User:Chrissy/personal reader

first attempt

I started to make a website for my personal reader with code from https://ainsleyromero.com/
You can see the start here: https://hub.xpub.nl/cerealbox/~chrissy/personal%20reader/
Although, the separation in "aesthetics", "kinda tech" & "memes/GIFs work (not)" doesn't fit anymore, because the thematics of my readings is a bit more all over the place & cannot sort in this raster anymore. Still want to keep a raster for a better overview for myself. (Having a hard time to concentrate on one topic, or topics around that topic)

However, I'm planning to make a basic website as my personal reader with the function to export as PDF. Since most of my resources are online & my annotations are digital as well, this way makes the most sense in my opinion. I also want to link to the PDFs I'm reading & having an extra "reading list" with all my resources without my personal notes, to use it as a form of resource sharing.

My reading list for the personal reader:

[W O R K I N P R O G R E S S]
Tags: Aesthetics / Anti-Work / (Anti-)Capitalism / Aesthetics / Activism / Internet Culture: Memes, Aesthetics / Piracy / Live Coding / Aesthetics or Act of challenging assumed rules and conventions in graphic design: Messiness, Disorder, Provoking

INTERESTED

Work (not): ( ✔︎ means started into reading)

How to do nothing – Jenny Odell
The refusal of work – David Frayne
How to be an Anti-capitalist for the 21st Century – Erik Olin Wright
The right to be lazy – Paul La Fargue
The problem with the work – Kathi Weeks
✔︎ Anti-Work as a radical Tradition – Ediciones Inéditos

Anti-Capitalist:

The Pirate Book – Edited by Nicolas Maigret & Maria Roszkowska
Capital is Dead – MCKENZIE WARK
CAPS LOCK – Ruben Pater
Change the Record - Punk Women Music Politics – M.I. Franklin

Aesthetics:

✔︎ The cult of cute content – The Digital Fairy
✔︎ Another aesthetics is possible – Macarena Gómez- Barris and Diana Taylor
Digital Folklore – Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied
How Cute! Race, Gender, and Neutrality in Libraries – Gina Schlesselman-Tarango
✔︎ OUR AESTHETIC CATEGORIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH SIANNE NGAI – The cute, the interesting, and the zany
Who cann afford to be critical? – Afonso Matos
Digital Folklore – Edited by Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied
Ugly Feelings – Sianne Ngai

Meme:

Critical Meme Reader #15 – Chloë Arkenbout, Jack Wilson and Daniel de Zeeuw
Critical Meme Reader #17 – CHLOËARKENBOUTA N DIDILGALiP
Can Jokes bring down Governments? – Metahaven

Besides:

Angela Y Davis: an Autobiography – Angela Y Davis
What Design can't do – Silvio Lorusso
Performing Cybertenderness – Veronica Obenauer

FIRST READINGS

( ✔︎ means through the introduction)

✔︎ The cult of cute content – The Digital Fairy
Another aesthetics is possible – Macarena Gómez- Barris and Diana Taylor
✔︎ OUR AESTHETIC CATEGORIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH SIANNE NGAI – The cute, the interesting, and the zany
ANTI-WORK AS A RADICAL TRADITION – ediciones inéditos

FIRST ANNOTATIONS

( ✔︎ means first annotations made)

✔︎ The cult of cute content – The Digital Fairy
✔︎ Another aesthetics is possible – Macarena Gómez- Barris and Diana Taylor
✔︎ OUR AESTHETIC CATEGORIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH SIANNE NGAI – The cute, the interesting, and the zany

MORE ANNOTATIONS/MORE INTEREST

( ✔︎ means started going deeper into the whole thing)

The cult of cute content – The Digital Fairy
Another aesthetics is possible – Macarena Gómez- Barris and Diana Taylor

notes/annotation

User:Chrissy/notes

Annotated bibliography exercise 09.04.25:

Pick 2 or 3 references (they are not fixed or set in stone, don't spend too much time picking the best references)
Write a synopsis (even if you haven't read it yet) *
Why this is important to you *

The cult of cute content – The Digital Fairy

The text gives a really low-threshold introduction into the internet aesthetics of the cute „millennial“ internet. It claims that early cyberfeminist literature predicted a future of „feminising the cyberspace and technology itself“, including a supposed safe space for women. It argues, that big tech platforms don’t feel warm and safe anymore, as the older internet used to be and argues for customisation of the online space as a powerful way to reclaim and reform online spaces. To resist big tech platforms with hyper-feminine, non-functional characteristics and antithesis the “optimise everything” narratives.

The text is in general important for me, because it argues for the customisation of web with the use of „feminine“ and non-functional characteristics and aesthetics in a self-empowering manner. Though my overall interest of aesthetics, it tries to examine the use of the specific aesthetics of cuteness, which has still a bigger role in the nostalgic or „yearning-for-a-time“ design of the web. Nevertheless, the text doesn’t give deeper information and really just an easy understandable introduction.

millenial internet #bingee GIFs #cyberfeminist #feminist technology #big tech #customisation #internet