A postcard from Ribka’s bedroom: Learning to love being basic
“A postcard from Ribka’s bedroom” delivers truths — harsh and kind. “Can a truth even be harsh, kind, subjective or objective?” Ribka Desta asks.
As she pens in her postcards, perhaps it is impossible to view things as they are — maybe you can only view things as you are.
As a proud middle school graduate, I am insanely happy to have shedded the “I’m-not-like-other-girls” skin of my tweenage self. She was unbelievably annoying. She would prance around claiming she had college-level reading comprehension and a sophisticated, individual philosophy (empathy, don’t murder, etc …).
I took pride in listening to musicians with less than a million monthly listeners on Spotify and watching obscure movies the general public couldn’t care less about. Passion was a competition, and I guess I thought there would be more room for me to gloat and glide in small concert venues and comment sections.
Maybe that came from the traumatic times during which teenage boys who thought they’d invented pop rock went around asking girls to “name three songs.” It was probably from the stigma around the word “basic,” currently my biggest pet peeve.
What’s the crime in being basic? Something is basic if it’s popular, which means it’s well-liked for a reason. Everyone breathes. Does that make breathing basic? Go ahead and hold your breath for me. You did it! You’re so original! Are you proud?
Anyway. Now, there is nothing I hate more than being unable to discuss a niche interest with someone else. I like sharing joy in seeing actors I’ve followed for years get their coins, or splitting anger with a friend over a show getting canceled. The first and only person I’ve met who had seen my favorite movie — “Mysterious Skin” — (disregarding my friends who have seen it solely because I had shoved it down their throats) was one of my coworkers. I was so overjoyed I nearly proposed right there in our workplace and caught an H.R. violation.
Still, when I saw an edit of this movie on TikTok that had more than a million likes I had a brief identity crisis. This movie’s dialogue rushes through my bloodstream. I know more about the film’s production process than I know about my brother’s career plans. I’m more “Mysterious Skin” than I am human, so how could some randos online intrude on that? I don’t want people to love this movie if they’re gonna love it wrong. Of course, you can’t love a movie wrong. I understand that. I’m probably just bitter.
Anyway.
Sometimes, I think of small authors and singers as pets or people in my pocket. Objectively, it’s a great thing to watch one’s popularity boost or have their content become mainstream. I want my favorite creators to get the money and fans they deserve. This means letting them off their leash and letting them walk around, grow up and grow legs.
The post A postcard from Ribka’s bedroom: Learning to love being basic appeared first on The Stanford Daily.