I like the loveline episodes and when they cover articles from The Cut or talk Russian or do accents. Everything else hasn't been hitting lately. I'm freaked out by how crass and mean and debased and fake and gay everything (writ large, not the pod) seems lately. I need to find some way to re-orient myself in the landscape of 2025 I think. Is it possible that what was once liberating and insightful has become superfluous and spiteful? I love the delightful miscellany of this sub though so I'm eager to hear a vibe check from my fellow Redditors :)

Although the term probably relates to Communist Poland specifically, to me it's deeply tied to the general every day absurdism of life in eastern europe. Theres a kind of "ethic" and vibe thats hard to describe, one built around bootlegs, loopholes, beurocratic decay and the acceptance of normally ridiculous situations as part of every day life.

Anyone raised in eastern europe will have their own stories relating to this feeling of absurdity, the most salient examples usually back in the 80s and 90s.

Now that everyone apart from technofeudalists won't have have an office job any more, people are gonna have big nostalgia for:

Office birthday cakes

Dressing in suits

Cubicles

Pointless meetings

Dilbert

Water coolers and water cooler conversations

Smoke breaks

Sexual harassment

Corporate aesthetics

There will be a 90s-style Mad Men series where the protagonist anticipates social media when he sees a computer, a phone and a magazine on the same desk.

Boring asf and Kendrick sounded like shit. SZA was by far the best part she sounded great.

Under another trump reign it seems cold, dark, sinister and unfunny.

After ten years of being married, his wife, Yoko, decided to leave him stating "Through the ten years we lived together, he would only look at me through the lense of a camera. The photos he took of me were undoubtedly depictions of himself".

This drove Masahisa into a deep depression where he would find solace in photographing ravens, which in Japanese culture represent disruptive presences and bringers of dark and dangerous times. His obsession with ravens spanned 10 years, and his Ravens book is considered one of the most important photo books of all time.

calibri sucks too you basically bitch, like candela sans is also free on word

Between the chronic smiler & the professional hoe scarer. Remember the sub rules.

I'm not anti-tattoos by any means. Here in America, everyone under the age of 50 has tattoos. Because they're a permanent custom visual signifier and so incredibly removed from taboo at this point, they're a convenient way to "express one's authentic self" which is something that Americans are obsessed with. And let's be honest, they still manage to make you look slightly cooler if they're not complete dog shit (and even then, if you're hot enough, you can pull off shitty tattoos). I think all but one of my exes have had tats and it never factored in to how I felt about them.

All that said, when I find out someone my age doesn't have tattoos and isn't planning to get any (barring religious reasons), I see them in new light. Someone free from social pressure who has no interest in trying to appear cool or interesting (which is inherently cool and interesting). This goes double if the person is involved in any kind of arts adjacent scene. Obviously an overgeneralization on my part, but I can't help seeing someone who can resist that kind of pressure and allure as more authentic and genuine.

This building makes me want to go into cripping debt for a useless advanced degree and live out my dark academia fantasy