Tag: social media

AI Overviews and Renaming the Things

I feel like my brain is getting stuck in a quagmire of stupidity in 2026, like wet concrete under the feet of my thoughts when I am writing a blog post or crafting a conversation. It’s not because of using AI that is melting my brain, instead I feel like my brain is constantly having to jump through hoops to navigate the day’s new nonsense. I’ll explain.

Okay, so you’re having a quick search, ideally Duck Duck Go but habits die hard, so I Google only to be bombarded by AI overviews. Now comes the first hoop to jump through, remember to scroll down and ignore the overview to find a reliable source, scroll, scroll…then find a source to reference. Remember how a few years ago you could get Google search results, indexed and organized? Remember how simple that was? The mental effort required to find what you were looking for was streamlined, and now it is not, unless you want the “AI overview” which is nothing more than Google ripping information from the sources and digesting it for you, no matter how inaccurate they are. Creating more chaos, and more barriers to understanding. To be honest, maybe we were idiotic to leave the physical sources in the first place. Microfilm and archives are time consuming, but at least they are organized and unchanging.

For an example of how flawed this new overview format is, I present Dejeon Love. I recommend you look it up, because it is complex. For a reliable overview, I’d recommend Ashley Viola’s commentary on this. In short, Dejeon Love is a scammer, who was able to pad his online persona with so many videos claiming he was a San Francisco player, that it tricked the Google AI Overview. Why does this matter? When his victims searched for him, AI Overview confirmed the lie, and therefore it gave him credit. How disgusting is that? I personally think Google should be held accountable for assisting Love scam 1.3 million USD from 26 women, but of course they won’t be, because this is “the future”.

The other nonsense that is melting our brains day after day is the renaming game being facilitated by Google Maps, an 80 year toddler with a pen, and weak sauce government officials. First we had the Gulf of America in 2025, now we have the Lake of America, and now the state of New America, which I am sure Google Maps will bend over for that one. Aa long as the Kleptocracy of 2026 continues to line Google’s pockets, they will be whoring themselves out for it. I mean the scam worked for Elon, Meta, just give in for the money right? Who cares if it dilutes and corrupts your product, with legal and safety consequences. That seems to be of no concern, because they’ll just tell the machine to propagandize its safety. Case in point, the new Meta ads claiming its safety, while Meta in court over a lawsuit of the contrary.

My mind is so tired of critical thinking this much, over analyzing, factchecking things that used to be reliable, just to communicate the most basic things in 2026, because we have given into nonsense and the dissolution of standards. What are we doing to ourselves?! How will future generations view this time period? The regurgiation  of everything era? The Golden Age of AI Slop? Honestly, I hope the state of New Mexico, which is the only governing body that can name itself, uses this as an opportunity to rename itself Nuevo Mexico, and educate our nation of its longer history in North America. The capital city of Santa Fe was founded in 1610, that is 166 years before America was created by the Declaration of Independence.

There are so many things, lofty things, we could be doing instead of debating the names of things that can’t be changed. Or how about how all the things we are having to debate because one person is doing things that he can’t do, with powers he doesn’t have? Or how about the time wasted everyday getting around the AI tools that have been integrated into our lives, slowing things down and stealing our resources? It is a quagmire, draining our focus and mental energy to avoid these idiotic improvements. I mean, after the Lake Ontario incident, how many of downloaded Map Quest? It’s not easy to use! I’m tired of this. Must we leave technology behind to escape this farce of progress? I hope not, for all the resources extracted to create this system that was helpful, that has been made more difficult to use, over and over again.

I’m just a girl, who hates change, especially when it is useless change. Do you agree?

A Sea Of Shifting Sand

The more I feel like I should suppress my feelings about something, the more I feel it pressing upon my heart to be bold and talk about it. Can you relate?

I feel like my world has been swirling around me since 2024. Change. Good or bad, I never feel prepared. Leveling up in life, it is rewarding yet sometimes it is more akin to biking up hill and shifting gears downward for the tough pedaling ahead. And I wonder if there are more people feeling this way?

My early thirties have been incredibly rewarding – buying a house, adopting a rabbit, building a garden, successfully sewing pants, etc. But they have also been a sea of shifting sand globally, professionally, and personally.

We all know the public, political bad – the orange fool that has put us all on blast for 2 years. The price of everything, including yarn & fabric has challenged my professional goals because it is so expensive. It zapped my creativity and threw me off my game. I mean, how can I feel inspired to create when neighbors are being kidnapped and put into concentration camps, and our tax dollars are going to fund a war and a genocide. It’s dark. Like where is the joy when that is happening and your “representatives” are trying to silence your right to vote?

I basically took a year off from sewing to regroup, picking up my thimble again this August. I threw my focus into yarn crafts – knitting and crochet, pondering what my plan is going to be to fight for what is right. It’s been humbling to understand that I can help and also this whole situation is systemic, and will be far more difficult to get to the bottom of then I realized. But game on.

AI and the poor economy has been discouraging to my professional goals of becoming a pattern designer. I would like to be a full time, fiber artist, that is bringing in money. But AI has been a one two punch of stealing work and stealing engagement of artists everywhere. It has made creativity feel hopeless, and sharing work online, like I am contributing to a malevolent overlord.

AI and data centers are like a curse dropped into our lives, disrupting what worked and what gave us joy. Now, we have to fight for our water, environment, and creative expression. I know we humans will win this one. I fully believe AI is a fad that will cause a bunch of damage and then collapse – like mining and steel, it is just going to be messy in the present and future. 

What I wasn’t prepared for was the personal complexities of marriage, healing from childhood trauma together, and the doom spiral of parents having health issues and also toxic parents dropping in to rock your world. I have felt some days like nothing feels familiar. Some days, this healing journey that Kyle and I are together has feel like a canyon, spreading between us, and we’ll never rejoin on the same road again. It has been so weird.

Why doesn’t anyone prepare you for how hard marriage is? Or how outside forces and generational cycles can seriously fight the strong bond you have with your spouse. I feel like he and I have been in the trenches on one of these outside problems for a decade now, and I just want us to be able to climb out of this together and walk home hand in hand, but people are complicated and so for now, we keep holding on together and waiting for the hard work to be over.

I have never tried so hard across so many different relationships, and tasks (gardening, house responsibilities, social media marketing) to grow and succeed just for things to unravel over and over again. I have felt like I am on a boat that cartoonishly keeps springing leaks, and I am out of limbs and props, to stop the leaks. Some days I wish the cartoon rapids would just appear already so I can sail over the waterfall and smash the boat to bits, because my best efforts feel so futile. I get burnt out and want a change. Because perseverance is exhausting. Choosing to be hopeful and keep going can feel like a cruel joke.

What has shaken me to the core though, and I’m nervous to talk about, is the way the church doesn’t feel like the church to me. My churching friends have become far too comfortable with Christian Nationalism and it is freaking me out. The blind eye to suffering, and the hyper fixation on “sins” that are not sins. I have always found it baffling that the concept of a person in the church getting a divorce, or seeing Catholic believers as “real” Christians is controversial to some people. It’s those kind of opinions that get canonized by the group, that are so destructive.

That’s not even dipping our toes into the sexism, purity culture, and racism that has been alive for centuries. Seeing how normal this is, has been infuriating to me. It has made me feel like I don’t know where I belong anymore. And to be honest, has awoken real life pain of never feeling good enough to be a “good Christian” to some because my parents divorced.

To be clear, I 100% believe in God and that God is good, and that it is the church, the humans, that are taking things to a bad place. I’d like to elaborate more on these reflections in another post, because I don’t think I’m alone in feeling like I am at risk of being sucked into the corruption in these normally “safe” spaces.

It’s not what I thought the church and my christian friends would become. The corruption is running rampant here, and I hate it. But this is not the first, and won’t be the last, because constant sanctification is needed to continually keep our focus on what is important – loving others as God loves us.

I have a ton of stuff to work through, and I am so far from perfect. I just want to open up about things I have been too afraid to open up about because of the highly controlling religious school settings I have found myself in as a kid, and no I did not go to Catholic school, I went to very Calvinist leaning private schools.

So we’ll see if I am brave enough to keep unpacking. I think we all just need to air this stuff out to move forward as the body of Christ in a healthier place, that is not wrapped in a fake cloak of hidden sin and cyclical shame of those who want to talk about the sin being tolerated, because the church in America is fine with teaming up with the political machine and money chasing.

This was a rambling one, but if you stuck through, I appreciate you.

Thank You

I hope, dear reader, you know how much this WordPress community means to me. I have shared before how frustrating it is to share my designs on Instagram, how I have chased the algorithm and have been disappointed over and over by the shifting sands of Meta. The algorithm has felt even more desolate lately, not even showing my posts with my friends. It feels like yelling into a void. I feel like the rat in a cage from a Bullet with Butterfly Wings.

The reason why I started sharing my work on my Facebook and Instagram when I began sewing and picked up knitting again in the 2020, was to connect with others and find community. I’m tired of my feed drowning in advertisement, and feeling disconnected from others when they post and I post because we are not monetizing our every post. I don’t want to sell you anything. I want to inspire and learn together. I want to make art. I want to not feel alone, just like we all do.

WordPress has been the exception and your community makes me feel hopeful that in the AI Slop, short-form content, linked-below hellscape that is the internet right now, that we can still be there for each other. Thank you for every view, every like, every comment. You mean the world to me. Being an artist right now sucks, but you all make it magical.

I have been making a lot, organizing my work room, finding a lot of inspiration from like-minded folks on the internet and listening to good music. My favorites recently have been Haute & Freddy and rediscovering The Smashing Pumpkins after their amazing Lollapalooza performance. I wish you a lovely Friday! Until next time ❤

Maybe Fiction Isn’t the Best Way to Express the Art?

With a new year comes new goals, like should I get organized and make this the year I return to writing as my full-time focus? I’ve been mulling over this for the past six months. I started watching more book-focused media and picked up physical books again, all in the quest to jump back into fiction writing after a one-time try in 2017 – also known as Udal Cuain. It was the ultimate escape during a time when every part of my life was falling apart, and we were struggling. My family was struggling; it was isolating, but instead, I crafted a world that I could escape into. I couldn’t afford therapy, so I wrote about what was on my mind. And it helped. It felt like a high I had never experienced before, but then it stopped helping. Life got a lot more complicated, but also better, more on track, and I walked away from it. Then I lost the draft for 6 years until I found it last January.

Life has been messy again, and the world feels like it is literally on fire, and I can feel the pull to want a coping mechanism.

This is where our story begins.

As I share often on this blog, I have become a sewist and fiber artist. I began this journey to a career pivot after a layoff in 2020, and it has become my whole world, particularly knitting and crochet. I find the more I dive into the craft of yarn, the more I feel creative release and the ability to tell stories with my stitches. You can even protest with it. I have been a visual artist my whole life, the frequency depending on how many notebooks, pencils, or paints I have access to. It is my first love. So where does writing fit in?

I was always a writer who enjoyed essays. I like writing about something, researching the subject, and I adore historical research. I enjoyed poetry in school, but my affection for literature came much later. Mainly by force, if you want to take AP English, you must read this many books over the summer. I’m still not the most passionate reader, I definitely take breaks between reading sprints, and sometimes I won’t pick up a book for months, because my hands are always busy with a project. This has put my desire to write another novel, a more polished one, in conflict with my life and potentially my calling.

This week, I sat down to brainstorm another round of novel ideas. This is my third or fourth round of this since 2023. Every time, I think of some good options, narrow my list down, start plotting, and hit a wall. My heart is not in it. I don’t see the characters or care to take my time to meet them. I want to get on with it and then analyze the deeper meaning. The other thing that happens regularly is that I freeze, and I think about how the world has changed since 2017 – mainly BookTok.

I don’t read Romantasy, I’m not going to write spice because that’s not my interest. Don’t look to me for trauma or disturbing plot lines; I don’t want to write that. I am white, cis, and straight, so will I offend by not having representation? I also don’t have the proper experience to offer diverse representation. I don’t know what I have to say in a book, like in a bigger picture – I don’t know what the deeper meaning is that I am looking to point to that I couldn’t just write about in an essay or create with visual or fiber art. This is where the title should start making sense. I don’t think worldbuilding and dialogue are my paint and canvas, and I don’t think we spend enough time considering where our gifts are best suited right now because of social media content.

We are so concerned with getting our work plugged into the algorithm, jumping on trends, cross-posting, and getting successful that we aren’t considering if the medium is best for our art. We are trying to fit in, and that’s killing creativity and the editing eye to know that’s not for me. I feel like it is obvious now, since reflecting on why I have writer’s block, but taking the time to look objectively feels so hard to do when we are fighting the AI monster. But it is okay to specialize. It is okay to find your niche and not appeal to everyone. It is better to work within your wheelhouse and say something authentically you and express it in a medium that feels true to yourself than worry about keeping up with others.

Maybe the best thing we can do as creative people is edit and focus on where we feel the most alive. I feel the most alive planning a personal knitting project that features motifs that represent my life and my loves. I love blogging and talking about serious things, not in literary techniques but in societal critique. I spent the day today, sketching and drafting pet portraits, and I am the most relaxed I have been in months. It’s the same high I felt writing Udal Cuain. I didn’t feel that way while brainstorming a novel. I felt nervous. So I don’t think it’s for me anymore.

Have you ever fallen into this trap? How did you find your way out? Thanks for spending time with me today. Until next time. Stay safe out there and know you are loved.

New Habits to End 2025

First off, Happy New Year! Thank you to anyone and everyone who took the time to check out our work in 2025. You are a blessing to us!

It’s been a much better end to the year, from where we wandered in 2025. I swear this year was mentally, more taxing than others. I never knew marriage could be this difficult. Or being a daughter. There were some big moments, behind the scenes where I felt like my life as I know was as stable as an earthquake and I couldn’t tell anyone.

I’ve gotten better at sitting with my problems by myself. That is one thing, I am finding comfort in again. Being by myself, without a bunch of screens to make me feel like I am being “social” when I am not.

Habit #1

Since Thanksgiving Day, I have been limiting my time on social media. I have a timer set to a few minutes for Instagram, most days. I have done this successfully now for 5 weeks. At first it was a but tought to keep it at zero, so I cushioned myself to 15 mins. By Christmas week, I didn’t feel any pull to open the app. The only connection I do feel to my account is a few online friends I have met, who without Instagram, are disconnected from my life. Therefore I am keeping my account, but I am detoxing my addiction. With a record of two weeks without posting.

Habit #2

In December I started challenging myself to do pushups again. They started with knee pushups and have risen to a record of 20 real pushups in a set. My goal moving into 2026, is to do these consistently throughout the week and be more fit, along with the other exercises I do – rebounding, wall pilates, and yoga. More consistency.

Habit #3

Books. I am watching less Youtube when I knit and reading more. I listen to audiobooks through Libby and read while working on other days. So far I have completed four books, which sounds pathetic, but I had not been reading at all for years. I would read a book or two per year since we moved to our current town. I missed the previous city’s library and the mental wellness to focus. But this summer, we joined a local to us library and restoked my desire to be bookish again.

Final Thoughts

Unintentionally, I already started my “resolutions” and it feels great. It shows me that maybe finishing a year on a good note is about setting yourself up with good habits before the “fresh start” and if you are feeling a bit off going into 2026, maybe get off of socials too? Except for wordpress, truly a great group of people on here. 💖

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What If Game of Wool Celebrated Design and Craftsmanship?

sheep in a field

If you missed it, I made a Game of Wool Bingo card for episodes 1-3, because in my opinion, this show should not be taken seriously. I’ve given up watching, interacting with recaps, etc. I’m not going to watch beyond episode 3, and that is because hate-watching is validation in the attention economy of 2025. That got me thinking, what do I wish Game of Wool was instead of what it is? Game of Wool, just like Project Runway, I have notes!

No Kits or Internet Dressing Projects

I don’t want any themed-making kits sold per episode. They have been doing this for the episodes I have watched, each week partnering with a big yarn company, honestly making kits that serve no purpose other than a cash grab. I also don’t want to watch weekly episodes with challenges that create useless items. Useless from a practical and technical standpoint.

  • Crochet and knit swimwear is dumb. You can’t wear it other than for a photo shoot, which places it in the “internet dressing” category. It’s for a photo. It’s not even practical for a music festival. But it does resemble a “Coachella” look.
  • A crochet deck chair had potential, but it was not used within the materials provided or the time frame.
  • A dog sweater with a required hat is not kind or practical for dogs. The sweater is comfortable, but the hat is not comfortable for the dog. Again, it is for a photo. Washability was not discussed either.
  • The mohair sweater was the only challenge that was the closest to being a useful challenge, for design teamwork and wearability, but they ruined it with the ridiculous time frame.
  • A couch cover is useless, because I have thought about constructing one for my own couch to stash bust, but it’s just not practical for anything other than a showpiece. Which is how they judged it, so a lot of wool was wasted to make a big, useless swath of fabric.
  • The fair isle vest misrepresented a heritage craft of the region they were filming in. Why not just film a historical film set in the Renaissance, and put the actresses in Victorian corsets without a chemise, tight-laced? Same level of idiocy to be flashy!

This Game of Wool presents everything that late-stage capitalism is in relation to crafting and hobbies, thanks to greed, social media, and the attention economy. The British farmers could use the income; how about sourcing locally? What about sustainability and slow fashion? Yeah, 12-hour challenges do not represent anything but hustle culture. Girl boss, slay!

How Would I Fix It?

  • Real experts, not these two ladies.
  • Either all amateurs or all expert contestants. Pick a lane. Either be the Bake-Off or be Project Runway and offer a CFDA mentorship kind of prize.
  • Bring in a real mentor to help in the wool barn.
  • Take them on field trips to see wool being processed, dyed, and spun. Same with flax for linen.
  • Tell the story of why textiles matter and why fair trade for the animals, farmers, and ethical standards matter.
  • Explain why local matters for the economy and the ecology of the region.
  • Teach the history of cottage industries.
  • Teach the history of how knitting has changed the world, such as the development of textile machinery and the creation of the binary code. Essentially, fill in the gap of what Sci Show failed to do.
  • Set real challenges that teach, showcase the skill of the fiber artists, and show innovation.
  • Do a challenge that involves unravelling sweaters for yarn and teach the world about this amazing, sustainable possibility.
  • Task the fiber artists to design patterns, and explore what goes into design and proper pattern writing, because it is a technical skill.
  • Make things that will be auctioned off for charity.
  • Bring in people as guest judges who will bring professional connections and opportunities for the fiber artists.
  • Set realistic deadlines, and slow down the pace of the show. Follow a timeline like Mind of a Chef that explores moments of cooking over an entire season.
  • Let the makers make, unencumbered by the pace of the internet. Take note from Bernadette Banner and other makers out there that celebrate true craftsmanship and sustainability in the heyday of microplastics.

I’m tired of this show discounting a skill that has been tossed aside as a Grandma hobby since the Industrial Revolution. In these weird and wacky times, slow fashion and an appreciation of craftsmanship are in short supply in the media. This show had such potential! But they are truly chasing the money over integrity.

Socks Are Madness

This is a story of a winding road. It is not just passion that makes us try new and difficult things, but also the desire to fit in. Sometimes the road is bumpy, and bumpier still than we expected.

Last winter, I began a journey; at the time, I did not realize how technical this would be, and oh, how I miss the naive wonder of that time. I started my quest to make socks. The sock does not appear technical from the outside. It is a tube of knit fabric which we slip on our feet, most every day. Due to the Industrial Revolution, socks can be knit by machine with ease and speed. This has suspended our connection to the technology that first developed the sock—hand knitting.

In our modern day, socks are affordable and accessible. They are for sale everywhere in a myriad of textures, weights, and styles. We have socks for athleticism, socks for leisure, socks for style. They are boring, mundane Christmas gifts of childhood, and puppets with googly eyes. But what does it take to make a sock by hand?

I gave this a shot last year, and it challenged me! I cataloged my experience in Socks, A Journey, and Socks: An Update, where I began knitting socks flat on straight needles and three months later gave circular knitting a try. My first flat knit socks were made top down, in a tube style that negates the heel flap and requires sewing the sock into a tube. They are loose in fit but warm and great socks to wear around the house. My advanced tries, knitting in the round and turning the heel, were more of an adventure. My tension was tight, and my heel flap a nightmare, unable to be duplicated into a second sock, for how off script my technique became. I didn’t grasp the why of what I was doing and therefore messed up the pattern.

This summer, I went to a local yarn shop where I began my journey to sock more traditionally. I picked up a pair of small-gauge double-pointed needles and sock sock-making kit with proper sock yarn of wool and nylon, to do it “properly” and oh my, did this bomb. The toe-up pattern, new to me from my previous projects that were cuff down, pushed me far out of my depth. I sank instead of swimming. The four double-pointed needles and my uncoordinated hands created tension and laddering in the knit, which looks exactly as it sounds. I tried three times to knit a few centimeters before the stitches fell off the needles, the sock falling off with the stitches. In desperation, as the needles were 29 USD and the sock kit 29 USD, I was feeling very silly and wasteful purchasing new needles and new yarn that I couldn’t do anything with.

So I pivoted to my trusty straight needles until I saw my mom later that weekend, and she lent me a pair of small-gauge, small-circumference needles to finish the sock. Still baffled by the heel flap and the vague instructions on the pattern, I tried German short rows for shaping the heel. In a fortnight, I completed the first of the two socks. I cast off and handed it to Kyle to try on, and the size was all wrong. I tried to frog it back into a skein of yarn, but the splitty yarn tangled, ripped, and became a ball of knots. It was over, and I was furious with myself for wasting time, money, resources, and, honestly, hurting my eyes squinting to see my tiny stitches for almost two weeks to accomplish nothing.

Socks are madness. And maybe I should stop beating myself up about my failure when socks are one of the hardest things to make by hand. I am an overachiever and a perfectionist, so this type of failure cuts me deep. I obsess, I rage, and I fall apart in the madness of learning something that may take years to execute once, not even perfectly. But you know what? I have made good socks before! Comfortable, almost perfect for what I was looking to achieve, socks. But I rejected them as being good because I was embarrassed at how I made them. I didn’t follow the right techniques, I used the “wrong” yarn, and I didn’t turn the heel.

Sometimes I have major imposter syndrome as a knitter. I feel like a fraud because I don’t use the exact same patterns, same tools, same yarn as everyone else on the internet. But why is that a bad thing? I’ve listened to other knitters in podcasts discuss how the sameness of knitting is making it boring. Apparently, at Rhinebeck or other knitting events, it is easy to see the same sweater throughout the sea of people, and that is a new thing. Listening to knitters, who have been knitting long before 2020, when I really started knitting consistently, knitters used to do their own thing. Yarn suggestions in patterns were exactly that – a suggestion.

People were designing more and experimenting instead of knitting in the homogenized way we see today, which is one of the ways I feel like an outsider. I don’t want to knit the same things as everyone else, but I also want to be good at the craft, and it leaves me in this push-and-pull tension. It became clear to me, though, that my search to “fit in” with the proper sock kit and the expensive needles didn’t make me a better maker. It was honestly a bit of a handicap. So I guess my takeaway is to be yourself?

I don’t want to stagnate in my skills, but if I can find my own technique to make socks and other garments with the “non-standard” tools and yarn, then is it really stagnation or just getting creative with where my skill level is at? I’ve been pondering this a lot and have more thoughts on this from both the point of view of a knitter and a sewist. But that will have to wait for next time.

Project Runway, I Have Notes

In August, Project Runway returned under a new network and reshuffled the format, hosts, and challenges to make a show I think was actually okay. Compared to where the show was left on Bravo in 2023, I think bringing back Heidi Klum was a good choice compared to the choice of Karlie Kloss, whom I didn’t see as an appropriate casting choice for a role that requires personality and colorfulness. It was boring. So were the new judges. The only new casting decision I was excited about at the time was Christian Siriano, my ult bias from the original show. So what was the good and the not-so-good, in my opinion, of season 21? And how has the show changed, for the better, yet in some ways, become less about fashion? These are my thoughts on my beloved Project Runway in 2025.

The Evolution of Project Runway

The original show premiered on Bravo in 2004 with host Heidi Klum, mentor Tim Gunn, and judges Nina Garcia and Michael Kors. It was filmed in NYC, at Parsons The New School for Design, where Tim was on staff, and the competition culminated in three finalists showing their work at NYFW Bryant Park. This format remained for the first five seasons, season four featuring Christian Siriano, who won his season.

After season 5, the show switched networks to Lifetime, where it remained until season 17. This change for season 6 also changed the location, with the show being filmed in Los Angeles at the FIDM campus until the finale, which was held at NYFW. Season 7 returned to Parsons and NYC, where the show stayed the course until season 11, when Zac Posen replaced Michael Kors. Zac Posen, Nina Garcia, Tim Gunn, and Heidi Klum remained through season 16.

Because of Harvey Swinestein being a producer of the show, and #Metoo movement addressing his depravity, Project Runway changed hands and returned to Bravo for season 17, sans the original cast. Karlie Kloss was the new Heidi, Christian Siriano the new Tim, and the judges were swapped for Elaine Welteroth and Brandon Maxwell.

The show remained this way through season 20, until the show changed again, switching to Freeform as its network, returning Heidi Klum to the host position, retaining Christian Siriano as mentor, and returning Nina Garcia to judge, with a new addition of Law Roach as the second judge. It’s a lot of change.

The Three Fashion Musketeers

When Project Runway moved back to Bravo in 2019, it was not the only fashion competition show in the American market; Netflix launched Next in Fashion for two seasons. Finally, Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum launched their own show on Amazon Prime, called Making the Cut, which was the equivalent of the original trio of Top Gear UK launching The Grand Tour on Amazon.

In my memory, from watching these three shows, Project Runway felt like a shell, undercut by Making the Cut, but losing the carefree fun of what Next in Fashion captured with hosts Alexa Chung and Tan France. All this change made me question what was the purpose of these shows anymore? With the rise of fast fashion and social media, it seemed like a relic. I could watch fashion design content on YouTube with varying points of view, to decide for myself what I thought was good fashion. Why would I care about the judges or the magazines anymore?

Project Runway in 2025

So now, six years later, what did the new Project Runway feel like? To be honest, it doesn’t have its own identity anymore, in my opinion. This could easily be RuPaul’s Drag Race with the amount of drama they packed into these episodes. The original format of challenge, runway, judging, and elimination was gone. Now you find out who goes home next week, which was unnecessary for me. I am tuning in each week, don’t make me have to, I want to, so just tell me who goes home so that the point of the show doesn’t seem like it’s an MTV reality show. It was hard to remember what challenge they were judging from last week. In some ways, I didn’t care; I just wanted the new challenge to be presented.

The contestants fought a lot, with Jesus and Veejay being a near constant. It was too much, and that leads me into one of my biggest gripes with the new season of the show. The editing was off. When Veejay was announced as the season 21 winner, I was confused. The final two eliminations before the finale were also edited strangely, because each time it seemed as though they were not going to keep Veejay, the judges’ critiques reflected this, and so it created this uncomfortable tension for the final three episodes, where it seemed like they were keeping Veejay in the competition so that she would become the first trans winner because of all the fighting.

That frustrated me because Veejay was doing good work, but then why make it seem like she was at the bottom, if the judges saw her work in high regard? It was really awkward. So was the out-of-control arguing between Veejay and the Estrada brothers, which I think the producers wrongfully kept in for a toxic series of episodes that is problematic, and I thought was manipulative. I wish for everyone’s sake that they would have paused the competition in a Tim Gunn fashion to unify the contestants again, because I liked this group of people. I can see where Jesus was coming from, and I can understand how bullying from the past can bring up past hurt, like Veejay expressed.

This is where the show shifted for me into a trash television show, such as Teen Mom, The Challenge, Real Housewives, or Keeping up with the Kardashians. Finally, the omission of NYFW for a quick 6-piece collection immediately after filming the bulk of the show felt lame. Every collection for me was a letdown, and this was the production’s fault once again. 8 out of 9 challenges were one-day challenges, so every other day, they were creating a brand new garment; it’s a recipe for burnout and mediocrity. The final runway show was like a fart instead of a spectacle of creativity, and it was underwhelming.

I hope they get a bigger budget for season 22 because the show has captured its thing again, but the finale and shift to the focus on drama over scenes from the workroom was a poor choice in my opinion. When I think of good reality competitions that have carried on throughout the decades, Survivor and Great British Baking Show are great examples that I may dive into in a part two.

Have you ever watched Project Runway? Did you think it was about planes? That’s what I first thought when I heard about the show in the mid-2000s.

Gilmore Girls Fall

If there is a new fall tradition from the 2020s, it must be Gilmore Girls. Maybe it’s the 20 year rule of trend cycles? Or the power of a tiktok phenomena? But this little show, that was niche throughout my time as a teen and into my twenties, is now a cornerstone of American autumnal celebration in our modern age.

I am honestly thrilled to see this story and its characters embraced by a new generation. It was a connecting point for me, my mom, and a few of our close friends. For a while it felt like a secret club, always disappointing me when I would make a new friend and ask – do you like Gilmore Girls? They shoot me a look of puzzlement, like it was a figment of my imagination. It was my comfort show throughout my teens, and finally others are finding its charm!

The only thing that I don’t if I agree with, is Gilmore Girls being crowned as a fall show when I believe it is a show that showcases the seasons. I guess, that’s why the follow up series – A Year In the Life had a seasonal format. At the time I thought it was ASP doing her own thing again, and it might be, but it may also be, artistic focal point to bring attention to what the show’s storytelling is rooted in – all four seasons.

So I took a look at the episodes, season by season, and tallied fall, winter, spring, and summer. I did not count Season 7 because creators, Amy Sherman Palladino and Daniel Palladino, departed after season six.

Fall: 38 episodes

Winter: 43 episodes

Spring: 28 episodes

Summer: 20 episodes

This is why I don’t understand the hype for this being solely a “fall” show. It is a winter show. A spring show. It is a story about four seasons. I’m happy people are finding joy in something that has brought me so much enjoyment. I just don’t agree that Gilmore Girls is only a fall show. I think it sells a show short, when it celebrates the seasons better than most.

Do you agree? Have you ever watched Gilmore Girls? What is your favorite way to celebrate the beginning of fall?

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Individuals Without Individuality

What does it mean to be an individual? Are you a person? A sum among parts? An island? A unique person, maybe? What does it mean to do things individually? What does individuality mean to an individual? I really wish this word, and its forms, weren’t so tricky to spell with my slightly dyslexic mind (not formally diagnosed, but it runs in the family). It’s a lot to digest, but this has probably been stewing in my mind for the past year, waiting for me to plate it up.

My culture is incredibly individualistic, and this is expressed in good ways and bad. One good way is that my country is a land of immigrants and indigenous people, meaning there are voices, ideas, and ways of doing things. But when there are people, there are forces of wanting to fit in, wanting to control and suppress, and prescribed ideas of the “best” way. I think this has been at the forefront of my mind because I see a vast amount of content being shared online saying originality is dead, or personal style has been killed by the algorithm. We are all core-ified or aesthetically boxed in, and social media has commodified subcultures. But it’s the internet, critiquing the internet, so we’re of course using broad, and extreme brushstrokes here.

Where my mind has drifted to is the sameness. I see people online discussing the boringness of everything from movies to the same cosmetic procedures, the bland landscape of interior design, and starter pack cliches for “types” of women. There is a sea of Petite Knit patterns, a galaxy of Marvel media that repeat the same formula, reboot television, and romantic tropes pushed by publishers and BookTok to make everything fit nicely in the digital marketing ecosystem. Then we fall into nostalgia, like recession pop, which I found myself listening to the other day, reminiscing about my first summer as a member of Geneva’s painting crew in 2010. Thinking about how different life was before I even had a Facebook.

What we talked about and the memories I made with the women and men of my team were tangible, not digital. We discovered what we liked based on environmental forces, like books assigned in school, books suggested by a friend, etc. Music was discovered and shared by radio play, recommendations from others, and shared playlists that your friend curated, not the music streaming platform or the algorithm. I thought a bit less about my appearance, I mean, in adolescence, you are quite aware, but not as much as the smartphone era has brought attention to the physical image of ourselves. I had fewer pictures, grainier pictures, but more memories. Strong memories are tied to tangible things, like songs, food, books, buildings, and movies. We were all very different from each other, yet we could find commonality, and this is where the gears in my mind started turning.

We were part of a group, but had individuality. Yet, nowadays I feel more like I’m in a void, of no commonality, except for how everyone is into the same things, and wears the same clothes, yet we are not connected, communicating, nor would I even consider that despite our shared things we are on a team or part of a community. It’s hollow.

I think we are missing the point of life. We are not working towards something together. We are not part of communities. We are part of aesthetics. We have become fans not of art or sport but of corporations like Target, Lululemon, Sephora, Stanley, and Tesla. Well, probably not Tesla anymore. Target is also being boycotted, so…anyways. Apple, Alo, Rhode, Kate Spade, Trader Joe’s, Labubu. That’s more 2025, phew. Why are we stanning companies? Why are we considering shopping for a hobby? This is not a way to connect; it is a way to consume and drown in stuff instead of substance. Our roots are becoming so shallow, and our debt is vast; we are plants choked out by the weeds of hyper-individualism. We have let originality become a thing achieved not by character formation and real-life community, but by the path of purchase. Purchases for ourselves. It snuck in so fast, I didn’t realize how the art of gift giving has become a self-care checklist. Yikes! It wasn’t until playing Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons that I was struck by how topsy-turvy my own culture has become. Our priorities are whack, and I believe it has made us lonely, shells, devoid of individual thought, buying our way to “happiness” because all we think about is our individual needs above all. We have forgotten that humans are fulfilled by the relationships and communities we are rooted in. It’s time to break the spell.

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