#igloo mag

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The Igloo | Issue 1

Where the cool things are (for the first time).

This is a thing now, and we can't believe it. Inside the first issue of The Igloo, you'll find some of our favorite posts (including an article about Grace Helbig and an interview with Hotmessmoves), as well as some new things like an essay comparing Orwell and Kanye (yes, seriously), and a flowchart that will help you decide which member of the Igloo Crew you are. So get reading because we are incredibly proud of this.

A massive thank you to Maya Singer, the genius behind the design who is still working tirelessly on the issue so we can print it.  

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Word Time With the Igloo

This is yet another word coined by Emily Dombrovskaya, and it is definitely a winner. 

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Home

By Ellie Boroughs

I have never really had a bedroom that felt like it was really my own. My parents got divorced when I was 5, so I spent my childhood moving back and forth between bedrooms. For a while, my dad just lived in a duplex, and there were only two bedrooms. When my brothers and I spent the night, they had their own room and I slept either in my dad’s room or on the couch. In the house my mom rented, my room was decorated in a way that was never really comfortable for me. It was also on the first floor and everyone else had rooms on the second. As a child, it wasn’t a room I ever wanted to sleep in, so I usually didn’t.

When my dad bought the house that he still owns, I was able to paint my walls and put up posters, which made it feel a little bit more like it was my room, but I still didn’t live there all the time, so I could never fully accept that as my room. Every summer when I visit, it feels less and less like it is mine because the paint has faded and the relics of my childhood still remain. There is nothing there that represents who I am now. The second house I lived in with my mom was the one I lived in the longest, but it still never felt like home. My walls were white and I never put anything on the walls. The only way you could tell it was lived in was by the mess I always left on my floor.

When I moved internationally, I left behind almost everything. I spent a lot of time in my bedroom in Morocco, but I never made it my room because it wasn’t a place I was happy living in, and I think I wanted to remind myself that it was only temporary. I think I kind of regret that now.

My first year in Moscow, I was pretty unhappy too. I started off disliking Moscow more than I disliked Casablanca because I had a hard time making friends. I didn’t spend a lot of time in my bedroom that year. It always felt like a really dark room. The curtains I had up looked like they belonged in a hotel, and in a way that is how I view that bedroom. Like my room in Morocco and the unhappiness I felt, it was only temporary. I made great friends and I moved into a new apartment.

My first year at the apartment I am now definitely did not make me feel at home. My bedroom ceiling was covered with paintings of clowns and rainbows left over from the kid who lived in the room before me. While I have never been afraid of clowns, it was not the best experience waking up to that sight every morning. The clowns are still there, but they are now covered with paint, so I can’t see them. I got to paint my walls purple and grey for my birthday and rearrange all my furniture, and I am so glad because now I am in a place where I feel like I belong. I love the city I live in. I love the friends I have. I love the bedroom I sleep in. Now, I just have to spend some more of my waking hours in here and put some things up on the wall. Then, I’ll know what home feels like and I’ll be able to make myself feel at home anywhere.

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Confidart

By Emily Dombrovskaya

In my whole childhood (and I still consider myself a child to some extent), I can only remember two instances of positive feedback for my art. Once, when my fourth grade art teacher, Zhanna Stepanovna, complimented me on the detail with which I had drawn the leaves of a birch tree leaning on an orthodox church, an incredibly Russian scene. And once again, when my grandfather glued a landscape I had sketched to a square of hardboard he found in the house. Needless to say, I am not an advanced or confident visual artist.

But I’ve always loved art. I’m very lucky to have parents who, sacrificing their mental health, took me to many exhibitions as a screaming toddler, trying to leave something bright and beautiful in my head. Still having no visible talent for art, I decided to do the next best thing: become very educated, know and understand art with the sensibility and intuition only known to the artist and myself. In the first chapter of the Great Gatsby Nick Carraway says that the greatest thing you can be is an educated person (wildly paraphrased), and I hold that as the highest truth available in my life.

In the process of learning I’ve become wiser, if only by a little bit, and I’ve realized that some passions are for myself; these passions are worth pursuing. If you walk out into the world naked you can still see a lot before the cops arrest you, but if you live in fear - there will be nothing for the cops to notice. I may not be a wonderful artist, but I’m happy now. I’m taking classes, I’m keeping a journal and I’m not afraid to make a bold piece anymore. The shy pencil-drawn landscapes of my childhood have changed to bizarre, bright body parts, and I can see myself growing up. I think of it as a subtle triumph, growth that spreads into other areas of my life, slowly making me a happy person with a wholesome glow to my aura.

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13 Things 2013 Taught Me

By Ellie Boroughs

You will always figure it out eventually, so do not let your fear of being wrong or not knowing keep you from doing something. Take risks because every person has been where you are, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they are in denial.

It is genuinely okay to not like someone. You don’t have to force it because you think you should like them. You won’t like everyone and not everyone will like you.

If you are on a long walk with friends, and your feet start to hurt, it is important to stop and make sure they aren’t bleeding because bloody feet are not fun.

Be honest.

Kisses in the rain don’t have to be romantic to be the good type of memorable.

Alone time is essential. Sometimes, you just need space to think and recharge and that is 100% okay.

Believe in just going out and doing something, especially if the thought of failure scares you because even if the experience is bad, you’ll have a great story, and chances are you won’t have anything to regret.

Take a break from the stress and just have a spontaneous solo dance party.

You can survive on 5-6 hours of sleep a night, but 4 will just make your week horrible.

Make as many jokes as you possibly can. Someone will always find at least 1 of them funny. And if other people are happy, isn’t that all that matters?

Make sure to listen to other people more than you make other people listen to you because the other side of the story is always as important as yours, even if you disagree with it.

 You can be outrageous as you want as long as you show no shame. It is impossible to make a fool of yourself if you are fine with being a fool.

Surround yourself with people who want to talk to you at 2am on a school night because those are the people who care about you, and those are the memories that you can never forget. 

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Tomorrow, we will be launching Word Time with the Igloo, a collection of words we have completely made up (or in some cases, made up new definitions for). Every Wednesday, we will add a new word to The Dictionary, so make sure to keep an eye out for all the lies we are going to tell you!

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Purpose

By Alex Botashev

We are sitting on the shoulders of giants, and in the midst of a world so vast and so amazing – with science that is so beautiful and so poetic, history that is so immense – looking back into stars that were and thinking about stars that will be; who are we to complain about anything?

[1] Carl Sagan [2] Richard Dawkins

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What Would a Real Teenager Do?

By Ewa Niżałowska

I became fascinated with teenagers in elementary school. Walking to class, I would linger in the hallway to watch the high school students pass by, attempting to act casual and hide my admiration from them. I don’t really know what it was about older kids that appealed to me so much, but they always seemed enthusiastic and passionate; they had a witty remark in store for every occasion, and, unlike my classmates, they were actually doing stuff with their lives. But, above all, they were just really cool. I couldn’t wait to be 15 or 16 and be part of this exciting world, spend time with people who really got me, and become the most punk rock person on Earth. It’s not like I was using this fantasy of being a teenager as an escape from the horror of being in fifth grade or whatever—quite the contrary, I enjoyed every moment of not having to worry about dating or pimples—but in the back of my mind, I knew there was a cooler version of me out there: the totally rad, rebellious teenage version that I was about to become.

I am now on the brink of sixteen, and of course, I am far from being fascinated by the idea of being a teenager these days. This is not just because the midnight adventures I had imagined are now replaced by solitary midnight movie marathons, and my enthusiasm is limited to the occasional glimpses of joy upon realizing there’s still leftover pizza in the fridge. Even that sounds pretty glamorous because it implies that I do the cool conventional things teenagers do, like eating pizza and watching movies in bed, when in reality I just feel like a clump of negative emotions most of the time. It’s not so much the fact that I have yet to experience true teenage life that puzzles me. I don’t really care that I’ve never had a boyfriend, or that I’ve never danced to “Come On Eileen” at a school dance. What is more important to me is the fact that I don’t even want those experiences anymore. I don’t want to be cool or admired when I can stay in my room and do what I really enjoy doing, like making art or reading. While everyone around me is suddenly transforming from my awkward classmates to the kind of interesting, outgoing people I had always dreamt of becoming, I still feel like the same shy and nerdy kid I was at 11. And the thing is, I’m totally fine with being childish or inexperienced—I’d much rather watch my favorite movie than do something I don’t enjoy just for the satisfaction of being able to relate to justteenagerthings posts.

I think the realization that you don’t really want to fit into society’s standard of coolness, or beauty, or punk rock level can be even more terrifying than wanting to fit in but not being able to. The latter just implies that you need to hone your personality or refresh your wardrobe, or whatever attaining your goals requires. The former means you deliberately get away from what most people expect of you, which usually means you’re going to have a hard time in high school. It also means, however, that you’re already doing something most people struggle with for their entire lives: finding yourself, not caring about what other people think, and, most importantly, realizing there’s really no such thing as the right way to make use of your teenage years—the best thing you can do is just stick to what makes you happy. And for that, I tip my hat off to you.