Welcome to Brain Rot
A place for celebrating what's making your brain melt.
Hey! I’m so happy you’re here. Over the last couple years, I’ve had such an amazing experience building a community online and getting to meet some of you all IRL. Still, recently, I’ve been struck by a nagging desire: I wanna talk more shit. Well, not exactly – I want to share more of my thoughts and opinions with you guys, and yes, that does include some snark here and there.
But mostly I wanted to do some casual writing, to have somewhere to flesh out some of my random preoccupations. Since making writing my job, I’ve realized that I don’t write for fun anymore – everything’s either work or a furious and deranged healing journal entry. Before that, I had little blogs on various platforms, starting with xanga (IYKYK), so I guess this is my return to that, my personal take on the Y2K resurgence.
Every Sunday, Brain Rot will be a space to share the current obsessions taking root in my gray matter. It’ll be a mix of personal updates, meditations on pop culture, social observations, deep dives into memes that are permanently embedded in my personality…you get the picture. The format will likely be fluid, incorporating bits of media review, chats with people I think are cool, and lists of things I want to buy cleverly disguised as holiday gift guides and starter packs. As things change shape, I hope you’ll find some value in my expanded Notes App musings.
Thank you all for being here. Now – let’s get into it.
Assorted Thoughts on Socializing at the End of the World (And My Twenties)
I am a well-documented proponent of being outside, but even I have to be honest: sometimes it’s not worth it to leave your home to contend with drunk and high bitches who can't say excuse me. I am, of course, talking about going to the club, an institution that has disappointed me now for over a decade. Part of the issue is that I grew up in peak early 2000s music video culture. What else could I do other than anticipate an adulthood where Hot in Herre-level bacchanalias awaited me every weekend? There were supposed to be iconic looks! Flirty banter! Eight-count choreography! But in reality, a night out rarely feels like it’s teeming with possibility. It’s usually more like spinning the block to an ex: slightly worse than you remember, and with more work involved.
And yet, I keep going! I guess this is one of those things about being in your late twenties. Everyone’s either married with a three-month-old or experiencing a rabid surge of energy telling them to go go go, to shake ass before the maturity police outlaw paying nonsensical cover fees and queuing up for watery drinks. After all, we are, annoyingly, living in unprecedented times. You never know when you might unexpectedly end up inside for a year.
Even before the pandemic and the resulting skip, I was in a serious fun deficit, which feels more accurate to describe my situation than burnout — though there was some of that too. Now, like the people I’m finding myself drawn to, I need some time to get back in the black. I’m due for a period of consistent wildin’ out and throwing ass; a hot girl era, if you will. A socialite season, maybe. Something that makes up for all the lost time during Covid-19, and then some.
But, like a lot of people, my life is in flux. I’m back in New York after five years away, the last two and a half spent living in Nigeria (and even there, I moved cities twice in two years.) Yet again, I’m starting the process of putting down roots, which means saying “sounds good, I’m down!” to every invitation as I rebuild a social circle loosened by spontaneous moves, familial obligations, and the fact that people aren’t really socialized to prioritize friendship (Anne Helen Peterson wrote on this for her newsletter Culture Study, in a larger piece exploring why people don’t live near their friends.)
So to the club I go. And to surprisingly lucid dinners, now that every other person is sober-curious (including me). And to the occasional weekday coffee with the other WFH girlies, because creating and maintaining relationships actually takes hard work now that I can’t just be adopted by extrovert classmates and coworkers. Now that it’s getting colder, it’s tempering the creeping “...maybe we should go out” energy that swells up every time I consume exactly two (2) cocktails al fresco. We’re heading into the best time of the year: house party season, the great migration back indoors once it’s time to shelve the park hangs and beach days.
As I get older, house parties consistently deliver where the club fails. There’s a touch of that feeling of infinite possibility, culled down to a more manageable level. It’s easier to engineer a crowd that even the most skilled door person couldn’t manufacture: a perfect ratio of pre-vetted friends and acquaintances to total wildcards, the plus one of a plus one of a plus one, the chain made from a WhatsApp message that announces it’s been forwarded many times. It’s this element of safe surprise that really sets the house party off. And what greater thrill is there than pulling up to a friend-thrice-removed’s crib for a party, only to find they’re secretly rich and live in a loft subsidized by their daddy (sugar or bio)? Luckily, there’s nothing urban-dwelling millennials love more than drinking at home for free, so I guess there’s still time for my Frontin’ dreams to come true.
Recently Read & Currently Reading
RR: Luster by Raven Leilani and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Motessfegh. I’ve read both books before but I’m always drawn back to chic sad girl-in-NYC books this time of year…I spent a lot of my formative years unsupervised on Tumblr and then my early twenties in NYC, so it tracks, I think. As before, both are grotesque, hilarious, and stunning displays of down-to-the-syllable precision, and every page of Luster feels like getting hit by a bus, which is to say it’s excellent. A perfect double-header for anyone who wants to get in their feelings but punctuated with noir meets Broad City-ish laughs.
(As a bonus, this Kaitlyn Greenidge piece in the Virginia Quarterly Review about Luster is just fantastic – I had to follow up my reread by revisiting it.)
CR: The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy. Basically the OG manifestation manual. If you didn’t know before, I am a woo woo girl. Pass me the incense.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion. A collection of early Didion pieces in her classic style: observational, witty, slightly shady. It’s my train book so my progress has been slow going. Thankfully, I’m a cliche and loving it so I don’t mind.
Recently Watched & Currently Watching
RW: The White Lotus season 2, which I’ve been holding off on for a couple reasons. The first: I’ve been trying to watch shows after the conversation around them has died down, so I can at least try to form my own opinions. The social media dialogue is just too overwhelming.
The second is that I just thought the first season was kind of boring. And I say that as someone who loves vapid rich white people shows. Even though the plot rambled midseason, I preferred it to season 1. Then again, I’ve had a proclivity for media about vaguely homoerotic frenemies jockeying for power ever since I saw The Riot Club for the first time. Here are my other random thoughts almost a year late, because I love screaming into the void:
(Um, spoiler warning, I guess lol.)
Meghann Fahy is a treasure. Her performance is charming, arresting, and a little depressing, just left of Stepford Wives territory. Sutton Brady Hive rise up! Here’s me climbing onto my soap box: watch The Bold Type! In a post/mid-pandemic (🥴) world it feels like a relic, but it’s cozy, femme, and fun, all my favorite things.
Aubrey Plaza as a rich tech bro’s acerbic, hot workaholic wife is so right for some reason. Goals in a way, if you ignore the whole miserable, sexless marriage part of things. When I pop out this fall in a headband, please know that I’m channeling Harper, not Blair.
Jennifer Coolidge as a feckless, idle socialite – campy, delightful, funny as fuck. Michael Imperioli as a sex addict blaming his dad’s affairs during his childhood for his own behavior in his 60s – literally grow up lmao.
I couldn’t wrap my head around Portia spending days not being able to manufacture some fun for herself while being on a paid vacation in Sicily…girl. Surely, you can figure something out.
Lucia and Mia, my grifter fashion girl queens. Love to see them win.
I shan’t say too much on Theo James because I am a good Pentecostal gal who was raised in the church, and also because my mother is subscribed to this newsletter. Instead, I’ll leave you all with this: 👀
Lucia & Mia, legends, babes, icons. Photo: HBO
CW: Nothing really, if I’m being honest. I’m kind of watching The Real Housewives of New York. I was a Jenna Lyons gworl during her peak at J.Crew, so she finally got me watching the franchise, even though I’ve been fluent in Nene Leakes memes for years. But right now I’m so many episodes behind that I feel like it doesn’t count. The weather is starting to feel a lot like “I should rewatch The Sopranos" but I’m trying to fight the urge and instead start Succession — and finish it — once and for all. I’ll keep you all updated, but I’m warning you now: the siren song of a thick ass Jersey french tip may prove too strong.
Earworms
At any given moment, I’m playing at least three songs straight into the grave. Here’s what’s going triple-platinum in my home right now.
“The Rush” by Janelle Monae with Amaarae and Nia Long (!?!), a sexy, beachy track about physical chemistry, a holdover from the last days of summer. Amaarae makes the song with a silky feature in her distinctive falsetto, somehow singing the phrase “fucking you like it’s my destiny” without it giving scary Bryson Tiller-in-Wild Thoughts vibes. Amazing soundtrack to fuel a delusionship.
“Mr. Money” by Asake. I remember when this song dropped during quarantine, and three years later it’s still in constant rotation and I’m still randomly saying “Mr. Money, can I be your only honey?” in conversation. Not to be all my man, my man, my man about it, but as a Yoruba babe I am contractually obligated to love Asake; there’s nothing that can be done.
“Are You Dumb (WMF)” by SGaWD, off her 2021 EP Savage Bitch Juice. Here’s the chorus:
The fixation is self-explanatory, methinks.
A Potentially Controversial Opinion, Thoughtlessly Shared
Exactly what it sounds like. I’ll share one of these a week.
Anthony Ramos cheating on Jasmine Cephas-Jones — and getting exposed on TikTok. The Weeknd’s five-eight ass being outed as a creepy misogynist with his tepid, navel-gazey performance in The Idol. Joe Jonas maintaining his streak of never breaking up with a woman in person during his messy divorce from Sophie Turner. Dare I say it? After a strong positive PR cycle quarterbacked almost exclusively by Zendaya and Tom Holland, short kings are back in their flop era, I fear.
Okay! So that’s all from me this week. I’m starting spooky season with a rewatch of The Craft tonight. Lastly, If there’s anyone you think needs a little more Brain Rot in their lives, please share :)
See you next week,
Lola