#pagemelt

[redgoldsparks]

Big fan of this video essay by @pagemelt about being a thoughtful and active curator of what you see, read, consume, and interact with online. I've watched it twice and I'm very likely to watch it again!

[acewatney]

[aestheticqueenb]

july 2025 newsletter zine

i am both wound and will – n.d

playlist of the month: i don't deserve it but i want it anyway

in catholic teaching, human worth is often framed around ideas of sin, virtue, penance, and grace. i was taught from a young age that i was born with the original sin, that i am, in essence, undeserving and that only through repentance, sacrifice, and obedience can i be made worthy of love, forgiveness, or God forbid, salvation.

this created a moral economy: if i suffer, confess, deny myself, then i may deserve something good: God's love, a sense of peace, a place in heaven, unrequited love.

but there is no salvation, or deservance of it. there is want, because i want there to be salvation even when there is none. this desire in me has existed for long, long before i knew how to honour it.

desire becomes radical when it refuses justification. when i say “i don’t deserve it but i want it anyway” i don’t just mean pain, but the tragedy of its love as well, wanting something so bad and still not get it, or wanting it so fiercely i dig up claws into it. i believe all wanting to be selfish and sacred. holy in its defiance. the part of me that says all these philosophical quandaries are completely irrelvant, because i want, i need.

these songs are about wanting, about secret desires, about needs that were always left unattendend. it is a childish cry into the abyss: “why did you hurt me, and why do i miss it?” but also a cry of childish anger “i deserved better! i deserved better! oh didn’t i deserve better”

 >>> click here to listen to it on youtube  <<<  

want a real cd copy of this playlist? i’m burning cds and putting my own covers on them. if you’d like to support me and my love for physical media, reach out to me [email protected]

video essay of the month: be your own algorithm by mel thomas, aka pagemelt

in the age of algorithmic social feeds, be your own analog self. or even better: log off.

but we know you won’t. we won’t. the internet ecosystem is so entwined with our daily lives that it’s not as simple as “logging off.” touching grass is not enough. we need to reject the conveniently laid out algorithms and embrace the digital as our own, because it is.

i, like you, am a victim of these feeds. i love tiktok. heck, i love youtube video essays that get recommended to me by the same algorithm i’m now complaining about. there is no escape from this irony, only the way in which we engage with it. how do i stop doomscrolling for 5 hours straight as i lay in bed? by rejecting convenience.

i remember when my family had set up the computer in the living room. i could only use it when my dad or brother weren’t on it. this created a space for desire, for want. i wanted to be on the internet, but i had to wait my turn. i had to sit with my want. on the fyp, when do you even have time to want anything?

this isn’t a flaw in the design, it is the design. the frictionless environment big tech wants us to exist in is destroying us. less friction means less human interaction, less of you in the content you consume. one of the reasons i started this newsletter is because i realized i kept consuming content that required almost no effort. i didn’t need to ask google questions or do any research into whatever new interest popped up in the moment. i didn’t even need to ask my real life friends what they thought about anything, i could just go on reddit and read a thousand opinions i never asked for, but surprisingly always seemed to care about. i sat there passively and let the system decide what i should care about. this is what brain rot is.

mel talks a lot about reclaiming your agency in the digital landscape, about how being not only critical of our consumption but also active participants in it is what will help us navigate this ecosystem, instead of drowning in it. >>> click here to watch <<<

there is also reject convenience, a channel that has become my go to food for digital thought. i recommend his entire channel because there is honestly so much to discover once you get curious, once you choose to investigate rather than click and forget.

>>> click here to watch my favourite video of his <<<

artist of the month: mayra biajante | @mayrabiajante on instagram

mayra biajante is a brazilian photographer and embroider artist. her photo embroidery work has captivated me for years. the way in which she captures movement in stillness, and subtle actions in the blur.

i remember taking a photo embroidery workshop in colombia 4 years ago, i tried many time to recreate the feelings mayra manages to capture, but to no avail.

her work is always so inspiring to me, and i hope you find it as beautifully stitched as i do

>>> click here to check out her work <<<

“The embroidery represents the interweavings that formed along the way: meetings, paths, crossings. The knots that remain—and those that come undone.”  

mapas imaginários – mayra biajante

ninah dau, july 2025

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