Media to consume this week instead of doomscrolling - 03.08.25
Notes on education and AI, media literacy, insomnia, decay, women’s labor, social media, wellness, and more.
Welcome to this week’s media roundup! It has been a very hectic week for me as I was finally able to launch many new and exciting things for this publication (including a paid tier in case you’re interested). Whenever I go through very labor-intensive periods of my life, it’s too easy to try to turn my brain off, but I know that reading/watching/listening to these pieces is always so much better to cope with the stress. Hope you find something meaningful in these pieces, just like I did :)
What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom on Lit Hub
Essay outlining the process and the results of an experiment run in a college English class in which, at the end of the semester, the students would decide by vote whether AI could replace the teacher.
Having to navigate the academic environment in the age of AI is a very bizarre, almost dystopian experience. I personally avoid AI as much as humanly possible but when faced with group projects—which is all my uni will ever make me do—it is dauntingly unavoidable. Last semester, I had to do a group project, and pretty much every single person in my group used ChatGPT for the texts we were meant to write into the book for the project.
It is difficult to put into words the amount of rage that I felt as I was reading these soulless, generic, bland texts. Not only were they stylistically flat, but much of the information was either incredibly basic or just blatantly incorrect. After gathering myself and taking a few deep breaths, I texted our group chat asking if they had used ChatGPT—wanting to see if they were to at least have a glimmer of shame over it—and of course they said yes. I bit my tongue and instead of cussing them out, I calmly explained that if I can tell that the texts are AI, our teachers certainly can too.
Of course, the foundations of what AI did were still very much there, and one of them even used an AI humanizer to rewrite their part (just imagine how much angrier I was after finding that out), so nothing past a few words truly changed. I drew so many parallels between this experience and this experiment; understanding that AI has infiltrated the classroom is a reality that we must face, however, questioning all of its implications is something that also must be done as we enter this new era of education.
Substack post arguing that the rejection of reviewing books negatively is rooted in a lack of media literacy and a lack of discernment between entertainment and quality.
The other day I watched F1 in the theater, as I was watching it, I was taking a plethora of mental notes about all of the questionable, nonsensical things that were taking place. As I was walking out of the theater, eager to discuss all of my critiques and comments with my parents, I heard so many people saying how good the movie was. In my head, I was thinking “Did we really just watch the same movie?”.
This incident solidified my conclusion that people often mistake entertainment for quality. This post is a very long rant which I deeply resonate with; she particularly draws attention to the literary world, but I find that her arguments are equally relevant regarding most forms of media. This epidemic of lack of media literacy that is taking place, is something that concerns me as I know how easy it is to turn our brains off and get cheap dopamine hits from entertaining slop.
Broken Sleep on Aeon
Essay analyzing how sleep patterns from the past can be a tool for creativity as the brain works differently in the middle of the night.
I wake up angry and exhausted every single day at the fact that my circadian rhythms are incompatible with modern-day life. If it were up to me, I would fall asleep at 4 am to then wake up at noon every single day. I am a chronic insomniac, and even when I do end up falling asleep at the crack of dawn, life gets in the way of my getting the hours of sleep that I actually need. I hate that the world doesn’t wait til’ I’m ready for it, leaving daytime to be a hurdle to tackle amidst the fatigue from the night before.
There truly is something about the stillness of the night that has a liminal quality to it, creating a fertile ground for ideas to blossom. I often find myself waking up in the middle of the night with a rush of energy coursing through my veins; it is as though I become a vessel for some sort of divine download in which I can’t help but grab something to write on and channel this energy through the pen into the paper.
I hate that my most productive hours seem to be the ones meant for rest. The sleep pattern that the essay is referring to is now perhaps seen as a sleep disorder, but for many—including myself—it seems like a way out. I just hope I get the privilege of getting to live a life dictated by the natural rhythms of my body and not the ones forced on me by some corporate job.
Video essay exploring the omnipresence of decay through an analysis of the book Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, and by drawing parallels between the physical and digital worlds.
We often perceive change as a dynamic force, one that is always running one step ahead of us, unreachable and unstoppable, but preservation requires more movement than change ever will. Stillness is the ultimate vessel for transformation, because nature will inevitably take its course, and erosion will always become the blank canvas for new cycles to begin. No matter how much we attempt to control change, decay will always be the overriding force.
My body is decaying, and so is the keyboard I’m writing on, and so is the “cloud” I store these words in, and so are my memories, and so is the planet, and so are you. In an existence fueled by uncertainty, the fact that everything is slowly decomposing is the one thing I can always fall back on. The insignificance of being in the grand scheme of a universe, one where I am a momentary blip of energy coming together, to then fall apart to return to the source, is somehow as liberating as it is haunting.
This video essay—as you can probably tell—sent me in a bit of an existential spiral. This is genuinely one of the most impactful videos I have ever seen, she creates this complex web of connections between fiction, reality, nature, humans, media, and so much more. I will be thinking about this video for a very long time.
The Subtle Art of Women’s Work, Arachne the Weaver on Let’s Talk About Myths Baby!
Podcast analyzing the historic minimization of women’s work seen through the Greek myth of Arachne the Weaver.
This podcast made me take a good look at my internal bias that has been generated by a life of patriarchal conditioning. As a Greek mythology and fiber arts lover, I was of course familiar with this tale, it always resonated deeply with me and felt sort of empowering. This time around though, I saw it from a slightly different perspective. Something as fundamental as weaving for the progress of humanity as a whole had been reduced to a simple womanly art to keep women hidden away, and I had just accepted it at face value.
I draw parallels between this craft and the perception of women, both reduced to value relative to beauty over function to take away their power. If it were to had been acknowledged that women’s labor was a vocation, it would have then translated into independence and liberation. History has unfortunately been written and interpreted by the loudest voices in the room—which of course would be men—leaving so much room to revisit these ancient stories and allow all voices to be heard.
Are You Experiencing Posting Ennui? on The New Yorker
Essay examining how the shifts on social media over the last decade have resulted in hesitation to post from regular users as influencers and corporations have taken over.
Social media used to be fun, I wouldn’t think twice about what I posted and nothing was ever that serious, the chronological algorithm always made sure to show me all of my friends’ posts and I was never being coerced into buying anything. Now, posting feels like a chore, knowing that most of my friends won’t even get to see my posts as everything is now buried under the money-making content.
The mixture between capitalism and the nonchalance epidemic has left our feeds feeling like a marketplace with very occasional hyper-curated posts from someone we know. Between influencers, celebrities, brands, and ads, social media has taken us out of the equation, leaving us in the role of spectators and consumers. You know when a brand comments on a post and sucks all of the fun out of whatever we were laughing about? That’s the exact same feeling that I’ve felt as I’ve witnessed this strange shift.
Substack post breaking down how the self-optimization pipeline leads to a post-wellness era away from perfectionist and consumerist “health” habits.
This post unfortunately hit too close to home, as someone who has struggled with their health a lot, I have fallen—and made it out the other side—of this insane wellness rabbit hole. The mixture between doctors, nutritionists, and the internet can be a pretty destructive combination, they often leave you bound to an all-or-nothing mentality as the only way to heal yourself.
Once I understood that I am not a device that needs to be endlessly optimized, but a human being with emotions, desires, and needs, I began reframing what health meant to me. I guess this is where I landed in my post-wellness era. I now know that going to dinner with friends, splitting a bottle of wine, and ending the night with gelato can be infinitely better for me than whatever high-protein, sugar-free, low-carb meal I had waiting at home.
i watched that video essay about the persistence of decay around a month ago, im glad i found it talked about here.
there really is something very liberating about accepting that everything ends someday, all the things we hold dear, all the things we think will last forever, they will all decay, often times transforming into something completely different or disappearing from our lives all together.
theres a village that me and my grandparents used to go to every summer, i had a favourite place here, somewhere a little outside of the village atop a small hill overlooking the river.
im here in this village again this summer, but its completely different, both of my grandparents have passed away a long time ago, so im mostly alone in the house. yesterday i went to visit that place i used to love, and i found it destroyed, turns out theyre building something there so they are doing construction along the shore of the river.
seeing that completely ruined my mood, i walked for half an hour aimlessly thinking about how every thing is different now, how ill never sit by that place again, or how going to this village would never be the same without my grandparents here, then after a while i sort of accepted it.
when theres nothing you can do the only thing to do is accept that you cant do anything. that acceptance brought me a lot of peace, im sure if i didnt accept it this would be mentally torturing me for at least a few days.
I always love your thoughts on the media that you share with us, you're the reason I got substack actually! I am looking for discussion/explanation here and am NOT hating at all so I hope it does not come off that way! I am interested at your word choice when it comes to the Broken Sleep piece. That piece is discussing a waking period in the middle of night, but you are discussing not sleeping at all until the morning. You seem to be equating them as the same concept. A natural circadian rhythm would definitely not keep you up through the night and send you to bed when the sun comes out, as light is the main indicator for your circadian rhythm about bedtime/morning time. From what I'm understanding, you think modern day life is keeping you from your "natural" sleep pattern of going to bed at 4am and being able to get an appropriate amount of sleep. While I agree that modern day life doesn't allow for different sleep schedules, I don't think a 4am-12pm sleep schedule would ever be considered driven by a natural circadian rhythm. Interested in your thoughts on whether it is truly the same to wake up for an hour or two around 4am before going back to bed, vs staying up completely until 4am! Loved this piece!!!