Hey, so we are back and still trash, however we are also still trying to be good people, as our content may or may not suggest, and as part of that we are continuing our monthly charity initiative where we ask our beloved readers (that’s you) to donate towards a different cause each month. In particular we ask, if you can afford it, to donate approximately the amount of just one of those expensive takeaway coffees that you know you spend too much on anyway, which is about £3 or so, although you can donate more or less. (We wouldn’t ask you to donate an actual cup of coffee to them, I’m not sure how useful that would be). You can also think of it as a meal deal, whatever suits you.
This month’s charity is The British Heart Foundation, a charity which funds research into into all heart and circulatory diseases and the things that cause them, as well as providing support to those who are affected by heart disease.
This fundraiser is in memory of Trevor Showler, who passed away last year.
So perhaps you’re bored at work and are scrolling through the ol’ Twitter. You see something which makes you think of a pithy remark. In my case, a comment on today’s travel shows.
Can’t wait to give birth to a famous male comedian so I can finally get my own travel show
You tweet it without much of a thought, yet what you don’t understand is today is your lucky day and you’re about to go on a journey like no other.
You’ve gone VIRAL BABY!
Yes, you are about to experience fleeting internet celebrity, an experience no one really prepares you for in this day and age, so we decided we’d give you a quick guide on what to expect when you do indeed go “viral”.
Someone more important and funnier than you retweets you
Wow, someone other people find funny found your tweet funny so by proxy that means you’re funny. Noice. You pat yourself on the back and get back to whatever you were doing.
Someone they follow also retweets
Hey I recognise that person! They are normally retweeted by someone I follow and they seem pretty cool. You look at their followers. Damn, 29,000 people. That’s a lot. But that’s no guarantee that anyone could even see that tweet.
Oh sh*t, quite a lot of people saw it.
You’re trying to get on with your day – in my case, I was in Sainburys and finding myself in the middle of the spice section with no idea what I’m buying as I am glued to my phone, rapt at the new-found fame as the likes and retweets start to stack up.
You’re reaching over a 100 likes now.
Should probably plug something underneath.
Why no followers?
A couple 100 in, no one wants in. Akin to an ambiguous date, it seems that everyone wants a one-time fling whilst you desperately try and convince them it will work as a long term thing, hastily retweeting all your best previous tweets to show off how constantly witty you are.
Really important people start liking it.
In my case, someone who I sent off a job application to and someone I just read an interview in the guardian about. F*ck. I hope they don’t read my Charlie Chaplin thirst tweet.
Yes, the followers start picking up finally.
You have to sleep due to a thing called “your paid job” but as things wind down for the night, you go to sleep content in your achievement.
“maybe now my parents are finally proud of me!!”
You wake up. Oh god it’s still going.
Wow, you thought it was a pretty good tweet but you don’t understand it to THIS level. Take that impostor syndrome! You do wonder why it is a tweet that took you 0.00034 seconds to come up with blew up but you’re grateful for the victory. Best plug some other people whilst I’m here.
7. Your productivity is completely shot.
It was nice knowing you attention span.
Semantic satiation
Semantic Satiation is the occurrence when you hear something so much you don’t know what it means anymore. In this case I look at my own tweet and I lose any linguistic confidence I ever had. Comedian? Travel show? What even is a joke anyway?
People have started commenting and tagging people.
So far it’s all been nice and innocent but if you are a woman on the internet like me, you may be tense nonetheless.
The existential crisis.
The twitter tab has stopped indicating notifications so I keep assuming it has stopped, that maybe everyone has realised it is not funny anymore before clicking to find it is still going. I worry what will I do when it actually stops. Who will I be? Will I still crave the fame?
It is finally slowing down.
About 12pm, It is reaching the point where there is 30 seconds to a minute of nothing or when I click on the home feed there is no red bubble. For a whole minute. I am finally strong enough to close the Twitter window for a bit and try to work.
Lies.
After 5 minutes I reopen Twitter and it seems to be back to business as usual.
The mute
At 1150 likes I’ve finally muted it at least for a bit. I am a changed woman.
The Un-Mute
I am an unchanged woman. Curious and with the willpower of a flea you will go back on checking whether it is still going or if the comments have turned nasty yet. So far it is and nothing mean so this is a successful Twitter interaction.
Getting On with Your Life
After another day or two of constant notifications, I did actually have things to be doing and also couldn’t rest on my tweet laurels for too long. Reluctantly, I mute permanently this time and get back to my usual shameless self-promotion.
Having gotten over waiting for that Hollywood job offer, I think overall the one thing I’ve gotten from this is an underlying guilt every time I like or retweet a popular tweet. How many peoples days am I distracting? Or am I a just a meaningless drop in the ocean?? I also thought it would change the attitude to all my other tweets but I’m still happy if more than 5 people like it. Turns out fame doesn’t change you at all – take that celebrities!
Well my tweets are consistently getting 5+ likes so YES I DO think it is the time I got an agent
With about one in five people having a tattoo these days, we at trashfire wanted to know what inspired people to get inked. Did all tattoos have deeper meaning or just looked sick? In this series, we interviewed people from all over to find out.
This week we spoke to Em, 23 is a librarian who lives in Falmouth, Cornwall and is the owner of this cool bouquet.
When did you get this tattoo?
I got this tattoo a couple of months ago from my friend Martha (https://www.instagram.com/lilybluetattoo/). She is a super talented artist and has been doing stick and poke tattoos for several years now. Martha is usually based in Paris but she was down for a while over summer so we met up and did the tattoo at her family home in Penryn, Cornwall. It was nice to just lounge on her couch in the sun sipping tea while we chatted and she tattooed.
Is this your first tattoo?
Not by a long way! I’ve lost count of exactly how many tattoos I have but its over 20, maybe even over 30 at this point. This was only my second stick and poke tattoo though, my other have all been down with machines. This is my most recent and probably most special tattoo though.
Why this design?
This tattoo is one I’ve had planned for a long time. The collection of flowers all represent the strong women in my family. A rose for my mother, primroses for my Nana and daisies for my little sister. It’s been in my head for years but I didn’t know what sort of style I wanted it in and I knew I really wanted to be picky about who did it. Then I saw my Martha’s work and after getting a smaller piece by her I knew she was the one to do it. Her art style works so well with botanical designs and she did a wonderful job at designing this one. I decided to keep it as just black with some shading to really appreciate this simple beauty of it. It’s a nice contrast of all my other colourful tattoos. This tattoo means so much to me and I’m so glad I got it done by a friend who has a strong bond with her wonderful, strong mother too.
If you would like to submit your tattoo story, send us an email at trashfiremagazine.com.
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January is a time best known for resolving to change your life and failing in a pathetically short time frame. The game of deciding to lose weight, drink less, save money, be a nicer person, and subsequently not doing any of those things, is played out annually and rarely to success.
I know why I fail every year; because nothing makes me want to eat junk food, drink gin, spend money and be horrible to people more than feeling like I’m under pressure to restrict my behaviour. For others, it could be that their expectations are unrealistic, that the lifestyle shift poses more of a difficulty than they thought, or actually because it turns out those things they are giving up make them happy. Resolutions fail for a number of reasons but the fact is, they fail.
Unfortunately, the effect of failing isn’t just that you don’t achieve your goals, at least if you’re anything like me. It’s that feeling of failure itself, that you’ve let yourself down somehow, that adds that bit of salt to the wound. I haven’t just not saved any money; I’ve got no willpower, I’m an overspender, I’m my own problem, I don’t enjoy the things I have bought because of the guilt I feel over them. For me, the guilt of not succeeding is regularly far worse than not succeeding’s direct effect on my life.
There’s a lot of commentary about how important this feeling of guilt is to the industries that stand to benefit from your attempts to self-improve; I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen A LOT of adverts from fitness classes in the last month. Marketing metrics and research is good enough now to know what you’ve probably been thinking about doing. They know how to hit you where it hurts when you feel like you really need to do something. It goes beyond simple trend spotting. Emails send automatically when you fail to complete a purchase; ads for health food boxes fill your social after you watch a video with an #ad in it on youtube. Without sounding like a full-blown conspiracy theorist, the machines know you’ve not been doing your squats. And they are coming for you.
So, the overarching effect of me making, and failing my new year’s resolutions, has two problems. One, I feel guilty and ashamed of myself and that’s not a nice feeling. And two, that guilt then makes me spend more money and I fuel industries seeking to benefit from this shame. Essentially, the problems I’m trying to solve aren’t as big an issue as the guilt I get from failing to solve them. Maybe, just maybe, the solution is then not to try and solve my problems but to instead, get rid of the guilt that I’ve attached to them. To tell myself it’s okay not to be perfect, to acknowledge my issues, but also say ‘screw this, living this way makes me happy and I’ma do it.’ Other things in my life are happy, so why should I feel guilty about them? As Marie Kondo would put it, the guilt does not spark joy, therefore it has to go. So, here are just a few things I could resolve not to do, but am not going to. Instead, I’m going to do them and not feel guilty.
Not exercising as much as I need to for a Kardashian bod
Because literally only the Kardashians have time for that. I concluded last year that a healthy, manageable amount for me to go the gym is twice a week. That fits in with my lifestyle. And to be clear, that is perfectly healthy; between this and my walking to work every day, that’s as much exercise as I should need to do. And FYI, it is not my job to tell you you should even be doing that much. I know myself well enough to know that some exercise is extremely beneficial to me, and I enjoy it. That’s my choice for myself, and if that’s not what you want, then don’t. However, I know I can be at risk of beating myself up about not doing enough, especially if I don’t make that two because I’m busy or ill. So guess what? It’s cool for me to be busy. Or ill. I don’t need to be up at 5am every day. I can aim for two a week because that’s my ideal. But if I don’t make it, I’m not going to hate myself any more.
Spending too much money on food
I love eating out and enjoying good food so much. It’s one of the best ways for me to connect with friends or colleagues, or keep me motivated if I’m having a challenging day at work. Good food is, yes, a privilege, but it’s also one of the simplest joys that I can have day-to-day, unmitigated by anything else. It’s unfortunately, also, a huge expenditure in my life. I regularly feel guilt over spending so much money on something so fleeting and frivolous, to the extent that I often don’t even enjoy my meal because I’m anxious about what I’ve paid for it.
I regularly try to cut back on it, which I still admit makes sense to do; don’t get me wrong I’m not about to start eating every meal at ZiZi’s with my new found freedom. I make the best scrambled eggs ever, so there’s not much need for me to go out for breakfast. But when I make the call to do it, simply because I want to, I’m going to enjoy it. It’s one of my favourite things, and I’m a grown ass woman with a salary and as long as I can afford the necessities, I’m going to let myself have it.
Lying in bed watching bad reality TV
Much like food, this is a simple piece of enjoyment I can gain easily at the end of a long day. In the past, reflecting on how I’ve wasted my time like this has made me feel really bad. But guess what? I absolutely love bad TV. And my bed. So much. It makes me happy. I’m now just going to embrace the happiness that gives me, and return to binge-watching Bridalplasty (side note: if you’ve never seen this, it’s a show in which brides compete for plastic surgery before their wedding day. Please, treat yourself to this).
Not having a pristinely tidy bedroom
Turns out, I’m just quite a messy person. I’ve taken steps to improve that about myself, a lot of which have worked (my favourite has been learning that it takes around about no effort whatsoever to take a mug to the kitchen when I am already near the mug and going to the kitchen. For years I, for some reason, would just look at the mug, think ‘hmm, not this time’, then go empty handed). I’ll keep trying for sure, as I don’t actually want to live in squalor, and will make changes where needed to prevent that.
But things don’t need to be pristine. I’m only going to live in it and ruin it again. I’m never going to have a perfect white and rose gold bedroom. I live in East London and my plant is dead. I’m not going to feel bad about the disorganised pile of hair products any longer.
So, I have one resolution; to not change anything about the above, other than how I feel about it. Please let me know in the comments or on Twitter what you won’t be changing this year; I would love to cheer on your disgusting, imperfect selves.
With about one in five people having a tattoo these days, we at trashfire wanted to know what inspired people to get inked. Did all tattoos have deeper meaning or just looked sick? In this new series, we interviewed people from all over to find out.
This week, we spoke to Sin, 24, who is currently a cleaner in Falmouth and rocks this delicate piece.
Trigger Warning: contains mention of self-harm
When did you get this tattoo? And where?
I got this tattoo when I was 20 years old so that would have been 2014. I got it in Living Canvas Tattoo parlour in Hayle, Cornwall.
Is this your first tattoo?
No, this was my 3rd tattoo out of 5.
Why this design?
I got this tattoo as a symbol for my struggle with depression. In my late teens I used to be a self harmer and in the right light you can still see the scars from that. This tattoo reminds me that I’m still alive.
If you would like to submit your tattoo story, send us an email at trashfiremagazine.com.
Like the work we do here? Why not chuck us a quid or two here!
It’s the beginning of January and we have already been bombarded with all the “new Year, New Me” shenanigans, ranging from all the shops pushing gym wear, to well-meaning relatives asking you what your resolutions are as you finish off the left over chocolates. Now I, like most people, have never been great at keeping resolutions (I once resolved not to swear despite being known amongst pretty much all my friends for flipping them off almost excessively.) However, the last year or two I decided that if any form of meaningful change was to happen, I would have to change the perspective first. The second thing I realised however this year was that I also maybe didn’t want to change, per se.
The capitalist society that we live in requires us to keep striving to change our deemed “imperfections” in order for large corporations to keep making money, whether it’s our appearance, habits, hobbies etc. Even better, if they can successfully get us to mentally perpetuate a shame cycle of trying and failing and trying again (*cough* dieting industries *cough*) then they can make money indefinitely whilst we continue to beat ourselves up in the process.
In the end, something has to give and normally it’s us.
“But isn’t the whole premise of your magazine that you are trying to change and be better people Ruby?”
Well, yes. But we are a anti-lifestyle magazine in the sense that we are trying to work outside the commercialised image of what is sold to us as “wellness”. After all, self-care is not a candle, bath bomb or a paid app for “mindfulness” (like seriously, how did people manage to make money from thinking?).
“That will be £7.99 per minute for that peaceful sunset sir”
Instead, my new system is more a proposal of managing our delicate identity ecosystem, which lies somewhere between morals, mental health and various environmental factors.
So here goes, these are not my resolutions, but things I aim to implement which will hopefully improve my own wellbeing considering the shitshow which is often modern life. Let’s not be fooled though, this isn’t just a repackaging of resolutions, as I will also be including the things I will not be changing, things I enjoy and don’t see the need to punish myself for. Also, by having these as aims rather than something resolute, it means when I fail, not everything is lost as it is not “broken” in the same sense.
1.Food and Drink
Now this is always a loaded topic, especially around New Years, but let me say this: I will not be going on a diet. Diets and Diet Culture can permanently go fuck itself forever as an insidious example of a disaster capitalism which has permeated and poisoned a society like no other.
What I will be doing however, considering the fact that climate change is very much real, and also being one of the Sad People on the Internet™, I will be making an effort to try eating more sustainable and vegan meals with hopefully more fresh fruit and vegetables to do a little bit for both my brain and the environment. Like the smug hipster I am, I have already made the switch to oat milk (the most sustainable of milks according to this article, which also has some other handy sustainability tips!) The important thing is that I am trying new recipes and exploring food in a fun healthy way (I recommend the FREE Tasty app if you’re a novice like me).
I will not, on the other hand, give up my one true love, grilled cheese toasties. Like a sexy bed of cheese and dairy, I have to quote the Rolling Stones when I say “wild horses couldn’t drag me away”.
Similarly I will be participating in a sort of Dry January, although I plan for it to be more long term and nowhere near as strict. My current plan is that unless it is an occasion (birthday, holiday, etc.) I will be trying to stick to the soft drinks due to alcohol being an a depressant and all (Classic Sads™ am I right guys??). However, will that stop me from sampling beer when I go to Brussels in a few weeks? Hell no, I will be stuffing my face with beer, chocolate and chips as if my life depended on it (and to be honest, not sure what the other veggie options are.)
“Did you know in Belgium, Dry january is when all the beer runs out and therefore the apocalypse starts”
2. TV, Tech and other Hobbies
Now if you know me you will know that two of my favourite hobbies are binging TV and chatting shit on Twitter. Admittedly though, if you really know me, you will also know that I have a lot of side projects and hobbies I like to do (buy my badges here!)
Now in order to me to do more of the creative stuff I like doing, I also have to cut down on the stuff which I definitely find less fulfilling but also is far less taxing and much easier to do. Rather than going cold turkey however. I am trying to limit myself to two episodes of anything a day, and investigating screentime limiting apps (please comment if you have any recommendations.) Whilst I also aim to read at least 12 books this year, will I stop reading fanfiction in bed? Still, very much no.
Also, I have made a pledge this year that in terms of gigs, I will only be doing gigs that either interest me, challenge me, has been recommended or I know the promoter (most often a combo of all of these factors). This may considered a holier than thou approach but it also seems insane to spend so many of your evenings in faraway places with spiteful, competitive audiences instead of stuff that makes you happy for the sake of “making it”. I’d much rather do a couple less gigs but they are gigs that make me happy and foster an audience from there.
me presumably giving unsolicited advice at men in the audience
4. Actual Self-Care
When I say this, I mean the difficult and boring things to actually maintain my health, e.g.
Take my pill regularly.
Avoid things that I know will give my stomach problems like sweeteners, fizzy drinks and caffeine and drink more water instead. There’s only so long I can pretend I have no idea why my stomach hurts, even if it means giving up my beloved peach iced tea.
Try to keep things actually tidy (my attempts at this will be coming to you soon in article form as I am both perpetually messy and incredibly anxious about mess. Why is my brain like this? We may never know.)
Floss more. Hygienist appointments are one of the most horrific Saw-esque torture things you can think of and I wish never to have to do it again.
Work on my relationship – It’s hard to admit you’re an asshole at the best of times, so this year I’ll be trying to check myself before I wreck myself (and others).
Try and go back to my doctor to try and source some counselling. After facing some real mental dips this year and trying phone therapy (I was forcibly persuaded despite telling them phone calls make me anxious!!) I want to try and access some in person help before I face another crisis again. I’m okay at the moment, but I know when I crash, it will be hard and I’d rather be adequately supported for once.
These are all valid aims in my opinion and I hope it inspires some of you at home to maybe assess what can actually help you this year rather than what might be sold to you as “self-care” superficial plaster solutions. Also, please don’t get disheartened if you can’t stick to them immediately. Let me emphasise this:
Progress isn’t linear.
Striving for all of this is dandy but also do remember to enjoy yourself and most importantly, you don’t have to feel guilty for your choices (as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone). I can solemnly promise that I will not be giving up candles or bath bombs as I love Lush with a passion (if you ever need an ambassador, let me know)!
After all, you only live once so whilst you take of yourself, why not enjoy a glittery nice smelling bath too? Just remember that you’ve no matter what you do or don’t do, you have never failed.
Rappers with ‘lil’ in their names take the brunt of the open condescension directed towards hip-hop, with many a 45-year old man from Hertfordshire having tweeted out something along the the lines of “Lil’ Baby??? What’s next?? Lil’ SNOWFLAKE??” presumably after his second warm Carling of the afternoon.
In contrast, I actually compile this list as a fan of (some of) these artists, as opposed to someone who is bemused by the fact that those working in hip-hop name themselves according to linguistic and cultural trends, despite it being prevalent with those working in other genres.
After all, you need look no further for an even more egregious case of superfluous prefixation in the near-infinite number of bands that have called themselves ‘The ____’, (e.g. The Beatles, The Who, The Snuts), a trend so pervasive in its redundancy that it persists into the Current Year (The Snuts being from Radio X’s Best New For 2019).
But let’s leave that all aside and get into the list, shall we? Esketit etc.
Full disclosure: This article was originally going to be titled ‘Lil’ Rappers Ranked By How Lil’ They Actually Are’ (in terms of height), but I was beaten to the punch by a Buzzfeed article from 2013.
Despite the ego-deflating disappointment of what I presumed was an Original Thought™ being supplanted by a near-decade-old composition (which incidentally barely reaches 300 words and gets many of the rappers’ heights wrong, no I’m not bitter), an opportunity to exhume the idea popped up on my phone in the form of an ear-splitting ad for Spotify Premium.
Woman: You can even listen on a submarine!
Man: (bowel-wrenchingly audible smirk) Perfect place to listen to some deep house.
(Source: Spotify Premium advertisement, 2019, unknown author, presumably some sort of demonic ghoul)
Spotify have benevolently released a list of lil’ rappers ranked by Spotify streams, presumably so a 20-something hack like myself can squeeze a think-piece or two out of it, flat white clenched impotently between my un-callused hands.
Below is the resulting up-to-date union of these two metrics, a profile of Lil’ rappers according to height and popularity, along with some Cool Facts I found on Wikipedia.
Lil Skies
Height: 5ft 7 / 170 cm / about 1 and a half Minions from Despicable Me
Aside from being the 10th most popular Lil’ on Spotify, a fun fact about Lil Skies is that he makes music with his dad, which is cute. What’s more, his dad’s moniker is DARK SKIES, which, apart from being endearingly derivative of his son’s handle (or vice-versa), would be a great super-villain name.
Lil’ Kim
Height: 4’11 / 150cm / if you bought a bunch of bananas and tied them end to end, Lil’ Kim would on average be shorter than that banana trail
Aside from having the most solid claim to the title Lil’ (in fact she’s only one inch above the most common definition of a person with dwarfism), Lil’ Kim is an industry legend with at least three platinum-certified studio albums. She is also known for appearing in the Gamecube classic Def Jam: Fight For NY, a hip-hop inspired wrestling game which certainly received reviews.
Lil Peep
Height: 6’1 / 185cm / about as tall as an adult female ostrich
Lil Peep tragically died at the age of 21 from an accidental fentanyl-xanax overdose, so I don’t really want to make a joke about that. However, when looking up facts about ostriches I found out that these bastards can run at over 45 miles per hour and can deliver a kick capable of killing a lion. Also, an ostrich once broke 5 of Johnny Cash’s ribs, so they’re bad news.
Lil Jon
Height: 5’6 / 168cm / about 17 Garfield books stacked on top of each other
“Unless you’re an extremely stupid person that began life as a poor, violent man, only to see your fortunes turn once you started rapping, you won’t be able to relate to 99 percent of today’s rap music”
A tone-deaf white rapper who makes comedy raps?? In 2019??? Due to a good flow and presumably good connections, Lil Dicky has managed to get multiple co-signs from high-profile artists like Snoop Dogg and convicted domestic abuser Chris Brown.
Lil’ Kleine
Height: 5’9 / 177cm / 1 Lil Dicky
I had no idea who this guy was but apparently he’s massive in the Netherlands. All 11 tracks off his latest album made it onto the Dutch Spotify Top 25. Goed gadann pal!
Lil Pump
Height: 5’7 / 171cm / as tall as pump shoes if they were exactly the height of Lil Pump
I put on D Rose once for my friends and they all looked highly uncomfortable.
Lil Yachty
Height: 5’10 / 180cm / shorter than most yachts
I will choke the life out of your worthless frog body.
Lil Yachty to Kermit T. Frog, probably
Known for the Chef Boyardee jingle “Let’s start the Par-dee”. Also, other songs.
Lil Uzi Vert
Height: 5’4 / 163 cm / 2 and a half Yodas
Anyone who has enough confidence to post a video of them lip-syncing to ‘Black Sheep’ from the Scott Pilgrim OST (vocals: Brie Larson) while their friends look on with utter confusion and non-interest fully deserves their millions of Spotify streams imo.
Lil Wayne
Height: 5’5 / 165cm / just over four goats standing on top of each other
Known for his freakish goat feet, as well as for having sold well over 100 million records worldwide, Lil Wayne is unsurprisingly the most streamed Lil’ by a wide margin.
Please follow me at @lovetrapezium and tweet this at all of your favourite lil’s so I can get epically owned in a quote tweet, thanks!
