it has been
such a long week — lemon, it’s monday, i know — and i am so, so angry.
what am i angry about, you ask?
“the media,” i reply, making my argument indistinguishable from your prepper uncle’s. (although really, is anyone having a better quarantine than the prepper uncle?)
to be serious, though, i’m angry about 100 layoffs and 100 furloughs at conde nast. i’m angry about 155 layoffs at vice, many of whom were the women, people of color and queer people who made the site—for which i used to work—worth reading. im angry about quartz, vox, buzzfeed, etc, etc, cut, print, repeat.
i’m angry because it always plays out the same way: print and digital media pretends it wants to do better, and then when cuts come (and they inevitably do, because even pre-COVID, the system wasn’t tenable), the “diverse voices” and “young talent” it trumpeted is suddenly disposable. im angry for my brilliant coworkers, who deserved better, and the people who never got to be in media in the first place due to the staggering amount of resources it takes just to get in the door.
i’m doing as many concrete and sustainable things as i can to use my anger in productive ways, but when i can’t summon my propelling rage to get useful work done—when i’m just too tired and sad and riddled with media survivor guilt to brainstorm on how to make the industry better, or at least survivable—i do zumba.
pause for 30-minute laugh break.
to be clear: i am not quite girlbossified or brain-worm-riddled enough to think that my workout routine is in any way valuable or structurally significant to anyone but me. but, BUT! i’m just brain-wormed enough to think that people like me—i.e. privileged media workers who haven’t yet been laid off—can, and should, work to help our colleagues and mitigate industry damage, and i find i’m best-positioned to do that work when i’m not rendered immobile by my own depression.
this, unfortunately, is where zumba comes in. i put on my stupid little youtube video every day and i wear my stupid little leggings and i dance around and punch the air and yell at renee (fuck you, renee, stop jumping so high) and admire aurelio’s calves and 90% of the time, when i’m done, i am physically more tired but mentally more awake.
“physically tired, mentally awake” has proved to be a more effective combination for mutual aid brainstorming than the reverse, so for now, i’m sticking with it. not just because i want to have a beautiful ab rack or cry less, but because it is my responsibility as someone who still has a job to do what i can for those who do not.
i’m defining what that means every day, as are my peers, and i don’t mean to come off self-aggrandizing—so far, my scope of concrete action has primarily been limited to “delivering groceries” and “guiltily donating to gofundmes”, i’m not norma rae or tha god kim kelly—but at the very least, i want to show up fully for what i CAN do. zumba helps me do that. ergo, zumba is a tool of the worker and must be exalted. <3