Don't call it a throwback
If you’re reading this, you’ve subscribed and you’re a liker of things. Thank you for giving in to your dark desire for some shady content. While I’m not entirely in the right headspace to share (all) my thoughts on what’s happening in the world, I am feeling rather nostalgic. I was unusually homesick a few days ago, and I’ve been having dreams about being at home, introducing someone to my family (call me Phoebe Halliwell or Doctor Strange, seers of alternate futures), and being bullied in high school. Not all are fond memories but they’ve all played a role in making me the person slouching at this desk typing this.
I feel the same about my writing. Some of my early stuff is terrible. It was good back then – most of it was published in actual magazines, so… – but I look back at some pieces and I cringe. I see someone uncertain of himself, someone isolated and petrified but I also see someone fucking hilarious and opinionated and excited about finding the right medium to express himself. So here are some of my favourite pieces of writing. One is about five years old and the others I wrote just a few weeks into season four of The Handmaid’s Tale, I mean lockdown.
For GQ, I was petty and it paid off
Here’s the story of how I got into sneaker culture. I was working at Men’s Health and I started discovering sites like Complex, Hypebeast and Four Pins (they taught me to be shady about this fashion “stuff” TBH). I was tired of the vanilla content I was doing at work – a gay man telling a bunch of straight okes how to impress women with a new fragrance or not wearing flip-flops. Imagine.
Anyway, I bought my first pair of Stan Smiths and I guess I sold my sole to the devil right there at Shelflife and started evolving into a skrr. The culture spoke to me because, at the time, it was largely a rebellion against the very dandy and colourful ways of certain hat-donning individuals. I started dressing in dark colours, buying more streetwear but I also had days where I’d rock a coat and a collared shirt because of duality. I started feeling more comfortable, even though I was going out of my way to stick out among my colleagues. Although the colour of my skin did that by default.
We had a sneaker special coming up in the style section, and I pitched a story on sneaker culture at the time, which was still relatively niche. My editor wanted some white woman to write it and I fought – for the first time – for myself, my blackness, my culture...something I was actually interested in writing. The story was cut the day before our deadline after two rewrites because the editor felt I was isolating Men’s Health readers and he didn’t like (or understand) the title. So, as one does, I took the story with me when I went to GQ in 2016 and it got published in GQ Style three months later.
For Glamour, being single while the world falls apart
Dating is...a lot for me. But there was a time during lockdown where, after weeks of being on an introversion high, I crashed and all I wanted was a shag and a hug. I decided to write out my feelings and the result was this piece basically asking whether we’d all become nicer, more empathetic people.
I don’t feel the same way about this today.
For House & Garden, I stalked someone for a decade and it paid off
I See a Different You has been a thing since 2011? 2012. Whenever I was big on Tumblr. When I still had dreams of moving to Joburg after UKZN, I had hopes of meeting the crew and working with them. Life did what it does best and all I had to stay connected to Vuyo and the Mukheli brothers’ work was Instagram. I won’t go into why I love them so much but their spirit and hustle but fuck, I wanted to BE them.
One of the twins, Fhatuwani, moved into a new place at the beginning of lockdown, making me want to move to Joburg a tiny bit more. Naturally, his apartment looks amazing. I shot my shot via DM and he agreed to let me interview him and embed posts from his Instagram. Then Visi featured him and his artwork. Just saying.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on these pieces of writing. You know where to find me.
Until then, stay shady x