; his mother is sitting poolside, terrified and resigned and making the most viscerally upsetting face in 80s cinema, nonLarge Marge category.

Do you think you might be covering up some pain? Holmess interviewer wonders, and he responds by cracking open a vodka bottle and pouring half of it in his mouth, and half of the rest in the general vicinity of his face. I dont dig being the person I am, he concludes, struggling to elaborate. I just dont like it. Being who I am, its just likehere, watch. And then he rolls into the pool. Cut back to his mother, still making The Face.

I mention this because a gentleman named Ryan Hater, who plays keyboards in the young Louisville, Kentucky, rock band White Reaper, evidently found it quite inspiring. Whats his name in the pool with the vodka, and his mom is there, and hes just talking about how he wants to be dead? Hater mused during a July interview with Michael Tedder for Stereogum. That made me want to be a musician. The urge to rock n roll, in 2019 as in 1988 as in 1967, is a fundamentally self-destructive impulse. A roaring bonfire fueled by the bodies of knuckleheads, warming the bodies of other knuckleheads. A healthy death drive is a necessary component of keeping this music alive.

White Reaper, to be clear, sound very little like W.A.S.P.: The quintet instead radiates a vulnerable sort of power-pop joy, all 70s-muscle-T dual-guitar leads and righteous solos and hooks with the searing ardor of molten lava and the sticky-sweet naivete of cotton candy. The affable goofiness that first made Weezer famous, the shrewd and ebullient laser precision that makes the New Pornographers the best power-pop band of their generation, the righteous six-string-as-six-shooter audacity of fellow young rockers Sheer Mag. Its arena-rock cosplay, sure, but every ambitious rock band is basically doing arena-rock cosplay until they actually, yknow, tour arenas. Think of White Reaper as Judas Priest disciples who steadfastly obey the law. These fellas dont sound too drunk, either. But youll recognize their jovial-hedonist vibe immediately.

It is ideal, in this day and age, to approach this style of Zippo-flicking guitar music with, if not irony, then at least some measure of cornball self-awareness: White Reapers 2015 full-length debut was called White Reaper Does It Again, which is the second-funniest album title in their brief catalog, after 2017s The Worlds Best American Band. Rally up and dress to kill / Lace your boots and crush your pills, the title tracks chorus begins, amid fake crowd noise that cements the mass-romantic Cheap Trick vibe. Run around and tell the gang / Polish up your dusty fangs. Its an electrifying feeling, even if theyre the sort of cuddly band Mom can bring home to you.

On Friday, White Reaper released their third and best LP, You Deserve Love. I have had Might Be Rightthe carefree bounce of the bass line, the prehistoric power-chord roar of the chorus, the thwarted lust of the lyrics, the dual-guitar riff with the richness and depth of a particularly well-thought-out Dungeons & Dragons campaignstuck in my head for, like, three weeks. Im a happy camper.

You cant talk about songs like this in 2019 without agonizing over the relative absence of songs like this in 2019. The raw, guitar-rock sound is reallyI dont want to say its done, but ... So equivocated Mike Kaplan, program director of New York Citys ALT 92.3, quoted in Joe Coscarellis recent New York Times piece about Mikes job running an alternative-rock station. Even this genres professional champions cant be much bothered to champion it anymore. Its present, but its morphed and mixed with other instrumentation, Kaplan added. Does anyone really go to Guitar Center anymore and pick up the guitar?

Thanks for your insight, Mike. I first heard Might Be Right on my own hometown alt-rock station, Columbus, Ohios beloved independent institution CD102.5, which, like the NYC alt-rock station, will only mess with Lana Del Rey if shes covering Sublime, and unlike the NYC alt-rock station will give Billie Eilish a shot, and like any alt-rock station anywhere leans as much toward Passion Pitstyle synth-pop as anything guitar-oriented. I love it. And Im also relieved that White Reapers album title wasnt The Worlds Last American Band.

It is tempting to process the relentless screwball joy of You Deserve Lovethe righteous airbrushed-van gallop of Raw, the bright New Wave strut of 1Fentirely through nostalgia for the alt-rock 1990s nostalgia for the sleaze-rock 1970s. But the joy is in living vicariously through the 20-something White Reaper dudes themselves. This is all new to them, and thats palpable even if this is all old hat to you. How come what you want and what you get / Always seem to be / Two different things? singer-guitarist Tony Esposito sings on Real Long Time, and this is not the most profound and groundbreaking lyrical observation someone will make in 2019. But there is profundity in looking on as the zillionth guitar-rocker in the zillionth excellent guitar-rock band figures this stuff out for himself.

Chris Holmes, by the way, is still alive, and 20-plus-years sober, and roughly 124 years old in touring years, and a good enough sport that in 2017 he did another pool interview that mostly concerned his wonderment at having escaped the downward spiral implied by his first pool interview. Why do I not drink anymore? After six DUIs, they throw you in jail, he explained, cordial as ever. And its really hard to drink in jail.

That observation, also, is more profound than it might first appear. Holmess continued existence is as stirring a testament to rock n roll defiance as anything he said or did or drank in his, uh, prime. White Reaper are not exactly self-annihilating wildmen, on paper or on record. But the desire is there, and thats reassuringly defiant, too.

See the article here:
The Rock n Roll Dreams of White Reaper - The Ringer

As midterm elections approach, the fight for Onondaga Countys district attorney seat has brought two newcomers challenging longtime incumbent William Fitzpatrick.

Chuck Keller, an adjunct professor at Syracuse University and criminal defense attorney, is running against Fitzpatrick as a Democrat. Gary Lavine, who works at a Syracuse law firm, has been endorsed by the Conservative Party.

No one else in our society has the power over life, liberty, and reputation that a prosecutor does, Lavine said. The first order of business is having the self-awareness that there is a higher calling. The higher calling is to do justice and tell the truth.

The three candidates disagree on how the future district attorney should apply them to a well-established judicial system.

In a given county, the district attorney oversees the prosecutors office and is responsible for considering, investigating and potentially charging active cases in coordination with law enforcement officials. The DA also presents evidence to grand juries and makes recommendations to a presiding judge for a defendants bail, charges and length of prison sentence.

District attorneys are elected for four-year terms by popular vote in a general election. This year, voting will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 5 in Onondaga County.

The Onondaga County Democratic Committee has endorsed Keller, whose campaign has mainly focused on bail reform and prison alternatives. He hopes to increase scrutiny toward Fitzpatricks management of bail reform through consistent review while in office.

Echoing Kellers calls for systemic changes within the judicial system was Syracuse native and Republican Lavine, who currently serves as counsel to Bousquet Holstein PLLC. Lavine is also a member of the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

Lavine said his campaign, which is endorsed by the Onondaga County Conservative Party, is focused on restoring integrity to the position Republican incumbent Fitzpatrick has held for 27 years.

Lavine said that Fitzpatrick covered for former DA investigator Peter Rauch years before he drove while drunk and killed a teenager. Lavine referenced the alleged cover-up on campaign mailers, according to Syracuse.com.

The alleged incident is one of several matters of controversy Lavine said he felt deemed Fitzpatrick an unethical prosecutor.

Throughout his seven terms in office, Fitzpatrick has been challenged three times, according to Syracuse.com.

Since taking office in 1992, Fitzpatrick said the platforms and policies of district attorneys across the nation have changed for the better. Initially, prosecutors ran on popular platforms that emphasized conviction rates and longer prison sentences. Now, national trends have since shifted to embrace more progressive outlooks that favor decriminalization of lower-level crimes, he said.

While Fitzpatrick said hes glad prosecutors are no longer follow the tough-on-crime approach, he said he doesnt fully support progressive decriminalization.

I know we call them progressive, to me theyre frankly regressive, he said.

Instead, Fitzpatrick said he has focused his career on identifying underlying factors that contribute to crime and conviction rates. He also emphasized his role in facilitating transformation at the local level. Fitzpatrick promoted eight diversion programs which exclusively handle cases dealing with adolescents, people experiencing mental illness and other at-risk groups during his tenure.

Ideally, an understanding of the factors behind crime and conviction rates, applied to the countys diversion programs, would continue to lower New Yorks already-low incarceration rates, he said.

Is that a system that cries out for reform? I think thats a system that cries out to be replicated, Fitzpatrick said.

Recounting his over two-decade-long career as a defense attorney, Keller claimed the diversion programs are currently ineffective because a defendants participation in them is dependent upon them first entering a guilty plea.

Keller said issues relating to justice should not rely on partisanship, but accountability. Lavine echoed this, expressing his hopes that the elections votes will reflect a lack of partisanship. Fitzpatrick said at the end of the day, the DAs primary responsibility is to ensure safety and justice for both victims and defendants.

Having challengers in the DAs race provides a means of achieving that goal, Lavine said.

I personally cannot look the other way, Lavine said. Indifference and inaction lead to tyranny, and thats what we have in this county now.

Published on October 20, 2019 at 10:11 pm

Contact Marnie: ammunozc@syr.edu

Read more:
District attorney incumbent challanged for first time in over 10 years - The Daily Orange

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How often do you wonder about what makes us different? Why dont we all act the same and are there reasons were each unique? Usually, answering these questions takes a significant amount of reading that goes beyond scratching the surface. Even though it would take less effort than before thanks to the internet, it still involves putting in the time to read through different articles on how we become who we are. But maybe that can change with shows like The Mind: Explained.

Long story short, if youre not as interested in psychology, the search for these answers might not seem like the most entertaining pastime. That lack of interest leads to the unfortunate truth that many wont have their curiosity sparked enough to learn more about potentially game changing topics. On a personal level, or any other level, these topics influence a persons view of themselves and cause them to do an entire 180 in life.

Now, imagine if you could get to know your brain by watching brief 20 minute episodes? As in, none of them are longer than the 30-minute TV shows we grew up watching once-upon-a-time on regular cable TV (minus the commercials and advertisements).

Netflixs The Mind: Explained did exactly that. A continuation of Voxs Explained series, this miniseries linked to the original concept is packaged and produced in a way thats brief but still gives in-depth knowledge on the human mind. The network producers and writers managed to give a diverse set of answers to the many questions we have about the most essential organ of our body: the brain.

The brain forms and shapes everything we are. The large and wrinkled block of grey matter, that far too often seems more foreign than it should, is looked at closely in this Emma Stone-narrated series.

The questions this series answers bring viewers one step closer to understanding their relationship with their own minds. Ranging from simple inquiries like, Why cant I remember what I did yesterday? to more complicated questions like, Why does my brain constantly rewrite past experiences and fill in the blanks in ways that arent always true? Why is anxiety disorder the most common mental disorder? Do our dreams actually serve a purpose, or are they just strange visions that come to us? How do our brains even formulate dreams in the first place?

For the sake of not sounding clich, its not necessary to claim this series will change your entire life. But the series could be life changing and is quite impactful. The fear of facing ourselves can often stand as an obstacle to fostering more self-awareness. Were most nervous about discovering facts that lead us to actually feeling like we have control over our lives.

These five episodes each go in-depth and explain topics that are either involved in todays popular conversations or are more absent from mainstream discussion.

Did you know that about 50% of your memory is more than likely made up? Thats because around 50% of the details we believe are hard coded into our minds actually change each year. Memory competitions, and how your emotions affect your episodic memory, are only a couple of topics discussed in this episode. As the first episode aired in the series, it highlights the complexity behind our memories. Even if you think youre completely right about something in the past, theres a chance your mind is acting deceitfully.

They say that story, place and emotion are the concoction helping us remember things more accurately. But what if your emotions get in the way? The most interesting part of the program: an explanation behind how memories of the past and our futures are linked.

While were resting, our brains are usually up to something. Interested in remembering what exactly was fluttering through your mind while remaining inactive for those suggested eight hours? Drinking large glasses of water before going to bed was one tip given by a featured neuroscientist.

If youre trying to dream vividly, you might want to look into the art of lucid dreaming. According to one interviewee, its a skill anyone can develop. Like practicing on a basketball court until youre good at dribbling, youre capable of training your mind to see actual images from throughout the day in your brains nightly visions. If youre able to vividly recall your dreams and sketch them out in a notebook, then youre on your way. You might even be able to interpret them better.

Disclaimer: This episode might get a little extreme for some people. The episode shows this preemptive warning within the first minute. Keeping this as objective as possible, the episode highlights the commonality of different forms of anxiety. Whether its panic attacks, a general sense of fear or paranoia or defining general anxiety disorder (GAD), the different types are examined.

Most importantly, the sickness isnt stigmatized. Its normalized, but not in a way that can cause someone to feel insensitive toward anothers mental condition. The topic is framed to show we should come forward to speak about something that affects a significant amount of the human population.

Long story short, we all have anxiety to different extents. Some people can just develop more triggers than others at certain points in their lives. The whys are explained through people who come forward to describe their stories, guest psychologists and neuroscientists.

Afraid of aging? Learn more about the secrets of a young Buddhist monk turned mindfulness meditation prodigy, who at 41 years old had the brain resembling that of a 33-year-old. It starts by paying attention to your breath. The minds mindfulness becomes more proactive from that simple starting point.

Intentional control of your brain activity is often seen as impossible. But through the ancient practice of Satipatthana, many monks have achieved something that amazes scientists. Through cultivating their mindfulness, they activated parts of the brain that are often involuntarily lit up by our bodies.

One of their main pieces of advice? Introspection is key.

Usually regarded as a taboo subject advocated by zany people, it was practically banned from peoples memory during the Nixon administration. However, recent sample studies emerged (generally small but still reporting key findings) about helping people process their anxiety or life-altering situations.

For example, this episode of The Mind: Explained opens with the story of a man diagnosed at 21 with a type of cancer targeting his lymphatic system. Although he survived, his anxiety about his body relapsing became overwhelming. While visiting a psychologist they told him about an experiential case meant for cancer patients. All the patients were prescribed psychedelic pills to calm their anxiety about death. The results? His brain found a new sense of peace along with all of the other patients in the trial run.

Similar cases also found remarkable results in treating and curing substance abuse addictions and depression. Maybe psychedelics can provide the results other plant or protein-based medicine cant do as successfully.

One of the big messages that the series delivers is if were living without an actual sense of self-awareness, are we living in reality? How do we know if were really being attentive to the world around us? Or are things just floating right above the heads were meant to unlock?

Understanding your mind is the most vital element of knowing your humanity. Although we might convince ourselves that self-awareness isnt important, its really just a mask that were putting on the truth. It definitely works to certain peoples advantages, but theres still that void between themselves and actually having some type of self-certainty. People who are usually twisting things around to fit into their own gravity pool can lack a genuine Im-in-control attitude. If we really want to get all psychology on it, the term for feeling like youre in control is locus of control, and the higher the better.

Our minds can be our best friends. Once we get to know them, it wont seem as scary or even surprising to make certain realizations about who we are. Our brains are meant to be discovered and if we make observations that wed like to alter about ourselves theyre equally as flexible to change.

Read more:
Get to Know Your Brain by Watching Netflix's 'The Mind: Explained' - Study Breaks

Sometimes, when things arent working, you just need to go in a different direction

Whatever way you look at it, ITVs documentary following the Duke and Duchess of Sussex around Africa, perhaps intended as a puff piece damage limitation after months of negative press has had the opposite effect to what was intended.

Instead of discussions about the human side of the couple in any positive light, or their causes and the movements they champion, two things have come away from the hour long documentary that Meghan feels coverage of her is unfair, and Harry wants to leave the UK and head to Africa full time. The image that came across was less of a well-meaning couple misunderstood and wanting...

Go here to see the original:
For their own sake, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex need to decide whether they are cut out for Royalty - Telegraph.co.uk

Classes dont start until Monday, but Tom Golden, 18, 20G, plays professor as he shows slides to a room of 35 first-year students.

Hes leading a 90-minute sexual misconduct and education training, the first of four sessions he will facilitate during first-year orientation on a Saturday in late August.

Golden is the graduate assistant for Break the Silence, an organization housed in Lehighs Office of Gender Violence Education and Support, which aims to provide students resources and healthy sexual education. Before he took the graduate assistant position, Golden belonged to the group as an undergraduate.

Golden cant remember exactly why he joined Break the Silence, but he does remember the burlesque troupe that came to campus for part of the organizations Five Senses of Consent event. He remembers the sex toys explored in the groups Sex Toys and BDSM programming. He remembers watching Break the Silence modernize its presentations to become more inclusive.

Now, as a graduate assistant, he offers guidance as Break the Silence undergraduates take charge of the programming plans.

Break the Silence doesnt have an executive board leadership flows through a committee-based, fountain model, in which some people will execute specific projects and events and the rest of the group pools its support.

Brooke DeSipio, Break the Silences adviser and the director of Gender Violence Education and Support, said the model allows members to take a step back if they need to while still participating in the organization.

I cant imagine not having a peer support group on campus, DeSipio said. I think a lot of students would not get the help they need.

She said Break the Silence members are trained on sexual misconduct resources and reporting options because their peers will often come to them for help. Break the Silence members are mandated reporters, so they are not a confidential resource.

DeSipio said students are more likely to tell a friend or Break the Silence member about their experiences than they are to tell a faculty member, staff member or official reporting option.

Caralyn Roeper, 21, believes she receives more questions about sexual education and misconduct than she would if she werent involved in Break the Silence.

She also said a few students called her this summer to ask for her help.

(I was called about) whats going on with a relationship, or like, This just happened to one of my friends who is at Lehigh over the summer, which is really cool that you become a resource for people, she said.

Roeper stressed how important it is for students to have a space on campus to talk about sexual assault, relationship abuse and sex education issues.

Sometimes, however, Break the Silence members have to initiate the conversation.

DeSipio said it takes a lot of self-awareness, self-reflection and identity development to be able to lead discussions on campus.

Its not easy to spend your time talking about sexual assault and relationship abuse and sex on campus, she said.

Break the Silence members can succeed by playing their cards correctly.And one of their cards says pornography.

Wascar Ramirez, 20, said first-year students shuffle across the Maginnes Hall rooms during orientation to arrange cards with different potentially toxic behaviors onto the Continuum of Harm. They must decide if behaviors are really bad, kind of bad or not so bad, and then the group discusses the decisions.

Ramirez, who is now in his fifth year as a member of Break the Silence, said many of the cards are written ambiguously to prompt better discussion.

(Pornography), on one hand, can be good because of self release, masturbation, Ramirez said. But on the other hand, a lot of mainstream porn doesnt show any consent, so it has all of those downstream negative effects.

Though Break the Silence can achieve transparency with students with its programming and education, Roeper said sometimes the university isnt as transparent with students. Because it is a business, it could potentially hurt Lehigh to release negative information about its students, faculty and staff, but Roeper thinks sharing reports of sexual harassment and assault doesnt reflect poorly on the university.

Sexual assault is a national issue, so Roeper thinks instances of sexual misconduct reveal more about the larger culture thats been created rather than individual institutions.

Sometimes its definitely discouraging being here and being a member of this organization as a part of Lehigh, she said, But its also reassuring that since our program started, weve made a lot of progress.

Break the Silence has made progress beyond the perimeters of Lehighs campus. Roeper said members advised Moravian College students in developing and running a program similar to Lehighs, because the college didnt have one in place.

Golden said the group has improved its education and outreach. And student reception has improved as a result.

He said this is the first year that a lot of Break the Silence members have had first-year students they trained during orientation approach them days and weeks after the session to chat and thank them.

I had one of my students (from orientation) say to me, I had sex this weekend and I used consent like you said, and she gave me a fist bump, Golden said. And that, like, never happened before.

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Break the Silence extends education, resources to students - The Brown and White

British artist Emma Witter uses a very different kind of medium. She collects and breathes new life into animal bones to create intricate sculptures of flowers, leaves and other natural objects.

Based in London, originally from Hertfordshire, she has just enjoyed a twelve-month residency at the prestigious Sarabande the organisation founded by fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen CBE in 2007. Her botanical forms are symbolic and emotionally loaded, and she hopes to dispel the macabre association of bones and instead highlight the lightness and beauty of the material.

With heavy references to 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish painters who used the flower as a symbol of life and its fragility, the delicateness and beauty of Witter's sculptures has won her numerous awards and global attention. We spoke to Witter about this and more.

I just think theyre such beautiful objects. I love the gently curved forms, the symmetry, how they are so lightweight and yet immensely strong. I remember first having oxtail stew where the bones were whole, and marvelling at their beautiful, floral shape.

Theyre very much like orchids. I felt uneasy throwing these objects in the bin and started to keep hold of them, researching how to preserve them. They are so widely available as a byproduct, and I think a surprising and overlooked material resource for sculpture.

I feel very inspired by artists and designers who are really dedicated to their materials. Im quite obsessed at the moment with Fernando Laposse and how he is breaking down the fibres from different plants, like Cacti and corn husks, and creating new woven textures to be used for design objects. Grant Gibson presents a really good podcast called Material Matters where he interviews makers who are obsessive about a particular material.

Im inspired by science and nature and recently discovered the Linnean Society in Mayfair where you can book to go and look through the most beautiful old books of botanical illustrations. Im interested in London history and food history. I love the imagery of historical feasts and the theatrical presentation of food.

I collect bones over some time, from my cooking, dinners with friends, from visiting butchers and collecting kitchen waste from my chef friends like Mark Hix and Martin Sweeney at Petersham Nurseries. I boil the bones, scrub them clean and then leave them in bleach overnight. After drying them out, I categorise them into their 'families' of shapes before I start to play around with how the forms can gently interact with each other.

The process of preparing the material is very time-consuming and has become very ritualistic to me. I like the idea of salvaging this overlooked material to create something beautiful and lasting. Im often working on several experiments and pieces at a time. My studio is full of boxes of different categorised bones, tests and failures. Im trying all the time to marry the objects in a way that looks light, peaceful and elegant.

Ha! They thought it was a bit weird at first, and then just accepted me for who I am! Theyre all used to the bones, and know the drill at the end of dinner parties to pass them down for me, and hold onto their turkey carcasses after Christmas!

Its hard to say, as I think most children are creative. In that, they explore things freely and with gay abandon which of course as adults we now envy. As artists, we now strive to replicate the act of creating, without a crippling sense of self-awareness. As a child, I was very interested in nature and obsessively collected little objects. Every day before school, I would get up at 5am to enjoy a couple of hours of alone time in the garden. My dad would find me sitting outside, wholly immersed, testing the different densities of rocks, breaking them down with a hammer. I was unique!

I would have treasure boxes of things like snail shells and unique stones and would present these boxes selectively to only my most favourite of adults.

I studied Performance Design at Central Saint Martins and was interested in scenography. I didnt have any technical skills so leaned towards being inventive with unusual materials for example, I made costumes for a collaboration with the Rambert School of Dance, all from woven hair. I spent a lot of my student loan in Paks! I stuffed the dancers' little ballet bodices with padding to accentuate their bodies and then sewed on layers and layers of these lengths of hair, so it swooshed around with their movements.

For my final major project, I produced an immersive performance based around food and dining, where I particularly enjoyed the prop making of these weird imaginary 'meals', using food matter but in strange ways.

After I graduated, UAL funded me to set up my studio practice, and I explored this idea of food sculpture. This then fell into areas of both set design/prop making and sculpture as I started working commercially and also exhibiting.

It was amazing to be selected and feel a part of something so special. Especially as one of my best buddies Jonah Pontzer, who is an amazing painter, was also selected and we were put in the same studio. We shared one together a couple of years back and really missed it so it was extra special for us to be reunited! I met really amazing people, and it was a great platform for me to hold my solo exhibition. It all really just went by in a snap!

The people! 100% I think we all say the same thing. I met some amazingly talented, really special people Im so happy to have made friends with.

I think its important to align yourself with people or places that youre interested in...and I think when Ive been more genuine in what Im making it goes down better. Rather than trying to play it safe or thinking too much about being commercial.

Give it your absolute everything. I also think its really important to talk and have a peer group, go out and look at loads of shows, talk to the artists, be active. It really helps to share ideas and developments with other creative people and not be trapped in solitary confinement in your studio.

During London Design Festival, I saw Dan Tobin Smiths VOID installation at Collins Music Hall which blurred boundaries between nature and design. He filmed beautifully the inside of rare gemstones and then had them projected on a large scale to create an immersive space. I wanted to live in it.

You can see Emma Witter's work in a group exhibition called Chroma, which runs until 11 November in a gallery underneath the Catherine Provost store at 127 Sloane Street, London. Witter will also be featured in Blue, another group show at Andrea Hamilton Studios in Kinnerton Street, featuring 32 artists who share a passion for the sea.

Find out more about Emma Witter at http://www.emmawitter.co.uk.

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Emma Witter on why she turns discarded animal bones into intricate botanical sculptures - Creative Boom

The sequel ten years in the making features on-brand humor and over-the-top zombie kills

Full of self-awareness and gruesome-yet-satisfying zombie kills, 2019s Zombieland: Double Tap is a solid film that recaptures the charm of its predecessor.

A decade after 2009s hit horror-comedy Zombieland earned over $100 million box office worldwide on a budget of $23 million, director Ruben Fleischers sequel saw a wide release on Oct. 18, 2019, just in time for Halloween.

Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin each reprise their roles as Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock respectively. Joining the cast are Rosario Dawson as Nevada, Zoey Deutch as Madison and Luke Wilson as Albuquerque.

Double Tap opens with voiceover exposition, delivered by Eisenberg, feeding the audience information about the worlds developments over the past ten years. We learn of new developments with the group, including their recent coup in the White House. We are also introduced to the worlds new breeds of zombies: Homers, Hawkings and T-800s.

The original cast maintains the chemistry it established in the original, with significant plot lines developing the relationship between Columbus and Wichita, as well as Tallahassee and Little Rock.

The casts R-rated banter contribute to most of the films excellent scenes. The originals brand of humor established it as a cult classic comedy, and Zombieland: Double Tap does not miss a beat.

The film, although suffering from a few tropes and a thin plot, excels in every area one would expect: gory zombie kills, heartfelt family dynamics and satisfying character development.

In a sequel, callbacks and fanservice are expected. Double Tap features a handful of callbacks to iconic parts of the original. Columbus survival rules are expanded upon, and Tallahassee utters a catchphrase that is quickly mocked as outdated.

Double Tap takes a swipe at The Walking Dead early in the movie, and it lands well. Although, it is hard to ignore the cultural zeitgeist of zombies is seemingly on its way out.

One of the only negative aspects about Double Tap was its use of Zoey Deutchs character. Deutch stars as Madison, and uses a dated dumb blonde trope that feels grating very quickly. Deutchs performance is hilarious, but her characters trope seems more suited to a film from early 2010.

Zombieland: Double Tap is not a perfect film, but ultimately a satisfying sequel for fans of the original. It renews the charm and unique humor of its predecessor while giving its beloved charactersand their post-apocalyptic worldmeaningful development.

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Zombieland: Double Tap is equal parts enjoyable and endearing - IU Southeast Horizon

NewsBusiness

Creating the right working environment will pay off, finds Cherry Martin

While we live in times far removed from the cringe-worthy antics in offices and boardrooms of yesteryear, workplace culture is much more than a few millennials demanding better conditions and benefits at work. Staff have been campaigning for these rights for years and its not just about having a football table gathering dust.

The good news is that staff nowadays are more confident in demanding help from their bosses and within our contenders for the awards this year, we have a mix of new founders of companies being passionate about culture in the workplace, as well as established companies that have examined and refined theirs.

Any companys number one asset is its team, and here we highlight some of the best. If culture is seriously lacking where you work, maybe leave this page open on the relevant persons desk

Health is wealth

Healthy Performance measures feedback data daily to measure overall wellness and training needs.

As an organisation with performance in their bloodstream, they invest heavily in technology, the infrastructure of which crucially reduces pressure on their growing team. These bespoke systems include an operational management system, CRM, health screening software, plus online booking system, lifestyle assessment and mental health support tool.

One initiative to be applauded is their attitude towards exercise; allowing their team to take exercise during working hours, plus allowing them access to all of the wellbeing resources that they offer to clients.

A willingness to take increased ownership and responsibility for fulfilment

Finding, keeping and growing teams within fledgling businesses scaling at a rapid rate is an artform in itself, which is why SME of the Year contender Jigsaw Solutions brought HR consultant Anna Farrow in to support them in their period of growth. Anna implemented the Happiness at Work programme, which works by each employee following a series of five minute exercises in happiness and self exploration a day, and charting them in a happiness journal.

The success of her influence led Jigsaw to employ her on a full-time basis. Anna said: By supporting personal growth through increased self-awareness, we can create a better version of ourselves each and every day, which of course makes for improved engagement, fulfilment and ultimately performance.

There were no signs that the team were unhappy, but ethically it was and remains the right thing to do to challenge their current state, and ensure their happiness as a certainty.

Simply announcing Happiness At Work sent a very powerful message to our team, making it clear their happiness, fulfilment and wellbeing mattered. The six-week initial programme allowed us to bring together members of the team who wouldnt usually work together, building and nurturing supportive relationships, paving the way for healthy challenges to facilitate growth. We wanted to drive a feedback culture.

We gathered as a whole team every week to share learnings and discuss ideas to take forward. What I felt was the growth of the team and a willingness to take increased ownership and responsibility for happiness and fulfilment.

Our Perkbox insights tool, to measure engagement and workplace satisfaction, has seen our team engagement scores rise consistently.

EDAM Group, Britains largest privately owned credit-hire and post-accident services provider, interpreted their core values of innovation, respect, integrity, passion and fun as one team in a Minding EDAM wellbeing initiative.

Launched in May to encourage better mental health among their staff, they set aside time for colleagues to engage in mood-lifting events that included pilates, cycling, and a health and wellbeing check to encourage an open and honest culture. We look forward to hearing how this approach works.

Geogaming company CluedUp Games clearly see no constraints in geography with their innovative outdoor gaming pursuits, and theyve tackled team positivity and wellbeing in exactly the same way. Casting aside all traditional work place constraints, they strongly encourage flexible working practices giving employees the opportunity to set their own working hours and their locations on a day-to-day basis. No fixed hours, no set places of work, unlimited holiday allowance and the freedom to build a work-life around family commitments.

Yes, Ill let you pause reading this supplement to Google them and see if theyre hiring your skillset.

Useful Tip

If your budget so far this year has been eaten up, know that its free to do part of the Engaging Works Happiness at Work survey. You dont get all of the scientific data broken down, but you can see score movements for members of staff before and after doing the sessions.

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Bringing culture into the workplace - inews

This piece originally appeared in Study Hall.

Caroline Calloway likes to be identified as a writer. She makes this abundantly clear in a post directed at Grace Spelman, formerly a content producer at BuzzFeed, during one of Calloways many forgettable spats with media workers whose criticisms she has found chafing.

FYI I prefer writer, like you, Grace, Calloway noted in a parenthetical within a wall of text (Spelman had called her an Instagram blogger, which, for my money, is pretty apt).

Elsewhere on her Instagram, Calloway posts a picture of Trick Mirror, the lauded debut essay collection from the New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino. The book makes her insecure, she writes, because she cant seem to measure up to Tolentinos pristine search results. When you type Jia Tolentino into Google you get: Great writer! Benefit of the doubt! Kind assumptions! Media EGOT! She contrasts this apparent luck with her own results, which yield unsparing (and, frankly, excessive) coverage of some poorly planned creativity workshops consisting of flower crowns, salads, and organized vulnerability.

Calloways writerly ambition had been to document her life in real time on a platform best known for sharing selfies, to pioneer a new genre of memoir while cultivating a loyal social media following. She had secured a book deal at one point but wasnt able to deliver due to a worsening addiction to Adderall, so Instagram remained her literary venue of choice. And why not? Many writers good writers self-publish via newsletters or blogging platforms; the choice of the photo-centric Instagram merely makes the writers intentions of self-commodification more straightforward. There could not be any confusion about what was being sold: not just prose, but the person herself.

But to describe Calloway as a writer first and foremost would be extraordinarily generous. Her frenzied, disjointed dispatches beneath photos of her art-cluttered West Village studio floor are, in and of themselves, often myopic and uninteresting. It is the media-fueled mythos around her the disintegrated book deal, the scam workshops, the sensational and damning the Cut essay from her former best friend and collaborator Natalie Beach that have earned my attention and emotional investment. To my shame, I read every word Calloway writes.

But perhaps Calloway could be forgiven for conflating the work of writing with the work of marketing oneself as a writer. After all, to be a writer today is to make yourself a product for public consumption on the internet, to project an appealing image that contextualizes the actual writing. The women and they are mostly women who are most heralded in the media industry today are extremely online, starring in photoshoots and documenting their skincare routines and eating habits as much as discussing their process.

The influencer is insecure about not being the writer. But over this past summer of viral internet-fueled grifts and an equally intense barrage of high-profile book launches and interview tours, it struck me that there is functionally little difference between a lauded writer with a recognizable avatar and a prominent social-media influencer. The only difference is in the way each metabolizes the experience of influence.

The most famous writers have always been public figures with their own media-fueled mythos, of course. We have the glamorous mystique of Joan Didion, whose aspirational cool has made her a persistent object of reverence for white women with literary ambitions; the wild lore of Hunter S Thompson with his drugs and guns, the cigarette holder and aviators instantly recognizable even to those who havent read him; and the literary Brat Pack of Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, and company, who were themselves objects of fascination as extensions of their depressive, decadent, druggy fiction. Benjamin Mosers new authorized biography of Susan Sontag painstakingly attempts to reconcile the writers contradictory private self with her glamorous persona as a public intellectual. The books many reviews grapple with the unreliability of biographical interpretation and the insertions of the biographers own biases and blindspots.

But the image management that once seemed incidental, or at least parallel, to the literary profession seems now one of its most necessary, integral functions. In the age of Twitter and Instagram, an online presence, which is necessarily public and necessarily consumable, seems all but mandatory for a writer who reaches (or hopes to reach) a certain level of renown, especially for anyone dealing in personal essays or cultural criticism. In the way that the influencer uses her image to sell her swag, the writer leverages her life to sell her work, to editors and audiences.

Naomi Fry, known for her sharp dissections of celebrity, social media, and meme culture at the New Yorker, is perhaps equally known for her own social media presence as a funny, astute documentarian of her personal life, though always within the context of her job at a prestige publication and with more than a whiff of irony. If celebrities who play well on social media do so by being funny and relatable but more glamorous than you, writers who play well on those same platforms do so by being funny and relatable but smarter and more successful than you.

Last year, Fry gave an interview to the Caret, a tech publication that interviews innovators and visionaries shaping the digital landscape, in which she took stock of her modest internet fame and connection to influencer culture. When it comes to so-called personal brand building, even when you dont think youre doing it, youre still kind of doing it, she said. So Im not going to pretend its something Im not totally aware of, as anyone on social media is. But I think its true that I have no interest in presenting my life in a way thats idealized.

Indeed, who in the irony-soaked world of New York media does? For all our talk of Instagram as a vehicle for curating an idealized self, we know grainy displays of self-awareness are the real ticket filterless, sparse bathroom mirror selfies are infinitely cooler than the obviously posed and airbrushed. They denote a certain status, in fact, that comes with being in on the collective joke, with understanding the illusory nature of the medium and making use of it in a wry punchline at your own expense. You dont have to look talented or elegant online as long as you are, or could be.

If you arent already (internet-)famous, the lack of idealization, or the appearance thereof, could hurt you in the eyes of your peers or bosses. This is not a concern for the writer-influencer. On social media they joke about not writing, about their elaborate procrastination techniques, about getting high, about angsting to their therapists who dont understand the internet. Like descendants of Carrie Bradshaw in her apartment with its designer shoe-filled oven, they are performatively, romantically messy.

I couldnt help but wonder: if this self-consciously unadorned authenticity the thing supposedly separating writers from the polished Instagram influencers they critique yields status, followers, and an aspirational yearning in their fans, whats the difference?

As digital journalism has converged with influencer culture, a whole genre of coverage has sprung up to account for it, including breathless book-launch coverage around star authors that feels more like celebrity voyeurism. We want to know what and how writers eat, which skincare products they smear on their faces, and what theyre reading when theyre not writing. And so we have the debut writers holy trinity of New York Magazines Grub Street Diet, Into the Glosss Top Shelf, and the New York Timess By the Book. Jia Tolentino checked all of these boxes throughout her very visible book publicity tour over the summer a relentless whirlwind of glowing press and made self-deprecating jokes about saturating our newsfeeds (which felt very much in keeping with her public image we had come to know through these dispatches).

I asked Tolentino in an email about this exposure, about the cultivation of a public persona online, and the degree to which she goes about doing so consciously. She responded that she had been thinking about the question a lot lately, as shed been strapped to the soul-crushing (if also very fortunate) machine of book promotion. She is distressed by the imperative to commodify herself to sell her work, but it is something she recognizes as inescapable.

A good amount of my book is about how capitalism, the internet, the monetized self are all destructive to our functioning as real humans; yet, the better I express those ideas, the better I become a marketable object myself, Tolentino explained. Ive spent a lot of time, while promoting Trick Mirror, wondering if the work that brings me the most meaning in life (writing) will always necessarily bring me deeper into the clutches of the things that I hate (capitalism, and a way of being in which external incentives seem more important than internal ones).

She tries to navigate her life online unconsciously, instinctively, and without losing sight of the fact that her real life is more important than what she projects to an audience. One of the worst things that the internet does is make us value representations of a thing over the actual thing itself, and I think I just try to stay tight to that understanding that my actual self and life are a lot more important to me than the online representation of such, that my work is more important to me than any public idea of that work.

Tavi Gevinson, the polymathic founder of Rookie, grapples with this duality between the work and the workers persona in a New York Magazine cover story on how Instagram fame shaped her sense of self and her career alike. I think I am a writer and an actor and an artist, she writes. But I havent believed the purity of my own intentions ever since I became my own salesperson, too. The more she focuses on her own work, embracing the archetype of the writer rather than the influencer, the farther away she stays from Instagram, delegating updates to an assistant.

But when it comes to the commodification of the self, the work and the public idea of the work are often conflated, just as the internet flattens everything else. Its harder to separate the art from the artist, or the artists skincare. Maybe that is the natural endpoint of the influencers internet. Caroline Calloways great project is, ultimately, making her inner life into what she calls digital art, her life and its representation one glorious entangled mess. She has pursued the solidification of a public idea first and foremost; the body of work she has amassed in her posts project the persona she has made for herself. She knows she is a salesperson both of Matisse knockoffs and of her actual self and not only bluntly admits it but confidently conflates it with her creativity.

The self-disclosure required of an influencer whose brand is vulnerability, already unsettlingly close to the work-mandated social-media shilling required of most writers, can become almost indistinguishable from the work of an essayist who deals in the personal. In this way, the influencer could simply be a digital update of the confessional writer.

Shannon Keating at BuzzFeed recently wrote an essay exploring how the Calloway phenomenon has prompted her to re-examine her choice to write first-person essays. She draws a line, as I also did, from the dusk of the first-person industrial complex to the dawn of the influencer, what she considers to be an even more complicated and ethically murky digital economy of self-exposure and service content, spawned by a desperation for a clearly defined sense of identity. Were looking for answers, writes Keating. Were looking for relatable (or even better, aspirational) role models who are willing to open their lives up to us for inspection, and social media has spawned an endless supply of them. (Its an arc that can be traced back to Emily Gould in the early days of Gawker, who documented her experience in a 2008 New York Times Magazine essay.)

The root of all this angst: Keating had recently written a viral essay for BuzzFeed about falling in love on a lesbian cruise, and the effects of that virality had rendered her a de facto influencer, which troubled her. Had she, through the act of writing, made her personal life into a public commodity? The last thing I wanted was to turn Lynette and me into some sort of lesbian influencer couple, selling us as a desirable product Id much rather people check up on me to read my latest article, not to learn whether or not Im still with my girlfriend, she writes. But as someone who mines her own life for content who always has and probably always will I know thats a ridiculous thing to wish for.

Calloway, for her part, does not seem conflicted about her self-exposure in the slightest; nor, really, does the journalist Lauren Duca, whose aggressive personal branding has propelled her to the level of living meme. Duca got famous for a Teen Vogue piece that, for better or worse, reintroduced the term gaslighting into our political and personal nomenclature, but equally for calling Tucker Carlson a sexist pig as her mic was cut. Then she sold T-shirts emblazoned with a catchphrase borrowed from Carlsons sexist rant.

Still, she insists her public presence isnt self-aggrandizing. She is furious at any comparisons between herself and Calloway, claiming they overshadow her serious and important work. But that work, at least after the initial Teen Vogue salvos and TV appearances, has undoubtedly been overshadowed by her own labor of peddling a persona. Like Calloway, Duca has drawn hundreds of thousands of followers not just through a body of writing but through the projection of a lifestyle that appears compelling in a not particularly radical or innovative way.

Highly paid talks, university teaching gigs, big book deals, and sassy clapback-style tweets is a pretty uncontroversial vision of success as a journalist that many of us would like to copy, whatever we think of Duca herself. But all of this external posturing has overshadowed any actual reportage: at some point, the work becomes the continued maintenance of the image.

To truly contend with a term I suppose we should define it. A social media influencer, according to the Digital Marketing Institute, is simply a user who has established credibility in a specific industry, has access to a huge audience and can persuade others to act based on their recommendations. This is a broad definition that could encompass everyone from Chrissy Teigen (a celebrity who effectively markets her relatability) to Shaun King (another alleged grifter).

When encountering the influencer, we must therefore determine how their credibility was established, in which specific industry, and to what end they deploy their powers of persuasion. The answers to those questions determine whether we view a person online as worthy of our reverence or our scorn. We can accept Jia Tolentinos skincare tips because we know the work at the core of this brand is as solid as it gets, whereas Caroline Calloway becomes a punchline, because even the content that did exist was a ghostwritten illusion.

The problem comes down to the way we view work, and what we view as work in the first place. There is a perception that to simply exist in public space, to influence by living, is not work at all. These influencers who produce photos of themselves, who turn their wider lives into content rather than confining themselves to a byline, are thus dismissed as vapid and shallow, sources of pleasure and no more. The writer, by contrast, is viewed primarily as a purveyor of intellect and meritorious beauty. The writer gives us art, gives us insight and rigor, contextualizes the phenomena that confound us. Their labor is seen as more valid.

But these two imperatives are increasingly inextricable. The internet has become what Tolentino, in our exchange, called persona-based, which has sometimes worked to her advantage. Having come into media outside New York, with no connections and no experience, Ive always been aware that I owe a lot of my career to the fact that my temperament, my self, and my life all map well and easily onto the persona-based internet, she wrote, which has become a horrible substitute for a safety net for a lot of people, from medical GoFundMes to personal brands.

One must have a persona on the persona-based internet, but the persona must be honest, or at least maintain the appearance of honesty. The cultural critic Sarah Nicole Prickett expressed a shrugging ambivalence on the matter of her public persona in an interview with Mask Magazine. I very much have a public persona, even though its a small public, but I feel detached from it, she told Masks co-founding editor Hanna Hurr, who had asked about Pricketts Instagram presence, a cavalcade of sultry selfies, gallery installation shots, and party documentation with more conventionally famous friends. Its something I have, not something I am. Its not even something I feel like I made with any intent, which is also not something Im proud about.

Gevinson echoed this insistence that existing online for her had never been a thing she agonized over. Ive always thought I could be myself in public pretty easily by which I mean, speak without second-guessing myself too much on social media, in writing, in interviews. Artifice was not just absent from her online persona; it was something she feared and actively avoided. I never considered myself calculating who does? and when I did catch glimpses of my own ambition, I thought it was ugly, disgraceful, incongruous with my authentic self, who simply wanted to make things and connect with people and probably, one day, move to the woods.

The great division between writers and influencers is the appearance of effort in exerting influence. Its never cool to look like youre trying too hard. Calloway raves about her shape-shifting acumen, her persona-building, her bottomless ambition to create herself for her own profit; Prickett professes to think very little about her persona, while posing for her own essay on structured denim in SSENSE and being featured as a scene stealer by Mac Cosmetics. If the end result is the same, how much does the division matter?

The writer-influencers identity must be quickly identifiable by the consumer, distilled to a meme-like essence in which content is the same as form. The writing is lifestyle, and vice versa. Tolentino as a cool girl who plays beer pong and smokes a lot of weed. Prickett as an aloof and modelesque bohemian socialite. Fry as a funny and enviably fun-natured lover of all things lowbrow, proclaiming her obsessions with reality shows and random celebrities. Cat Marnell as a romantically messy party girl, a blonde and waifish Bukowski. Olivia Nuzzi as a shoeleather politico, the hot girl in a boys club with the establishment boyfriend to match. Taffy Brodesser-Akner as likable and liked, relatable and intellectual at the same time, the woman who, right now, has it all. Taffys (she can only be Taffy) enthusiasm is even raised as a curious anomaly in journalism; a Punch profiler described her as buoyant a palpable, energetic presence thats difficult to square with the typical image of a lurking or inconspicuous reporter. In other words: she doesnt even seem like a writer!

As a writer without much in the way of influence, I see these women and I feel an imperative to find the thing about me that could best be underscored, amplified, and repeated across platforms, the fragment of self that could become persona. I do not believe any of them to be calculating persona-crafters I take them at their word that what they present is authentic but I believe they have a very useful instinct, in addition to their talent for writing, for precisely which parts of themselves to share and how. Frankly, I fear that is an instinct that I lack but would do well to cultivate. The media industry is less stable than ever, and the one safe strategy seems to be the commodification of personality, turning your voice into followers and paid subscribers that no CEO can take away. We are all but forced to make ourselves, not just our words, the thing we sell.

If were lucky, like Tolentino said, the soul-crushing machine of self-promotion will come for us and the capitalist imperative we hate will become one with the art or work that we love. So maybe theres something to be said for throwing oneself into it wholeheartedly, without shame, maybe even skipping the part where you fritter away underpaid labor in the hopes that someone higher up will notice you. How many women wrote revealing first-person essays and came up empty handed? If were not lucky, the machine doesnt come at all.

Im not immune to any of this. I am acutely aware that I lack Gevinson and Prickett and Frys effortless knack at existing online that I am neurotic and prone to self-doubt in a way that stifles organic self-expression and that makes me anxious. Then I think about what it would mean to supplant that natural instinct with an intentionally crafted persona, and that makes me hate myself. I consider being more vulnerable on Twitter, then I consider all the ways in which that could backfire; I consider posting selfies; I consider writing personal essays and then I consider how all the ways I could mine my life for content make me want to crawl into a hole. The fact that all of the above is agonizing for me to think about makes me feel I am not cut out for this industry in its current state.

I consider also how the women whose work I most admire, whose careers I most want to emulate, are also women who I want to be. Whether or not that is by design, I cant help but feel it is no small part of what continues to drive me to click on their links and buy their books.

It does not escape me that I have been considering only women, that the question of how to optimally present oneself online feels distinctly feminine, and this feels unfair even as the skill is somewhat advantageous, but mostly it feels inevitable. We are socialized to be highly attuned to making ourselves palatable for an audience, to be pleasing to the eye and the ear. This is the case as much on Twitter and Instagram as the physical world. And so we are slotted into this category, seen as much for our apartments and outfits as our writing, left to compete on every level at once.

Meanwhile, the hard-bitten male longform journalist posting Instagram stories of unknown jungles is not treated or viewed as an influencer; he doesnt even worry about his influence in the first place. Nor does the male blogger-turned-venture capitalist who tweets and podcasts constantly. Nor the male mid-level editor bragging about an obviously four-figure fashion purchase on social media. The age of the famous dudeitor middle-aged bros casually dominating media in a laid-back, unaffected posture is over, even though their domination no doubt remains in the background. (Anonymity is a luxury.) Instead we have the age of the woman writer-influencer, both journalist and celebrity.

Im not sure that theres an answer here, only that while I wring my hands over whether to press send on a tweet or make my private Instagram public, Caroline Calloway is meeting with producers interested in turning her Insta-memoir into a movie. I still do not think she is primarily a writer. I do, however, think we have entered a point of no return in the realm of media-industry success that necessarily brings us closer to her than we would perhaps like to admit.

Those who insist that the job of the writer is simply, only, to write are deluding themselves. Editors whose advice is to get off Twitter, put your head down, and do the work are missing something fundamental and indispensable about digital media. Its that all the things that invite derision for influencers self-promotion, fishing for likes, posting about the minutiae of your life for relatability points are also integral to the career of a writer online. At least if you want to be visited by that holy trinity when it comes time for your book launch, you must be an influencer in all the ways that matter.

Read more here:
The journalist as influencer: how we sell ourselves on social media - The Guardian