The fashion industry in Africa is on the rise, especially in cities like Kinshasa and Capetown. But while fashion designers might get noticed in Paris and New York, models have a different story. As Naomi Campbell noted in 2013, “Top designers often shun black models completely or opted to include just one in their shows.” – Der Spiegel
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Freedom Of The Press Is Under Attack In Most Places, Making Everyone Less Secure
And it’s not only reporters. “A cohort of countries is moving toward digital authoritarianism by embracing the Chinese model of extensive censorship and automated surveillance systems.” This, needless to say, is bad. – Los Angeles Review of Books
The Deal With MFA Groupthink
Author Mona Awad: “Iwas definitely interested in leaning into that and the horror of it, the scariness of that kind of groupthink. It is scary. I guess it’s one of the risks you take when you go into one of these programs: that fear that you’ll start all speaking the same language, and then you’re not an individual artist anymore with your own imagination.” – LitHub
Students At The Suddenly Shuttered Phoenix Art Institute Are Stranded, With Insurmountable Debt
When the parent company for 18 different Art Institutes closed without warning earlier in 2019, students were supposed to get their loans discharged under the Closed School Discharge program. But wait: “Students at the Art Institute of Phoenix have received denial letters from their loan companies, which state that they cannot discharge the loans because the Art Institute of Las Vegas is still open.” – Hyperallergic
Near-Future Shock
Given virtual reality, Snapchat filters, and so much more, is it any surprise to think that we might all walk around looking like heart-eyed puppies soon? All but those being placed in concentration camps, of course. (This is about a TV show. Just a show. Right?) – The Atlantic
Box Office Is Dead This Summer; Long Live Netflix?
Star power – even stars like Thor and Valkyrie, er, Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thomson; even Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling, for heck’s sake – is crashing and burning on the big screen this summer. But movie stars on Netflix are doing just fine (or so Netflix says). Can Netflix save the movie star? – The Guardian (UK)
Reviving Northern Ireland’s Poetry Scene [VIDEO]
As in other countries, poetry sales rose by double-digit amounts last year in Northern Ireland, with the bulk of that purchasing coming from people under 34. Why? Let a poet explain. – BBC
Did Singing Evolve As A Way To Bond Human Groups Together?
Possibly! Studies certainly show that singing in groups forms cohesion quickly and increases warm feelings toward strangers both quickly and strongly. Even group singing across hundreds or thousands of people can increase in-group bonding. – Aeon Magazine
Book Banning Is Becoming A Prison Epidemic
It’s for security, officials say, as they ban books about coding and cybersecurity off of lists of books prisoners can receive. But some on the lists date back to the 1990s – and no one’s hacking into AOL anymore. – Vice
The Director Of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Says The Young Don’t Have Self-Hatred Baggage
Jon Chu, on Asian and Asian American actors in Hollywood: “What’s great about this whole movement is that instead of getting one shot at this next time, maybe we get five. I just hope we get the opportunity to fail and keep going. It makes me so hopeful when I talk to actors and directors and audience members who don’t have the same baggage I was taught coming up in the business, that heavy weight of feeling so out of place that you develop self-hatred. I think they see beyond that now.” – The New York Times