Now I’d like to think that I’ve been privileged enough to experience the feeling that is Black joy, to the point where I can call the experience a familiarity to me. Most recently I just came back from my first party holiday, shoutout 1Way Albania because what an experience, and that to me was the epitome of the true experience, feeling and environment of Black joy. Granted of course not everyone was Black but I’m just going to ignore their existence for a second in the nicest possible way because today we’re talking all things black joy.

From the music, the beautiful Black people around me, the talented DJs and MCs, everything. The vibes, the energy, everyone singing the same songs back to each other in unison that to me felt like black joy. I know you’re probably thinking, did this girl really party for three days and enjoy it so much that she’s writing an entire Substack entry on it?

And yes, yes I absolutely did.

One of my pet peeves or grievances within the Black community most often is our inability to support one another and come together as one. Truthfully, I think we lack the understanding of the word community completely, even for a community that loves to throw around the word community. I think we can use it quite aimlessly at times.

How often have we talked about how Black people don’t like other Black people enough or don’t support each other enough? Or how we take part in humiliation rituals way too often, trying to one up each other instead of embracing each other? We all know the phrase, it be our own people sometimes? In fact, let me stop before the tone of this piece gets negative and I start going off.

I say all this to say that what I experienced was the total opposite of that.

What it means to experience and feel Black joy is the opposite of that.

To me Black joy is real community. The feeling of looking around and seeing people that look like you, talk like you and go through life like you.

Black joy is being able to experience happiness and celebration without allowing racism, trauma or struggle to become the only things that define Black life. It’s choosing to experience joy, choosing to experience community and choosing to experience each other.

There is something powerful about Black people being able to create spaces where we are fully human. Where we are not just surviving, resisting or overcoming, but actually experiencing joy.

Black joy is power, it cannot be contained, dismissed or destroyed.

Not to mention this was a joint, all Black event. The attendees were Black and the team running it was Black.

Of course, on a much deeper and larger scale, Black joy is a threat to any white structure that depends on our silence. Every laugh, every celebration, every moment of ease is proof that we are still here, still building and still choosing ourselves, that is power.

In these spaces we don’t have to code switch or act a certain way. In fact, I’m sure the Albanian people were probably confused at times about what was going on, but even they couldn’t delay or deny what we were experiencing or feeling because they were there experiencing it with us too, even if they weren’t still involved in the same way.

It was an experience, black joy itself is an experience. A feeling and in some ways, a familiarity.

There is power in Black people gathering together simply because we want to and there is power in us creating these spaces that don’t need to be validated by anyone else other than us.

There is power in looking around and seeing people who understand the music, the references, the energy, the way we move through the world.

There is power in not having to explain why something means so much to you because we just get it.

Black joy sometimes is Terminal 4 shouting “ happy happy happy birthdayyyy”on a stage during an all-white beach party. And yes, I know that sounds random BUT if you know, you know.

And using these examples doesn’t take away from the fact that Black joy is part of the revolution. Sacred, in fact. I’m simply using it as a metaphor for my current love and admiration towards my recent experience of Black joy in all its forms.

That holiday feeling really was that deep and it’s something that will stay with me.

It felt like a real life documentation of Black joy and that, my friends, is revolutionary.

We need more documentation of Black joy. What is it they say?

The revolution must be televised and so must Black joy.

I want to be able to go back over those videos and re experience those moments, that feeling, that joy because black joy is alive and Black joy will remain alive as long as we keep doing what we’re doing. Because every time we laugh together, every time we dance together, every time we gather, every time we create a space where we are free to be fully ourselves, we are documenting something. We are documenting us and that, to me, is what Black joy is.

An experience, a feeling, a familiarity, a reminder that we are still here and still choosing joy and because of that our joy will continue to be alive.

It was usually said as a joke, after I had somehow managed to bring an unrelated conversation back to Black people, Black culture, Black history, or Black society. We could be talking about school, music, relationships, television, or something completely ordinary, and somehow I would find a way to connect it back to race.

They noticed it before I had the language to explain it and honestly, they were right.

I am that girl.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be so deeply conscious of your identity that it becomes impossible to separate it from the way you experience almost everything else. Being a Blacktivist, for me, is not about making Blackness my entire personality. It is about recognising that my Blackness is at the heart of how I move through the world.

I find it very difficult to remove my Blackness from anything and everything.

The truth is, I do not think I can.

I am a Black woman. It is one of the first things the world sees about me before I have spoken, explained myself, or given anyone the opportunity to know me beyond my appearance. My Blackness enters rooms before I do, and the world has its own ideas about what that means.

So, naturally, it affects how I navigate that world.

It shapes my values, relationships, thought process, politics, friendships, the media I consume, the communities I feel safe within, and even the people I choose to date. It influences what I notice, what I question, what I find beautiful, and what I refuse to accept as normal.

My Blackness is not a passing interest.

It’s not something I picked up because it was fashionable, politically convenient, or intellectually interesting. It is not something I can put down when the conversation becomes uncomfortable, nor can I temporarily remove it so that other people can experience me as neutral.

I am not neutral and none of us are.

But there is something particular about being Black in a world that has historically treated Blackness as something to be interpreted, stereotyped, celebrated, criticised, consumed, or controlled. It becomes difficult to separate yourself from an identity that society has already decided to respond to.

This is why I have never understood the accusation that Black people make everything about race.

Sometimes, race is already in the room.

The question is whether everyone is willing to acknowledge it.

For me, being a Blacktivist exists in the everyday. It is noticing who is represented, who is missing, who is reduced to a stereotype, and whose humanity is treated as universal. It is asking why certain things are considered normal when Black people do them but suddenly become political when we do.

It’s seeing something happen and instinctively thinking about what it means for Black people.

That instinct has always been there.

My family called me a Blacktivist because I was constantly connecting things back to Black society. Looking back, I think I was simply trying to understand the world I was growing up in. I was trying to make sense of why people were treated differently, why history was taught in certain ways, and why the experiences of Black people were so often expected to remain separate from wider conversations.

As I grew older, I began to understand that this was not just curiosity, it was consciousness.

My Blackness also shapes the way I understand relationships.

I am not interested in the idea that love requires me to abandon my understanding of myself. I do not want to be with someone who expects me to become less aware, less political, less passionate, or less Black in order to make the relationship easier.

I want to be understood as a whole person.

My Blackness is not a subject I occasionally discuss. It is part of my experience of love, friendship, family, community, beauty, safety, and belonging. It influences the people I feel comfortable with and the spaces in which I can fully relax.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly having to explain why something matters to you.

Why representation matters.

Why certain comments are not harmless.

Why certain experiences are not isolated incidents.

Why history still has consequences.

Why Black women are allowed to be angry without being considered aggressive, soft without being considered weak, and proud without being accused of making everything about race.

I want relationships where I don’t have to constantly translate myself.

I want friendships where my consciousness is not treated as an inconvenience.

I want community and I don’t think that is asking for too much.

The world is constantly responding to my Blackness, whether I am actively thinking about it or not. Sometimes that response is obvious or subtle. Sometimes it may be a microaggression disguised as a misunderstanding or a stereotype disguised as a compliment. But my Blackness is not only connected to difficulty.

It’s connected to everything! It’s music, humour, family, creativity, culture, resilience, language, style, community, joy, and the deep recognition that comes from seeing someone understand something without needing you to explain it.

My Blackness has made me question the world, but it has also helped me find my place within it. It’s made me angry, but it has also made me proud. It has made me aware of injustice, but it has also made me deeply aware of beauty. So again yes, I am that girl.

The girl who brings the conversation back to Black people.

The girl who notices.

The girl who asks questions.

The girl who has been called a Blacktivist since childhood.

I am a Black woman, and I cannot and will not remove that from the way I think, love, speak, choose, or understand the world.

My Blackness is not my entire personality.

But it’s inseparable from every version of me.

I’m not making everything about Blackness. I am refusing to pretend that my Blackness is not already part of everything I experience.

So yes, I am that girl.

And I am no longer interested in apologising for seeing the world through the eyes of a Black woman because my Blackness is not a personality trait I can switch off.

It’s not a costume I can remove …. unlike some and it’s never been a conversation I can leave behind.

It’s me and I refuse to make myself less whole so that other people can find me easier to understand.

I’ve had that replaying in my head for days. Now this might be because it’s the title of one of my favourite tracks from KWN’s new album. This isn’t because I fully believe it, well, at least not completely, but because I recognise the feeling behind it.

KWN sings it almost like a conclusion. As though loving once was enough to know she doesn’t want to risk it again. She asks, “If it ain’t you, then who’s it gon’ be?” before calling herself a drama queen. And yes, heartbreak has always had a flair for the dramatic but beneath that drama is something painfully familiar.

Heartbreak doesn’t just convince you that you’ve lost someone. It convinces you you’ve lost the possibility of ever feeling that way again and that is a very different kind of grief.

I first started writing this thinking it would be about romantic love. The kind that leaves you staring at your phone long after the conversation has ended. The kind that has you checking to see if they’ve texted you because they miss you too.

It’s the kind that makes ordinary places feel haunted because someone else once stood there with you. The kind that makes silence unbearably loud because the only thing left to listen to is your own mind. The kind that has you filling every second of your day just so your thoughts can’t catch up with you. The kind that has you writing pieces like this…

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But somewhere between the first sentence and now, I realised this isn’t really just about romance.

It’s about the strange way loss makes us swear off entire parts of ourselves.

I’d rather never love again.

I’d rather never trust again.

I’d rather never start over.

I’d rather never try again.

Heartbreak isn’t always about a romantic relationship. Sometimes it’s a friendship. Sometimes it’s the version of yourself you thought you’d become. Sometimes it’s a career, a city or a dream that quietly fell apart while nobody else seemed to notice.

The details change but the feeling doesn’t.

There comes a moment after disappointment where you stop mourning what happened and start mourning the person you were before it happened. The version of you that still believed. That still had faith. The version that wasn’t constantly looking over its shoulder, waiting for the next thing to fall apart.

I think that’s the real loss.

Because pain has an extraordinary ability to disguise itself as logic.

You stop saying, I’m hurting.

You start saying, I’m just being realistic.

Maybe love isn’t for me.

Maybe I’ll never enjoy this again.

Maybe there’s just no point.

It stops feeling like pessimism and starts feeling like wisdom, as though suffering has given you access to some truth everyone else is too naive to see.

But pain isn’t clarity.

Pain is convincing.

There’s a difference.

I think about how quickly we mistake self-protection for self-knowledge. How easily we build identities around the worst thing that’s happened to us.

“I don’t get attached.”

“I don’t expect much anymore.”

“I’ve stopped caring.”

As though detachment is maturity instead of exhaustion.

There’s something strangely comforting about deciding you’ll never want something again.

It removes the uncertainty.

If you never love again, nobody can leave.

If you never dream again, nothing can disappoint you.

If you never hope again, nothing can break.

It’s an elegant solution really.

It just asks you to give up everything worth having.

What struck me most about KWN’s song isn’t the heartbreak,it’s the accountability. She isn’t just mourning the relationship. She’s replaying it. Wondering if things could ever be the same. Acknowledging her own part in its ending, carrying that guilt alongside grief and that’s another thing heartbreak does.

It turns us into detectives investigating our own lives.

Searching for evidence against ourselves.

Could I have loved differently?

Should I have stayed?

Should I have left sooner?

Maybe if I’d been softer.

Maybe if I’d worked harder.

Even when someone else was responsible, we somehow still end up standing trial.

Maybe that’s why grief feels so heavy.

You’re carrying the loss, but you’re also carrying the version of yourself you’ve decided is to blame for it.

The hardest part isn’t always missing someone. Sometimes it’s not trusting yourself anymore.

Not trusting your judgement.

Not trusting your heart.

Not trusting that if you love again, you’ll survive it if it ends.

I don’t think “I’d rather never love again” is actually a decision.

I think it’s what grief sounds like when it’s trying to protect you.

Because if you convince yourself you’ll never love again, you never have to risk feeling this way again.

But not wanting to hurt isn’t the same as not wanting to love.

Those are two very different things.

Maybe one day I’ll hear this song differently. Maybe it’ll remind me of a version of myself I’ve outgrown. Maybe I’ll realise that some of the strongest convictions I’ve ever had were simply unhealed feelings wearing the mask of certainty.

I don’t know if I’m there yet.

Right now, I understand the lyric more than I understand the ending.

I understand the tiredness.

The reluctance.

The temptation to mistake today’s feelings for tomorrow’s truth.

But if heartbreak teaches us anything, it’s that feelings rarely stay where we leave them.

Maybe healing isn’t returning to the person you were before.

Maybe it’s becoming someone who can survive loving, losing, and choosing to love anyway.

Until then, I’ll let myself sit with the feeling, without letting it become my future.

Maybe then I can love again …

For many people, it’s simply tradition. It’s about supporting the England team, getting behind the players and joining in with the excitement that comes with international football. I understand that and part of me does love seeing communities come together, neighbours talking to one another and people sharing these moments of celebration.

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Yet every time I see another St George’s Cross hanging outside someone’s home, I find it hard to ignore the feeling that settles in my stomach. It just makes me uneasy.

I have tried to work out why because, on the surface, it is “just a flag”. But symbols are rarely just symbols. They carry histories, memories and meanings that stretch far beyond the object itself. The more I have thought about it, the more I have realised that my discomfort is not necessarily with the England flag, but with everything it has come to represent over time.

When I walk past someone’s flat displaying the flag, I immediately find myself wondering what they are trying to say. Are they simply supporting England in the football? Or does that flag represent something else entirely? The truth is, I don’t know and maybe that uncertainty is exactly where my discomfort comes from.

Meanings are socially constructed and objects don’t come with fixed meanings, society gives them meaning. A flag is just a flag or coloured fabric until we attach ideas, values and emotions to it. Over time, those meanings change. For some people, the England flag represents pride, belonging and support for the national team. For others, it has become tied to anti immigration rhetoric, exclusionary ideas about who belongs in England and far right politics. Both meanings now exist at the same time.

That is why I struggle when people say, “It’s only football.” For many people, it absolutely is and I would like to think that most people putting flags up during tournaments are simply supporting the team. But we can’t ignore the fact that people experience symbols differently because of their own lives and experiences.

A symbol can mean one thing to the person displaying it and something completely different to the person looking at it.

Perhaps what unsettles me most is that I cannot tell the difference.

When I walk past a window displaying an England flag, I have no way of knowing whether the family inside are excitedly getting ready for kick off or whether they hold beliefs that suggest people like me, or other minority communities, don’t truly belong here and should piss off back to our countries. That uncertainty creates anxiety.

It’s not fear of the individual person behind the window. It’s this uncertainty I feel about what the symbol is communicating. I mean maybe that is because we are constantly reading the world around us. We notice clothing, accents, gestures and symbols without even realising it. Society teaches us what these things might mean, so we interpret them automatically. The England flag has become one of those symbols carrying two very different stories. One is about football, community and celebration. The other has become associated with hostility, exclusion and ideas about who belongs. Every time I see it, I find myself trying to work out which story I am looking at.

It also makes me think about patriotism. What does it actually mean to love your country? Is patriotism simply supporting your national team, or has it become tangled up with politics and identity? Because here is the contradiction I just can’t ignore.

During every tournament we hear, “It’s coming home.” We are told to get behind England. We celebrate the diversity of the squad when they are winning. We proudly call them our boys. But …. when Black players miss penalties, everything changes.

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We have seen players subjected to horrific racist abuse online. We have seen racist incidents increase around major tournaments. We have seen hate crimes rise and minority communities made to feel less safe. Suddenly, some of those same voices celebrating England no longer seem quite so welcoming and it makes me question where patriotism ends and begins.

Does it only exist when England are winning?

Does it only extend to people who fit a certain image of what Englishness should look like?

Maybe that is why my own relationship with patriotism feels so complicated because how do you fully love a country when there are moments that make you wonder whether that country loves you back?

That is a question I find myself asking more often than I would like.

This is also why I think it’s important to separate patriotism from nationalism. Loving your country is not the same as believing some people belong more than others. Supporting your football team should never become an excuse for excluding people who are just as much a part of this country.

Ironically, today’s England team reflects the England I recognise. It’s diverse and multicultural, made up of players from different ethnicities, religions and backgrounds who all wear the same shirt. For many supporters, the flag celebrates exactly that. Yet the same flag has also been used by people promoting messages that feel completely at odds with that version of England.

That is the tension.

None of this means that everyone displaying an England flag is racist … maybe. Kidding … it would be unfair to suggest otherwise. But I also don’t think that my discomfort or any other person of colours hesitation is irrational and both things can be true.

Most people are probably supporting the football. Others may be expressing something very different. From the outside, there is simply no way of knowing.

Perhaps that is why symbols are so powerful. They can bring people together while making others feel excluded. They can create belonging for some and discomfort for others. They tell us something about the society we live in and the conversations we are still having about identity, race and who gets to feel at home. So I am left with one question.

When you see an England flag hanging from someone’s window, what do you see?

Football?

Patriotism?

Nationalism?

Or has the meaning changed for you too?

On the surface, it sounds harmless enough. It’s being presented as a way of becoming the best and most polished version of yourself. Better skincare. Better makeup. Better styling. Better fitness. A glow up, if you will. Now in theory, I have no issue with any of that. I like beauty. I like hair, makeup and all the rest of it.

I wear weave, I’ve worn wigs, bundles, the whole lot. So this is not me trying to shame Black women for participating in beauty culture or pretending I am somehow above any of it.

My point is that a lot of the beauty maxing content I have been seeing from Black women seems to be pushing Eurocentric beauty standards, even if it’s not being said directly. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be and that is where I think the conversation becomes uncomfortable.

Because no, most people are not outright saying, I removed all the Black things about myself and now I feel prettier. That would be far too obvious. But I do think there is an underlying theme in some of this content that we need to be honest about.

I keep seeing Black women say they stopped wearing their natural hair and felt prettier. Or that straighter hair suits them more. Or that their natural hair makes them feel childish, less polished, less feminine or less attractive. I have seen content where glowing up seems to mean moving further and further away from Black features and closer to a more racially ambiguous or Eurocentric aesthetic. Straighter hair is praised, softer features are idealised. Smaller noses are treated as refinement. Lighter eyes appear through contacts. Lighter skin is marketed through products labelled brightening rather than bleaching.

Just because we change the language and repackage it a little differently with slicker branding, doesn’t mean the pattern is no longer there. And I think we need to be very careful about pretending not to see it.

To quote myself, to all the Black women taking part in this beauty maxing trend and showing us how they maxed their beauty, I need them to be very careful not to push Eurocentric beauty standards in the process. Because that is what worries me most about beauty maxing.

When I first made my video about this, a lot of people agreed, but of course some did not. Some accused me of being anti-Black for policing Black women’s appearances. Others said I was trying to control what women do on the app and this is where I get frustrated, because I hate when people miss my point entirely.

I am not saying Black women cannot wear wigs. I am not saying Black women cannot get surgery. I am not saying you have to wear your natural hair all the time to prove some kind of political point. That would be ridiculous, and also hypocritical coming from me.

What I am saying is this. If you hate the things about yourself that are most closely tied to your Blackness, that is something worth interrogating.

If you never wear your natural hair because you believe it doesn’t suit your face, makes you look childish, makes you look less pretty, less feminine or less done, then yes, I do think that points to something deeper. If the features you are trying to max out of are consistently the ones associated with your Blackness, then we have to be honest about what might be sitting underneath that.

That does not necessarily make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean you consciously hate yourself but it does suggest that anti-Blackness and Eurocentric beauty standards may have shaped how you see yourself more than you realise and yes, that matters.

Beauty maxing does not exist in a vacuum. Even the language itself is worth paying attention to.

The term ‘looksmaxxing’ has roots in red pill and incel spaces that are deeply obsessed with ranking attractiveness according to rigid standards. So even before we began adapting the language into ‘beauty maxing’, the ideology behind it was already tied to the idea that there is a correct way to be attractive and that your job is to get as close to that standard as possible. That is exactly why I find the trend unsettling.

It’s one thing to encourage women to take care of themselves, invest in their appearance and feel good. It’s another thing entirely to dress up the same old beauty hierarchy in softer language and call it empowerment.

Because once you start paying attention, the hierarchy becomes obvious.

Why is “invest in some good wigs” a glow up tip that Black women hear constantly, while non-Black women are more often encouraged to take care of the hair growing out of their scalp? Why are natural Black features so often framed as things to refine, tame, soften, reduce, slim, smooth or fix? Why do some of these transformations feel less like self-expression and more like approximation, a steady move towards a face and body that fit more comfortably inside a white or racially ambiguous beauty ideal?

Because what happens when Black girls grow up only seeing beauty maxing examples where the glow up means straighter hair, looser curls, a slimmer nose, a softer face, lighter skin or a more palatable version of Blackness? What are they supposed to learn from that? What are they supposed to think when the features they naturally have are constantly positioned as the obstacle to beauty rather than a version of beauty itself?

This is why I keep coming back to appreciation.

Black women are beautiful either way, yes. But I also need Black women to know that they are especially worthy, especially beautiful and especially enough in their most natural state too. In the features that have not been altered, softened or hidden. In the hair that grows from their scalp. In the skin they were born in. In the nose, lips, texture, fullness, darkness and everything else this world has spent centuries teaching us to treat as excessive.

Because real self improvement should not require self erasure.

Real confidence should not be built on the idea that your natural self is your least beautiful self.

And if the version of maxed beauty we keep being sold always seems to involve shaving away the most visibly Black parts of ourselves, then we need to stop pretending that race has nothing to do with it.

Beauty maxing is being sold as self improvement but it’s beginning to feel more like self correction and I think we should be brave enough to say that out loud.

I found myself sitting with that argument for a while because, although I am cautious about attaching the label of racism to every negative experience, I also understand where the frustration comes from. Most Black women I know have a story about buying a product that felt different from the one they purchased before. Maybe the texture was off. Maybe the smell was different. Maybe the product simply didn’t work the way it usually did.

For years, conversations about counterfeit products have quietly circulated within Black communities, to the point where many of us have become amateur detectives, comparing packaging, ingredients and batch codes before we even put something in our basket. I know that I cannot be the only person who has bought a product from a local hair shop and immediately known something was not quite right.

Maybe it was a tub of edge control that looked familiar but felt different. Maybe it was a bottle of leave in conditioner that seemed thinner than usual. Maybe it was a curling cream that did absolutely nothing for your hair despite working perfectly the last time you bought it. Whether it was Mielle, SheaMoisture, Aunt Jackie’s, As I Am, African Pride or another staple product, many of us have experienced that feeling of suspicion when something just does not seem right.

The fact that this knowledge has become so normal is perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation. Why have Black consumers had to become experts in spotting counterfeit products in the first place?

This is not simply a conversation about fake hair products. It is a conversation about trust.

Hair is not a small thing within Black communities. Black women spend billions globally on hair care products, extensions, treatments and styling. Our hair requires specialised products. We are often told from childhood that maintaining healthy hair requires investment, education and care. Yet despite the size of the market, many Black consumers still struggle to access products with the same level of confidence as other consumer groups and that should concern us.

To be clear, selling counterfeit products and being racist are not the same thing and I’m well aware that a product on a shelf is not automatically evidence of racism. However, I do think it’s worth asking why these concerns appear so frequently within Black beauty spaces and why so many Black consumers have stories about fake products, poor customer service and feeling undervalued as customers.

Part of the answer lies in ownership.

Many Black consumers are surprised to learn that a significant number of the products they grew up using were never actually Black owned. Brands that became staples in Black households often belonged to large corporations with little connection to the communities purchasing them. Even products that feel deeply embedded within Black culture are often manufactured, distributed and sold through networks that have very little Black ownership or owned by non black/white people completely.

This creates an unusual dynamic. Black consumers drive demand. Black consumers create trends. Black consumers generate billions in revenue. Yet Black consumers often have very little control over production, distribution or retail. The result is a marketplace where money flows out of the community far more easily than it flows back in.

This issue becomes even more complicated when we think about the beauty supply industry in Britain. Across London and other major cities, many beauty supply stores serving Black communities are owned and operated by people from outside those communities. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, it does raise questions about accountability. If your primary customer base is Black, what responsibility do you have to understand and serve that community well?

For many Black customers, frustrations extend beyond products. Stories about being followed around stores, feeling watched while shopping, unfair refund policies and poor customer service have circulated for years. Many of us can recall walking into a beauty supply store and immediately feeling like a suspect rather than a customer. Some experiences are small. Others are more serious. Collectively, they shape how people feel about the businesses they support.

The conversation around Black beauty supply shops has also been influenced by incidents that have received significant public attention. Many people will remember the Peckham incident in which a Black customer was assaulted by a shop worker, sparking widespread outrage and renewed conversations about the relationship between some beauty supply businesses and the communities they serve. While one incident cannot explain an entire industry, it tapped into frustrations that many Black consumers already held.

Trust is built through relationships and many Black consumers would argue that those relationships have often felt one sided.

This is partly why calls to support Black owned beauty businesses have become increasingly popular. What began as frustration gradually evolved into something more constructive. People started asking what would happen if Black consumers intentionally invested in Black owned alternatives instead of simply accepting the status quo.

The results have been significant. We have seen Black owned beauty brands grow into multi million pound businesses. We have seen entrepreneurs create warehouses, retail stores, manufacturing facilities, trade shows and distribution networks. We have seen jobs created and opportunities generated within communities that have historically been excluded from ownership within the beauty industry.

This matters, not because every Black owned business is automatically better, but because ownership creates opportunities for representation, accountability and reinvestment. Sociologists often discuss the concept of racial capitalism, the idea that certain communities generate enormous economic value while receiving disproportionately little control over the industries built around them. The Black beauty industry feels like a textbook example. Black consumers sustain the market. Black culture shapes the market. Yet ownership and wealth remain concentrated elsewhere.

Viewed through that lens, concerns about counterfeit products become part of a much bigger conversation. They are not simply about fake edge control or questionable hair oils. They are about power. They are about who profits from Black consumers and who bears the consequences when things go wrong.

Perhaps that is where this argument about institutional racism becomes most useful. The issue is not whether every fake product is the result of an individual racist actor. It is whether the systems surrounding Black beauty consistently leave Black consumers with fewer protections, less accountability and fewer opportunities for ownership than they deserve.

Ultimately, I think the counterfeit product conversation reveals something many Black consumers already know. We deserve better than constantly having to question whether the products we buy are genuine. We deserve better than feeling like our concerns are an afterthought. We deserve businesses that see us as more than customers and understand the trust we place in them every time we make a purchase.

The answer is not blind loyalty to any particular business. Nor is it turning every frustrating experience into evidence of racism.

The answer is asking harder questions about ownership, accountability and investment.

Because if Black consumers are generating billions for the beauty industry, then perhaps it is time we paid closer attention to who benefits from that spending and whether our communities are benefiting too.

Maybe that is because I am Caribbean and have spent my entire life surrounded by it. Maybe it’s because whining is simply how I dance. Put on soca, dancehall, Afrobeats, amapiano, house, garage, anything with a beat and chances are my waist is moving. Even if it’s not the right way to dance to the music, it’s simply my default. It’s almost instinctive. Not something I consciously decide to do. And certainly not something I associate with anything sexual.

Yet over the years I have realised that many people view it very differently. What feels like a natural expression of rhythm and joy to me is often interpreted by others as something overtly sexual. The same movement can live in completely different worlds depending on who is watching.

I started thinking about this after posting a video discussing whining and the conversations it generated. The conversation quickly moved away from dance itself and towards sexuality. People debated whether whining is inherently sexual, whether it can ever be separated from desire, and whether moving your body in that way automatically communicates intimacy. What struck me was not disagreement. It was how difficult some people found it to imagine a Caribbean woman whining without sex being central to the interpretation. A dance became evidence of something else. A moving waist became a statement that was never actually made.

Of course, I’m arguing that whining cannot be sexual. Dance can absolutely be intimate and sit within attraction and desire. Human beings have always used movement to signal chemistry. But what interests me is the assumption that sexuality is always present. That it is the default reading. That there is no space left for a woman simply enjoying herself.

I encounter this constantly. Whenever a bashment set came on, there’s often a shift in the room. What starts as shared dancing subtly changes. You became aware of being watched differently , of being read differently. A stray hand would appear from nowhere and somewhere would assume access to your body. Something that felt entirely innocent to you suddenly required navigation.

That contradiction stayed with me. The problem was never the dance. The problem was the assumptions placed onto it.

What frustrates me most is how often Caribbean culture gets reduced to these assumptions. Entire histories are flattened into stereotypes about sexuality. Jamaica for example, alone has contributed enormously to global culture through music, politics, literature, religion, sport and activism. Yet conversations about Jamaican women and Caribbean women as whole so often return to the same narrow ideas about bodies, desirability and sex. Complex cultures become caricatures and reduced to inappropriate dancehall lyrics and jerk chicken.

Part of this has deep historical roots. The hypersexualisation of Black women did not appear out of nowhere. During slavery, European colonisers constructed myths that portrayed Black women as naturally promiscuous and sexually excessive. The so-called Jezebel stereotype positioned Black women as the opposite of white femininity, which was framed as pure, innocent and passive. These were not harmless ideas. They were tools. They helped justify exploitation and violence by reframing it as inevitable or deserved.

If Black women were imagined as inherently sexual, then abuse could be excused more easily.

Although slavery ended, many of those assumptions did not disappear. They evolved, adapted, and embedded themselves into culture. The language changed, but the logic often stayed the same. Black women’s bodies continued to be read through suspicion, fascination, and hypersexualisation.

This matters because it shapes how everyday cultural expressions are interpreted. What might be seen as playful or artistic in one context becomes sexualised in another, especially when performed by Black women. The lens is already there before the movement even begins.

Carnival is one of the clearest examples of this tension. Every year, discussions about Notting Hill Carnival often become fixated on women’s bodies. Media coverage zooms in on costumes. Social media focuses on whining. Public debate drifts toward questions of decency.

Yet for many Caribbean people, Carnival is something else entirely. It’s joy, community and freedom. It’s the right to take up space without apology Becky we deserve to have that cultural expression, rhythm and release.

What is often missed is that Carnival is not designed as a performance for outside interpretation. It’s lived from within but when viewed through a lens already shaped by hypersexualisation, meaning gets distorted. People are not always seeing the celebration. They are seeing what they have been taught to see.

Caribbean dance traditions have never existed solely within sexual frameworks. Many of these movements trace back to West African cultural practices where dance functioned as storytelling, spirituality, celebration and communal connection. Movement carried meaning beyond the individual. Rhythm connected people to each other, to history, and to community. Sexuality could exist within it, but it was never the only language being spoken.

Reducing whining to sex alone strips it of this depth. It removes context, history and cultural significance. It turns something expansive into something narrow.

This becomes even more troubling when considering how these interpretations affect young girls. Hypersexualisation often erases childhood. Caribbean girls can find themselves viewed through adult assumptions long before they understand what those assumptions mean. The moment their bodies change, or they participate in cultural dance, they may be read in ways they never consented to. What should be joy becomes scrutiny. What should be normal becomes loaded.

Ultimately, this conversation is not really about whining and more about perception. It’s about who gets to define what our bodies mean, and whose interpretation is treated as truth.

When I whine, I am not thinking about sex. I am thinking about the music. I am thinking about rhythm. I am thinking about joy, about movement, about being in my body without overthinking it.

The fact that others may interpret it differently says less about the dance itself and more about the assumptions they bring to it. And perhaps that is the real issue.

The problem was never the whining. The problem has always been the lens.

It said that older generations of Black people didn’t struggle with community in the same way we sometimes do now. Not because everything was easier for them, in fact quite the opposite, and not because relationships were perfect, but because community was something they lived inside of rather than something they had to actively find.

These were people who saw the same faces every week. They went to the same churches. They visited the same barbershops. They passed the same corner shops. They stood on the same streets and knew the same neighbours. Life itself created repetition, and repetition created familiarity. Familiarity then slowly became belonging.

They belonged to their community.

And I can’t help but keep thinking about what it means that so much of that has changed.

Because for many of us now, especially young Black people like myself living in cities like London, community can feel harder to hold onto in a steady way. I don’t think it’s because we don’t care about each other, or that we don’t want connection. It’s more that the conditions that once made connection natural are not as present anymore.

We move more often. We live across different spaces. We build friendships in different circles that don’t always overlap. We spend hours online, where connection is constant but not always as grounding or real. You can know hundreds of people and still feel like you’re not fully held by any space completely.

That creates a kind of loneliness that is difficult to describe. It’s not complete isolation because we still have people around us, but it is something more subtle. It’s the feeling of being surrounded by people and still not feeling anchored anywhere.

For many Black communities in the UK, particularly those shaped by migration from the Caribbean and Africa, community was not simply a cultural experience. It was a form of survival.

People arrived in places where they were often excluded from housing, employment and many mainstream institutions. In response, they created their own networks of support. Churches became places not only of worship but also of guidance, advice and care. Neighbours became extended family. People shared information about work, housing, childcare and safety through word of mouth and built trusted relationships.

If someone was struggling, people noticed. If someone disappeared from their usual spaces, people asked questions. If someone needed help, it was often given before it was fully asked for.

There was a sense that people were responsible for each other in a very direct way.

That kind of responsibility creates familiarity that is repeated so often it becomes second nature. It creates a feeling that you are known, not only seen. It creates a sense that your presence matters beyond what you do or produce.

As a young Black creative living in London, I have experienced moments where I have felt part of something. Spaces where I have felt seen and understood. But I have also experienced how uneven it can be.

In the Black creative scene, there are moments where connection feels real and intentional, and other moments where it feels more surface level. You meet people at events. You see familiar faces at different gatherings. You gain new followers on Instagram who become mutuals or disappear after promises to collaborate that never materialise.

Sometimes it can feel cliquey. Not always openly exclusionary, but structured in a way where certain circles feel easier to enter than others. It can feel as though belonging depends on visibility, timing or being in the right place at the right moment.

What I have noticed is that there is a difference between knowing people and being held by people. Between being around community and actually being part of one that continues outside of specific events or moments.

What also makes this conversation difficult is that community has become one of those words that gets used so often that sometimes I wonder if we still know what it actually means. We talk about building community, finding community and supporting community, but rarely stop to ask what community actually feels like when it is present in our lives.

For me, community has never really been about proximity alone or even friendship on its own. It is about responsibility. It is about knowing that people are invested in your wellbeing and that you are invested in theirs. It is about trust built slowly over time through consistency rather than performance.

Growing up around Caribbean culture, I often think about the idea of a pardner. On the surface, a pardner is a financial system where people contribute regularly and take turns receiving support. But underneath it sits something deeper. A pardner only works because people trust each other. It works because everyone believes that when their turn comes, the community will show up for them.

In many ways, that feels like a useful metaphor for community itself.

Community is not simply people gathering in the same place. It is the belief that people will continue to show up for each other over time. It is mutual investment. It is contribution. It is knowing that support moves in different directions at different moments, but that nobody is carrying everything alone.

One of the things I think about often is how community now can sometimes feel like something we attend rather than something we live.

We go to events. We link up with people. We show up in certain spaces. We connect through shared interests or creative work, and those things are all real and valuable. But they are often moments of community rather than continuous community.

Real community is quieter than that.

It exists in the in between moments. It is someone checking in when nothing is happening. It is someone noticing your absence without needing to be told. It is consistency. It is showing up in ways that do not depend on an event or a shared project.

Without that consistency, connection can start to feel temporary even when it looks alive and well from the outside.

It is

important not to romanticise the past. Older communities were not perfect. They had their own struggles, tensions and limitations. But there was something about the structure of life that made repeated connection more natural. People encountered each other more often in shared physical spaces. Life moved at a rhythm where familiarity was harder to avoid.

That repetition created a kind of everyday community. Not something that had to be planned or scheduled, but something that emerged through proximity and routine.

Many of us simply do not live like that anymore.

This shift has not only been social but emotional. When people do not feel rooted in consistent community, there can be a quiet sense of drifting that builds over time. You move through different spaces but do not always feel fully part of them. You start to wonder where you actually belong when everything feels temporary.

Sometimes you begin to miss something that is difficult to name clearly. Not just friendship. Not just socialising. But familiarity.

The kind of familiarity where you are known without having to constantly prove yourself.

Rebuilding community now cannot mean going backwards. Life has changed too much for that to be realistic. But it can mean becoming more intentional about how we show up for each other. It can mean choosing consistency over convenience. It can mean moving from being loosely connected to being reliably present in each other’s lives.

It can also mean being honest about what feels missing instead of pretending that constant social interaction is the same as belonging.

Because unfortunately it isn’t.

I don’t think modern Black people are less capable of community than previous generations. I think many of us are trying to rebuild something that used to be carried by the structure of everyday life.

That is not a personal failure. It is a shift in how the world works.

But even within that shift, one thing still feels true.

Community has always depended on people choosing each other again and again.

And maybe that is where we are now, learning how to choose each other in a world that no longer automatically brings us together.

It made me think about the role Caribbean music has played within our communities for generations. Caribbean music has never simply been entertainment. It has always carried something much bigger. It carries memories, histories, values and identities. For many people in the Caribbean diaspora, music is one of the first ways culture is inherited. Long before we understand migration, colonialism, independence movements or the Windrush generation, we understand the music. We know the rhythms. We know the songs. We recognise the feeling they create. Before many of us learn the history of where we come from, we hear it.

That is why watching these artists felt like witnessing something much larger than a concert. This is music that has travelled across generations in a way that very few artists achieve. Parents played his records in their homes, introduced them to their children and, in many cases, those children have now passed them on again. What I witnessed was not simply fandom. It was cultural continuity. It was evidence of how traditions survive through everyday practices rather than formal institutions. Culture is not only preserved through museums, textbooks or archives. Sometimes it’s preserved through songs played at family gatherings, on those Saturday or Sunday cleaning mornings, at weddings, parties and community celebrations.

The concept of collective memory comes to mind, thinking of the way communities preserve and transmit shared experiences across generations. Music is one of the most powerful examples of this. Songs become attached to particular moments in our lives, but they also become attached to collective histories. For me Beres Hammond’s “I Feel Good” is a song that has been ingrained into my being.

Caribbean music carries stories of migration, resistance, celebration, hardship and survival. It provides communities with a way of remembering who they are and where they come from. This is particularly important within diasporic communities where questions of identity and belonging are often more complex.

For Caribbean communities in Britain, music has long functioned as a form of cultural preservation. When members of the Windrush generation arrived in Britain, they entered a society that was often openly hostile towards them. Music became one of the ways Caribbean people maintained a connection to home while building new lives abroad. Sound systems, blues dances, community halls and later carnival spaces became places where people could gather, celebrate their culture and create a sense of belonging. In many ways, these spaces helped preserve traditions that might otherwise have been lost or diluted over time.

What fascinates me is that Caribbean music has always balanced both joy and resistance. It has never ignored hardship, but neither has it allowed hardship to become the whole story. Different genres reflect this in different ways. Calypso, for example, has historically used humour, storytelling and satire to speak truth to power. It has offered social commentary while creating space for laughter and resilience. Soca, meanwhile, represents celebration, freedom and collective joy. There is a reason people often describe soca as a feeling rather than simply a genre. It creates moments where individual worries dissolve into collective experience.

Reggae offers something different again. Rooted in Rastafarian philosophy and social consciousness, reggae has often provided a soundtrack for reflection, resistance and hope. Its slower rhythms encourage people to pause and think about the world around them. Yet despite their differences, calypso, soca and reggae all perform similar cultural functions. They help people process experiences, strengthen community bonds and preserve shared identities. They remind listeners that they belong to something larger than themselves.

Perhaps that is why seeing so many generations gathered around the same music felt so significant. We often hear discussions about generational divides, particularly in an age shaped by social media, streaming platforms and personalised algorithms. Different age groups increasingly consume different forms of culture. Yet Caribbean music continues to create spaces where multiple generations can coexist. A teenager and a grandparent may not watch the same television programmes, follow the same influencers or use the same social media platforms, but there is a good chance they both know the words to a Beres Hammond song.

That shared cultural knowledge matters more than we often realise. It creates connection between people who might otherwise struggle to find common ground. It strengthens relationships between generations and provides younger people with access to cultural traditions they may not experience elsewhere. In this sense, music becomes a bridge between the past and the present. It allows communities to maintain continuity while still evolving and adapting to new circumstances.

What I witnessed this week felt like a reminder of why cultural spaces remain so important. Events that celebrate Caribbean music are often described as entertainment, but that description feels incomplete. They are also sites of memory, identity and community building. They create opportunities for older generations to pass something on and for younger generations to receive it. They remind people that culture is not static but living, constantly being renewed through participation.

Standing in that crowd, watching thousands of people sing every word back to Beres Hammond, I realised I was witnessing a community remembering itself. Every familiar melody carried a memory and every song connected people not only to one another but to the generations that came before them. In a world that often encourages individualism and constant reinvention, there was something comforting about that continuity.

Caribbean music endures because it offers more than entertainment. It offers belonging. It offers identity. It offers a connection to history that feels lived rather than distant. Most importantly, it provides a way for communities to carry themselves forward without forgetting where they came from.

Perhaps that is why these songs continue to resonate across generations. They are not simply pieces of music. They are repositories of memory, culture and experience. They remind us that even when people move across borders, generations and continents, there are still threads that hold communities together. For many of us, Caribbean music is one of those threads.

Watching Beres Hammond perform this week reminded me that culture survives not only because it is preserved but because it is shared.

Every time a parent introduces a child to a favourite song, every time a family gathers around familiar music, and every time communities come together to celebrate the sounds that shaped them, that culture continues to live on.

Caribbean music is more than sound. It’s memory, identity and community made audible.

Please enjoy some classics from this playlist x

A sentence that sounds unserious until you realise how many people genuinely live by it.

Modern dating is increasingly starting to feel less like an emotional experience and more like an economic arrangement. Conversations about love have slowly been replaced with conversations about provision, lifestyle, status, and financial performance. Everybody is discussing “soft life,” “sprinkle sprinkle,” “provider men,” “what do you bring to the table,” and whether paying for a woman’s bills is generosity, masculinity, or simply tricking.

Somewhere along the way, romance became heavily tied to material security.

In modern dating culture, “tricking” generally refers to transactional dynamics where money, luxury items, travel, or financial support are exchanged for companionship, romantic access, attention, or intimacy. While the term originally carried more negative associations linked to exploitation or performative masculinity, social media has transformed it into something much more normalised and culturally accepted.

Now, people debate whether paying for a woman’s wig install is tricking. Flying somebody out has become a relationship milestone. Men funding lifestyles online is framed as romance and women receiving expensive gifts is interpreted as evidence that they are valued properly.

The lines between genuine affection, financial provision, transactional dating, and performative generosity have become increasingly blurred.

And honestly, I don’t think this shift happened randomly. I think modern dating culture reflects broader social and economic anxieties that people often avoid discussing honestly. A lot of women are simply exhausted by dating. Emotionally, financially and mentally exhausted.

In cities like London, where living costs continue rising while stability feels increasingly unreachable, “soft life” culture begins to make more sense whilst at least sociologically. For many women, wanting a provider is not always about greed or materialism, sometimes it’s just about relief. For them, it’s about wanting access to rest, comfort, and stability in a society where burnout has become normalised.

This is where conversations around tricking culture become more complicated than people pretend.

Because when women say they want a man who spends money on them, people often reduce that to superficiality. But historically, heterosexual relationships have always involved economic exchange to some extent. Marriage itself was traditionally tied to financial security, survival, inheritance, and social mobility long before it was centred around emotional fulfilment. Romantic love as the primary purpose of relationships is actually a relatively modern ideal. So in many ways, transactional dating is not new at all but what is new is how visible and performative it has become online.

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Social media has transformed relationships into public spectacles. Affection is increasingly measured through visible consumption. How many luxury’s gifts, holidays, expensive dinners, and designer purchases now operate almost like social proof that somebody is loved properly. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have intensified this dramatically. Relationship discourse online constantly reinforces the idea that romance should look expensive. Women are encouraged to “level up” “date intentionally,” and avoid “struggle love,” while men are encouraged to perform financial dominance as proof of masculinity and success.

As a result, dating increasingly functions through what sociologists would describe as performative consumption. People are not only experiencing relationships privately anymore; they are curating them publicly. Relationships become brands, romantic partners become status symbols and their romance becomes content. And in online culture especially, money has become one of the clearest visible indicators of value.

That is why so many relationships now appear heavily transactional.

Men perform wealth online because wealth attracts attention, status, and desirability. Women perform hyperfemininity and desirability because beauty itself increasingly functions as social capital. Both sides participate in systems where attraction becomes deeply tied to economics and visibility.

Now what fascinates me most is how defensive people become during these conversations. Men often complain that women only care about money, while simultaneously leading with money because they understand financial provision increases desirability. At the same time, many women criticise emotionally unavailable men while still tolerating emotional inconsistency if it is compensated financially. This simply and very frustratingly creates a dating culture and cycle where emotional intimacy becomes secondary to material reassurance. And I think this reflects something deeper about collective disillusionment.

Maybe “I don’t want love, I just want funds” is not always literal. Maybe it reflects a generation that no longer fully trusts love to provide stability, consistency, or protection. Money feels tangible and it can solve practical problems. Love however lovely it may be cannot pay rent, it cannot reduce financial anxiety. Love alone increasingly feels insufficient within unstable economic conditions.

And this connects to broader shifts under late capitalism where almost every aspect of life becomes commodified, including intimacy itself. Dating apps encourage people to market themselves like products because media rewards aspirational lifestyles. Relationships become evaluated through what they provide materially, socially, or emotionally.

People begin asking:

What can this person do for me?

What lifestyle can they offer me?

What access can they provide for me?

Compatibility increasingly becomes tied to economic utility.

This is especially visible within contemporary Black dating discourse, where tricking culture, provider conversations, and hypergamy debates are deeply intertwined with ideas around masculinity, status, visibility, and survival. Hip-hop culture has played a huge role in shaping these dynamics. For decades, rap music has associated masculinity with financial dominance, luxury spending, and the ability to provide materially for women. Rappers frequently present spending money as proof of power, success, and desirability.

At the same time, female rappers have increasingly flipped this dynamic. Artists influenced by City Girls style “city girl” culture openly discuss extracting resources, demanding luxury, and refusing emotional labour without financial compensation. Hence my title referring to the new hit song “Spend Dat” by ex city girl member Yung Miami which is a song essentially asking men to spend their money on her.

In many ways, you could also argue that women are responding to patriarchal dating structures by weaponising the same transactional logic historically used against them and that is why tricking culture creates such divided reactions.

Some people see it as empowerment whilst others see it as exploitation.

Some view it as strategic dating whilst others see it as the death of genuine connection.

Realistically, it’s probably all of those things at once.

What also gets overlooked is that men are not the only people who “trick.” Women increasingly financially support men too, especially within nightlife, influencer, and entertainment spaces. The difference is that society historically normalised male financial provision, so female-led spending still feels culturally unusual. But regardless of gender, the larger issue remains the same: modern relationships increasingly operate through exchange value. And I think people are lonelier because of it.

Transactional relationships often create emotional distance because both people remain aware of what is being exchanged. One person fears being used financially and the other fears being undervalued emotionally. People then enter dating already suspicious of one another.

Women are told to “Secure the bag.”

Men are told: “She only wants you for your money.”

Everyone becomes defensive before genuine connection even has the chance to develop. And honestly, I think that is why so many modern relationships feel emotionally fragile despite looking luxurious online. Because romance now exists alongside constant performance but beneath all of that performance, most people still want the same things humans have always wanted: security, affection, intimacy, reassurance, and consistency.

The difference is that many people no longer believe emotional connection alone is enough to guarantee those things.

Maybe that is why “spend dat shittt” culture resonates so strongly. Not because people are inherently shallow, but because financial security increasingly feels safer than emotional vulnerability.

And maybe the real issue is not that people only want money.

Maybe it’s that love without security no longer feels sufficient anymore.

Not in the overly performative way social media sometimes frames it, but genuinely. I love loud music. I love the energy that is Black London nightlife. I love getting ready with my friends while a soundcloud Dancehall mix plays in the background and someone is inevitably running late. I love dancing until my feet hurt, the strange intimacy of girls’ bathroom conversations at 2am and partying with strangers.

Outside has always loved me and I have always loved outside.

What irritates me, however, is the assumption people make about women who enjoy nightlife. Somewhere along the way, the “party girl” became flattened into a stereotype. If a woman enjoys going out, dressing up, dancing, drinking, socialising, or simply being visibly young and free, people immediately assume she must lack depth. As if women who are outside could not possibly also be intelligent, ambitious, emotionally aware, politically conscious, disciplined, creative, or thoughtful.

Apparently once a woman becomes a “party girl,” society stops allowing her to be multifaceted.

I cannot tell you how many times I have been fake shamed by both men and women alike for “going out too much,” whatever that is supposed to mean. Too much compared to who? Compared to what? I am twenty three years old. Young and lit as we like to say. What exactly is it people expect someone my age to be doing? Preparing for retirement from joy? Becoming somebody’s wife before fully becoming myself and living for me?

Young men are encouraged to live freely for as long as possible. Their youth is framed as exploration. Their recklessness becomes character development. But young women are expected to age into respectability almost immediately. There is always this pressure to settle down, shrink yourself, become digestible, become “serious.” The moment a woman visibly enjoys herself too much, people begin treating her as though she has failed some invisible moral test.

I reject that entirely.

Just because I like to go out does not mean I am not educated. It does not mean I am not well read. It does not mean I lack ambition or purpose. I am literally a first class social sciences graduate from King’s College London. I am a writer. A journalist. I spend an absurd amount of time thinking about culture, identity, politics, gender, race, and the world around me.

I also enjoy whining up my waist, dancing with my girls until sunrise, standing on tables and leaving my house at 11pm fully aware I probably will not return until morning.

Both things can exist at once.

Women have duality. Why does that seem to offend people so deeply?

What fascinates me most is how intensely women who enjoy nightlife are perceived as superficial. There is this assumption that partying lacks substance, that going outside is somehow intellectually empty. But I think that interpretation fundamentally misunderstands what nightlife actually represents for many people, especially young women.

Outside is not just partying.

Outside is celebration. Outside is release. Outside is friendship. Outside is community. Outside is cultural participation. Outside is proximity.

And let us be honest, outside is also networking.

People love to act like party girls are just out there shaking ass, and sometimes we are, because why not? But we are also making connections. We are meeting photographers, writers, DJs, stylists, artists, promoters, founders, journalists, event organisers, musicians, and people who know people who know people. Especially as a creative, the party scene is full of opportunity. Nightlife is not separate from culture. Nightlife produces culture.

The girls who go outside often have more access, more leverage, and more social currency because they have made themselves visible. They are in the room. They are part of conversations. They are building friendships that can become collaborations, opportunities, recommendations, invitations, or simply meaningful connections.

That is not shallow. That is social capital.

Unfortunately it’s been long understood that sometimes opportunity is not only about talent. It is also about networks. Who knows you? Who remembers you? Who invites you into the room? Who thinks of your name when something comes up? The party girl understands something many people are scared to admit, visibility matters.

Of course, visibility makes people uncomfortable. To be visible is to risk being judged. To be seen means people can misunderstand you, project onto you, desire you, resent you, or reduce you. But it also means you are participating in the world. You are opening yourself up to life.

Party girls are magnetic because they are not afraid to be seen and I think that scares people and maybe makes them a little jealous.

There is a particular kind of power in being the person who can walk into a room, hold conversation, dance without shame, introduce herself, make friends in bathrooms, charm strangers, and leave an impression. That is not emptiness. That is a social skill. That is confidence. That is presence.

Sometimes we call women shallow when what we really mean is that they are socially powerful in a way we do not know how to control.

Being a Black woman makes this even more complicated. Black women are often expected to perform respectability in order to be taken seriously. There is pressure to always appear composed, hardworking, mature, and self sacrificing. You are expected to earn softness rather than naturally inhabit it. Fun becomes something that must be justified and joy becomes something that must remain controlled.

The moment a Black woman embraces sensuality, hyperfemininity, nightlife, glamour, or softness too openly, people begin questioning her intelligence, her morality, or her seriousness.

The duality emerges when she refuses those limitations.

When she dances while still being ambitious.

When she enjoys nightlife while still maintaining discipline.

When she embraces beauty, pleasure, fashion, softness, and fun while also remaining intellectually engaged and deeply self aware.

Respectability politics has convinced too many of us that being taken seriously requires self denial. But I am not interested in becoming smaller just so people can misread me more comfortably. I cannot spend my life trying to manage every version of myself that exists in someone else’s head.

At some point, you have to learn to dictate your own perception.

That does not mean everyone will understand you. They will not. But it does mean refusing to let other people’s limited imagination become the boundary of your identity.

Of course, I am not romanticising nightlife entirely. The party girl duality exists because nightlife can be both liberating and exhausting at the same time. One night you feel euphoric, beautiful, magnetic, deeply alive. The next morning you are emotionally drained, rotting in bed with a Deliveroo order, questioning every decision you made the night before.

Both versions are real.

There have been moments where being constantly outside became unhealthy escapism rather than enjoyment. Pretending nightlife is always glamorous would be dishonest. But acknowledging that complexity is precisely the point.

The issue is not that women who party lack depth. The issue is that society still struggles to accept that women can contain contradictions at all.

I am tired of the idea that women must shrink themselves to be taken seriously. I refuse to believe joy makes women shallow. I refuse to accept that nightlife cancels out intelligence, ambition, softness, discipline, or emotional depth.

I am educated and outside.

I am thoughtful and outside.

I am emotionally intelligent and outside.

I am ambitious and outside.

Maybe the problem was never women having duality.

Maybe the problem is that society only allows women to be one thing at a time.

“To be a sellout you have to sell out principles you had in the first place.”

Simple and effective but most importantly, uncomfortable.

The statement sat with me for a while because, like many Black people, I have most definitely called other Black people sellouts before. We all know the usual suspects …the people who seem strangely eager to distance themselves from Blackness the moment proximity to power becomes available.

But hearing Akala say that forced me to reconsider the accusation itself. Because really, how can somebody betray principles they never truly held? Can somebody sell out a community they never genuinely felt connected to in the first place?

Then another uncomfortable thought arrived.

What if I have been a sellout too?

Blackness has always carried a strange tension between performance, survival, and solidarity. Especially within societies like ours where Black success is so often measured through proximity to whiteness, respectability, wealth, or institutional approval. For many Black people, there is an unspoken understanding that entry into certain spaces requires negotiation. Sometimes that negotiation is subtle, sometimes it demands silence and sometimes it asks you to soften yourself slightly in order to become more digestible. As you must reassure people rather than challenge them.

The problem is that Blackness itself can become a kind of market.

A social class, a commodity of sorts.

Certain versions or performances of Blackness are rewarded because they make dominant systems feel comfortable. The articulate Black person. The “safe” Black person. The Black person who insists race no longer matters. The Black person who can speak about inequality without ever making anyone feel implicated in it.

Other forms of Blackness remain on the periphery.

Dont be too political, too loud, too radical, too visibly angry or too unapologetic.

I think this is why I struggle to trust Black people or people of colour who claim race has nothing to do with anything. Because race is always there. Even when it goes unnamed, in fact especially when it goes unnamed.

Race shapes where people live. Who gets hired. Who gets surveilled. Who gets protected. Who gets heard. Who gets granted complexity. Who is allowed softness and who is permanently read as threatening. To pretend race is irrelevant in societies built through racial hierarchy feels less like enlightenment and more like denial.

And the uncomfortable reality is that denial is often rewarded in a lot of these instances.

Most Black people understand this long before they have language for it. We instinctively know there are versions of ourselves that are easier for institutions to accept. Ways of speaking that sound less threatening. Politics that appear more palatable. Opinions that reassure rather than disrupt because thats what we’re expected to do.

Sometimes success feels conditional.

You can enter the room, but only if you leave parts of yourself outside.

This tension is not new. Black identity has always been shaped by negotiation between survival and solidarity. During slavery and colonialism, oppressive systems relied not only on violence but also on intermediaries. People positioned between power and the powerless. Individuals granted limited privilege in exchange for loyalty to the system. That pattern never disappeared. It simply evolved.

Modern society still rewards intermediaries. People who know how to translate oppression into something comfortable enough for mainstream consumption. Diversity without disruption. Representation without redistribution. Visibility without accountability.

This is why accusations of “selling out” continue to carry such emotional weight within Black communities. The term reflects a deep anxiety around racial abandonment. Around the fear that some people escape oppression by distancing themselves from the collective experiences of others.

Historically, Black communities have often policed behaviour because unity functioned as survival. When systems are designed against you, solidarity becomes protection. It becomes political and sometimes even necessary.

But Black identity has never been monolithic.

Not all Black people think the same or move through the world the same and this is where the conversation becomes more complicated. Because accusations of selling out can sometimes become their own form of policing. A demand for ideological conformity. A punishment for individuality and an expectation that every Black person must perform loyalty to race in exactly the same way.

That pressure can become exhausting, particularly for Black people already navigating multiple identities, classes, cultures, and contradictions all at once.

The truth is that most Black people living within predominantly white institutions are constantly negotiating themselves. Through work. Through language. Through ambition. Through silence and through the subtle performance of trying to belong while still remaining recognisable to yourself.

There is a particular exhaustion that comes from constantly monitoring how you are perceived. Seeing yourself through your own eyes while simultaneously seeing yourself through the eyes of a society shaped by whiteness. Existing between identities. Performing yourself while editing yourself in real time.

Perhaps this is why the idea of the sellout feels so emotionally charged. Because many of us recognise fragments of ourselves within it.

Who has never code switched in an interview?

Who has never softened their politics in certain rooms?

Who has never remained silent to protect opportunity?

Who has never wanted acceptance?

Maybe the fear is not simply that other people are sellouts. Maybe the fear is recognising how easily any of us could become one under the right conditions.

Modern life constantly encourages marginalised people to seek validation through assimilation. To become legible to power by distancing ourselves from whatever makes power uncomfortable. But assimilation is never neutral.

There is always a cost.

Sometimes the cost is political. Sometimes emotional. Sometimes spiritual.

And yet survival itself is complicated. Not every compromise is betrayal. Not every adaptation is surrender. Black people have always had to navigate impossible systems creatively. There is a difference between surviving oppression and actively reproducing it.

Maybe that is where the distinction lies.

A sellout is not simply somebody who becomes successful. Or wealthy. Or politically different. A sellout is somebody willing to detach themselves from the realities affecting other Black people in exchange for personal proximity to power. Somebody willing to deny the structure because they have momentarily escaped its consequences.

Still, I keep returning to Akala’s words.

“To be a sellout you have to sell out principles you had in the first place.”

Because perhaps the more unsettling question is not who sold out.

But what principles remain intact enough to betray in the first place.

And whether any of us living within systems built on compromise ever truly emerge untouched at all.

I’ve been a fan of Megan for a while now and we also share a birthday so naturally I’ve always felt a little protective over her in the same way I do for a lot of Black women, there’s just that instinct of wanting the best for her even from a distance.

So when I first heard it, my immediate reaction was just poor Megan, my queen! I was shocked, but more than that I just felt bad for her because you could see it, you could see how happy she was, how much she loved him and how open she was about it. It didn’t feel performative, it felt real, and that’s what made it sting a little more to watch it all fall apart like this.

And yes, maybe this is one of those moments where I partly condone parasocial relationships, not too much because let’s be serious we don’t actually know these people, but there is something about community, about people collectively rallying behind someone, especially a Black woman, in support.

The internet has been very loud in standing behind Megan and, let’s say, strongly disapproving of Klay Thompson who has very clearly shown his true colours in this situation. But at the same time, this is the reality of being public figures. When your relationship exists in the public eye, the love is public, the joy is public, and unfortunately the heartbreak is public too. And I genuinely would not wish a public breakup on anyone, especially not one that plays out like this, with speculation, opinions, and constant commentary from people who are watching from the outside.

Because of course, as with anything involving celebrities, everyone has something to say. Love and relationships are already such a sensitive topic, and when you add cheating into the mix it becomes even more loaded & reactive. But what has really stood out to me is how quickly the conversation has shifted. In a situation where Megan is clearly not at fault, where she did absolutely nothing to make that man cheat, you would assume the focus would stay exactly where it belongs. On his actions. On his choices. On his behaviour. But instead, somehow, the attention starts drifting back to her.

There are comments saying this is what happens when you do too much for a man, that she gave too much too soon, that cooking for him and his family or loving him publicly is something she should now feel embarrassed about. And I just keep asking myself why. Why is it that in situations like this we start pointing fingers at the person who was hurt. Why are we analysing her actions, mocking her, turning her love into something to be critiqued as if she is the one who did something wrong. Is she to blame for anything here. Genuinely. Because I cannot see it.

What exactly is the lesson people are trying to push here. That women should love less. That we should hold back. That we should move cautiously and never give too much of ourselves just in case someone decides to betray us. Because that’s what it sounds like. And I don’t agree with that.

I don’t think loving someone fully, showing up for them, caring for them, integrating into their life, is ever something to be ashamed of. You should never let anyone shame you for doing something out of love. That says more about them than it ever will about you.

Cheating is not something that happens because someone loved too hard. It is not a reaction to affection or care. It is a choice. A deliberate one. And no amount of cooking, supporting, showing up, or loving loudly can cause someone to be unfaithful. That responsibility sits entirely with the person who made that decision. So shifting the narrative onto Megan and what she did or didn’t do is not only unfair, it’s harmful because it reinforces this idea that women are somehow responsible for preventing their own heartbreak.

And I think especially when it comes to Black women, there’s another layer to this. We are so often expected to be strong, to carry everything, to protect ourselves at all times, to never be too vulnerable, to never be too open. So when a Black woman does allow herself to be soft, to be in love, to be expressive about it, it feels significant. It feels like something worth celebrating. That’s why so many people were rooting for her. Because there is something so beautiful about seeing a Black woman be loved out loud, to be chosen, to be held in a way that feels safe and secure in a world that so often doesn’t offer that.

And that’s why this backlash feels so wrong. Because instead of allowing her to simply be someone who was hurt, people are trying to turn her into a lesson, a warning, a what not to do. And I don’t think we should get in the habit of doing that to people.

Not everything needs to be turned into a moral story about what someone should have done differently. Sometimes the reality is just that someone loved, and the other person failed to meet that love.

At the end of the day, Megan is not foolish for loving the way she did. She is not embarrassing for showing up fully in her relationship. If anything, there is strength in being able to love like that and still walk away when your boundaries are crossed. That is power. That is self respect. And that is something that should be acknowledged more than anything else.

So no, the takeaway here should not be that she did too much. The takeaway should be that she deserved someone who could match what she gave.

And to every Black woman, like I’ve said a thousand times over, you deserve love. You are worthy of a pure, strong love that doesn’t come with struggle, confusion, or humiliation attached to it. And you should never have to shrink yourself or hold back your capacity to love in order to receive it.

It’s the kind of observation that might seem small in the moment, almost casual, but once it’s said out loud, it becomes difficult to unsee. Because it’s not just about that one section or that one night, it’s something that starts to show up again and again once you begin paying attention.

If you have been in the club lately, or even just scrolling through nightlife clips online, you might recognise the same pattern. Look at the VIP sections. Look at the birthday tables. Look at the girls dancing around the booth. Very often, they are all light skinned.

At first glance, it might seem like coincidence or simply a matter of who happened to be there. But when the same visual keeps repeating across different clubs, different events, and different cities, it stops feeling random and like most things starts to look structural. And that is where my friend’s sociology becomes useful here in pushing us to ask not just what we are seeing, but why we are seeing it so consistently.

Colourism operates on a spectrum, where lighter skin is often associated with beauty, softness, and desirability, while darker skin is positioned as less visible or less valued. Unfortunately we all know the drill here and these ideas are not accidental. They are rooted in histories of colonialism, where proximity to whiteness was tied to power and privilege, and they continue to be reinforced through media, advertising, and everyday social interactions.

Nightlife spaces don’t exist outside of these dynamics. In fact, they often intensify them. Clubs are environments where appearance carries a particular kind of social currency. The lighting, the music, the photography, and the presence of promoters all contribute to a space where being seen matters. Visibility becomes a form of status, and not everyone is given equal access to it.

And in London specifically, this conversation cannot happen without acknowledging something more direct. We have all heard the horror stories about nightlife here, especially when it comes to these dreadful Mayfair clubs. Stories of people being turned away at the door, not because of capacity or dress code, but because of how they look. Darker skinned Black women in particular have spoken about being refused entry for lack of a better word, bullshit excuses like not adhering to dress code regulations while lighter skinned women in similar outfits are allowed in without question.

These experiences are often dismissed as isolated incidents or explained away with vague policies, but when the same accounts keep surfacing, they begin to form a pattern of their own. Security at the door becomes a gatekeeper of not just space, but of desirability. Entry is not simply about whether you meet the stated criteria, but whether you fit an unspoken aesthetic.

This is where colourism becomes impossible to ignore. It’s not just about who is visible once you are inside the club but it’s also about who is allowed in at all.

Promoters play a significant role in shaping what the club looks like. They are not just inviting people, they are curating an image. Who gets into the section, who is placed near the DJ booth, who is offered a table, and who ends up in the background are all decisions that contribute to the visual identity of the night. These decisions are often influenced by what is considered marketable or attractive to a wider audience.

And here is where colourism quietly operates again. If lighter skin is already positioned as more desirable in mainstream culture, then those same preferences can influence who is selected for visibility in nightlife spaces. It’s not always explicit or openly stated. It can be subtle, habitual, even unconscious. But the outcome is still patterned.

What makes this particularly complex is that these patterns appear even in predominantly Black club spaces. You might expect these environments to reflect a wider spectrum of Black beauty, but often the same hierarchy shows up again. The women most visible in sections, in promotional videos, and on social media clips are still disproportionately light skinned.

This is why colourism cannot be understood as something external to the community but as something embedded within it. It shapes interactions, influences attraction, and affects how people are perceived and valued in social settings. It’s not about pointing fingers at individuals, but about recognising how deeply these preferences have been socialised.

The conversation about Black men preferring light skinned women often comes up in this context, especially in discussions online. It is of course a sensitive topic, and it can quickly become personal but it’s important to separate individual intention from structural influence. Preferences do not form in isolation because they are shaped over time through exposure to certain images, narratives, and rewards.

When lighter skinned women are consistently portrayed as the standard of beauty in music videos, films, and social media, those representations begin to influence what people find attractive. When those same women are more visible in clubs, more likely to be invited into sections, and more frequently highlighted in nightlife content, it reinforces the idea that they are the default choice.

This doesn’t mean that every individual preference is purely socially constructed, but it does mean that social context plays a significant role in shaping what feels natural or desirable. What is often described as just a preference can, in reality, reflect a long history of conditioning.

Nightlife culture amplifies this conditioning through repetition. Promoters choose people who fit a certain look. Those people become the face of the event. Photos and videos circulate online, showing a consistent aesthetic. Algorithms pick up on what gets engagement and push similar content. Over time, this creates a feedback loop where the same type of beauty is continuously elevated.

As a result, the club becomes more than just a space for music and socialising. It becomes a stage where social hierarchies are performed and reproduced. Who is visible and who is not, and even who is allowed through the door in the first place, sends subtle but powerful messages about value, desirability, and belonging.

Online platforms have made these patterns easier to notice. Comment sections on videos often point out the lack of diversity in sections. People ask why the same look keeps appearing, why darker skinned women seem less represented, and why certain aesthetics dominate nightlife imagery. These observations are important because they challenge the idea that what we are seeing is neutral or accidental.

At the same time, it’s key to acknowledge that colourism doesn’t operate in isolation. It intersects with other factors such as body type, hair texture, fashion, and overall presentation. However, skin tone remains a significant axis along which visibility and desirability are distributed.

Events and club scenes are often framed as spaces of freedom and expression, but they are still shaped by broader societal values. The same hierarchies that exist in media, in dating culture, and in professional environments can show up in these spaces in more concentrated ways. The difference is that in the club, these dynamics are highly visible, yet rarely openly discussed.

Recognising colourism in nightlife is not about policing who people are attracted to or who gets invited to a table. It’s about developing a critical awareness of the patterns that shape these outcomes. It’s about asking why certain looks are consistently rewarded and others are not.

It’s also about considering the impact of these patterns. Visibility matters. Being seen, included, and valued in social spaces contributes to how people understand their own worth. When certain groups are repeatedly centred while others are overlooked, it reinforces unequal standards of beauty and belonging.

So when people ask why every section looks the same, they are not just making an observation. They are pointing to a deeper issue about how beauty and status are constructed and maintained. They are questioning the systems that make those patterns feel normal.

The club scene might seem like a temporary, surface level environment, but it reflects long standing social dynamics. It shows how deeply ideas about skin tone and desirability are embedded in everyday life.

Once you start paying attention to colourism in these spaces, including at the very doors of the clubs themselves, it becomes difficult to ignore. It shows up in who is photographed, who is approached, who is celebrated, and who is excluded before the night even begins. And once you see it there, you begin to recognise it in other areas too.

Because colourism is not just in the clurb. The clurb simply makes it visible.

This is why trends matter, even when we pretend they don’t.

Recently, the girls have declared it a capri summer. Three quarter length trousers. Half a leg out. A silhouette that, if I am being honest, I had to warm up to. At first, I did not get it. Something about the length felt awkward, unfinished, like the trousers could not decide what they wanted to be. But style, like most things, grows on you. The more I saw it, the more I understood it. And now, I get it. I really do. I will absolutely be participating.

But as with most things that women create, enjoy, and circulate amongst themselves, it didn’t take long for men to arrive with opinions. Because of course they did.

There is something almost predictable about it. Women find something fun, something communal, something that exists within a shared language of femininity, and men feel the need to weigh in. To approve it. To disapprove of it. To comment on it as if participation is not complete without their input.

And this is where things become more interesting, and more complicated.

The idea of “dressing for the male gaze” is often thrown around in conversations like this, sometimes correctly, sometimes not. The term itself originally comes from film theory, describing how visual media is structured around a presumed heterosexual male viewer, positioning women as objects to be looked at, evaluated, consumed. It was never initially about individual women choosing outfits in their bedrooms. It was about systems, perspective and about who is centered and who is being seen.

But over time, the concept has stretched. It has been pulled into everyday language to describe the ways women’s appearances are shaped, consciously or not, by male attention.

So when men online start expressing their love for capris, something shifts.

Not necessarily because women were dressing for them in the first place, but because their vocal approval changes the atmosphere. It introduces a kind of performance where there was previously just participation. What was once just girls enjoying a trend suddenly feels observed. Evaluated. Framed through a lens that was not invited.

And that can make it less fun.

I have seen women express this frustration in real time. The feeling that something that belonged to them is being watched too closely. That men are not just observing but inserting themselves into the narrative, as if every aspect of women’s presentation exists in relation to them.

There is also a long history sitting underneath this, whether we consciously acknowledge it or not. Men have historically had a significant amount of control over how women dress. What was considered appropriate. Respectable. Desirable. Moral. From modesty laws to social expectations, women’s bodies have rarely been neutral territory. They have been regulated, commented on, and politicised.

So even now, in a time where women have more freedom to dress how they choose, that history does not just disappear. It lingers in the background. It shapes reactions. It informs why something as small as men loudly approving a trend can feel… irritating.

Not threatening. Not oppressive in the same way it once was. But irritating in a way that feels familiar.

At the same time, I do think it is important to be honest about influence. Not just male influence, but human influence in general. Opinions shape behaviour. They always have. What people say, what they praise, what they criticise, it all feeds into how we see ourselves and how we move through the world. That is not weakness. That is socialisation.

We are influenced by each other constantly. In how we dress, how we speak, what we find attractive, what we reject. To pretend otherwise would be naive.

But influence is not the same as control.

And I think that is where some of the online discourse loses me slightly. The idea that women will now refuse to wear capris purely because men like them. I understand the logic. Truly, I do. There is something deeply annoying about men entering spaces or conversations that were never about them and behaving as though they are central to it.

But I also think, if we are being honest, that a lot of the girls are joking.

It’s less about actually abandoning the trend and more about calling out the behaviour. The performative need some men have to involve themselves in every aspect of women’s lives. One minute it is capris, the next it is lashes, then it is hair, then it is nails. There is always commentary. Always an opinion. Always a presence where it was not asked for.

And that, more than anything, is what is being mocked.

Because one thing about men, they will find a way to sexualise anything.

Anything.

We are now, somehow, at a point where three quarter length trousers are being discussed in a way that feels… loaded and it’s almost impressive, in a deeply exhausting way, how consistently that happens. The ability to take something neutral and frame it through desire, through attractiveness, through whether it appeals to them.

It raises a broader question about psychology and about why this happens so frequently. Some of it can be explained through social conditioning. Men are often socialised to view women, first and foremost, as visual. To assess. To respond. To rank. It becomes habitual and al most automatic. When that is combined with online spaces, where everyone has a voice and no one is required to filter it, you get exactly this. Constant commentary, evaluation and presence.

So yes, when we talk about men commenting on women’s bodies, clothing, and sexuality, its not trivial. It might seem small in isolation, but collectively, it creates an environment where women are always being watched, always being responded to, always being positioned in relation to male perception.

That is where it becomes “that deep.”

And yet, despite all of that, I still come back to where I started.

I have never dressed for a man. And I never will.

Not in theory, not in practice, not in intention.

That doesn’t mean I am immune to influence. It doesn’t mean I exist outside of culture. It simply means that when I get dressed, when I choose what I like, what I feel good in, what makes sense to me, a man’s opinion is not part of that process.

And I think that is where most women actually are, despite the noise.

So no, I am not going to stop wearing capris because men have discovered them and decided they like them. If anything, that feels like giving too much weight to something that was never that important to begin with.

The trend started with the girls. It belongs to the girls. And whether men like it, hate it, or talk about it endlessly doesn’t actually change that.

Anyway, it’s a capri summer.

And I, for one, will be dressed accordingly.

But this idea of sameness has made me think about something deeper. Not just how others see us but how we see ourselves. When I say we look the same I am not only talking about appearance. I mean the way we move through the world the choices we make and the quiet pressure to fit into a certain version of Blackness. Shared history and similar systems have shaped many of our experiences but they should not limit who we are allowed to become. Still there is often an unspoken fear of being too different as if stepping outside of what is expected somehow disconnects you from your identity.

I have noticed that individuality can sometimes feel uncomfortable even within our own communities. When someone is fully themselves unapologetic and not trying to fit into any box it can challenge what we are used to. We often talk about how a strong sense of self can disrupt racist systems but what about the way it disrupts expectations closer to home. It makes me wonder whether individuality is sometimes seen as a threat to belonging rather than a natural part of it.

There is also a lot that we have learned that we need to unlearn. Mistrust runs deep and not only toward larger systems but sometimes within our own spaces too. When trust is repeatedly broken it becomes harder to build connection which can lead to distance competition and lack of support. At the same time there is this constant pressure to prove ourselves. Many of us grow up feeling like we have to work twice as hard measuring success through external validation instead of internal fulfilment. Living in survival mode keeps us alert but it can also limit emotional expression especially when vulnerability is seen as weakness rather than strength.

Then there is the policing of Blackness. Ideas about what is considered acceptable or real are reinforced both externally and internally. Whether it is how you speak dress or think there are often unspoken rules that shape what is seen as valid. It raises the question of who created these standards and why they feel so fixed when identity itself is fluid.

If we step away from race for a moment this connects to something bigger. We are living in a time where conformity is almost second nature. Social media plays a huge role in this. Influencers do not just promote products they shape behaviour attitudes and even identity. People do not just follow trends they rely on them to figure out who they are.

A simple example is something like crossing the road. You are supposed to wait for the signal but if one person steps forward early others usually follow without thinking. It is automatic. The same thing happens with trends. One aesthetic becomes popular and suddenly it is everywhere. What looks like connection can sometimes just be imitation driven by the fear of standing out.

Psychology helps explain this through normative and informational social influence. Normative social influence is when people conform to be liked or accepted even if they do not truly agree. Informational social influence is when people look to others for guidance especially when they are unsure leading them to genuinely adopt those beliefs. Both show how easy it is for individuality to be shaped or even lost in group settings.

Black individuality sits at the intersection of personal identity and shared experience. Being Black is an important part of identity for many people and it often creates a sense of connection and shared understanding. At the same time there is no single way to be Black. Experiences differ culture is diverse and identity is influenced by many factors including gender class and personal background.

What stands out to me is that individuality is not about separating yourself from the group but about understanding your place within it. It is about holding both the I and the we at the same time. Research into Black identity especially among Black professional women shows how people actively work to define themselves while navigating expectations from society and their communities. Their sense of self is shaped by past experiences relationships and the ongoing process of making meaning of who they are. It is not fixed it evolves.

All of this points to something bigger. We are in the middle of an individuality crisis. Not just within Black communities but everywhere. The pressure to conform the influence of social norms and the fear of being different all contribute to people losing touch with themselves.

Breaking out of that isn’t easy but it is necessary. It starts with questioning what we have been taught challenging what feels automatic and becoming more comfortable with standing in our own identity. Individuality should not feel like rebellion. It should feel like honesty.

Because the truth is simple.

We don’t all look the same and we never have.

Instinctively, some people assume the unconscious person is the most urgent case. But the correct answer is the opposite. In actuality you should go to the person who is bleeding.

The reasoning is simple. The person bleeding is still alive and has a high chance of survival if you act quickly. The person unconscious on the floor may already be gone. And even if they’re not, the chances of bringing them back are often much smaller or none.

In first aid, you are taught to direct your energy where it can actually save a life.

That same logic has stayed with me long after the training ended, because it made me think about how often we do the opposite in our own lives.

Instead of focusing on what is still alive, still possible, still salvageable, we often spend our time trying to resuscitate things that have already collapsed. We pour emotional energy, effort and attention into relationships, ideas and identities that stopped breathing a long time ago. Meanwhile the things that are still alive in our lives slowly bleed out from neglect.

Part of the reason we do this is psychological. Humans struggle deeply with letting go. When we have invested time, emotion or identity into something, walking away can feel unbearable. Psychologists describe this tendency as the sunk cost fallacy. The more we have already invested in something, the harder it becomes to abandon it. Even when it’s clearly no longer working, we keep trying, convincing ourselves that if we push a little harder, invest a little more, or wait a little longer, we might be able to bring it back to life.

But sometimes what we are doing is the emotional equivalent of performing CPR on something that has already died.

This pattern appears most clearly in relationships. Many of us have experienced what it feels like to stay in something long after the connection has faded. We replay conversations, attempt to repair things that are no longer repairable, or cling to memories of what the relationship used to be. Walking away can feel like admitting failure, like acknowledging that something we believed in did not survive.

But sometimes the relationship we are trying to revive has already collapsed. The life has gone out of it. What we are trying to save is not the relationship as it exists now, but the memory of what it once was.

The same dynamic appears in work and creativity. People often stay committed to business ventures, projects or career paths that stopped making sense a long time ago. Not necessarily because they still believe in them, but because abandoning them feels like admitting that the original dream failed.

We tell ourselves that persistence is a virtue, that successful people never give up. But persistence and denial are not the same thing. There is a difference between continuing to nurture something that still has life in it and refusing to accept when something has reached its natural end.

Sometimes an idea or project exists in our lives for a season. It teaches us something, shapes us in some way, and then it finishes. The value was never that it lasted forever. The value was that it existed at all. Letting go of something like that is not failure. It’s simply recognising that its role in our lives has ended.

This idea becomes even more complicated when we think about the expectations placed on Black women in particular. Across many cultural and social contexts, Black women are often expected to be the emotional first responders of the communities around them. We are taught to carry, fix, nurture and hold together the people and systems around us, the strength we show becomes social expectation.

But strength can sometimes blur into over responsibility. When you are socialised to believe that it’s your job to keep everything together, letting something fall apart can feel like a personal failure. You might feel responsible for reviving relationships, communities or institutions even when they are beyond saving.

The cultural narrative of resilience, while powerful, can also create a quiet pressure to endure situations long after they have become harmful. Instead of stepping away from something that is collapsing, we double down on trying to repair it.

We keep performing emotional CPR.

Yet first aid teaches a very different lesson. The decision about where to direct your energy is not about loyalty or sentiment. It’s about recognising where your effort can actually make a difference. You help the person who is bleeding because they are still alive and your actions still matter there. In life, this kind of clarity is often harder to practice. We attach meaning, identity and memory to the things we build. When they begin to fail, we feel compelled to save them, even when doing so drains the life out of us. Sometimes the most compassionate and honest decision we can make is to acknowledge that something has ended.

This doesn’t mean it never mattered. It doesn’t mean the time we invested was wasted. It simply means that not everything we start is meant to survive forever.

Walking away from something that has died is not always quitting. Sometimes it is an act of recognition. It is the moment when we stop directing our energy toward what has already collapsed and begin paying attention to what is still alive.

Because while we are focused on reviving the unconscious body on the floor, something else in our lives may still be bleeding. A creative idea we have neglected. A relationship that still holds potential. A part of ourselves that we have not had the time or energy to nurture. When we refuse to let go of what has already ended, we risk losing what could still grow.

The lesson from first aid is simple. You go to the person who is bleeding because there is still something left to save. Maybe the same principle applies to the rest of our lives. Not everything can be revived. Not everything is meant to continue.

Sometimes the most important question we can ask ourselves is not what has already collapsed, but what is still alive.

Have you ever noticed how one celebrity can quietly change how everyone behaves almost overnight? Not because they asked anyone to do anything and not because there was some official instruction. It just happens.

Over the past few days something interesting has been unfolding across UK timelines, particularly within Black British spaces online. It started with the arrival of Atlanta rapper Gunna in London and somewhere between the airport arrivals, the run club and the concert, it felt like a cultural ripple moved through the timeline. Not dramatic enough to call a movement, but noticeable enough that people began commenting on it.

Before anyone becomes defensive let me say this early. This is not an attack on Gunna. I do not know that man and I am not particularly invested in his music either. It is also not about shaming people for how they spend their money or how they enjoy themselves. If someone wants to run with a celebrity, buy concert tickets or dress up for an event that is entirely their business.

However as the extremely opinionated young Black queen that I am I will analyse it anyway.

Because what we witnessed over the past week felt like more than simple excitement around a celebrity visit. It felt like watching influence travel through a community in real time. It felt like watching people respond not just to music, but to an image, an aesthetic and a lifestyle.

What I have jokingly but also slightly seriously started calling the Gunnafication of the UK Black community/ UK scene.

And I fear some of you may have been Gunnafied.

Now from what I’ve been seeing online and in London this Gunnafication seems to be hitting men the hardest particularly Black men. That is not to say women or other people are not participating but the patterns I have noticed the competitive dressing and performance of masculinity, the choreography of style and the way energy is curated seem to be shaping male behaviour most visibly.

The first moment that caught people’s attention was Gunna’s run club event. Fans could pay fifty pounds for the opportunity to run alongside him, receive food from Nando’s and collect a few branded items connected to the event. Videos quickly began circulating across social media of people jogging alongside him, filming the moment, laughing, cheering and clearly enjoying the novelty of running with a famous rapper.

The internet reacted exactly as the internet always does. Some people laughed at the excitement of the participants and framed the whole thing as embarrassing behaviour. Others pushed back, arguing that if a celebrity is encouraging people to exercise and get outside then that is hardly something to complain about.

What interested me however was not the jokes.

It was the tone of the videos themselves.

Watching those clips carefully you could see that people were not simply attending an event. There was something about the atmosphere that felt almost reverential. The excitement was bigger than the activity itself. People were reacting to Gunna’s presence as much as they were reacting to the run.

And that is not particularly surprising.

Humans are very good at taking cues from people we admire. When someone appears successful, stylish or culturally important we instinctively pay attention to how they move through the world. We notice what they wear, how they carry themselves, the things they seem to prioritise. Without consciously deciding to do so we begin to absorb those signals.

Admiration slowly becomes imitation.

Imitation slowly becomes culture and culture spreads much faster than people realise.

Part of the reason this particular moment has been so noticeable is because Gunna himself has gone through a visible transformation over the past few years. His lifestyle appears to have shifted. There has been a lot of talk about weight loss, running and a more disciplined routine. Alongside that his style has changed as well. The aesthetic feels cleaner now. Darker clothing, simpler silhouettes, a more controlled presentation. Reinvention is always compelling to watch especially when it’s a public figure.

People are naturally drawn to stories of transformation. When someone visibly changes their lifestyle or image it captures attention. It also creates a kind of blueprint. Suddenly people begin to imagine themselves making similar changes.

But the most interesting part of this week was not the run club. It was the build up to the London concert.

In the days leading up to the show TikTok began filling with videos of men discussing outfits, arrival plans and the general energy they intended to bring to the event. Some of the language used in these videos framed the concert less like a music event and more like a competition.

People were talking about who would have the littest bunch. Who would arrive looking the best. Who would be wearing the most expensive clothes, the nicest shoes, the most impressive accessories or cars.

Somewhere along the way the concert began to feel like a stage for social performance.

Now personally when I attend concerts I also enjoy dressing well. Looking good is part of the fun and fashion has always been closely tied to music culture. But dressing nicely for an event is slightly different from approaching that event as a competitive display.

Yet that seemed to be the tone of many of the conversations online.

One of the funniest observations people made was the number of Mercedes V Class vans appearing in videos related to the concert. At some point it appeared to become understood that arriving in a chauffeur van was the correct cultural move.

No one officially announced this and yet suddenly everyone seemed to be doing it.

This is the interesting thing about trends. They rarely arrive with instructions, instead they move quietly through communities as people watch one another and begin to mirror what they see.

Clothing works in a similar way. Leading up to the concert timelines began filling with outfits that looked strangely similar. Dark colour palettes dominated. Leather jackets appeared everywhere. Designer boots, oversized silhouettes and minimalist styling kept repeating across different videos.

I don’t believe there actually was an official dress code and yet visually a uniform seemed to emerge.

It almost felt like everyone had received the same aesthetic memo without actually discussing it.

Moments like this reveal how much of culture moves through observation. People watch what others are doing and adjust their own behaviour slightly to match the atmosphere around them. Over time those small adjustments accumulate until an entire scene begins to look and feel coordinated.

None of this is new of course. Music has always influenced how people dress and present themselves. Artists such as Future and groups like Migos have shaped fashion trends and visual aesthetics within hip hop culture for years. Fans have always borrowed elements from the artists they admire.

Taking inspiration from someone is not inherently a bad thing and in many ways that is how culture evolves. But moments like this become interesting when the imitation becomes so widespread that it begins to look like a collective shift rather than individual inspiration.

That is where the idea of Gunnafication comes in.

The suggestion that when a highly visible figure changes their aesthetic or lifestyle the ripple effect can quietly reshape what people around them begin to see as aspirational. Suddenly the things associated with that figure start appearing everywhere.

The clothes.

The energy.

The lifestyle cues.

It starts to become less about the music and more about the image attached to the music and boy does that image travels quickly.

One of the ironies of this entire moment is that Gunna’s current influence is actually relatively positive compared to many other celebrity trends. Encouraging people to run, get outside and focus on their health is hardly the worst cultural influence a rapper could have.

The run club itself may have looked amusing to some people online but the underlying message is not exactly harmful.

But even positive influence still reveals something important about celebrity culture.

Artists today are not simply musicians. They are carefully constructed public identities. Their image, their aesthetic and even their lifestyle choices become part of a broader narrative that audiences engage with.

Fans don’t only listen to the songs. They watch the person behind the songs. They observe the clothes, the routines, the environments and the attitudes that surround that person. All of those elements slowly become part of the appeal. And once something becomes aspirational it inevitably becomes copied.

So when people online mock fans for losing composure around celebrities or for appearing overly excited I sometimes think they miss the bigger picture. What we are witnessing in moments like this is not simply excitement.

It is influence moving through culture.

The Gunna effect shall we call it in this instance.

The quiet moment when one person’s aesthetic, behaviour and lifestyle begin to ripple outward through a community shaping what people think looks good, feels impressive or signals success.

This phenomenon is not unique to Gunna. It happens constantly across music, fashion and entertainment. But every now and then a moment arrives where the pattern becomes particularly visible.

And this week felt like one of those moments.

None of this analysis is meant to embarrass anyone who attended the run club or the concert. People should enjoy themselves, celebrate artists they admire and participate in cultural moments that bring them joy.

But it is still interesting to pause and observe what is happening. Moments like this reveal something subtle but powerful. They show how quickly influence can travel and how easily people can begin to mirror the figures they admire. They remind us that celebrities often function as cultural blueprints whether they intend to or not.

So perhaps the real question is not whether the UK scene has been Gunnafied.

Perhaps the more interesting question is this. If one rapper can land in London and quietly reshape how thousands of people dress, behave and present themselves.

How much of our identity is actually ours and how much of it is reflection.

Writing that at the time was uncomfortable, and honestly it still is now. But the journey to self awareness is rarely neat or flattering. Growth often requires looking directly at parts of ourselves that we would rather pretend are not there.

When I think back to the summer of 2024, early 2025 and even parts of the summer of 2025, I remember making a very conscious effort to stop entertaining male attention altogether. I made a decision that I simply wouldn’t engage with it. Being the girl I am and being out quite often for both enjoyment and work meant I was regularly around men, and that environment naturally attracts attention. I am trying to say this without it sounding like some kind of self-congratulatory statement about getting attention because that is not the point. The point is that even when the attention came, I denied it.

I brushed it off with excuses. I would say I was in a relationship. I would say I had a girlfriend. Sometimes I would say I was half gay, which was technically a half lie but surprisingly effective. Occasionally it worked immediately as a deterrent. Other times it opened the door to slightly strange or overly curious conversations that I would have to shut down before they really even started. The important part was that I did not entertain them. Not because of some miraculous moral transformation or a desire to prove something to anyone. I simply didn’t feel like it. I told myself I wouldn’t entertain men in that way, and so I did not.

For a while that discipline worked.

Context is important, though. During that period of decentering men, I was newly single after a two-and-a-half-year relationship that realistically should have ended at around the one-year mark. So yes, I was tired of men and their behaviour. At the same time I was also young, single and very much outside living my life. In the beginning I absolutely soaked up the attention, and if I am honest, I enjoyed it. I have no shame in admitting that. Attention can feel good, and psychologically it makes sense why. Humans are social beings, and validation activates reward systems in the brain in ways not entirely different from other pleasurable stimuli. Being desired or admired triggers feelings of belonging and affirmation.

But like most things that feeling eventually wore off. The attention started to feel repetitive and predictable. The same conversations. The same approaches. The same intentions disguised as something more interesting than they actually were. After a while I simply couldn’t be bothered anymore. I stopped entertaining them, and eventually I stopped dating for a while as well.

Something interesting happens when you stop seeking attention. You start to notice how deeply the desire for validation runs through everyday behaviour. Sociology often talks about the “male gaze,” a concept that describes how women learn to view themselves through the imagined perspective of men. Over time that gaze becomes internalised so that women monitor themselves constantly, adjusting behaviour, appearance and personality in anticipation of male approval. When you begin to step away from that dynamic, you start to realise how many of your actions were shaped by it without you even noticing.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line something shifted again.

I can’t say exactly when it happened or what triggered it, but I have recently begun noticing traces of those behaviours creeping back in. Not in a deliberate way and not because I am consciously seeking male validation again. But something has changed. I will admit that I feel slightly disappointed in myself writing this. It feels like returning to a conversation that I thought I had already resolved.

At the same time, self-awareness is rarely linear, and personal growth is known to be more cyclical rather than progressive in a straight line. People revisit patterns they thought they had moved past because new contexts expose different layers of those patterns. In my case I think that context is dating again.

For some reason the balance between decentering men and dating men has been harder for me to maintain than I expected. I once asked my friends a question that I still think about. Can you decenter men and still be a serial dater? Their answer was yes. But I’m still trying to understand what that actually looks like in practice, not that I’m a serial dater … anymore.

Because when you start dating again, even casually men begin to occupy some level of emotional space whether you intend for them to or not. Their interest, their attention and their presence reenter the picture. It’s not necessarily about seeking their approval but about the subtle ways attention operates in social interaction. Sociologists often describe attention as a form of social currency. Being noticed or desired reinforces a sense of visibility and significance within social environments. Even when you believe you are indifferent to it, the dynamic still exists.

In my original piece I also discussed the term ‘male identification’. ‘Male identification’ refers to the act of placing men above women, including yourself, and prioritising male perspectives, approval and experiences over those of women. It describes a pattern where women unconsciously align themselves with male interests because society has historically positioned men as the centre of authority and value.

At the time I questioned whether I might have been a male identifier. Looking back now, I can confidently say that I most definitely am not. One of the clearest outcomes of this entire process has been that I have centred myself and the women in my life far more than I ever did before. My friendships, especially my friendships with women, have become the emotional core of my life. They provide support, humour, accountability and community in ways that do not revolve around romantic relationships.

What I didn’t anticipate was that when I began decentering men, I also unintentionally decentered dating and relationships altogether. I did not consciously decide to step away from romance, but it happened naturally. Somewhere in my mind dating and centring men became intertwined concepts. So when I removed men from the centre of my life, dating quietly moved to the margins as well.

Now that I am slowly opening myself back up to dating again, I am realising how difficult it is to separate those two ideas. How do you date without centring men? How do you allow space for romantic relationships without letting them dominate your emotional world? That is the balance I am currently trying to figure out.

Even now one thing has remained consistent. I still centre myself. I centre my friendships, my routines and my personal growth. Even when dating situations become stressful or emotionally complicated I notice that I do not let them consume me the way they might have in the past. And yet somehow it still feels like men are being centred even within that boundary.

Perhaps this is simply the next stage of the process. Decentering men might not mean removing them entirely from your life. Instead it might mean refusing to organise your identity, worth and priorities around them. It might mean allowing relationships to exist without letting them become the axis around which everything else rotates.

Maybe the real lesson here is not about rejecting men completely but about learning how to engage with them without giving them the emotional authority they once had.

Or maybe the easier solution would simply be to stop dating men altogether.

On the surface, it looks simple. Just people doing push-ups. Nothing particularly new about that. Fitness content has always existed online, and push-ups are about as basic as exercise gets, at least for people who can do them. But the longer I watch the trend unfold, the more it starts to feel like something else entirely. What is happening here is not just exercise. It’s performance.

The format of the videos makes that clear almost immediately. The camera is placed low. The body fills the frame. The breathing is controlled and exaggerated, often synced with the movement itself. And then there is the eye contact. Intense, deliberate eye contact directed straight into the camera, and by extension, straight at the audience watching.

What begins as a basic push-up becomes a display. A demonstration of strength, control, and discipline. A moment where the body itself becomes the message.

This is where the sociological lens starts to creep in.

In everyday life, people are constantly managing how they appear to others. We present different versions of ourselves depending on who is watching. There is always an audience, even if we do not consciously recognise it. Social interaction often works a lot like a performance, with people adjusting their behaviour to fit the setting they are in.

TikTok simply makes that stage more visible.

These push-up videos are not just recordings of people exercising. They are carefully constructed performances designed for an audience. The angle of the camera, the intensity of the gaze, the rhythm of the breathing, the framing of the body. All of these elements shape how masculinity is presented to the viewer.

The push-up itself becomes less important than what it communicates.

Look at my strength.
Look at my control.
Look at how effortless this is for me.

So effortless, in fact, that people have started jumping off gym equipment and incorporating backflips into the challenge.

Another way to think about this is that gender isn’t just something we are. It’s something we repeatedly do. It’s built through patterns of behaviour that society learns to recognise as masculine or feminine. Strength, endurance, control over the body, and visible physical capability have long been associated with masculinity.

Seen through that lens, the push-up trend begins to make even more sense. The challenge turns the body into evidence. Each repetition becomes a small demonstration of masculine capability. The body performs the traits that culture has historically linked with being a man: strength, discipline, control, competitiveness, and the ability to push through strain without visible struggle.

What makes the trend particularly interesting is the way it evolves.

The videos rarely stay simple for long.

At first, people were just doing push-ups. Plain, straightforward push-ups. Then someone adds a clap. Someone else raises their feet on weights. Then someone jumps between platforms. Now there are people doing explosive variations, acrobatics, and even backflips between reps.

Once the basic version exists, the logic of the platform pushes things further.

If someone else can do ten push-ups, you do fifteen.
If someone adds a clap, you add two.
If someone turns it into a trick, you make it more impressive.

What emerges is a kind of escalating performance.

Cultural ideas about the “ideal” version of masculinity often place strength, competitiveness, discipline, and physical dominance at the centre. Trends like this turn those expectations into a kind of micro-competition. Not necessarily hostile, but competitive nonetheless. Each video becomes another entry in an ongoing demonstration of masculine capability.

TikTok amplifies this dynamic because the platform itself runs on comparison.

Who did more reps?
Who made it look easier.
Who escalated the challenge the furthest?

People naturally evaluate themselves by comparing their abilities and achievements to those of others. On a platform where thousands of similar videos exist side by side, comparison becomes almost unavoidable. But what fascinates me most is that the competition is not purely individual. It’s also social.

Men respond to each other’s videos. They duet them and recreate them and try to go one step further. Someone posts a push-up challenge, and suddenly a chain of responses forms around it.

In many ways, it starts to resemble a digital version of locker-room culture.

Men often build relationships with other men through competition, shared activities, and demonstrations of strength or skill. Sports, physical challenges, and competitive banter frequently become the medium through which that bonding happens.

Seen in that light, these TikTok trends begin to look less random. They create a social space where men perform masculinity not just for women, but for each other. A digital locker room unfolding in comment sections and duets.

What adds another layer to the whole thing, though, is the audience response.

Spend enough time in the comments, and a pattern starts to appear. Women asking for longer eye contact. Requesting slower breathing. Encouraging creators to repeat the performance again. Attaching memes and stickers in the comment sections.

Some of the push-up videos begin to shift from demonstrations of strength into something closer to thirst traps. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but the reaction matters. Attention functions as validation. Positive comments, likes, and shares reinforce the performance. They signal that this version of masculinity is desirable, attractive, and worth repeating.

In traditional media, women have often been positioned as the primary objects of visual attention. What is interesting about trends like this is that the dynamic occasionally flips. Here, male bodies are placed in the centre of the frame, performing strength in ways designed to attract and hold the viewer’s gaze. The feedback loop becomes clear.

Men perform strength.
Audiences respond positively.
The performance escalates.

And TikTok, with algorithms that reward novelty and spectacle, quietly encourages the cycle to continue.

None of this is necessarily a bad thing.

It is easy to frame social media trends as shallow or meaningless, but that often misses the point. What makes them interesting is precisely how much they reveal about cultural expectations that usually operate quietly in the background.

A simple push-up challenge becomes a small window into how masculinity is displayed, recognised, and validated in digital spaces.

It shows how strength can become a performance, how competition can become a form of bonding, and how audiences participate in shaping what masculinity looks like online.

Sometimes sociology is not found in textbooks or lecture halls.

Sometimes it is hiding in a thirty-second video of someone doing push-ups on the internet.

All you have to do is look a little closer.