Weekend Thread: Weirdos unite!

This voiceover is an audio version of the newsletter below. As always, it’s unedited so probably features some stutters and re-starts. If you like/need to listen to these posts I hope you enjoy it.

Hello mates, happiest of weekends to you.

I’m trying something different today for all of my delightful paid supporters — a thread! — where I ask a question, and we collectively benefit from the wisdom, experience and badassery of your answers.

Earlier this week I was interviewed over Zoom for an article on slow productivity, the first one I’ve done in at least two years. (I’ve avoided all media for lots of reasons, not least of which is because something as small as an interview often led to a huge fatigue crash that last days/weeks.)

As I was setting up, I got an alert on my iPhone telling me I could use it as my webcam instead of the in-built FaceTime camera on my laptop, and, intrigued, I set it up. At first, I thought it was kind of cool that I could use the higher-quality camera on my phone instead of the dinky one I usually use, but as I was playing around with the settings, I realised that the iPhone was automatically adding some kind of weird anti-aging/smoothing filter.

A quick Google told me there’s something called a ‘beauty filter’ that was probably being applied automatically and I stopped reading beyond that because, well, I think a part of me died.

I spent a few minutes flicking between Filtered-Me and Unfiltered-Me, equal parts offended and confused. What am I meant to prefer?

The “beauty filter” was supposed to highlight and enhance my natural beauty, I assume, and if it’s being applied automatically, that then means that looking younger/smoother would and should be my preference, right? But when I looked at the image of myself — all traces of texture and age wiped off my somewhat orange digital face — I felt like I was looking at a stranger.

So I did what any mature, emotionally-evolved woman would do. I stuck my finger up at Filtered-Me and turned off my phone, using the dinky in-built camera instead. Turns out I much prefer my actual face, smile lines and under-eye circles included.

And while it might not sound like much, I felt a genuine swell of pride when I realised this. As though, for just a moment, I was able to push back against all the messaging telling me that I should feel a little bit ashamed and embarrassed by my aging face, that I should want something better, fresher, younger.

In short: screw that.

And that got me wondering… When did you last feel like a bad-ass? What were you doing last time you got that little rush of rebellion? What makes you feel like a giddy, mischievous weirdo?

I have a sneaking suspicion that your answers are going to fuel a lot more instances of tiny, slow rebellion this week.

Here’s to pushing back!

Much love,
Brooke 💚💚

(Okay, this kind of turned out like a letter anyway. Sorry!)