Brief reviews

Here I have some stuff I find interesting but don't feel neutral enough about to just put on my links list! Here's to reading!

Awakening to the Blob: How The Media Mediates Our Lives

This was a really interesting read, because it's a question I've found myself thinking about a lot: that feeling of always needing to be "on display" that comes with modern-day social media. However, I don't think I fully agree with the "doomerist" tone this article ended up having. Sure, we can make it sound incredibly bleak that humans like to show ourselves off to our peers, but aren't we social creatures? The framing of wanting attention as something negative really strikes me the wrong way. Life is a long performance in a lot of ways! That's not a bad thing, I think. I find wanting to create lasting memories and share our successes to be something deeply... cute? about humans.
That's not to say that there's no point to what the article brings up. I think that some performances ought to be private, if that makes sense, and others ought to remain off-screen. I don't want to be recorded on the bus. I don't need to make myself into a brand. But I do think I'll always perform, because I am human and I have friends. Anyway, the book that's being spoken about sounds very interesting and I may find myself reading it someday. We'll see! The article was generally thought-provoking even if it didn't sit perfectly with me. I reccomend giving it a read!

Everyone needs to grow up

Yet another interesting read that delves deeper into the current infantilisation of ourselves and each other. I think this was an important read, and it did make me think another round about my own and others behaviours. I tend to avoid infantalising myself, but do often end up doing some odd baby talk in english. "Eepy tired" is a reccuring phrase, for reasons I think are well explained in this article - it removes the responsibility for my exhaustion from myself, and as such it makes me a victim to circumstances rather than someone who fucked up trying to go to bed yesterday.
Idk that there is much more for me to say about this. I liked the take and the perspective on right-wing views vs infantilising ourselves. It linked other articles that seemed interesting. It made me remember how annoying the phenomena is. One thing I could have seen being relevant is to add the prevalence of it among the middle-left middle class. I think that is the group that has the greatest... possibility? to even do it aside from the right-wing people in the ways already mentioned. Give it a read and tell me what you think!

Short essays

Sometimes I have big thoughts. Sometimes I write those thoughts down. If you want to read that, go ahead. It's not certain I have good points, but hey, what can you do? If you have thoughts about them (or write about them someplace) send me an e-mail, maybe? I'd love to hear! The adress is hello.frodee@gmail.com

What is individual action?

We recently had a conversation about personal responsibility in regards to sustainability in class. The discussion is very relevant to us seeing as we’re studying big-scale change, but still struggled to find action that was not reliant on the actions of an individual. It got me thinking a little bit, and I found myself wondering what even differentiates individual action.
Upon consideration you’ll most likely find that no matter what you’re hoping to get done there is an individual somewhere necessary for it to happen. Even the largest companies have an individual in the lead. Large-scale change also mainly regards individual action in the end — a free train ride is only relevant because it affects multiple individuals lives. Where do we draw the line?
The simple answer may be that “individual” isn’t a question of “is it a person?”, but about power. If your action is likely to affect people on a large scale because you have power over them, it’s not an “individual action” even if it looks like it at first glance.
This manner of seeing things is less useful to analyze the starting actions of a problem than to find out what we can change to solve problems without individualizing things. If we ask individuals to stop buying electric cars, for example, that may be helpful on some level, but we’re not getting to the source of the problem. Instead, we can see who has power to do large-scale change and how we can affect those people. Say, demanding that policy makers disallow the making of new non-electric cars. [not that they are without issue. Trust me, I know.]
Now, power relations are never just black and white. In this case, you’re most likely in some gray zone of power. Your actions may be causing ripple effects elsewhere that you are vaguely aware of. To that I say, it may be a gray zone. Power also regards the ability to make different choices. If your only option has large negative consequences you may not be the cause, but the middle man.
Furthermore, you may have the ability to cause change higher up in the pecking order. Be that by voting or other means, if you live in a democracy you are likely to have some level of say. It’s most likely very difficult, but not wholly impossible… If you don’t live in a democracy (or if you do but are tired. So, so tired…) remember that everything has a counter. The people who have a say, who aren’t doing individual actions by this definition, have a main vulnerability in the form of large amounts of co-individual action.
It is also worth clarifying that I’m not saying individual action is pointless. Far from it, I do what I can to be environmentally friendly and so forth. If nothing else it affects your life, usually in surprisingly positive ways. I do also encourage you to consider who is able to act non-individually. How can we change their minds, or alternatively, remove some of their control? Community building, grassroots activism and such are interesting to look into.
Finally, I’m not French, but…
[This is all just from my brain. Take it with a small bowl of salt]

Written 10/10/24

The missing piece is a soft sheen

We’re all aware of the issues that come with endless algorithms and never putting our phones down. It’s a subject that’s been beaten to death twice over. We know that it’s the lack of third spaces or an addiction or maybe just it sneaking up on us that causes it. Yet here I am, digging up the dead horse, baton in hand. I just want to think a bit (in text) about what this endless internet usage and all the options mean to me personally. Maybe that way I can “fix” myself?
So, to start, I recently watched this video. It’s about an hour and a haf, and a great watch throughout in my opinion, but one part towards the end sticks out to me: the mention of loneliness. Now, I am not a lonely person (neither is the videographer). I have a large family and friends I love. However, I do live alone with two cats. A large part of my day is spent in solitude. I love this solitude on a calm morning before uni or when I’m working from home. I love it when I am on my 52nd hour of coding over the course of three days. I love it a lot of the time! Yet, I can’t help but notice that the main reason I am on youtube most days is simply because I feel like there is a gap that needs to be filled somehow. It feels a lot like loneliness.
About this time last year I went to my first ever LARP. It was over a weekend and even then just one day when everyone I interacted with was fully in character. While it was the most fun I think I’ve ever had (though majorly stressful as far as new experiences go) there was an unexpected side-result of that weekend. My screen time, previously at many hours a day, dropped to an average of one to two hours. This was after the LARP (during it was at 0 for obvious reasons) and with the added information that my phone still was being used for music, my train ticket and my calendar. All pretty (screen) time-consuming uses, showing that my phone barely was used for scrolling at all! That lasted much longer than I had expected, only really rising again after a really rough spot in my life about half a year later, and even then not rising to anything near what it was for longer periods of time.
So, how come? How could that short weekend make me give it up for so long? I can’t say for completely certain, but I think it boils down to how pointless my phone felt after it. That weekend was enshrouded in the same soft sheen that also characterised the long evenings of my childhood, spent falling asleep while listening to my family – aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, friends and cousins, spend hours upon hours switching between talking and singing together. The shifts between laughnig and the hush of topics that were more serious than the ones that came before. Yet another song. As a child this played out in the beautiful living room my mum put together – baby blue wallpapers with flowers and a roccoco-esque couch set that she may have gotten surprisingly cheap, but that felt fit for a king – or around a campfire, much like at the LARP many years later.
This soft sheen still seems to linger behind every project I pick up, but now that I’ve started putting it into words it may be easier to chase. It may be silly or sound snobby, but I truly think that beauty is essential for my life to feel meaningful. Beauty in many forms, from making my environment feel like havens of sorts, to making sure that I spend enough time singing with the people I love. If my life is filled with that, picking up my phone will probably continue to feel as pointless as it did after going to that LARP. Because, the solitude isnt’ the issue. How could I love it so much if it, soley, was? The times I love the solitude all share that sheen, though, and company is a quick way to re-gain it. A lot of the examples I immediately think of as far as the sheen goes are just quality time with those I love.
I am noticing I am getting off-track. This thought process is growing beyond the scope of what I wanted to write and I need to finish it before I get too ahead of myself. However, it very actively ended up circling back to some thoughts on hedonism (or epicureanism) I’ve been sitting on for years at this point. I guess it’s time to head back down that train of tohoughts. Until then!

Written 14/8/25

Dailies

I'm trying to read an essay/article, a short story and a poem every evening, also known as the Ray Bradbury Reading Challenge. I'm not sure how well I'll do, and I am very certain I won't update this every nigh even if I am successful, but maybe now and again. If nothing else I should write what I read, though a small blurb about it every night is probably asking too much. As long as I read!

July 2026

It's the end of July, and I am getting this project started.

26th

Firstly, I took this chance to re-read Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny, which I already have put on my website: specifically on my fashion page. I find the baseline observation to be correct, though I am a bit uncertain of the validity of the idea that war is at the center of this. I have no better argument, I just don't know that I necessairly agree. I've seen a lot of discussion on the lack of horniness lately though, and as such I am glad to have revisited the article.
I think one central thing for non-american countries actually is the increasing levels of americanisation making people more scared of sex and the human body than before: some people still enjoy being topless in the sun in Europe, but the numbers are dwindling. Idk. It is a topic I'd love to read more on.
For my short story I chose Canon Alberic's scrap-book by M. R. James. It was an interesting read, and really emphasises the main lesson from dracula: british men being intensely offered crusifixes should turn on their heel immediately. Or maybe not, they seem to figure it out in the end. It is an interesting example of a story where an artistic rendition would have hampered the scary aspects of it, which I always like. Not too horror-y to read before bed, either. I also enjoyed the language: I'm taking a Latin class in the fall, so that isn't too strange!
Lastly, I read Rosalduna by C. J. L. Almqvist:

Älven flyter här så skön,
Rosalduna stilla seglar framåt här så mild och skön.
Älven rinner sakta bort till hemlighetsfulla fromma nejder, seglingen är där så skön.
Vid Rosaldas [sic] sida står en gosse, står en flicka.
Undersamt de blicka fram mot skyn.

Short and sweet, this reads to me as a description of great longing. It rhymes "skön" with itself thrice, with no real resolution/"proper" rhyme to end it, breaking the pattern on the fifth line. The poem ends with an "undersam" gaze: there is something secretive that we cannot see. And, lastly, there is something we cannot reach at the end of this ships journey. Like seeing something so beautiful but still not quite being satiated. Yeah. That's my read, I think.

(this took a while. A nice evening activity, but I'll see if I keep it up. I do not expect I will write about what I read every night, lol.)