Random Thoughts from the Tangie Dreamz Chaos Desk Vol. II
I make these posts so you have something to look at on your phone while your family is being weird at Christmas dinner. Seeing as this was an election year, I suspect many of you will need it!
Welcome back, Dreamerz (this is what I’ve decided to name my readers—I hope it’s okay! If you have any other suggestions, please comment or email them over xx). I did one of these posts last year, and it was one of the most fun things I wrote. You can read that here. I make these posts so you have something to look at on your phone while your family is being weird at Christmas dinner. Seeing as this was an election year, I suspect many of you will need it. Break in case of emergency and enjoy!
I am also once again holding my annual Festivus Christmas sale! Click here or below for a great deal on this newsletter from now until February 1st, 2025! Most of my posts are archived after one year, some are released for the paid list before they go public, and some are paid subscriber-only reads from the day they’re published. If you never want to miss a beat, a read, the tea, the skinny, the point, the scam, the low, or the deal, consider becoming a paid subscriber today! Onto the mess.
I think this is the coolest music video I’ve ever seen
The women in JJ Fad are so effortlessly sharp here. They have hairstyles that I see in 35-year-old pictures of my mom and aunties. Most importantly, they seem so comfortable with being themselves and focused on having a good time with each other, which I love. The fashion, music production, and editing all date the video, crystallizing this time in amber, but also creating something aspirational.
I think there was something in the air in the ’80s (no, not crack. A crack joke? In discourse about the ’80s? Groundbreaking). I was listening to Hoe Cakes by MF DOOM, and he samples JJ Fad’s Supersonic and Anita Baker’s Sweet Love. The former was interpolated on Fergalicious, and the latter was referenced by Kendrick Lamar on wacced out murals. Kendrick follows that with a Debby Deb sample on squabble up. Earlier this year, Megan Thee Stallion’s BAS featured Teena Marie’s Out On a Limb.
There are a lot of good songs that sample ’80s music because a lot of good music came out of the ‘80s. It would be cliché and naïve to say “it was a simpler time,” so I won’t. Instead, I’ll say I think the ’80s brought on the genesis of swag. In the history that I make up in my head, the ’30s–’70s were all about cool (e.g., think Miles Davis, James Baldwin, James Dean Robert Redford. They were cool dudes!), and the ’80s to now are about swag. I don’t really have any references or evidence for it, this is vibes based analysis.
Kim Foster says we’re also politically moving back to the ’80s. The American government is about to get messed up in ways it hasn’t been since the Reagan administration, and we’re going to feel those effects for years to come. The only way we will make it through this prescient and imminently devastating time in history is the same way we started it: by staying swaggy.
This was a bad year for biracials
There is sophisticated, highbrow sociological discourse to be had here but I’m tired and there’s a Festivus dinner waiting for me in the kitchen so let’s just cut to the chase. It started with Drake and ended with Kamala. On the one hand, we got something really good out of it (Kendrick dropping bangers and putting West Coast rap back on the map1). On the other, we are also left with white supremacy and the inevitable acceleration of the American empire crumbling under the unbearable weight of incompetence, corruption, and megalomania. Joe Biden can clap himself on the back for the interracial couple propaganda all he wants (and I’m sure he is), but how effective was it really? In the end
She is the only one who came out on top
Speaking of Brat, was any of that real? The news was reporting on Brat Summer, and some thought that would carry Kamala to the presidency. But quite a few young people (mostly men) turned out for Trump or didn’t turn out at all. I guess they were too busy bumpin’ that. Also, nightclubs in the UK continue to close at an alarming rate. I don’t go to them, so that doesn’t really mean anything to me. It’s one of those things that I’m always going to turn down, but it’s always nice to know I’m invited. I’m dancing, sweating to the Brat album, the extended re-release, and the remix re-re-release in my flat by myself after I shut my work laptop. So, like, what is Brat really? This summer, it seemed like a seismic femininomenon, but it’s actually just an album. To me, that’s just a bit sad, innit.
Speaking of, Keep your sadness to yourself!
I decided to watch Conversations With Friends for the first time at the start of December. At the end of episode 10, a sad cover of I’m Just a Girl by No Doubt started playing, and I groaned exasperatedly. Some may say I have the music taste of an adult who still only eats chicken nuggets, but I like my music to be fun! Upbeat! Something with a tempo! Something I can shake ass to! (That threshold is very low, btw; I shake ass to A Thousand Miles at least once a month.) Sad music has its time and place (that time and place is my designated playlist of Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, and Radiohead). But most of the time, we should indeed be bumpin’ that!
I thought we stopped making pitiful renditions of fun songs 10 years ago when all of those white people got roasted for making ukulele covers of rap songs? 98% of music should have a BPM over 100. That should be a law. Also, all sad covers of fun songs should be banned. If I ever run for president, this will be my platform. Watch this space.
I told y’all this would be the year of reveals!!!
The Drake/Kendrick beef (specifically this picture and everything about Not Like Us), the U.S. election, and, as a last-minute entry, the Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni lawsuit. And those are just the ones off the top of my head! Stay tuned for my prediction of next year’s theme…it’ll be a doozy.
Jenna Marbles, we miss you
I started watching Jenna Marbles on YouTube in middle school when my friend Avery, shocked and horrified that I had never heard of her, urged me to go home and watch her videos as soon as humanly possible. I watched Jenna’s videos until she stopped posting in 2020, and since then, six months can’t go by without me making a reference to a video.
Last month, I needed something to stave off a panic attack while I was watching the election results roll in. I knew only one thing would be able to calm my nerves: watching a then-32-year-old lady make a dog bed out of Irish Spring soap and glue rhinestones all over her face. I miss her every day2.
Everyone3 has been clamoring for my opinion on Luigi Mangione
He checks off literally every single criterion for my intricate and highly scientific White Boy of the Month formula. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but he may be knocking Logan Lerman off the top spot for White Boy of the Century!!!!
This newsletter is just over a year old. Thank you to all of my subscribers, and a very special thank you to all of my paid and founding members. I literally could not do any of this without you!!! I gained quite a few new subscribers after one of my posts spread around this spring, and that was pretty cool. I hope that happens again next year, but I’m also more than okay with slow and steady.
I really feel like I got a lot better at conveying my thoughts, ideas, and emotions this year and am very much looking forward to more growth next year. Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me. I know I just said I’m getting better at expressing myself, but I’m a liar. I can’t find words for how much your support means—just know it’s something along the lines of “a ginormous amount.”
it never fell off! But I’d be lying if I said the South and East Coast weren’t dominating the scene throughout the 2010s
I just realized I’m writing this as if she’s dead. She is not, lmao; she just made a healthy decision to step back from internet fame.
no one