Mic Check 1,2

“BEST CROISSANT IN PARIS” is a 6minute and 40 second video from the YouTuber Luis in which Luis, a man in his 20s, reviews croissants in the middle of a protest1. In the opening scene, he gets shoved by police. His face gets obscured by the masses, lost in a crowd of black clothing. He asks a protester how to pronounce the name of the first bakery. It takes a couple tries.

He not once mentions the protest, even as he gets jostled by it. He stages a review, croissant flaking, in front of a burning trash can. You can barely hear him speak over the commotion, bar the few moments we leave the protest to see Luis outside of the bakery he’s reviewing. In one shot, protestors are corralled by riot shields; Luis talks about french pigeons.

The AI summary of the video states “A Parisian bakery tour samples five top croissants. Each location offers unique ambiance and croissant characteristics. The baker’s commentary highlights the subtle differences between each pastry.” No mention of the protest. If you didn’t watch the video, it’d be as if the protest had never happened.

I love this video, because, so succinctly, it captures today’s media landscape: wild frivolity, tugged along by a current of atrocity.

If you are someone who engages in any sort of media (from social, to traditional, to paper), this show and tell environment is on display. Superficial engagement with other’s pain planted next to an article on the high school basketball team, finding your dream apartment in the Upper West Side, the best day cream to get “glass” skin. In the froth bowl of Instagram and TikTok, exaggerated comments and content inspire anger in others; quick quips are prided over thoughtful reflections, sensationalizing is praised over a respect for the mundane.

We know we live in a firestorm, and yet, from behind our protective glass screens, we stand and review the croissants.

At 11am on a Wednesday in 2022, I got caught living. It was by a woman, leaving the Laundromat.

In the late morning sun, I sat at the countertop idly staring out the window from my second floor apartment, french press brewing in front of me. From up on this perch, I looked down on the busy Brooklyn street, humans and pigeons pecking their way along the sidewalk. This window provided a glass for me to regard humanity from, one where I could see the semblance of life happening before me, without ever needing to reconcile with it.

This morning in particular, I found myself watching a woman emerge from her car, hazard lights flashing, wrap her scarf around herself, and lug a large black bag from her passenger seat, straight into the entrance of the Laundromat across the street.

What a pretentious bitch, I thought, for her chauffeuring of her dirty clothes, to then be washed and folded, precisely, by the kind woman who ran the joint. Just carry that shit like any real New Yorker. A moment later, she stepped out of the store front. She reached for her car door and then, for some reason,

She looked up. Straight at me.

It was most likely 2 seconds, but now, several years later, I distinctly remember the shattering of the glass box I assumed surrounded me. Our eyes had met, but we hadn’t. I felt like I was safe, up there, in my window, in the privacy of my home, to not be perceived, to be able to relegate others to characters passing, extras in the movie of my life. They were but sprinkles on the top of the cake: fun, but not at the core of the flavor.

I’ll be honest, it’s something I do often. The videos that pop up onto my feed, quick to be able to judge others, forgetting they themselves are humans who also have interests, hopes, dreams. A double tap here, a click of a little heart there. Others had become fodder for me to place my insecurities onto and project away. Forgetting that I am also the extras in these people’s lives, the sprinkles on top, the springboards for their assumptions. It’s a two way street, not a one way mirror.

I fell into a fallacy — the othering of another, and depersonalizing reality. And with it, the guilt.

I am not the only2 person3 to4 point5 out6 this7 fallacy8, and it’s creation by our media landscape.

These writers point out rise in division, coercive rightness and wrongness, and lack of attention in public discourse, particularly if you unwisely choose to participate in social media (like I do).

The prevalence of news, images and video being generated by Artificial Intelligence and human slop machines exacerbate a desire for more highly sensationalized content. It’s a desire for content that can lull you into its grasp and smother you with dopamine. With this smothering, life doesn’t feel as exciting if there isn’t a protest in the background of your croissant review video. With similar chagrin as expressed by the aforementioned articles, nuance is dying. The beauty in the mundane is dying. Community is dying.

This disassociation from the other while at the same time being over exposed to each other has wedged gritty concrete into divides that used to be manageable to discuss, discern and detonate. Our ability to hold the contradictory has diminished, our collective nervous system exhausted by indulging in greasy nothingness while continuously being told we are famished. We’re too hungry and too full to hear your side of the conversation, too hungry and too full to think critically about the context of the 10 second clips we encounter, too hungry and too full to notice that you just scrolled from a video of a brutal genocide to someone’s personal confrontation with a neighbor to ducks waddling in slow motion.

Reading and writing helps me with the congealing process, both of this exterior wedge, and my own interior valley: the part of me that can deeply see others’ side on a situation (read: the one that doesn’t want to step on any toes), and the side that, well, is pissed, has an opinion, and wants to tell you about it, damnit. This second part terrifies me and my inner desire of wanting to always be right, not wanting to hurt anyone.

Now, however, I want to decode my ideological accent, and maybe try others. Understand where I lie when I take a step back from the scrolling by videos. There’s parts of my accent I never want to lose, the authenticity to who I am and where I’ve come from. The part that is deeply influenced by being born in Missouri and having lived some time in Arkansas, by being - albeit a fleeting one - a coastal elite. The part that is a third culture kid, privileged to have grown up all over this beautiful globe, and yet the only language I have true command over is English, the only place I feel at home is nowhere. The part that grew up hating being American and is also, distinctly American. The part of me that was an altar girl as a child, and now is queer.

I’m a mess. A large knot. Cohesive contradictions cuddling each other through cold nights.

Looking at this knot is a violently new experience. I hate it. I love it.

In October 2025, I spent a month in bumble fuck (complimentary) North Carolina where I sat around a dining table with 7 other writers and read 8 books and wrote on a crickety picnic table by a creek while my ankles got eaten alive by gnats (derogatory).

Conversations over Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction9 and Audre Lorde’s The Uses of the Erotic10 inspired something in me that I realized I was missing – debate, and healthy ones. Literacy, reading and fully churning something over, versus propelling an opinion into the void, among the fake asses, fake tits, fake lives we curate.

I firmly believe divides will only be bridged through thoughtful, truthful sharing, engaging with each other, increased literacy and being willing to say ‘I don’t know’. This panopticon we’ve created in the moralistic United States is something that holds us back from creating community, care and happiness. I believe we need to allow ourselves to be perceived as not knowing and then, together, bridge the gap. We need to listen to the part that wants to engage, rather than the part that wants to be slowly tugged down the slop river, the quick quip river, the river of eye strain and not being able to look away.

By debate, I don’t mean putting up to question each other’s rights to life, happiness, dignity. For me, there is no debate there. More precisely, I mean debating the mundane, the things that we see in our day to day: the art and culture we consume (and how we consume it); how the children play on the playground; how the adults play in the bars. The beliefs that are core to our quotidian lives, silently at work.

This substack is an invitation to no longer dismember arguments to capitalize in sharing them in a haphazard, algorithmically-grasping format. Viva the long form, and viva nuance, questions, and good will.

Cohesive contradictions is my space to slow down and critically examine, and my hope is that it becomes one for you as well. I want to hear your opinions, particularly the messy, critical, nuanced ones. My goal isn’t to change your opinion. My goal is to understand mine, and to give the world the attention it deserves.

Join me as I untangle this knot, and get caught living a little.