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Last night in a groundbreaking story, a leaked document from the pro-beard judges announced what men had feared most.
The anti-epilation law preventing people from banning hair removal is to be overturned next week. The ruling, was penned by Justice Pandora and 5 other Justices who are all BIPOC, non-binary, LGBTQ, and disabled. Not one of them had ever grown facial hair, or had to shave it, but they heard it was easy enough to deal with.
When asked about their position they said they liked beards, thought everyone should have them, plus the Bible said hair was good, so it must be true.
When the hard-earned case for epilation rights is overturned, people will no longer have the right to choose how to wear their facial hair. Beard or no beard, sideburns, mustache or goatee, 50 years of legal hair choice, gone.
The anti-shaving group “Beards, not Bumps” celebrated years of lobbying and paying off the courts in a statement, “Booyah.”
On the heels of the Crown Act, people were optimistic in the U.S. full hair freedom was nearly here. Now, guys watch in shock as state after state takes their body autonomy and epilation-rights, leaving men barefoot and hairy.
Reading from the brief, “If they can grow it, they have to let it grow and grow. If anyone messes with its growth, even a quick buzz when it’s only a 4 o’clock shadow, they risk prison.”
Anything done to ensure their face is healthy becomes suspect. Even those who find it difficult to grow beards are affected. One mom tweeted, “How awful!” Then she went back to sleep.
How did we get here?
A Senator (who has never had to shave) noted “It’s in the bible at least 10 times. As it is written (by a scribe of King James interpreting some Hebrew from a few thousand years ago) Numbers 6:5 - ‘All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in which he separateth himself unto the LORD, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.’ See! There.” When asked about a dozen other verses where it clearly stated the opposite or only applied to a few people Senator Yoink replied, “I mean, obviously, that’s irrelevant.”
Many who led the push to ban depilatory treatments warned, “The new law is complicated; even we don’t understand it.”
Via an email obtained by BuzzFeeder, the military strongly objected, citing health and safety. “We must use buzzers and shave heads for hygiene as we've done since lice became rampant in Civil War tents.” Indeed, reversing a procedure, backed by science and used to keep a large part of the population safe is a dangerous precedent.
But, pro-growthers said “So? The Civil War was like, not that long ago.” Instead, they claim a verse in the 2,000-year-old sequel is a better guide for public policy. Originally referencing how Priests should dress in the “inner court” they utilized “Neither shall they shave their heads,” to guide their decision, Judge Neato penning “epilation is egregiously wrong. Case closed.”
Hairless Are Rights for Democracy representative said the fire set to the salon seemed to be sending a message to get on board. But, H.A.R.D. activists noted the reason behind outlawing epilation made “no fucking sense” as “[to not] shave their heads'' was used out of context. Ezekiel 44:20 actually reads, “nor suffer their locks to grow long. They shall only poll their heads.”
A legal expert with no knowledge of hair growth said, since it was 2022 and no one knew what “poll their heads” meant anyway, they should get to choose. Judge White T.F. concurred, even if she couldn’t grow a stache, “the no-shaving thing was the only choice”–a choice, which they made, for everyone else.
Speaking at the courthouse, Justice Pandora, a Black Queer femme said “As a Christian, I believe that God is the one that chooses hair growth — not politicians or justices. But, since I am a justice, I’ll back God on this one.”
The 35% of Americans who don’t follow Christianity are left scratching their heads, several of whom now stroking growing chin whiskers.
VP Embarrassed speaking to press: “We’re seeing extremists criminalize people just for making decisions about their own bodies,” and closer remarks with “this senate clearly doesn’t represent the people. Votes will save you next time.”
In a pro-beard world, razors get rounded up and put in giant stock piles under lock and key. The barber shops and Quick Cuts all close, even for haircuts; buzzers are confiscated. All clippers banned. Even ordering scissors by mail is under threat.
Hair stylists could be fined for a trim, even if it’s unrelated to the beard. Barbers are suddenly added to watch lists. If neighbors suspect a stylist is helping someone, there’s an online form for a $10k reward from the state.
For half the country, access to a professional trim is no longer in town, certainly not one they could afford. If they’re wealthy, they could go to a salon out of state, but who can manage that? (The average American has $400 at most when a crisis hits.)
Then what? Maybe they’d cut their hair at home or a friend’s house. There’s no guarantee someone would get it right. Picture a bunch of men with lopsided bangs, or worse, mullet and goatees.
Stuck with screwed up facial hair, everyone judges them but no one offers financial support. A botched home haircut could lead to complications. They might find their hair won’t ever grow back which could be devastating.
Navigating a world without facial hair options is tough. It can be hard on the body. Beards might get in the way of how they go to the bathroom, eat, or sleep, and it only gets harder.
When questioned, Justice Goldie Locks said “That’s not the court's problem. We don’t make the rules; God does.”
But, the effects of growing a beard reach far beyond self-care. For example, anyone who needs to travel is screwed. Airlines don’t allow beards past Santa length. What then? When does a beard reach Santa-length exactly? Pro-Trim advocates want the Senate to review the definition. Speaking to one expert in the North Pole, Elf #73 said, “Santa is in all of us…so before you see stubble.”
And then there’s work. According to people on LinkedIn, those with beards applied for an average of 500 jobs in 2021. Despite hearing of a hiring and economic boom, one dad with a salt-and-pepper beard said “How many times can one hear how they’re not the right “fit” simply because of your body’s biological functions?” When asked if he was still looking. “For now, I enjoy quality time with my children. They love to see what they can hide in my beard.”
Another hair-saddled man shared "Job interviews are soul sucking; We get judged for our appearance, not our qualifications.”
[Pretending to listen] “They question if we can even handle our beard and a job? ‘This guy needs to get his life together. Couldn’t he find a way to not grow a beard?’”
It’s true, a beard is a lot of responsibility.
Even for a person with a fresh beard, hiring managers are biased. “People look at me and think, sure that beard seems fine now but what about later? Soon enough, that beard will be full of soup and crackers; who wants to deal with that whole mess?”
Of course, hair growth is only harder during a pandemic with all the mask-wearing.
One guy we spoke with said, “Yeah, duh. We said for decades forced-hair growth is hard AF but no one listened.”
Vidal Sassoon noted, “In a world that makes you grow a beard but gives you zero resources to care for it, it’s hard not to feel behind.”
Besides losing opportunities, the hair-full loses all “free time.” Outside of work fighting more pro-beard legislation, or taking care of everyone else is not paid, but it’s work. Of course, the non-bearded have “real” work to do.
Having facial hair you don’t even want sucks. It might cause financial loss, but it’s the sense of losing yourself that breaks you.
In a pro-beard nation, it makes perfect (non)sense that hair has FULL rights which supersede the face it grows on. But what does that mean in practice? Well, if it turns gray, or loses his hair, a guy might face charges, whether or not he’s at fault. Using rogaine to prevent hair loss might sound ok, but some states are unsure. With the laws as vague as their understanding of female anatomy, suppliers could face huge fines; many have decided it's not worth taking the risk.
In a society that values men only for their ability to grow beards, balding is obviously bad. What about the ones who are thinning on top? Should they let a patchy beard grow, even if it's a hot mess? There's really no choice at all. If he just says screw it and shaves his whole damn head, he could end up in prison for follicide.
One partner finished her rom-com before responding, “Totally unfair. Can you believe this country?” As the musical montage played, her partner stared out the window, afraid and nearly catatonic.
Shaking her head, ZZ Top's wife said “I know! It’s the worst. But what can I do? I'd help if I could."
A late poll, tells a different story: Conservative non-bearded care more about themselves than they do human rights. When asked about the poll, the leader behind the movement "Free the Face, Hide the Hair" said “It’s pretty fucked up because 60% of all Americans want epilation rights for all, coded into national law, including 80% of those who can actually grow facial hair.”
Charged with Follicide almost sounds impossible? He lost his hair, not by choice, but because his body stopped growing hair cells normally. Now, he’s lost time to grieve too, fighting murder charges. Living under house arrest because your hair stop growing is a tragedy, but one that does happen in this brave new world.
One guy shouted at his phone, “What a goddamn nightmare!” His friend, also enraged, shouted, “Right? It’s not like all “Growers” wanted to grow it.” It’s almost unimaginable.
As he put it: It was his head, wasn’t it? Wasn’t the hair on his face also his problem? Why wasn’t it up to him to remove? Didn’t his face have rights? Didn’t he have a choice about what to do with his body, like women do with pregnancy?!
Of course pundits will say, a beard isn’t the same at all. It’s not a placenta, an amniotic sac, an umbilical cord, or an embryo and then a fetus.
You’re right, growing a beard does not compare to growing an extra organ first, in order to grow another human, give birth, and care for a full person with needs. Of course, a beard is not a living, breathing, human baby. (Neither is a fetus.)
Still, letting someone control the hair on your head sounds like science fiction. It’s inconceivable! Terrifying!
Imagine this happened in your state.
Do you think men would ever stand for this type of control?! Not for a single second. They'd strike––leave their home offices and take to the streets.
Some would call for withholding fur-faced kisses.
“Hands off our faces!”
“Barbers save sideburns.”
Ridiculous right?
Within days, there’d be a bearded revolution.
I’d bet our goddamn lives on it.
Want to support this work? Donate to FLOWLab (tax deductible), join as a member, or feel free to buy me a caffeinated beverage. The patriarchy is exhausting.
It's worth noting two things on this yougov data and information sharing:
The questions are around what makes a Jew in American's eyes.
YouGov is an international research data and analytics group headquartered in London. AND YouGov data is regularly referenced by the press worldwide and we are the most quoted market research source in the UK.
So, not American.
"There are not enough Jewish Americans represented in the poll to reliably measure their opinions on the specific subject of anti-Semitism. But it is worth noting that throughout all weeks of polling on President Trump, Jews are significantly less positive about the President than Americans overall."
The images on all of the data are completely inaccessible. No alt text on static and the dynamic charts use a complex dropdown to toggle through questions. No way a screen reader could do that.
Like every community, we deserve to be the ones to voice and report on our own issues, but in a world where we at most make up 2% of the population, that is not often the case. The majority of Jewish papers, I would argue, are read by Jews. I doubt my friends could name any liberal or conservative publications that are written for Jewish readers.
It's worth noting two things on this yougov data and information sharing:
The questions are around what makes a Jew in American's eyes.
YouGov is an international research data and analytics group headquartered in London. AND YouGov data is regularly referenced by the press worldwide and we are the most quoted market research source in the UK.
So, not American.
"There are not enough Jewish Americans represented in the poll to reliably measure their opinions on the specific subject of anti-Semitism. But it is worth noting that throughout all weeks of polling on President Trump, Jews are significantly less positive about the President than Americans overall."
The images on all of the data are completely inaccessible. No alt text on static and the dynamic charts use a complex dropdown to toggle through questions. No way a screen reader could do that.
Like every community, we deserve to be the ones to voice and report on our own issues, but in a world where we at most make up 2% of the population, that is not often the case. The majority of Jewish papers, I would argue, are read by Jews. I doubt my friends could name any liberal or conservative publications that are written for Jewish readers.
Before Justice Brown took her oath, the court also signaled the end of the federal government as we know it.
In the past, the Supreme Court has operated on the basis of “stare decisis,” which literally means “to stand by things decided.” The purpose of that principle is to make changes incrementally so the law stays consistent and evenly applied, which promotes social stability. On occasion, the court does break precedent, notably in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, which overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that rubber stamped racial segregation. When that sort of a major change happens, both the court and elected officials work hard to explain that they are changing the law to make it more in line with our Constitution, and to move people along with that change.
Then they killed the planet...really.
Guns and prayer and abortion got most of the attention. But that's not all the Court did.
(list from twitter thread courtesy of Jason P. Steed)
Rivas-Villegas -- SCOTUS reversed the lower court to give a cop qualified immunity for using excessive force
Tahlequah v. Bond -- SCOTUS reversed the lower court to give a cop qualified immunity for killing a man
Shoop v. Twyford -- SCOTUS made it harder to get habeas relief
Brown v. Davenport -- SCOTUS made it harder to get habeas relief
Shinn v. Ramirez -- SCOTUS made it harder to get habeas relief
Zubaydah -- SCOTUS allowed the Govt to withhold information about torture on CIA black sites
Vaello-Madero -- SCOTUS denied SS benefits to residents of Puerto Rico
Cummings -- SCOTUS disallowed recovery for emotional-distress damages in civil rights lawsuits
Patel -- SCOTUS stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to review fact issues in immigration proceedings
Biden v. Missouri -- SCOTUS blocked a federal vaccine mandate
Garland v. Gonzalez -- SCOTUS denied long-detained immigrants' access to a bond hearing
Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez -- SCOTUS denied long-detained immigrants' access to a bond hearing
FEC v. Ted Cruz -- SCOTUS struck down campaign finance restrictions to enable Ted Cruz to pay himself back for loans he made to his own campaign
Egbert v. Boule -- SCOTUS further limited a person's ability to sue federal officers (Bivens actions)
Vega v. Tekah -- SCOTUS weakened enforcement of Miranda rights
Carson v. Makin -- SCOTUS undermined the Establishment Clause, forcing states to fund private religious schools
Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist. -- SCOTUS undermined the Establishment Clause, allowing football coach to have public/publicized Christian prayers at football games
Denezpi -- SCOTUS recognized tribal sovereignty just enough to allow an Indian defendant to be prosecuted twice for the same crime (no double jeopardy), then…
Castro-Huerta -- SCOTUS undermined tribal sovereignty by making tribal land "part of state" and allowing state to exercise jurisdiction on tribal land
Bruen -- SCOTUS struck down NY's 100yo restriction on concealed carry to expand 2A and limit gun restrictions
U.S. v. Texas -- SCOTUS allowed Texas's "bounty hunter" antiabortion law to go into effect
Dobbs -- SCOTUS overruled Roe & Casey, eliminating the federal right to abortion and enabling severe (life-threatening) restrictions on abortion to go into effect 23/25
West Virginia v. EPA -- SCOTUS undermined the EPA's ability to regulate emissions and fight global warming
"And it must be noted that this isn't everything. SCOTUS also did things on the shadow docket -- like allow Louisiana's racial gerrymander to stay in effect for the 2022 election, etc. Just a terrible, terrible, terrible term."
Listen Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer (soon to be Ketanji Brown Jackson) are in an unenviable position. They have to go to work every day with six assholes hellbent on remaking the country to their liking. And they aren’t even good at it.
In his dissent, Thomas claims that COVID vaccines were developed with the use of "aborted children."...See below.
And it looks like the case will be heard in October.
Put another way:
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -JFK
Like the Onion, Reductress, or McSweeney's, but not.
Laugh so we don't cry.
Flip the Script.
"This is fine."
By onJune 28, 2022 at 2:14 PM
From March:
Why have a white man from England tell us about the latest Abortion SCOTUS debacles? Because John Oliver does not mince words...and because maybe if a white guy in a suit on cable news says it, we have a fighting chance. Just don't get your hopes up people...this battle is going to get rough.
JUNE 6th
The man remained secured to the fence for about 15 minutes until he was removed by authorities. He held up a green bandana with the address of an abortion rights group's website. In a video on the group's Twitter feed, the man identified himself as Guido Reichstadter of Miami and said he was there because Americans' rights were coming under attack.
"I'm doing this as the first step, kind of like throwing down the gauntlet, the first step in a call to the people of America who support abortion rights - and that's the vast majority of us - to step out of inaction and passivity and sitting back and to enter nonviolent resistance," he said.
I am not sure you want to ask that question. You may stumble across things like this...
We shouldn't necessarily want more company involvement other than financial support for the freedom to choose.
Promoting access to personal health education and advocacy, one page at a time. By Chase DiBenedetto on May 6, 2022
Read this: Blog post about the Freedom Summer and activists who went hardcore.
"On what happens when it feels like all hope is lost and the real work begins"
_______________________________________________________________________
This is not about Joe. It's not about Biden, Manchin, or my ex from my early 20s. This is about Joe Shmo, the average bro, who has more say over our future than the billions of people who will be suffering in it.
In Manchin's case, I ask daily, how does one man has this much power? He's not even particularly charming, good looking, or smart. Is he especially good at his job? It seems like he's doing everything but his job. Literally his job is to govern and pass laws and protect constituents and the constitution.
Elected Democrats, especially after the orange toilet attempted a coup and election fraud, should want to keep their jobs.
80% of Democrats want the right to choose.
Manchin's lack of support for Biden and the democratic majority is like telling not only his supporters, but over 250 million Americans to go fuck off. Deal with the consequences of sex on your own. We're taking away all access to reproductive care. You have no universal healthcare. Good luck. I don't really care, do you?
And yet, even Manchin isn't the problem. The problem is we have people who are originalists in power, lauding a democratic government that is anything but, as they gut all rights to choose our leadership, or have any say in elections.
They tried to steal an election through gaslighting: saying we were stealing the election. But they are taking so much more: they are taking our voice. How a government spends money or what our representatives legislate on our behalf is everything. If they don't do the will of their constituents, we have no voice.
Per Gloria Steinem, "If we can't vote, we don't exist."
We're invisible but still expected to pay taxes! Why? No taxation without representation.
How is this any different from those who declared independence from England to have a voice and to stop tithing to the monarchy?
If they take our bodies and our votes, we have no recourse, save a violent one, no?
Not only will they have held our votes and vaginas hostage by 2024, they'll have captured the media with good old fashioned dollar bills.
GOPs get that talking heads matter and controlling the news cycle drives policy and decision making. It shouldn't, but it does, and dems refuse to see it.
The GOP keeps saying "we are going to fuck around and find out"––and then they do. Why are the dems always caught off guard, shocked by their lying, cheating ways?
Roxanne Gay also noted a few days ago in her essay "It's Time to Rage"
"In their joint statement, issued after the Supreme Court leak, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, did not use the word “abortion” even once. President Biden has barely uttered it during his presidency. It’s hard to believe they are as committed as they need to be to protecting a right whose name they dare not speak. Until the Democrats stop lounging in the middle of the political aisle — where no one is coming to meet them — nothing will change."
The patriarchy has spent decades and dollars silencing us, writing us out of the story, calling us "nasty" and whores. They strategically got everyone to hate the sound of our (nagging) voices. There's a reason why no one is talking about Tampon shortages. It should be code red (pun intended), but periods are "taboo." Meanwhile, the 2020 Toilet Paper shortage was reported on ad nauseum. No TP, defcon 5. No Tampons? S.O.L.
It's not just Manchin that has us all by the ovaries.
Old white men changed every rule to suit themselves, as they have for 600 years...But this time, they did it "legally" and gerrymandered the whole country, then stacked the court. They also control several women with financial contributions to their campaigns.
There is, of course, Aunt Lydia–ehem–I mean Senator Susan Collins, who claims shock that SCOTUS would ever do this. The senate should be forced to vote as the people want. 3/4 of Americans want this freedom. Why do 2 Americans get to take it away?
Maybe she didn't watch enough Handmaid's Tale like the rest of us. Maybe she read too much from Atwood's Guardian Op-ed or listened to too many white women who are complicit in their own oppression. Maybe she ignored the voices of Latinas and Black women, who have never received reproductive healthcare access or quality equal to that of white women.
Or maybe, Corporate Capture, money in politics, and the media have decided what is or isn't justice...because lord knows the average bro, which Kavanaugh is the poster child of, has no business deciding what's fair for our bodies, and apparently enough justices agreed that women's rights were not in fact human rights.
Don't you owe it to your voters, to not be such a tool for the patriarchy?
People like Collins would benefit from listening to the research (but maybe not by reading Atwood's Guardian op-ed which caused outrage when she said Roe being overturned, forcing childbirth was like slavery.)
White women (admittedly I include myself here, if just for a hot minute) did not immediately see the obvious issue with Atwood's piece. Understandably, many ADOS (American descendents of Slavery) women (and allies) were not happy with this comparison.
Whether you like her fiction or not, most pro-choice humans would agree:
We say that women “give birth”. And mothers who have chosen to be mothers do give birth, and feel it as a gift. But if they have not chosen, birth is not a gift they give; it is an extortion from them against their wills.
But, Atwood's bad take, comparing forced pregnancy and forced childbirth to slavery, is a reminder of why we must not have white women lead this movement alone (including mine).
Her Op-ed got too much attention and detracted from the real issue: patriarchal rule. Pitting women against each other is a deliberate tactic. The fighting between those of us who want reproductive freedom and those demanding reproductive justice is a distraction the patriarchy welcomes.
We end up debating each other rather than aligning because of weak allyship when it's not steeped in deep intersectionality. Meaning: our alignment fails when white women fail to back up the organizing and activist movements started and led by Black and Brown women.
White women cannot be the lead voice of 21st century feminism. Yes, we must all speak up, but white women should always take a beat, listen first, and center other's voices (one reason I published this months later.)
No one wants forced pregnancy. Period.
People already lived the nightmare of zero abortion access and terrible maternal healthcare: the majority of those who were already effed: Black women.
But the reality is that the U.S. has a history of this, along with forced sterilizations, always affecting people from marginalized, oppressed communities. This cannot be forgotten or brushed aside. We must utter this everytime we utter #MeToo.
Instead of being an afterthought, this should be our central argument. Not "We won't go back." as much as we shout "We cannot let this continue." We still have so much progress to make. People have suffered all along, while many white women benefited from the freedom to avoid back alley abortions, forced labor, and granted the privilege to outsource domestic labor.
Truth: More than half our nation's population has ZERO wealth by 2053, median Black household wealth is on a path to hit zero if nothing is done within next 8 years. Projections for 2063 racial minorities will comprise the majority of the nation’s population.
Truth: Thanks to gerrymandering, by 2040, 70% of our country will be represented by 30 Senators.
Truth: Out of 35 countries to work while raising a family the U.S. ranks 34th.
Truth: Americans have no universal healthcare, no universal childcare, face cutbacks on all social support systems, have states like Arizona gutting foster care funds,
Truth: Our nation continues to criminalize the poor.
Truth: Our government invests in war machines over vaccines. No stats needed.
Truth: We have less sex education than ever before. Only 6% of High School seniors are taught about using protection.
Truth: Spring 2022 Formula shortages were not prioritized. It took weeks for the government to act, while babies starved.
Truth: Diaper poverty is REAL and awful. "Parents cannot use federal aid to pay for diapers, and are often forced to come up with other solutions, using maxi pads or towels to keep their children clean and dry. In rural America where aid is even harder to access, tiny diaper banks are the only lifeline."
Truth: Period poverty is too.
Truth: We already have legal and illegal forced sterilization in our country for inmates, ICE immigrant detainees, and people with disabilities.
Truth: Inequality keeps growing. Per the latest Fed data, "the top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion (or 30.4% of all household wealth in the U.S.), while the bottom 50% of the population holds just $2.1 trillion combined (or 1.9% of all wealth). 15x more....and white Americans hold nearly 85% of the nation’s wealth, versus just 4.1% for Black households."
Oftentimes, when we think about trauma, we think about it in the context of the personal, but we deal with collective traumas all of the time. We are currently in the second year of a collective trauma, a pandemic that, in the United States, has resulted in the deaths of 800,000 people. And most of us have no idea how to grapple with that level of loss, with the fact that nearly a million people have simply disappeared from our daily lives.
There are things that we really do need to sit with and spend more time with to fully make sense of. And so a lot of my current work is about, how do we reckon with these collective traumas?
I am often asked, particularly by young women, how they can be less angry in their writing, as if anger is a bad thing. And what I love to tell these women, and what I also remind myself, is that anger is oftentimes incredibly appropriate when you're writing about sexual violence, misogyny.
All of the issues that feminists are trying to address in our work, anger can be incredibly productive. And I hope to encourage them to find ways to use anger for the greater good and to see it as an asset, rather than a liability.
"The other thing I'll add is most people having abortions are already parenting, they know how hard it is and that there are limited resources. Abortion is a parenting decision." from culture study woman- truth Beth Robinson- Hawaii Life Director of Conservation and Legacy Lands, for now a real estate broker on Moku o Keawe, forever a writer and natural horsemanship advocate
Patriarchy insists on controlling our mouths just as it insists it controls our wombs.
There is nothing polite about white supremacist patriarchy and the zealots it has installed on the Supreme Court, who are about to vote against a medical procedure that the majority of people in the U.S. believe should be the prerogative of the pregnant person.
There is nothing polite or civil about patriarchy.
Who benefits from upholding those social codes? Civility, decorum, manners and the like are used to uphold authority--patriarchy, whiteness, wealth, other forms of privilege--and we are urged to acquiesce in service to maintaining that authority.
We are not obligated to show respect to those in power. I refuse to allow those who don't recognize my full humanity by diminishing my bodily autonomy to expect politeness from me.
What would the world look like if the energy policing mouths and vaginas and wombs was invested instead into policing the very real harm of patriarchal violence? Abortion bans are patriarchal violence.
I'd already been thinking about this Elle Woods quote in Legally Blonde back in 2001 when I saw this piece recirculating on LinkedIn.
In 2017 BBC reported American's scary regression of our reproductive rights. "Texas lawmaker Jessica Farrar wants men fined for masturbating" discusses how Texas House Rep Farrar introduced a bill to criminalize being reckless with sperm via masturbation, but really she did so to show how bull shirt this all is.
"The last straw for her came with the most recent in a string of proposed bills, which she saw as chipping away at women's rights.
The latest wanted to force women to choose whether to bury or cremate the embryonic remains of either a miscarriage or abortion
It's not like we haven't already explored this from every single angle or tried to show their folly. They are perfectly straight faced when they say we have to decide what to do with the remains of a 6 week old fetus.
When Roe falls, there will be a public outcry. And yet the conservative movement has so successfully locked down structural power at nearly every level of government that even the most fervent activism around abortion rights will hit a hard ceiling, at least in the short term. The states are gerrymandered, the courts are stacked, and by 2040, 70 percent of Americans will be represented by just thirty senators.
While abortion rights were being hammered at the state level and the national conversation was becoming ever more vitriolic, where was everyone? For fifty years, women have been relying on reproductive healthcare and rights to participate in the workforce and support themselves and their families. One in four American women will have an abortion during her lifetime. According to a recent study by the New York Times, the typical patient seeking an abortion is already a mother, in her late twenties, and has completed some college. The prevalence of abortion means there isn’t a major business in the entire country that does not profit from the labor, talent, and spending of women who have had abortions. Every union and professional association has members who have relied on abortion care. Every university has students and faculty who have delayed or foregone parenthood to complete their education. Every one of us, whether or not we know it, has benefited from the work, care, and wisdom of people who have had abortions. And yet, despite these facts, nearly everyone has treated abortion rights as a siloed issue.
It wouldn’t have been so impossible for activists to push against abortion stigma had the subject been handled better by major media outlets, which tended to relegate abortion to women’s magazines or cover it as fodder for the horse race. National media covered high-profile court cases after legislation had already passed and it was too late for the public to weigh in. And, when the anti-abortion movement made the patently false claims that abortion causes debilitating regret and depression, infertility, and other complications, many news outlets fell back on false equivalencies and failed to distinguish between anti-abortion activists’ moral objections and their disinformation.
At the same time, leaders across many kinds of institutions failed to acknowledge publicly, openly, and without defensiveness or shame that abortion rights are a necessary condition to women’s participation in civic life. In the landmark 2015 gay marriage case Obergefell v. Hodges, hundreds of businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Facebook, and Google, filed amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage. The next year, in a major 2016 Supreme Court case over Texas abortion regulations, it was left to reproductive-rights interest groups, health associations, and individual women lawyers to plead for the importance of abortion rights.
I am not suggesting that big businesses are the ideal agents of social change—quite the opposite. Instead, I want to underscore that it’s emblematic of how our broader culture devalues women that corporations have almost never put their weight on the scale for abortion rights. Last year, after Texas passed its six-week abortion ban, fifty companies including Yelp, Lyft, and Ben & Jerry’s signed an open letter opposing the law. That was much too little, much too late. Meanwhile, corporations compensate their lowest-paid workers so insufficiently that financial stress—including not having healthcare or stable housing—is a major factor for some people deciding whether or not to continue a pregnancy. At the same time, corporations staffed by educated professionals run on the expertise of people who have delayed or forgone parenthood or limited their number of children in order to finish college and work those jobs. Businesses directly benefit from women limiting their fertility, and yet for decades they have done almost nothing to advocate for reproductive healthcare, as if our collective ability to participate in civic life is an individual concern. The idea that women must shoulder their fertility as an individual problem is so pervasive that it’s the water we’re swimming in, and we can barely see it.
"After Dobbs is decided, it’s all but guaranteed that thousands more people will need assistance to get to abortion providers. Activists are poised to help, but they’re already unable to meet all the existing need. If abortion becomes illegal in wide regions of the country—as it probably will—and if the majority of Americans who support legal abortion continue to take for granted the myriad ways reproductive freedom has provided an invisible bedrock for our society, we’re going to repeat the failures of the past forty years. In post-Roe America, the struggle for reproductive justice cannot be someone else’s problem. "
Building businesses from the ground up requires intention, and that starts with the tools we use and businesses we support. We don't want to give Bezos or Google any more of our information, ideas, or money, but divesting from Big Tech takes big intentions.
coFLOWco reviews SaaS companies who are doing something innovative without exploiting our data, labor, or our wallets.
We are avid beta testers: we're always on the lookout for the next creator, ed-tech, or community tool to help us find our collective flow.
We amplify business leaders who are committed to improving workflows, creating access, and helping creators, founders, and social impact leaders work more fun.
Have a favorite SaaS? An app you can't live without or secret site obsession?
What tool makes you say "Everyone should use this!"?
Consumers drive overall business trends. Solopreneurs and small businesses make up the majority of businesses. Collectively, "We the people" can shift the economy. If you doubt it look at the recent resurgence of unions.
“What makes these protests different is children are much more visibly present, displaying a bold determination to defy the establishment and ask for a better future for themselves,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Middle East and North Africa. “And they are using all the tools of repression at their disposal to crack down on them.”
Amnesty International said it had documented 33 cases of minors killed in the uprising, but the real numbers are likely higher. Iran-focused rights groups and the association for teachers say the number is closer to 50.
Lawyers and rights activists estimate that 500 to 1,000 minors are in detention with no clarity on how many are held in adult prisons.
Democracy Now Interview with NYT Op-Ed journalist Hoda Katebi
Iranian's internet has been throttled. People are begging to get messages out so reposting does do something. It's not everything but it is adding to the cacophony of voices demanding an end to human rights abuses.
"Women! Life! Freedom!" Iranian Women Lead Nationwide Protests
"When the Women’s March took place in Washington, D.C., in 2017, I was happy to join. Along with the rest I chanted: “My body, my choice.” Some women might well choose to veil their faces and bodies in accordance with their religious or cultural beliefs — but that should be a matter of their own choice, not a rule imposed by the whips and clubs of men. Yet Western women seem only too happy to succumb to the standards dictated by the male tyrants in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran."
Don't feel you have to be the expert. Repost, reshare, and link to credible sources on the topic. Filling the feed helps push the truth out.
In my experience, small business CEOs and founders fall into one of two camps with money. We're either the operations/project management-type, allotting for every dollar, or the creative/strategist-type, worrying less about the price of stickies and more about what's written on them. Depending on the day, you may have to be one or the other.
If you're lucky, you have the cushion to ignore the finance details and stay focused on the big picture. Regardless of your attitude to risk, debt, or your P&L, it's possible you haven't given where you bank or your credit card choices much attention. (Privilege plays its part here, but let's table that...for now.)
Despite what pro-capitalists will tell you, there isn't just one right approach to handle finances, nor is there only one business model you must adhere to. If you consider yourself a social entrepreneur, an anti-racist, sustainability and equity advocate, you already think differently and prioritize social and environmental impact over profit.
To be authentic in your "business for good" leaders must be holistic and transparent with money above all else. Yet, only a fraction of bigger companies voluntarily track EEOC data. Transparency is hardly their strong suit.
What drives your choice in where you bank? Here is is one area everyone can affect the global economic system. We must literally put our money where our mouths are, and move it to small, local, independent banks.
In this Inflation Nation, we have to look beyond interest rates when deciding which bank to deposit checks and run payroll from. Don't be fooled by headlines that "small banks are failing." Your money is insured up to $250k, and your safer at a local community or black owned bank-and better yet, at a credit union.
Does it matter who holds your hard-earned revenue? Absolutely. This should be your first big money move as a founder after you incorporate or set up your LLC.
Why? Because, climate change.
“In the six years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the world’s 60 largest private sector banks financed fossil fuels with USD $4.6 trillion.”
More reasons I choose to bank as much as possible with Local Banks and Credit Unions (CU's) include:
Local Banks and CU’s DO NOT fund big oil.
Local Banks and CU’s DO NOT kowtow to conservatives.
Local Banks and CU’s DO NOT use my money as a loan for the 1%.
Local Banks and CU’s DO NOT hurt the climate.
Who do Big Banks love help out first in an economic crisis? The little guys? We wish!
Who does the government send money to first in an economic crisis? Big Banks.
Need another reason to bank small? Big Banks do NOT care about small businesses or solopreneurs.
Local Banks and CU’s saved small businesses during the Pandemic and until their help, small businesses received virtually zero federal money from the CARES Act and PPP.
"ProPublica found 270 taxpayers who collectively disclosed $5.7 billion in income, according to their previous tax return, but who were able to deploy deductions at such a massive scale that they qualified for stimulus checks. All listed negative net incomes on tax returns."
The wealthiest Americans reported negative income (pure B.S. tax razzle dazzle) which led to more negative outcomes for small businesses, negative impacts on our planet, and greater wealth inequality. Federal money was passed back and forth through Big Banks, and they keep on doing it now.
Our representatives prefer big banks with consolidated power, despite the incredible impact credit unions and local banks can have for small businesses.
If the companies who invest and bank with the places that support fossil fuels, they are creating a bigger opportunity for banks to fund and loan to big oil.
It's not just your banking choices that impact carbon emissions. It's companies you use everyday to get work done in a capitalist society. Tech Companies are the biggest contributors to climate change, but not necessarily with their own operations.
“For some of the world’s largest companies, including Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce, their cash and investments are their largest source of emissions. In fact, for Alphabet, Meta, and PayPal, the emissions generated by their cash and investments (financed emissions) exceed all their other emissions combined.
Linkedin wants me (all of us) to buy Ads to boost my post. Somehow, most of my Big Tech, Big Bank, and Big Oil posts get 1/4 of the impressions (I can't imagine why?!) As a result my engagement goes down after each one for weeks till I build back up with more banal content. Meanwhile they use my money to loan to a bank like Bank of America who loans it to Exxon. Sweet, right? FML.
"Researchers selected the companies featured in this report to illuminate the magnitude of corporate cash and investment emissions and to highlight how companies’ climate accomplishments are being undermined by a misaligned financial system that is channeling hundreds of billions of corporate U.S. dollars into the carbon-intensive sectors driving the climate crisis.
...A comprehensive breakdown of the methodology used to calculate the emissions each company’s banking practices generate can be found in the Appendix."
“Banks play a foundational role determining our climate and economic future by taking short-term money and investing it in long-term infrastructure. Presently, too much of that infrastructure is furthering the climate crisis. The longer this situation persists, the more challenging it becomes to achieve global climate goals. As a result, by passively enabling their cash and investments to finance carbon-intensive sectors and infrastructure, companies have been unintentionally funding a future they are working tirelessly to avoid.
Conventional banking has not worked for businesses led by anyone other than those led by white men. PPP loans stats proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt. By design, using Big Banks also contributes to systemic racism and wealth inequality because you are supporting inequitable institutions and because climate change and pollution impacts Black and Brown communities much more than white communities.
But, we know this doesn't work for the 98% of white women and 99.9% of Black women who do NOT get VC funding. Not only are they looking at speed to get money to those who need it, using local banks and credit unions. They're exploring a different lending model based on character, not Credit Scores, another racist and sexist part of finance.
“We’re going to be burning money just to adapt...Just the status quo is going to start costing us more.”
Six banks – Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, US Bank, and Wells Fargo – have provided major financing to the two main private prison companies, helping them expand, diversify the ways they profit from imprisoning people, and lobby for harsher criminal penalties and stricter enforcement of immigration laws.
Being poor is g.d. expensive. Knowing this doesn't do much for poor people who still have roadblocks keeping them broke and oppressed.
"Those with low- and moderate-incomes face numerous barriers to accessing regulated, low-cost, financial services that could improve their financial footing."
Predatory lending practices ensure that poor people, (1/2 are people of color) pay BIG TIME in some way, especially with banking access.
giving loans people can't afford (especially before the 2008 housing bubble burst)
late fees for credit cards, SaaS platforms, mobile phones
reconnection/ reinstatement fees
fees for overdrafts.
PLEASE explain to me how this system has been in place so long? Only in the last decade is Congress even talking about this.
Why do those who run out of money get charged more money to then be further out of money?
Example: My credit card autopay was declined. My bank (a local credit union mind you) charged me $10 for the 1st attempt to pay, $10 for the second...before I even knew anything was amiss. When I had more money in my account, those fees were either covered or only $2, but when I am month to month, thanks to clients Net-45 and paying my people on time, I am out fees constantly. Society shames people who can't pay bills on time as if we don't want to or have a mental deficit that means we are less worthy, and charges us a tax for our "stupidity" or inability to make things work. Of course, the opposite is true. Their stupidity led to the belief that poor = lazy or incompetent. We are smarter and more resourceful with money. We understand The Economy better than a NY Times Economy "expert." Being wealthy does not make you wiser, but it does make you healthier.
If people can't get approved for traditional banking, they remain unbanked or underbanked.
unbanked: no member of the household has a checking or savings account
Low credit scores and low cash flow forced the unbanked into AFS, alternative financial services (AFS) which include:
underbanked: someone in the household has an account, but they still rely on high-cost AFS
check cashing, payday lending
pawn shop loans, rent-to-own
Buy now, pay later (BNPL)
Big banks are incentivised to be predatory because it's more lucrative. Poor customers pay fees instead of building up a savings, (with AFS options charging up to 400% APR.)
"In 2017, the unbanked and underbanked LMI populations, and those with little or no credit history, spent more than $173 billion in fees and interest for AFS."
Americans unbanked and underbanked include:
63 million adults
47% Black households (nearly 1/2!)
43% Latina households
More than half (54%) of [those in poverty] are people of color.
Almost 1/3rd (96 million) of adults live on income of 200% below the federal poverty guideline (which is not even a good guide. It's an outdated metric never intended as a long term usage and keeps people working at jobs with unlivable wages.
The above May 2021 report "follows up the Asset Building Policy Network’s (ABPN) 2014 Banking in Color" and looks into the experiences within LMI communities of color with financial institutions.
Not surprisingly this is terrible for your health, where fringe loans were "associated with 38% higher prevalence of poor or fair health, while being unbanked (not having one’s own bank account)" increased the prevalence of poor/fair health by 17%.
More than this, the United Nations and World Bank predict that there will be between 140 and 200 million climate refugees by 2050 as continued warming leads to increasingly frequent and intense natural disasters.
A recent report from the APA (American Psychological Association) published in October 2022 shows just how much of a wreck our country is financially.
"Money is causing stress for 72% of Americans," and this doesn't account for those without digital access. The virtual Harris Poll survey was conducted in English and Spanish on behalf of the APA.
Americans who are already the most underbanked and underfunded, who don't speak English or Spanish, or who have no wifi were left out. Missing huge swaths of the population relevant to this data is why we can't have nice things. 72% is probably low.
Per a different study from Bank Rate & Psych Central, "42% of U.S. adults say that money negatively impacts their mental health."
If we continue to claim that Big Banks (fueled by Big Tech, Big Oil, and an even bigger military budget) can solve our financial woes, we are ignoring more than one elephant in the room.
We cannot "build business for good" if we ignore the negative social and emotional impacts that a lack of banking and finance options can cause. As the same study, whose takeaways feel suspiciously conservative observed,
"Everything from dealing with debt to managing money was linked to a decline in psychological well-being, leading to such outcomes as anxiety, stress, worrisome thoughts, loss of sleep and depression."
A lot, actually, but not through less Starbucks or saving more. Systemic economic inequality cannot be fixed overnight. Remember how Bernie was always ranting about "breaking up the banks"? This is why.
Still, there are policies you can support and money moves you can make IF you have some, especially if you are a small business owner and social entrepreneur.
"Conventional banking hasn't worked for businesses owned by people of color. But a new network is designed to get money flowing fairly to BIPOC economies."
Why? Credit scores are racist.
This makes it easier for Big Banks to be racist when it comes to lending for small businesses and home mortgages.
While banks pay out a few hundred million to make racial discrimination lawsuits disappear, we need systemic changes to the way banks finance communities already impacted more by pollution and climate change. It predicates the need to change not only using big banks, but the lending practices themselves that still impact Black and Latina families at credit unions (by far less).
Where can you bank instead?
If you care about the climate and systemic wealth inequalities due to systemic racism...move your money elsewhere and dig in DEEP to what the companies you support are doing with your money.
Seek alternative financing, avoid debt, especially VC money that forces a quick exit. Keep your budgets and compensation structures transparent. Prioritize people and planet over profit by taking your money out of Big Banks and investing more in Black businesses and keeping your money in Black-owned banks and coops.
Founders make a million decisions all day, often stretching a bank accounts and our bodies beyond capacity. One decision I have always felt great about? Being a member of a local Credit Union, and not just a consumer, feels good, confident I am doing business differently where it starts: money. We can't stop capitalism, but we can stop financing is at scale. Bank small; Collectively our small moves can make a big impact!
Have an tech product or startup we should know about.
Leave a comment here, or send us a DM on Twitter at or .
keeps UKRAINE front and center most days. It took a week before the Iranian conflict made the , and likely longer but by the time it did hit the front page, their government had ratched up the punishments for speaking out.
The report "Banking on Climate Crisis, Fossil Fuel Finance report, 2021" shows how U.S. banks are tiny in comparison to other state banks like China but "they disproportionately ." Not only that, Citibank is just one example of these Big Banks seeking investments to expand extracting fossil fuels, increasing petroleum production.
Big Banks to their wealthiest clients and large businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program.
It wasn’t until were added to the Small Business Administration’s roster of financial institutions that the loans flowed to those in most need. The importance of the community-focused lenders such as community development financial institutions (CDFIs) became so apparent that when the PPP portal reopened at the beginning of 2021, CDFIs were granted an exclusive access period. As of June 2021, these institutions have deployed close to . – - The Hill
They also flagrantly discriminate with lending and racial profile those who need their money fast. Big banks have a big racism problem which harms loyal customers like
Despite large U.S. banks being tiny compared to other global banks, such as those headquartered in China, they disproportionately . It was these same banks that to their wealthiest clients and large businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program that emerged to help businesses sustain the economy.
What's worse? Only SOME of them returned the money and acknowledged the error, when the media called it out.
That means for a company like Microsoft, in 2021 the emissions generated by the company’s $130 billion in cash and investments were comparable to the cumulative emissions generated by the manufacturing, transporting, and use of every Microsoft product in the world.”
Let's consider how our individual money impacts this . Example, I pay $30/month to LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft. I do so through the App store so no doubt Apple takes 30%. For $20, I get shadow banned whenever I try and make a living or post about work.
"So you have a big idea, you start your business and you want to take this fledgeling product to the next level. Typically, you’d go through a “standard” funding journey. First, you’d turn to your closest allies for the friends-and-family round where they can support you before you’re able to prove yourself to creditors or funders. After that, you either turn to the traditional financial system for a loan, or to venture capital firms for backing." ––
In addition to Common Future, and predatory lending on Black and Brown communities. It bears repeating here that a lack of inclusive financing is one more reason to skip these banks. Climate, racial, economic, and gender are inextricably linked.
It is not going to get better unless people take bigger moves to halt climate change. As they point out in
Fringe borrowing, as noted in "Health Affairs" does not require credit checks...which immediately places the person borrowing in a precarious position, used for an emergency that quickly balloons when that loan's APR is 400-600% of the balance.
, the solution is not to fix the impacts from poor health but to address systemic inequality by "expanding social welfare programs and labor protections would address the root causes of the use of fringe services and advance health equity."
Community banks:
It's not easy! For more on why it's hard to escape Big Banks, read the report below: (Action Center on Race and the Economy)
Ask anyone who has ever struggled to pay rent or build a business. Money is stressful and emotional. Pretending it doesn't exist is what the Big Banks are doing with climate change. We can do better than throwing up our hands. Make a plan at . Find your bank, set a date, and start moving your money. Not ready yet? You can sign up for reminders to do it in the future. What will your story be?
Collective Flow Publishing Co. supports "Social Tech for Good"
Hot Tip: With Heyday, you really can close all of your tabs. No really...you don't need to keep the tabs in your brain open anymore. You're welcome (not that I can take credit).
Rating: I have to turn it up to 11. This may be my favorite app ever.
Why I like it:
I can't oversell this workflow hack enough. I am not being glib when I say I am obsessed.
I beta test the crap out of everything. If only people would pay me! (I heard there's an app for that. It's on my to-do list.)
If I had one productivity tool to use for the rest of my days, and you made me get rid of all my others I would be fine. Heyday is my number one go-to SaaS winner of the year. This may get my vote for the best app ever invented, as long as they keep the features I love.😉
Granted the plug in in chrome is what is making my life easier, but it's the fact that it's working anytime I am behind the scenes. It makes me feel like I have a research assistant, something my neurodivergent brain desperately needed before I found Heyday. Fun facts: I was almost afraid to share this app because it's like my secret weapon/brain hack. And then I was like, that is ridiculous, and also not how I work...at all! I am an over-sharer, especially with great tools and resources. When I find something I love I am a brand ambassador and tell everyone I can about your amazing biz.
Me wanting to keep it for myself tells you just how enamored I am with Heyday XYZ; it was that precious to me when I started using it last summer. I shared about it in the first few issues of the HOT LIST (launched back in December).
I couldn't just tweet about it. My fave tool deserves a full on Em report. So, here my verbose, yet engaging thorough design and user feedback long-form review of Heyday.
Meet Heyday, your research helping hand.
Heyday automatically saves your research, and resurfaces it when you need it.
Our lawyers told us we can’t say that it gives you a photographic memory. ;)
Heyday (originally called Journal app) is a SaaS browser plug-in, desktop, and mobile app that that when installed saves everything you look at and click on. It has a powerful search index; as a researcher and internet spelunker I feel was so needed, with how much Google's sucks these days.
Along the way, they have added some new features like article summaries, youtube video summaries (so rad!) and highlights so share quotes and remember stuff without having to copy/paste to other docs (though, I still do for now).
For a while, these guys started out with a combo of a browser organizer and notion documentation and it had a cool motion visual: every time you opened a new browser window a linear bubble would prompt you to breathe (and it really worked on me since I hold my breath constantly). That said, it took up way too much memory, but was a really nice change from the boring Google search bar.
They moved away from a journal app and embraced the thing they're really good at: saving your content so you can find it later. In previous versions, you could create different views and add documents or notes-like Notion Lite, but the whole experience has been simplified, and while I was hesitant to see features go, they made the right call.
You can grow your body of sources around subjects and themes and assign them "topics" (previous versions called it Spaces, but it's basically the same except simplified for faster, easier assigning/tagging via topic.
The best "new" feature that showed up late in their beta/early in the paid version is this handy reminder when using Google search! You get to see what you already found on the subject. The first time this happened, I think I fainted.🤯
Google something and see what you already found on the subject! Forgot you were already looking at that last week?
Heyday didn't.
How to know if this App is right for you. (This checklist also applies to The HOT LIST, our members-only newsletter created just for creators, founders, and solopreneurs who want all the info and have none of the time.)
When you do research, do you save your deep dives?
Do you look at a variety of sources or always go to the same 3 websites/news outlets?
What defines "content" and how do you track it?
Ever want to share an article your read last month, but you have a more visual memory and can only remember the header image?
Do you save data sets or screenshots and have folders in disarray?
700 tabs every day? Afraid to close them?
Love sorting things into buckets (what I call them) or groups, themes?
Think Google Search sucks now?
Are you a connector with ideas and information, (this is how we build neural pathways and remember/learn things btw), finding the thread and connections between someone's post from today and a tweet from last summer?
Samiur Rahman and Sam DeBrule are super nice and approachable...but also totally buttoned up.
Community: The co-founders and their way of building this product with the community are rad. They have a good tag team thing going, with Sam on community and Samuir on product. They are listening and meeting with those who are highly invested in their beta.
They are into highlighting and connecting creators with a growing Slack. Not super active but not dead and Sam keeps updates around the product coming. It's clear everyone that's a deep fan is rooting for them. The sentiment got more serious since they went to a paid version and the community doubled.
On their Slack, "Every week top creators join our community for AMAs." They past ones are organized and easy to find -how on brand ;). You can read about every creator so far and join their community (if you love the app) here.
Besides the AMAs and Sam's Twitter stream, it's still a nascent, fast-growing group. From like 100 to ~4000 in the few months since I joined.
The shares and posts are getting a bit heavy on bros but I have not even jumped in much yet. For now, I am a lurker.
Note to HQ: Please create community guidelines so that one channel isn't 2 "creators" sharing all their Medium posts. And so you can ensure it's more than a help desk with griping beta testers. Need help? I might know who can help with that. ;)
Follow Sam here for solid creator-economy and tech tweets in storytelling format.
Personally, the workspaces channel don't resonate like they do with the majority of the community. I am old, I have kids. My workspaces are often not my own. People love sharing photos of their home setups and it's sweet to share our "workplaces" but not really relevant to the product and there are probably additional ways to engage with this ND crowd.
Brand Design/Voice: Their new branding is fire! I love the green on twitter-very ownable and unique. Love the hands and color palette. Feels very versatile and fun and just an all-around strong brand ID for a startup that does not feel like everyone else's in SV. Big fan of the lighthearted, personable brand voice. Doesn't feel overly gendered, academic, or SV tech bro.
Performance/ Productivity: When Heyday was still called Journal, it had this awesome feature. When you loaded a new browser page it had nature imagery and encouraged you to breathe. It was awesome BUT ironically, it made my fan go 24/7. For me it was not a deal breaker. I really need a new macbook anyway.
If Heyday could prevent me from still opening 2 dozen tabs, then they’d be brain hackers and I might be scared. They're not magicians.
What the app did do however was prevent me from freaking out if I have to close them all at once, if my computer dies because I forgot to charge it, or if I want to remember that one article about that one thing and cannot remember anything but the source, writer, or imagery.
For my brain, cleaning before starting a new project is not only necessary, but a ritual. Now, I can try and get through all my open work, but if I have to start fresh, I force quit Chrome and voila.
For me productivity in a capitalist sense is NOT the goal. But in a I didn't lose that thing because I forgot where I put it, I do care and HeyDay very much fixes that problem.
Inclusion: Co-founder Samuir is neurodivergent; they created this tool and modified based on how ADHD brains work and because filing your research sucks.
Side Note: Completely off topic, but not for me...I went DEEP on the design studio they hired to do their branding. Evidently, it was the same studio that did Hillary's campaign H➡️. Know what else I found out? The agency is two white guys. Not that their work is not the bomb or notable; it is! But this is your reminder to hire diverse creatives and studios! Especially if your Hillary Clinton, but also if you're a startup. Lift each other's boats!
Challenges:
The features I love in beta are not all carrying over as they shift directions. That said, this is not a problem really. They are focused on doing one thing very well and I would concur that is where they, and most product platforms and SaaS should focus.
The features I love are the part this app saves you from anyway! The tedious tasks of folders and tags and organizing are not necessary for you to find stuff. (I really liked spaces and they just changed that to Topics which I am less jazzed about. The jury is out there but so far their product decisions have been solid.)
I wish I could escape Google’s g.d. grips but the chrome extensions are lifesavers. And Heyday’s hits it out of the park!! They do have them on other search engines, as Fast Co was quick to point out.
NOT to be confused with Heyday.ai which is something else entirely. (Reminder to SaaS founders to do a deep dive on your handles and urls/naming).
I wish I could sync it to Gitbook and Canva like I do Google Docs. THEN I’d really have a record of my brain.
My motives are not always 100% altruistic in promoting new tech platforms and businesses.
With so many new SaaS tools for creators being released daily, there are a lot of opportunities to change tech for the better.
Occasionally when I beta test or dig into a company, I end up finding more synergy. This is the case with Heyday but it is not why I chose to highlight them first.
I chose them because it's coFLOWco's freaking mission:
Our mission* is to achieve equal opportunity and economic empowerment by amplifying the strengths, voices, and creative ideas of diverse leaders.
I chose them because the founders didn't send me an email to eff off because I had some feedback and offered to share it.
HeyDay is truly a game-changer, especially for creators, writers, and educators who love to share knowledge, tools, and tips with their creator communities (like me)! Happy searching.
It’s a relief to know that wherever I talk with others (Slack, email), the notes of our convos or some part of my research will take me less than 5 minutes to find, if that. I don’t need to tag or file it or worry where it lives, but if I do…even better.
For now, I can die happy searching, reading, and jumping around the web with wild abandon till the sun comes up. There's always more to learn...but first, a nap.