My phone takes a perverse delight in informing me that TikTok is one of my most used apps. Today, I used it for 43 minutes. Yesterday, it was 2 hours and 34 minutes. The length of time fluctuates day-to-day, but it is inarguably, and perhaps somewhat embarrassingly, an app which I use day-to-day.
Beth, or BooksNest as she is known online, is a successful book blogger who recently grew her Twitter account to 10,000 followers. BooksNest often reviews young adult fiction, though branches out into other genres too. I spoke to Beth about why she loves blogging and what she has gotten out of it.
Every story in any medium has 3 things in common: a beginning, a middle, and an end. The order of it is of course subject to change, as anyone who’s read Catch-22 or watched Arrival (2016) would tell you. Now, let’s dispel the notion that you can only have one of each within the framework of a narrative.
“Plant-based”, “extinction”, and “flight shame” were all shortlisted to be crowned Oxford Dictionaries 2019 word of the year, but amongst this all-environmental semantic shortlist, “climate emergency” came out on top. Usage of the term has increased by a hundredfold since the previous year.
Offering over 44 million titles, the world’s biggest bookseller seems like the most trustworthy source to get a recommendation. With so much to choose from, you would think our reading preferences would expand with each Amazon order. But we often find ourselves browsing the same section of the virtual bookshelf.
Since August 2019, French authorities have issued over 450 fines for sexist behaviour, with new legislation threatening fines in excess of up to €750 for being caught cat-calling or shouting degrading comments.
It’s 4am in America, a Tuesday in March 2016. In a haze, you notice something start to go wrong with the TV. It seems as though it’s picking up CCTV footage of a suburban family, preparing for a kid’s party while a teen lies silently on the floor – apparently sulking.
Rainbow colour-coded bookshelves, special edition hardbacks surrounded by fairy lights, atmospheric coffee shop scenes with a splayed open paperback on the table – this is what you can expect to see when scrolling through the 39 million posts under the ‘bookstagram’ hashtag on Instagram.
On the bus back to my accommodation yesterday, a little boy around the age of 8 waved at me from the sidewalk, then yelled “CORONAVIRUS!” before dissolving into giggles with his friends.
There are many ways the World Wildlife Fund flagship Choices campaign video goes against the grain of advertising. For one thing, it isn’t trying to sell anything (in fact, it wants us to consume less). Everything about Choices invokes the theme of change.
