The internet’s narrative of the viral ‘Gorilla Glue Girl’ has taken so many turns
The month of February is barely halfway through, but it has been nothing short of a whirlwind for Tessica Brown (better known as ‘Gorilla Glue Girl’) as she became an instant meme after an unfortunate hair incident.
In January, Brown found herself out of her Got2b Glued Spray, a hair product that ensures maximum hold on hairstyles. In an interview, she explains that her decision to use Gorilla Glue adhesive instead was due to her being in a rush to leave her house. She did this with the assumption that she could simply wash it out when she returned home…
We are more than just our trauma
Another year, another Black History Month.
My place of hire, specifically the diversity and inclusion committee, wants to celebrate Black History Month with a watch party later this month. (Cool, I guess?) They sent out a survey to get our feedback on what movie we should watch. The options included selections like the highly anticipated Judas and the Black Messiah, Ava DuVernay’s exceptional 13th, Selma, and Just Mercy.
Honestly, I don’t know who is going to want to “celebrate” Black History Month by attending a virtual watch party with their co-workers on a Friday night. …
Yes, it matters which term you use.
Back when we were just friends, my husband and I were speaking on the phone when I noticed he used the word females when he should have said, women.
I pointed this out to him and after explaining to him the difference — as well as why it personally bothers me — he decided that he would stop doing it.
That’s it. That was the conversation. He realized there was something he did that bothered me — something he doesn’t have to do — and he respected me enough to stop doing it. …
It seems like allowing my future kids to believe in Santa has bigger implications than I thought
I accidentally crushed a classmate’s dream when I was in first grade.
My memory is hazy, (we’re talking over twenty years ago, bare with me). I can only assume that the context was that we were coming up on the holidays and we must have been doing some sort of classroom activity oriented towards Christmas.
One of my classmates and I were talking and she was talking about how excited she was for Christmas. Understandable, as I was always a big Christmas person myself. But somewhere in the conversation, she mentioned something that threw me off completely:
“I’m pretty sure…
Finding value in who I am rather than what I’m able to produce
After news that many of us would need to go into self-isolation back in March due to the COVID-19 virus, I had a more positive outlook at the time. Like so many other citizens, I thought that after maybe a month things would subside and we would go back to our regularly scheduled programs of working in-office, having large gatherings, and preparing for summer. However, as the month of April progressed it was pretty evident that this wouldn’t be as clear cut as we thought.
As if planning a wedding wasn’t enough, I was keeping pretty high expectations for myself…
A positive highlight to a seriously bizarre year
Here’s an understatement: 2020 is not at all what anyone expected.
Back in December, we were hearing motivational speeches, sermons, and posts about how 2020 is going to be the year of ‘perfect vision’. When you really think about it, they weren’t entirely wrong. It may not be in the passion-filled package that we believed it to be, but 2020 has definitely been an eye-opener if nothing else.
I’ve been busy with a lot of things since the pandemic started, one happened to be a huge life change.
Dating — 2019
In the span of 13 months my now husband and I met…
The things we should (and shouldn’t) focus on
I’m not watching any more murder videos. I refuse.
There are too many triggering elements to count when it comes to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. A 25-year-old Black man goes on a jog, as he usually does, only to be literally stalked and hunted by White men hellbent on conducting an unjust “citizen’s arrest”. Their reason for hunting him down? They believed he was a suspect in a burglary. They claimed that there had been recent reports of a burglary in their neighborhood. They wanted to detain him until authorities could arrive.
But there were no recent reported burglaries…
Who needs a check-in and who doesn’t?
Some of my friends are taking self-isolation harder than others. Others don’t seem to be taking it hard at all. And then there are others who seem to be taking it well, but really are just carrying the load of being ‘the strong friend’.
Self Isolation and ‘Real Friends’
In early April, actress Tia Mowry came under fire after tweeting about what it means to have ‘real’ friends in the midst of the pandemic. Mowry was quick to delete the tweet after the massive backlash, but it did bring to light a mentality that too many of us have during this time.
The mindset, to…
No, it doesn’t mean abandoning your common sense
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing a number of reactions to the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the U.S. While things seem to be improving in countries like South Korea, the United States now leads the world in confirmed new cases.
People are torn on how to feel. How many of us are overestimating it? How many of us are underestimating it? Are all the circulating memes a sign of not taking things seriously, or is humor the only way most of us know how to cope with the hardship and uncertainty of what’s going on?
…
It took a pandemic to help me realize that I’m not as focused as I thought I was
Whether it’s a coping mechanism or not, there are people who are looking at the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to be as productive as they can possibly be.
Others, like myself, still want to be productive and keep themselves active, all while working from home. I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the chance to truly ‘work from home’ since my first job out of school. And even then, I found it too frustrating to do to the point where I would just end up going to the office anyway. …
