Friday Tchotchke #10: The kids love chess!
Also, shopping
I’m trying so hard not to spend money because it’s tax season and whatever hard-won gelt I feel like I have or perhaps even believe that I have thanks to some numbers displayed on a banking portal is, in reality, the property of the federal or indeed even the state government. But I have a minor [citation extremely needed] shopping problem so yesterday I went to Beacon’s Closet and sold $60 worth of clothes so I could pick up a different $60 worth of clothes. Did that help? A little. But here are some more things I really really really really really want:
Susan Alexandra “Oy Vey” Necklace - $148
I have wanted something from Susan Alexandra’s Judaica collection since the moment it was launched and targeted directly at me using dastardly Instagram ads. She also has ones that say “kvetch” and “chutzpah” which are tempting but I think personally “oy vey” expresses what is most often in my heart.
Batsheva Kipp Skirt - $250
This spring we are doing long white skirts and we are also doing black ribbons and bows and this skirt combines the best of both worlds. I’ll be honest, I’ve tried on a ton of long white skirts (vintage and new!) in the past couple weeks trying to find The Perfect One and I’m starting to believe that perhaps this trend is noooot the most flattering on me personally, but I want to rock that Edwardian lawn croquet vibe so bad and I will keep trying until it works, god dammit!!
Rachel Cox Darlee Loafers - $181
These have been in my cart for weeks and I will probably bite the bullet soon unless someone can show me a better pair of Simone Rocha-lite platform ballet flats that look comfy for walking, aren’t too high or strappy, and come in an interesting colorway other than black or cream (I like the mint ones) !!!!
Charles & Keith Envelope Crossbody Bag - $66
I need a new decent smallish crossbody and this one seems to fit the bill. I like the colorblock pattern and envelope-style flap! Simple as!
This week in fandom
Have you heard the news? Reports are coming in that the kids simply cannot stop playing chess. School-age boys are obsessed with chess, to the degree that they’re playing it during class and afterwards, instead of doing their homework. And they’re not even good at it!
A good deal of the blame might be laid at the feet of insanely popular YouTube streamer Ludwig, whose chessboxing tournament last year featured a variety of internet personalities facing off in alternate rounds of chess and boxing (yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like). None of the competitors were very good at either chess or boxing, but that didn’t matter to the viewers, who were so numerous they far surpassed Ludwig’s previous all-time viewing record.
Thanks in part to Ludwig’s promotion of chess to his massive audience for the past three years, popularity of the game has peaked to the point that Chess.com has had to go on the record apologizing for its servers not being able to keep up with the insane uptick in demand over the last few months.
My cousin Benny, a freshman at a large state school and my source for all things Gen Z, confirms that “everyone [he] knows plays chess now.” Sitting in the back during pre-med lectures, a sea of chess boards is visible on screens below. According to Benny, the game is challenging enough to serve as adequate enrichment during a boring lecture (unlike something simple like 2048), but is sensibly “academic” enough for the player to not feel blatantly guilty for being inattentive (as something like Minecraft or Fortnite might be).
This could be related, I think, to the trend of “stim edits” on TikTok, where videos or audios of someone speaking are accompanied onscreen by soap-cutting videos or screen recordings of Temple Run or other platformer games. The trend has been lampshaded by its own aficionados, imagining scenarios where stim videos and Reddit post voiceovers are needed to get your friends to listen to you IRL. Zoomers’ sense of self-awareness regarding the degraded state of their attention spans produces some of the funniest content out there—and also is potentially is contributing to the chess craze. You know you shouldn’t be watching YouTube or playing games during lecture. But you have to do something. Why not chess?
This week in polar exploration
In the cloistered world of polar exploration history, a lot of the most active and productive participants are folks who do it as a sideline to a completely unrelated academic or professional career. Many of the authors of the most acclaimed and popular polar biographies and history books are essentially hobbyists. Even Roland Huntford, author of the highly controversial teardown The Last Place On Earth that decimated the legend of Robert Falcon Scott in the late 1970s, was a sports journalist with a focus on skiing and Scandinavia before he fell into the polar hole.
This fascinates me on many levels. I’m not sure if there is another subfield of history where the biggest breakthroughs could come from anyone, anywhere, at any time. The time and patience needed to comb through disparate archives and put together scattered pieces of historical information is something that often career academics cannot afford, and instead must come from people who simply care SO SO MUCH. I have heard tell that there are similar levels of amateur enthusiasm in spheres like Civil War history, but this seems a little different somehow.
One example of a polarhead bringing their main specialty to the table in their research is William C. Campbell, a decorated parasitologist who won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for his role in the development of ivermectin. In and amongst his important research he also investigated the history of parasitology, which led him to the two parasitologists on Scott’s expedition, E.A. “Bill” Wilson and E.L. “Atch” Atkinson (of ye olde lovebirds).
After reading a few of his papers and enjoying their biographical detailedness and insights into the science of parasitology, I discovered to my delight that he’s still alive (92!!!) and emailed him! And he replied! Guys, I’ve corresponded with a Nobel Prize winner literally because we have the same polar blorbo. This is definitely one of the more insane outcomes of a special interest I’ve ever had.
Things I read this week that I liked
The Particular Misery of College Admissions TikTok by Jay Caspian Kang
On some level, Lim’s assessments are nonsense, yet he’s often proved correct because most kids don’t get into super-selective colleges. The self-appointed college experts of TikTok aren’t unlike the excited men who tell you they have the inside scoop on this weekend’s Jets-versus-Browns betting line—spitting out a fog of numbers, predictions, and seeming expertise. Just as the Vegas touts might pose in front of luxury cars and fan out hundred-dollar bills to earn your confidence that they are living the life they claim, Lim tells you about all the perks he gets as a student at Duke, a “top 10 university” where one gets networking opportunities like meeting the founder of Skillshare.
Against scenes by Daisy Alioto
Who doesn’t love a party god? If you’re on TikTok, maybe you’ve seen the work of Jake Shane aka optopusslover8, who acts out scenes from history as suggested by his followers. The Last Supper becomes a spat over splitting the bill, and Shane–the friend collecting the credit cards–becomes increasingly frustrated.
We see the Boston Tea Party through the eyes of the friend that overslept: “Why would they dump all the tea in there? I don’t understand…” Shane says groggily to an imaginary person on FaceTime. He’s the bitchy door person guarding Noah’s Ark asking, “Name?” What Shane’s comedy presupposes is that the Boston Tea Party, The Last Supper and Noah’s Ark were all a scene. And his character is just playing it straight in the c*ntiest version of history.
Every Day Is April Fool’s Day Now by Samantha Cole
The disinformation apocalypse is already here, but not in the form of the Russian “dezinformatsiya” we feared. Wading through what’s real and fake online has never been harder, not because each individual deepfake is impossible to distinguish from reality, but because the volume of low effort gags is outpacing our ability to process them—and it’s about to get worse.
Please shop for me too.