Global Culture Production; Color as Rebellion (Fill Your Educational Void Vol. 1)

2024 Ins and Outs, Global culture production, color as Rebellion, event architecture, Chromophobia, race after technology

Happy New Year my dear dear reader. I’m writing to you from bed with a New Year’s Eve hangover (a not-so-friendly reminder from my body that I’m not 18, and five six drinks can indeed do some damage). Anyway, I’m so happy to greet you in 2024. The few days around new years is my favorite time of the year. I love the idea of new year as It can be celebrated by people from probably all cultures. It’s refreshing and forgiving, and it fills me with hope. It’s like a birthday, but better. I celebrate it without fear of aging and the guilt of wasting the past.

I’m the type of girl who would totally spend hours making a solid year-end review and a New Year vision board. I allow myself to be cliché, basic, and cheerful around this time of the year. What’s your New Year’s resolution? I believe in the power of sharing inspiration, hopes, and small excitements, so please please share them with me.

A little New Year’s resolution to add to your list: if you haven’t already, please go get a card at your local library. For the majority of libraries, you can easily do this by submitting a simple application on their website (and usually you will receive your digital card immediately). Public libraries provide tons of free online resources, and by signing up for a library card, you are also helping your library secure future funding. Check out this article “Why is it important to have a library card?”

Before we get started on the first vol of Fill The Educational Void, I want to quickly share with you my 2024 Ins and Outs list. I had fun making the list and reading others’. I hope it can inspire you as well.

IN:

• Book annotation/write on the margin of book pages

• Common place notebook

• Styling > buying

• Make decisions

• Appreciating without purchasing

• Researching and curating

• Archiving and downloading

• Fun socks

• Blow dry my hair

• Take space

• Protect space for reaction and reflection

• Messy makeups

• Do not disturb

• Add colors to…everything

• Organized closet

• Proteins

• Travel

• Act with intention

• Photos/videos to document any worthy moments

OUT:

• Feeling cringe

• Eat without purpose

• Mindless scrolling

• Self pithiness

• Trying to fill the awkward space

• Ugly WFH fit

• Too much creamer

• Body dysmorphia

• Fyp/Feed/contents that are not curated by human being

• Let go. I refuse to let things go. I refuse to have things forgotten

Okay! Now serious stuff. This is the first volume of Fill The Educational Void series. In case you missed it. I talked about it in So I Launched a Project (an Invitation). I highly recommend you to check it out quickly.

A bit of background: People, including myself, often slow down or even stop their liberal arts learning after leaving school. We lose access to libraries, well-thought-out syllabi, environments that motivate learning and growth, and most frighteningly, our curiosity to delve deep and understand how the world truly works. We stop reading, writing, and researching. So, I want to create a seminar, a flexible syllabus, an environment for collective learning.

I’m still exploring the ideal format, depth, and information density for this series, so please, please, please send me your feedback and suggestions.

If you have not yet become a paid subscriber, you can sign up by logging into the Substack app (you might need a VPN if you are in mainland China). You can also get one month of free access by referring this Substack to three of your friends by clicking the bottom below:

So Now.

GLOBAL CULTURE INDUSTRY

• Reading material: the intro chapter of “Global Culture Industry: The Mediation of Things.” (You should be able to download it for free).

• Key words: culture production, thingified, event architecture without concepts.