In 2022 I was somewhat of a curatorial intern for a national arts society and I found it rather exhilarating. Since becoming a writer for this big special universe, I’ve thought a lot about curation and my relationship to it. It’s been eight months since I began contributing here and I am only now beginning to grasp the significance of my involvement.
I am a huge fan of gift giving. I like when the holidays or birthdays are approaching and I get to think about how I can convey my love for someone through what I give them. I love when I am in a store and something reminds me of someone in my life and I just have to buy it for them. When I travel I gather souvenirs for others as if they are on the trip with me, because in many ways they are. In a similar vein, I enjoy offering recommendations to people. The way our minds can attach experiences we have to other people based simply on the way in which we know them is so beautiful to me. I truly believe to be loved is to be known, and giving your understanding of someone you love to them, in the form of a gift or recommendation, is both an exhibition of your love for them and an opportunity to love them more; to know them more.
In May I saw the headline The New Generation of Online Culture Curators in the New Yorker and I have been dwelling on it since, wondering if I am/we are/Hot Literati is a part of this new generation. I struggle to explain Hot Literati to my family and friends. I start with “a collective…” and then I never finish the sentence. We are all individuals and you can tell in our writing, but we are still all similar at our cores, aren’t we? We agree on philosophies like (re)cognition summer and lovergirl fall and we seek the thrill of extravagant fun. We commit to our bits but they’re not really bits; they are dreams, memories, one-off experiences. Everything we put here is in one way or another based on our realities. We allow ourselves and each other to indulge in the nouns that make us sing, like Dostoevsky and Alice in Wonderland. In many ways Hot Literati feels like an endless gift exchange, where we learn the love of the world and give it to ourselves and each other over and over. But I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I truly know what Hot Literati is, so how can I love it so much?
While editing the Dostoevsky night video I instinctively ended it with a title screen that reads “curated by Hot Literati.” It felt like the only verb that made sense. Like an art exhibition, we weren’t trying to convince attendees to become Dostoevsky heads (I hadn’t read any Dostoevsky before Hailo pitched the event) but rather asking them to show up, think, and engage with the world through the particular lens of his work. We recommend adjectives and verbs instead of nouns; feelings instead of things.
Andrea Hernández says curation is about “filtering out the noise;”
“I go out and scour the internet and I come to you with my offerings”
I’d like to think Hot Literati goes out, scours the world, and while we sometimes return with our own offerings we mostly want you to find your own. We are online, yes… but are we online curators? Or are we just curating while online? Or, maybe, online while curating?
When Hailo brought up Andy Warhol’s now-realized prediction that everyone would soon be famous to Jonathon Haidt during our interview he found it quite sad. For a moment he truly mourned The Celebrity/fame itself.
In the article, Reilly of the Magasin says “in order to be competitive, I needed to inject more of myself and my image into the newsletter.”
To be competitive on the internet – to be someone – you have to prove you are at least a little bit human with a little bit of a personality. “The new wave of curators is more outward-looking, borrowing from the influencer’s playbook and piggybacking on social media’s intimate interaction with followers in order to address a body of culture beyond themselves” Reilly says. Perhaps back in Warhol’s day the only people with proven personalities were the people in the spotlight. Maybe we’ve lost the novelty of personality evidence.
So everyone is famous because anyone can be a person online. What about those of us who are individual people online, together as one, ever-changing, all under one name? What about Hot Literati?!
Hailo and I were once told we have the same energy, and that’s what inspired me to reply to a person’s comment on our tik tok with this:
Hot Literati could be a personality, but I’m not sure we’re all that interested in competing as much as we are interested in doing what we want and getting you to do what you want. Compete with yourself. We will compete with ourselves. Everyone can be themselves and each other. Fun, right?
Chayka ends their article with this conclusion:
“The onslaught of online content requires filtering, whether technological or human, and those of us who dislike the idea of A.I. or algorithms doing the filtering for us might think more about how we support the online personalities who do the job well. Structurally, the Internet is not getting better anytime soon; I have not hidden my pessimism about its future. But human creativity persists, even in hostile conditions. Figures like Gee, Reilly, and Shuherk make me hopeful that fun, interesting niches of activity can still survive online. There’s another word that we might apply to such people: “connoisseurs,” in the art-historical sense of passionate observers who shape a discipline through their judgments. We’ve always had connoisseurs, from the radio d.j. to the bookstore clerk, subtly but vitally informing the culture that the rest of us choose to consume.”
Perhaps Hot Literati is a collective of connoisseurs, or a singular connoisseur as Hot Literati, or a collective of connoisseurs under the single title of The Hot Literati, but if so, what discipline are we shaping with our judgments? What do we – hot, cool, well read people – truly shape?
I think what we’re shaping is our love; how, when, where, why and with whom we share it. And more importantly we want you to shape your love. We want you to want to shape your love. Enjoy the process.
On Friday August 16th we hosted Finding Wonderland at Liquid Swords art and tattoo and I read some of my writing. It was the first time I’ve ever done that. I read a poem and a piece about existential self-actualization. During the poem Hailo got the word “read” tattooed on her lip, and while reading the second piece I got a tat on my leg.
When Hailo first proposed the idea of doing this wonderland event in a tattoo parlor it felt like an obvious yes. I love tattoos - getting them, having them, seeing them on others, designing them. My therapist says that my dedication to bodily self-expression is a self-soothing method.
Three of my friends whom I went to middle and high school with came to the event. It was my first time seeing one of them in a very long time and in the piece I read I mentioned the time he told me he had a crush on me. He has a boyfriend now. My parents drove us downtown and to fit in the car I had to sit on his lap. We giggled while my family pressed me about who the friend who had the crush was. We went to a club where someone from our school was DJing. It was kind of random because I tend to avoid seeing this particular crowd unless we are very good friends, but something about attending this event made sense. Ananya met us there. We ended up at a rooftop in brooklyn where a boy I don't know was DJing for his friends and their friends and then the police came and shut everything down.
On Saturday I went out with the same school friends. Toward the end of the night I talked to two different men who both brought up James Baldwin. The first one was very friendly and shared his Jamaican beer with me. The second had his copy of Giovanni’s Room with him and its cover was beautiful. I don’t remember how I started talking to Mr. two but I remember a particular glimmer in his eyes. I remember smiling at him, excited to hear what he had to say.
When we got to the topic of Hot Literati he kept offering me praise about working for the life I want as a writer. I assured him that I’m just lucky. He kept to his point. In my head I thought about whether I was deflecting the praise because I had imposter syndrome or because I actually believed what I was saying. In that moment – sitting at the bar after the last call, asking the bartender for a pen so I could write in Two’s book – I could feel the novelty of life come into my view. In my mind, my eyes were gushing glossy tears and nothing else mattered. I know this wasn’t reality because his expression didn’t imply it, but I felt it. I told him that as much as I believe I'm a “good writer,” I also know there are a million good writers who maybe just haven’t been as lucky as I am. To be completely honest, I didn't work hard to get here, writing to you. You just showed up and made sense. I’m not responsible for the incredible community that this is. I’m just here. And I thank god that I am.
He looked at me with such a freshness in his eyes. Maybe I was just drunk and this was all a mirage, but his eternal youth felt so palpable. Like I was talking with a beautifully curious child. Like I was talking to myself. Existence sat between us and neither of us could look away. We were in awe.
When I introduced myself to the crowd at Finding Wonderland someone I didn’t know responded “hi vicky!” Vicky is a nickname reserved for family and very close, very special friends. I usually wince at the sound of it from anyone else and immediately make my boundary clear. And yet when they used it, while watching me through their black lace mask, I smiled. It felt right.
Hot Literati can be a bit culty and niche at times. But when we go out into the world, the cultyness and the nicheness comes with us. We don’t gatekeep our fun because we’re not doing it for the sake of the brand. We do it for ourselves.
In Two’s book I wrote Mar and Anderson's names because I thought he would really enjoy their writing. Hot Literati is a gift; a recommendation. It’s the demonstration of knowledge that you give to someone/somewhere/something you love. It’s not the knowledge or the love. It’s the exchange. It’s the process of shaping, curating.
I don’t think we are a part of this new gen curator club. As much as we love to share our likes, dislikes, deaths, and delights with you all, we don’t do it with the intent of shaping your taste. Whatever your taste is, we want you to feel about it the way we feel about ours. Love it. Defend it. Own it. Trust it. There is no right way.
Because I want to love and know you, I want to offer some recommendations of my own. I’ve listed two guides for sale under “Dear white rabbit” and “Dear Madhatter” here. I’ll be listing more throughout the rest of the year for each of the characters in the Wayward Wonderland dictionary. In the future I hope to know and love you well enough to give you these for free. But as much as I love to love and give, I’m not naive…and you shouldn’t be either. Unless that’s who you are of course.
hot literati <3s you you are brilliant!!