Plumage and kicks
Have you ever wondered how the fashion world takes inspiration from the stunning flora and fauna which surround us?
On April 7, Twitter user @ReaderMeter started a thread showcasing just how much some of the fashion world’s most pretentious athletic footwear have mirror images in birds. The user starts with Nike Dunk High ‘Wu-Tang’ (1999) vs Townsend’s Warbler, a bird whose plumage is a kaleidoscope of yellow, black and white. He also points out Nike Air Max LeBron (2010) vs Green Honeycreeper, Reebok Question Mid White/Red (1996) vs White Redpoll, Nike Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG ‘Shattered Backboard’ (2015) vs Bullock’s Oriole, and Air Jordan I (1985) vs Hairy Woodpecker, among others. The thread has been retweeted nearly 2,000 times, of course — and I would expect no less.
Naturally, netizens made the most of the extra time on their hands and created their own versions. @Pottedplantdad recommended a ‘frogs and bow ties’ thread, while @mollyali tweeted, “Last spring my daughter asked me to get her sneakers that would ‘make my feet look like orcas’,” and shared a picture of orcas next to a pair of chunky black-and-white Pumas.
A similar and mention-worthy one was made by Twitter user @extrapettychris likening Mariah Carey and her show-ready outfits with a range of champagne bottles. Think ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ and her glittering bodycon gowns with fur — there’s a champagne bottle for everything. You have to hand it to @extrapettychris, such a thread requires imagination, commitment and a ton of resourcefulness.
To top it all off, the singer noticed the viral thread and retweeted it with the comment “Oh dear, here we go again.” Same, Mariah, same; I also hate being famous and being compared to luxury alcohol.
System of a Down
What does a web wanderer do when Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are down for a few hours on a Sunday? Wait, did you just say ‘go outside?’ Don’t be ridiculous!
I imagine many started with the constant ‘swiping down’ of the home screen to refresh the page which had people ready to, or well into, filing complaints with their mobile network service provider.
I can imagine the sudden flood of angry messages, calls and tweets spewing all sorts of curse words.
With the social media feeds inaccessible, people with a stronger liking for Twitter were smug, iMessage became a popular watering hole again, while I’m sure there was a freeze on ‘did you know’ and voting-related forwards as per the University of WhatsApp, as a good friend of mine calls it.
It hasn’t been very long — only a month — since Facebook’s worst service crash, which lasted close to 24 hours. After they gave the green-light on services, the platform labelled the source issue a ‘server configuration change’, while some conspiracy theorists suspected a giant malicious hack of the system.
Old school and cool
Thanks to a timeless love for history — and bigger thanks to Facebook servers going into a lull — Reddit opened new doors this weekend for my love for discovery.
Sub-Reddit r/oldmaps is one of the prettier parts of this quirky site, displaying maps dating as far back as 1800s around the world. One recent post shows an 1800 Bengaluru, with delicate work and detailing. Titled ‘Survey of the Boundaries of the Purgunna of Bangalore’ by James Rofs, one can see where bamboo forests and salt pans are.
In this fascinating Sub-Reddit, one can see posts such as ‘19th-century Japanese pictorial map showing countries of the world, their people, and distances from Japan’, ‘Map of Hispalensis, now the province of Seville by Abraham Ortelius (1579)’ and more.
Before globalisation, the world was insanely different and it’s wonderful to see a pocket of the Internet — which one usually assumes is filled with mindless memes — also has a soft spot for history.
Rants and ramblings across cyberspace
