why i love being gen z 🩵🩶
zepotha, ibjol and suing montana in the name of climate change 🫡
Ughhhhhh. You!!! I have no words for you!! Every time I write something straight out of the pages of my diary you all gas it up so much and prove to me that I am NOT ALONE IN THIS BIG FREAKY WORLD!!!!! Thank u for all the love on Monday’s edish - so happy to have this community of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60-year-old teenagers 𓆩♡𓆪
Today we’re back on our usual bullshit, but it’s skewing towards my fave thing to talk about - gen z and how they're slaying rn. Hope ur into it!!
This week I took all our Close Friends on holiday down to southern New Zealand with me to work in the snow!!! It was cute, and while I was there on my own, it never gets lonely with all of you.
Our book club chat is still POPPING OFF and Bel and I are recording our Book Club pod this week so you’ll get to hear all of that soon!
If you wanna be besties, you know what to do…
I love Gen Z humour so much
A group of gen z residents sued the state of Montana and won!!
Bel Chimes In with her final chime (from Aotearoa)
Forget loling and rofling, we’re out here ijboling
Today’s mundane poll: How would you pronounce the ‘X’ in ‘Harry Styles X Taylor Swift’
I love Gen Z humour so much
Ok so I need to write about how obsessed I am with gen z's sense of humour and the lore that goes into it because I can’t wait to see the type of tv shows/ movies/ art that comes out of this deeply unserious and abstract gen. Moving on from the absolute madness that was created with the Grimace shake trend, TikTok has now been flooded with Zepotha content. The other day I found myself in a comment section of someone’s video, where every single comment was ‘OMG you look exactly like that one girl from Zepotha!’ I didn’t think much of it until I saw it in the next comment section, and the one after that, and the one after that, and luckily one of the suggested searches took me to a video by a creator that kinda explained it.
They had made a TikTok that said: “ok new bit idea: what if we created a fake 80s horror movie called ‘Zepotha’ & started commenting “omg u look EXACTLY like that one girl from Zepotha” or “wait u look exactly like ___ from Zepotha” on every thirstrap we see. together we will witness new lore develop, main characters were emerge, etc. & we can convince thousands of people that this weridly titled 80s horror film actually exists”
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And convince people they did. Soon I was seeing trailers being made for Zepotha, a Wikipedia page for it, new characters like Maxine, Alaine, Cole, and Danny were being created… it was a whole thing, and I loved it.
THEN I found out that the sound that was being played under every Zepotha TikTok (the same one from the original video) was a synthy 80s style song by the person who started this trend!!!! They’re a small independent artist (they had barely any followers when I first looked at their page and now they have over 200k) and honestly this is the type of organic and hilar marketing I’m obsessed with (plz brands, if ur reading this, don’t try and recreate it.)
Idk but I’m just obsessed with this, I think gen z is so funny and creative, and before you say it, YES I KNOW TUMBLR DID THIS FIRST WITH GONCHAROV.
A group of young people sued the state of Montana and won!!
A group of sixteen young climate activists (from ages 5-22) who sued Montana for violating their right to a clean environment won their case yesterday!!! The state court ruled in their favour, finding that youth in the state have a constitutional right to a healthful environment and that until now the state has failed to consider climate change when evaluating new projects was causing harm!!
“This is what climate justice in the courts, and protecting the constitutional rights of our childrens’ right to a safe climate, looks like,” said Nate Bellinger, senior staff attorney with Our Children’s Trust, the Oregon-based law firm that represented the 16 young Montanans.
Bel Chimes In: With her final chime (from Aotearoa)
This section is written by my crush, the refreshing-as-a-house-chardonnay-on-a-steamy-day, Bel Hawkins. She also writes our Sunday newsletter ‘No News is Good News’ which all our paying supporters receive. Upgrade your plan to get her newsy here!
Mōrena my crushes!
Today is a special edish of Chimes as it's the last one I'm writing to you from NZ! Luce and I are full-swing Portugal prep, and, well, more will be revealed in time, BUT I have a funny feeling you're going to be brought along for the ride...
In the meantime, and on that note, today's Chime is on what happens in the moments before we go away from where we come from. I feel like TikTok is AWASH with Euro summer hauls, packing tips for your holiday, or following along on the gorgeous lives of people somewhere other than where you are atm, and I wanted to talk about the reality:
There's more mess than you know what to do with
You'll pack, cull, fold, roll, and still end up standing in a small pile of unusable, unthrowawayable things up until the day before you go then you'll have to put them in a shoebox in a whir of stress before you leave, which will never be touched again until you return and never use them.
Everyone always wants to say another goodbye, and you never have enough time
This will result in you with your arms around someone's shoulder until your Uber toots their horn and says, get in already! and all of a sudden, you're gone.
You'll wonder why you're going in the first place
Like the day before a haircut when your hair decides to be super chic and make you reconsider your appointment entirely, you'll start having the best time with your friends in your city. In an existential Uber ride home at 2 am you'll wonder what am I doing.
Most people will treat it like you're going to go and live on a permanent holiday
Because it's easier than talking about all the hours of logistics and dreaming and planning and sweaty foreign realities that inevitably happen at the other end. Know it will be both and don't freak out when it gets bad for a quick sec.
About 27% of what you pack, no matter what, will not suit you in your new life.
Do it anyway. Feel the rain on your skin. No one else can feel it for you. Only you can let it in.
People have done this before, but not you.
What happens next is nothing you can really control or entirely predict (unless you're one of those smooth people whose lives always work out, and if so, I tip my trilby to you), so you know what? Sometimes you just have to go with it.
For anyone who's doing something big, out-on-a-limb atm, my friend Fleur said this sweet thing to me recently that I haven't been able to forget, that I think you might also like: The 'one day' to do the thing will never come. You have to manufacture it yourself. Mmmm yeah, so right, right?
For more on this and the aches and pains and un/romantic realities of moving on ~ tune into this Sunday's newsy ~ And lastly! I just wanted to make it super clear that your gorge paying subs are absolutely NOT paying for a European upheaval but are keeping the laptop lights on to keep this cutest place on the internet alive. I'm SO grateful for you all, so much so that I'd happily send you a video of my personal cover of Robbie Williams' 'Rock DJ' from the karaoke booth this weekend.
Cool k love you, bye! xo
Forget loling and rofling, we’re out here ijboling
Full disclosure, I’ve never seen IJBOL (pronounced eej-bol) used in the wild, but apparently people are using it now. Oh, and it means “I just burst out laughing.” That’s all!
Today’s mundane poll:
Speaking as a Gen Z-er from Tumblr, I have to say that I'm SO unenthused about the whole 'zepotha' thing (it's basically knock-off Goncharov), but hey, whatever floats your boat😂👌 (and I am *certainly* not here to dunk on the 80s horror aesthetic, I do have some taste😎👩🏻🎤🧟♀️)
Dropping in on the most important part of the newsletter: Taylor Swift X (and) Harry Styles!