your field notes

musicmap learning, white people spicy, Global Sumud Flotilla

Oct 02, 2025

hiii It is officially fall! It’s cold but sunny! I have been super boring and studying for my dutch exams which are very hard because I have to take a B1 level exam. here are some linkies for you!

I was recently introduced to musicmap. Its an interactive website that teaches you about how different genres are formed, how they are related and how they have evolved over time. As someone who likes music, but is a bit dumb, I love interactive learning tools like this, where I can learn that “Industrial is nothing like Techno: there is no groove or soul within, only a dark, pulsing force that is torn and tortured by its own resourceful consciousness.”
I am so fascinated by this discourse that partying/nightlife is “dead”. That young people nowadays are looking for more connection that they can find in the clubs. That instead of staying out late, they want to dance in front of coffee machines, and in saunas. Some want to have a study rave. Some want to swap out raves for chess competitions. Some don’t even want to dance at all, the dance floor is dead!! If you know me, then you’ll know why I find this confusing. In her debut substack article, everyone wants to be a dj, no one wants to dance, Dani says we’ve overvalued being creators and that we’ve stopped valuing the act of simply enjoying art together for its own sake. Can an artist be an artist without the person who experiences the art? Can you be a DJ without people dancing to your music? Or people listening to the music you produce? Isn’t this all an ecosystem? And isn’t more a question of how money has devalued certain night life experiences and removed soul and connection from places that for some used to breed happiness and love and an escape at the same time? When people go instead to chess competitions or study rave, aren’t they just looking for something more than the sometimes hollow feelings of a nightclub? on the other hand, Eugene argues that soft clubbing, while accessible for people who don’t want to stay out all night, ends up being another outlet of performance. Where the darkness of the night would have provided us cover to be whoever we wanted to be. thoughts? i have so many!!
@eugbrandstrat Hot take - soft clubbing & coffee shop raves suck. Today: digging through a couple recent artefacts that demonstrate how frozen our culture feels right now, invoking some of Mark Fisher’s thinking, and why our culture needs more risks and edge rather than yet another ‘soft’ iteration. #brandstrategy #marketing #culture #capitalism
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Other great substack articles I have read recently include the white people spicy, which is all about how we rate spice. It’s very good and all about how Buldak ramen grew as a brand and how it dealt with being banned in Copenhagen. Read this along with “why is everything spicy now?” I’d recommend the newsletter also, Vittles: all about food and culture. Another one is about this woman’s good experience going to the gynecologist. I recently spoke to a friend about her less than good experience at the doctors where she was recommended treatments without a proper diagnosis, all of which include hormone affecting medicines. As someone who needs these doctors for the health of my reproductive organs, its scary to know that the people who are supposed to care for them don’t really. There is a dangerous level of apathy towards something that controls how we feel hormonally I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that. Oh, this essay on intimacy is also great.
Stagwell marketing agency was contracted by the Israeli government to run surveys and focus groups, in an attempt to use data to better ‘market’ the genocide. This is the leaked document. The guardian writes more about how Israel is attempting to rewrite this history: “Once marketing firms have got their genocide-denial talking points ready to go, they need bots to help spread them. It was reported by Sludge News last week that SKDKnickerbocker LLC, which is owned by Stagwell Global, signed a $600,000 contract to run a “bot-based program” to amplify pro-Israel narratives on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and other platforms. SKDK, which was co-founded by the longtime Joe Biden adviser Anita Dunn and registered as a foreign agent for Israel earlier this year, described a strategy to “flood the zone” with pro-Israel messaging.” In every which way you look, you cannot deny Israel’s insidious DELETION of Palestine, yet it is insane that some people, and countries are still denying it!!1 “Your ignorance will not save you. Sitting on the fence when it comes to human rights issues will not protect you. Just because you haven’t lived through war or genocide doesn’t mean it cannot happen to you.”
Last night the Global Sumud Flotilla, was illegally intercepted by Israeli Armed Forces. The flotilla is made up of 44 boats and more than 200 participants from 37 countries including Spain, Italy, Turkey, Netherlands and Malaysia, bringing NECESSARY HUMANITARIAN AID to people in Gaza. From the tracker, it looks like Mikeno has been able to reach Palestinian waters, but its unclear as its last communication was more than 2 hours ago. This post contains a free email template for you to send to your relevant government officials to demand the safe and immediate release.
I finished I who have never known men, and which made me feel quite depressed. The book presents a situation in which a group of women have been captured for a while in a bunker and the youngest, is too young to remember their past lives. It explores loneliness, community, what it means to be alive when you can’t see a future. It explores what it means to be alive when all you know is the absurd. “But I had only known the absurd, and I think that made me profoundly different from them”. When everything in in the world is becoming increasingly absurd, are we bound to reach a level of apathy? It’s a book that sits with you for a long time. Also picked up monsters which looks at the age old question about how to balance the art with the morals of the artists or vice versa.