Trendsspeaking topic
The disappearance of third places: cafes, parks, libraries, the spaces that were neither home nor work, are vanishing. Now we are either at home or at work. How does having to spend money just to socialize feed loneliness?
— video essay topic
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- The return of journaling: bullet journals, morning pages, gratitude journals. Why do we now need a notebook to talk to ourselves? Is there a link between the spread of therapy culture and this turn inward?
- Does the 'buy less, buy better' philosophy actually make us consume less, or is it a consumption ethic that justifies something pricier every time? Is investing in quality sometimes just a polite name for spending more?
- Reducing people to a profile and judging them from a few photos: is that efficiency, or turning a human being's complexity into a storefront product? Was a first impression ever this shallow before?
- Hundreds of saved videos and articles we never return to. Is collecting information replacing actually knowing it? Could the illusion of possession be taking the place of learning?
- Queer cottagecore finds reclaiming traditional 'homemaker' work (cooking, gardening, knitting) liberating; the same imagery is used in tradwife discourse to tie women to the home. Can the same gesture be both rebellion and obedience?