Everything is research now, which means research can now be anything: leisure, entertainment, art, content. The collection of moodboards and lists – of books read and to-be-read, movies watched and to-be-watched, songs heard and to-be-heard, items purchased and to-be-purchased, and so on – is constitutive of what many people now do (and frequently sell) online and refer to as research.
As Emily Segal’s recent X-essay-turned-Substack on ‘tasteslop’ explains, ‘good taste relies on a degree of esotericism’. Now that Silicon Valley is obsessed with taste, the research that fuels taste’s healthful esotericism is slowly coming to the top of the feed. Videos with titles like ‘Spend a Research Day with Me’ and ‘Media to Consume Instead of Doomscrolling’ make up what Nicole Pereira in Polyester has dubbed knowledgemaxxing, an online trend-movement ‘fuelled by niche interests or a desire for intellectual empowerment’ – and one that also sidesteps the basics of annotation, fact-checking, debating and other kinds of accountability that academia and professionalism provide, flawed and limiting as they may be.
Pereira’s cod-neologism identifies ‘research hobbyists’ and ‘TikTok researchers’ on an anti-brainrot quest for ‘intellectual empowerment’. This research-as-leisure trend has accelerated in recent months thanks to the proliferating force of Reels, TikToks and YouTube video essays that are equal parts didactic and seductive. ‘Research’ can now call to mind all manner of reading-and-curating-based activities that are increasingly performed in the service of signalling one’s taste and populating the feed.
The second drawing in my series completely out of order is the woman who won the Fields Medal Winner, solved a breakthrough in Geodesic, Discovered the Magic Wand Theorem and is an Olympiad champion.
Maryam tragically passed away in 2017 at 40 years old but her legacy lives on as her birthday, may 12th, is celebrated as international women in maths day.
If this series does well, I want to turn them into a print collection where a portion of the proceeds will be donated to a charity to help more kids access STEM and education. Representation matters, and so does opportunity.
Which letter of the alphabet do you want to see next?
please look through the hiroshima peace memorial museum’s august 6 exhibition and the stories of victims and survivors. today, august 6, is the 80th anniversary of the bombing of hiroshima, and saturday is the 80th anniversary of the bombing of nagasaki. please consider these events not only as a series of numbers or even a single day in world history but as the living hell they created for hundred of thousands of people. i realize a lot of people in the world probably don’t know as much about the actual circumstances experienced by the people of hiroshima and nagasaki, as well as the indigenous people (downwinders and marshallese) affected by nuclear arms testing by the us, so instead of getting any more angry about how people talk about it (and how they dont talk about it) i just want to share. the images in those links are hard to look at but it’s important, if you’re in a safe place, please take the time to sit with them and what they say to you, it would mean a lot to me. all of the peace museum’s permanent exhibitions are accessible for free online, i strongly recommend exploring them. & free palestine
today is the 81st anniversary of the bombing of hiroshima. august 9 is the 81st anniversary of the bombing of nagasaki. please take some time to remember the lives that were destroyed in these senseless attacks. it’s also important to remember that there is no limit to what the united states is willing to do to any people it considers an obstacle to its imperial interest and there is no limit to what it will say in attempt to justify these atrocities.
