the cult of notes app poetry 📝 (rupi kaur, gabbi hanna, megan fox, tumblr, and tiktok slideshows)

the notes app on my phone I think has three main purposes three main functions number one passwords number two ambitious to-do lists that I know full well I will never complete and three bad poetry poetry I wrote at 3:00 in the morning like have you ever had a situationship mess you up so badly they have you writing poetry have you ever been so damn bad for someone they have you in your notes at because guilty is charge and then you like go onto your phone in the cold light of day just looking for a shopping list or something and suddenly you're confronted by the most depressing thing you've ever read and to make things worse you wrote it I hope this is a common experience and not something that just happens to me because this happens with surprising regularity for me today I want to talk about Notes app poetry think Tumblr poetry Tik Tok slideshows rupy C Gabby Hannah why I think this style is so popular why it resonates with people why it works and also when it doesn't work because we're seeing this being published more and more regularly this is pretty boys are poisonous by Megan Fox I actually think this is a great title but as I was reading through it I kept saying to myself like this really feels like something you would write in the notes app and then maybe not publish but here it is there are some interesting poems in here though there is like this strong motif of Greek mythology kind of peppered through the work and a lot of the poems also feel very autobiographical we find out a lot about Megan Fox's life from domestic abuse to a miscarriage it's a very honest and vulnerable collection and I'm intrigued by why a person so famous would choose to express themselves through the medium of poetry specifically something I would say resembles Notes app poetry so what do I mean by that I think that notes that poetry kind of comes in one of two forms there are two kind of distinct categories the first is this a sentence that is just broken up by line breaks like split any sentence ever into three or four parts and it will roughly look like a poem yesterday I went to the shop to buy mangoes yesterday I went to the shot and bought mangoes you see what I mean especially this is such a staple of this kind of poetry where they just like break up the final word letter by letter and this form is often used to share kind of like human truths Universal truths about love or loss or longing or grief heartbreak tragedy yearning those kinds of emotions that are very big and heavy and weighty and profound and these poems seek to simplify those big scary ideas in words that basically anyone can understand and so often it will be this kind of like profound sentence broken up by line breaks you know there's no structure here necessarily so I guess to go all like English Lit student on you this would come under the category of free verse which basically just means that it doesn't follow a structure or rhythm with rhyme there's no meter so there's no like technical skills being used here but it's still essentially a poem so it has an open form there is no fixed form here so I way someone might use this to discuss something big and put it into simpler terms would be like grief is love persevering but with nowhere to go right that's a sentence and it seeks to understand the concept of grief and what it is but then you break it up like this grief is life persevering but with nowh to do you see what I mean it helps I think I think the cursive voice really adds to the to the overall effect the other category is a tad more a tad more literary I would say because it draws on similes metaphors analogies we basically take like an extended metaphor and again speak about some kind of universal truth or an emot ition that resonates with the reader so here's what I wrote like literally 5 minutes before filming this video I was like I guess I should have some examples so I just wrote this down straight off the top of the Dome bear in mind this would have been better if I had written it at 3:00 a.m. I feel like notes at poetry and the 10:00 a.m. like they they don't work properly so anyway this is this is what I wrote today I went to the bathroom to find only one toothbrush in a glass made for two now toothpaste Flex on the mirror minty white residue are all I have left to remind me of you it's so stupid it did rhyme though maybe I kind of snap with that ruik Co pack it up we'll get to Ruby anyway this is my point ambiguous enough that hopefully lots of different people could relate to it because it basically is a poem about loneliness about you know we use this solitary toothbrush as a symbol for a person's aloneness in a space that used to be cohabitated suddenly feeling solitary in a space that was once shared and so this could be a mother whose son has gone off to University a person whose partner has left them a person whose partner has died and I think that's the trick is to make it kind of vague enough that lots of different people can relate to what you're talking about Notes app poetry will often be addressed to a you like an unspecified other and written from the first person perspective so it will come from the perspective of I from me from my from myself and I think that gives it this kind of universal appeal it's kind of this like every man figure where you and I could be anyone you know by not using specific names I'm not saying my mother my son my girlfriend my boyfriend my best friend you know by not using those words we can create what is essentially Mass Market appeal and that's why that weird stupid toothbrush parody poem that I wrote could resonate with multiple people in multiple scenarios because it is intentionally a little bit ambiguous lots of different people could position themselves as the eye in that situation and I think it also the reason it works the reason it catches a lot of people's attention is because just using an ambiguous you encourages us to think who is the you for me who am I thinking about when I read this who does this bring to mind and I think the place we first saw this really blow up on a wide scale was Tumblr popular themes in notes that poetry Tumblr poetry will often be like the softness and the tenderness of the human heart the idea of this delicate organ being juxtaposed was something brutal and violent and harsh you know when we say like my heart is broken we're taking the concept of something so soft and delicate and vulnerable and then ju deposing it with the term break you know we say heart shattering gut wrenching we're taking soft things and harming them and that brings you like a visual cue other imagery that I think is really popular in these mediums will be like water or sand you know slipping between your fingers the Earth human anatomy especially the eyes or like parts of the face or hands as well fingers the weather is often invoked so like the rain versus the sunshine thunder storms cloudy days you know used as essentially pathetic fallacy I guess like the weather represents emotions the concept of midnight or dusk Dawn light and dark there'll be references to the natural world to trees arms and veins you'll often find people naming very specific species of flowers you know like it will reference peonies or something definitely reference to the lungs and the air that we breathe someone being your oxygen they'll be referenced to the moon the Sun the stars and the other thing you'll always find is lots of oxymorons things like beautiful tragedy Exquisite death delicious Venom and these are all tools to basically yeah evoke a lot of emotion they're things that everyone kind of understands again we are talking about Universal appeal here and like I said these really became popular on Tumblr back in the day now if you were raised by tumblr.com you are definitely in therapy now we're all in this together you guys we are the Tumblr generation and I will say you can definitely tell that Taylor Swift for example was a Tumblr girly like her style of songwriting her lyricism it really Echoes all of those themes that you would find on Tumblr playing with language in a very very specific way like the lyric darling I'm a nightmare dressed like a Daydream is Tumblr fodder that I would reblog that over the top of a picture of like sunlight coming through expensive bottled water like Tumblr had me in a freaking choke hold I swear to God my Tumblr feed was my pride and joy any picture of Lana Del re wearing those hot sunglasses reblog yeah like a 12 bottle of Voss water that came in a reusable bottle reblog an Arctic Monkeys lyric from the album am with like a picture of someone's kneee socks in black and white re blog or like a silhouette of two hands reaching for each other re freaking blog that stuff will keep me up at night here are some examples of Tumblr poetry that I could find just like from a quick Google search the space in my arms was free you gave yourself willingly so kind and warm and friendly I could crush you bruise you drop you lose you ring you out till you're empty God what a beautiful gift to Hold Your Heart like this and know that you would let me we have this one my aesthetic is the glow in the rim of your iris a solar eclipse peeking behind the pupil of your eye and the mountainous Curves in between your knuckles like Tetris blocks between my fingertips your body is a forest fire raging through the trees that are my veins and I long to bathe in your heat I long for the hours that I soak in your view as if I was the beauty of the ocean and you were the rain showering over me as if I was truly the water I absorbed every piece of you you became me and I became you so straight away in those poems you can see pretty much all of the things that I'm talking about you know the iris the veins holding someone's heart between your fingers there's a little bit of a formula to it or like a criteria I guess for what makes like a Tumblr poem and you know what if you're feeling inspired right now and you feel like you want to write your own poetry and share it with the world maybe you should start a website and I'm actually excited to let you know that today's video is very kindly brought to you by Squarespace and Squarespace is the all-in-one platform for building a website or an online brand and the best news is you don't need any coding experience or web design expertise you can use their range of incredible templates to customize and bring your vision to life making a website now could not be easier you can also use tools to create a mailing list to create a blog so that's two new ways to connect with your audience there are also analytical tours you can see what's working well you know what perms are people coming back to again and again and if this all sounds good to you you can actually head to squarespace.com right now for a free trial and use the code Jack Edwards squarespace.com Jack Edwards to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain you're welcome so thank you so so much to Squarespace for working with me on this video now here's what I'll say Tumblr poetry walked so that Tik Tok slideshows could run Tik Tok slideshows I think are the closest thing we have to exist right now to Tumblr so like the Tumblr Glory Days you know the energy the aesthetic these very pretty aesthetically pleasing pictures alongside the most heart-wrenching Soul destroy words you will ever read in your entire life and you know what I am obsessed with it it'll be like the instrumental of a Phoebe Bridges song where you flick through these devastating poems these heartbreaking words and I eat it up every single time and I leave no crumbs I'm licking the plate clean it's a full 12 course dinner for me I love it it would be like ooh you know like from Scot Street and actually recently there's been this trend on Tik Tok of people sharing their TR magic kind of notes at poetry and honestly it's so funny to me because so many of them just really don't make any sense my lungs are rejecting the water that fills them I will drown before I ever learn to swim we also have I am rage pretending to be sleeping in a corner of a room hoping you bear your belly to the light it's essentially these weird like fragments of sentences that think they're giving Lord Byron but they're just sort of giving Lord Tyron I'm tired I'm I will love you like a dog until the day you put me down you know this one girl shared a bunch of her Notes app poetry and I think that these perfectly demonstrate like the type of thing I'm talking about here the people who tried to bury you have no clue that you were a seed grow why does this time hurt so bad what makes you so different not my first rodeo this is another trend is that people will like there'll be a title to the poem which you see at the end in fact this is done all the time in Megan foxes poetry collection hers are like The Devil Wears doce the art of becoming an accessory leading a lamb to slaughter I am Prince Charming I think it can work sometimes but because Megan Fox does it in every single poem in this collection I think it sort of sometimes feels a little bit forced oh this is so classic thank you for breaking my heart my acting teacher says I'm Exquisite like they're all sort of regurgitations of the same kind of thing should we like try and use my English Lit degree to and my writing School experience to Workshop one of these poems this one says I once thought that taking up running as a hobby would allow me to outrun my thoughts what a childish thing to believe that something so futile could suppress the aching urge to just [ __ ] rot here's the thing I'm going to go all grammarly on this cuz it makes sense but it's wordy so firstly I would immediately swap what a childish thing to how naive it's just more concise it also brings in a midline rhyme how naive to believe you know which makes it feel a little bit more lyrical how naive to believe you know it's more satisfying I would also change aching urge to just the ache it's a little verbos the two words that sort of mean the same thing just feels sort of redundant we also have the word run twice which is my pet peeve when you have a same word repeated within one sentence so I once thought that taking up running as a hobby would help me to outrun my thoughts we need a synonym babe I would just immediately swap outrun for outpace like I would take up running to outpace my thoughts running and outpace just feels neater I guess I cut out as a hobby it's unnecessary I would change would allow me to so just would help in a poem would allow me to it's just too cabic and you can say that more succinctly so I guess then we would have I once thought taking up running would help me outpace my thoughts how naive to believe something so futile could suppress the ache to just [ __ ] rot you know it's not great but it's better now some people have found huge success from this style of writing enter the final boss of this style of poetry rupy C she has kind of become the face of this style of poetry I think I'm not the whiskey you want the water you when your fingers were dipped inside me searching for honey that would not come for you Cynthia Jesus died for our syas Jesus cried run away right Julia Roberts Julia Rob HS Cynthia you are dead you're dead they're pretty straightforward metaphors or observations about very complicated difficult themes because she does write very accessible poems that can be understood and resonate with everyone she's kind of like the Colleen Hoover of poetry dare I say and I think this just speaks to the fact that someone else being able to articulate thoughts that we all have is a gift and it's something we kind of appreciate you know when someone can perfectly explain something you are going through it's almost reassuring it gives you something to cling on to there's also even a book called notes that poetry and then like I mentioned we have the Megan Fox book also Lily reinhard's poetry collection really reminds me of this style it seems to be our winter so I'll try to make snow angels in your cigarette smoke just tell me more about the Stars my love allow me to lose myself in your constellations apologies or a Band-Aid the wound is still there underneath it still hurts it just looks cleaner on the outside it's that kind of thing and then of course we have Gabby Hannah this is adult lessons I have to find this one poem which I think just sort of sums it up time is relative beauty is relative family is relatives do do you see what I'm getting at another staple of these collections is they'll have a lot of kind of visual aids to help help you kind of read through it so there'll be lots of images illustrations diagrams you know maybe even speech bubbles this kind of thing that's a real Common Thread and the in fact it's actually kind of like flicking through your very own Tik Tok slideshow huh I just realized that really is a Common Thread throughout all of these the rupy cor books and you know maybe rupy cor kind of normalized this too um because she has these kind of illustrations throughout her work Lily Reinhard 2o has um you know there's a lot of color there's little Doodles in here as well now here's my point I would say that although these poems are not technically brilliant they're not on a craft level they are not literary you're not going to analyze these in school and kind of come up with your interpretations they're pretty straightforward but does that mean they are bad no because they do resonate with people and art can exist for multiple purposes if you enjoy something on a subjective level then it is good and there is no shame in that if something connects with you if something is able to articulate your thoughts in an eloquent way maybe you're struggling to put all of these big Ideas into just one sentence or like a couple of sentences a string of sentences and then one of these poems does that for you that's powerful if you enjoy the poem then that's great I do just want to caveat this I'm editing the video and realizing that I kind of didn't explain this dimension of it too that what I mean by notes that poetry is not bad I mean like as a form as a medium as a like I don't think we can automatically dismiss something just cuz it's written in verse but can individual poems or collections still be available for criticism and critique and reviews yes of course so for me the format this style of what resembles notesap poetry is not inherently bad but individual poems or individual collections are still very much susceptible for scrutiny and critique and Analysis because maybe you think that it's an incomplete metaphor or it's too Meandering or the imagery it uses isn't consistent or doesn't work you know I think notes at poetry is still very much available for criticism it's just that the form specifically is not inherently bad that's what I was trying to say here but I don't think I explained it in very good words that's my self-critique I will say I think there's no need to critique things that are just for pure self-expression like something that you have just personally written in your own Notes app but the second something is made available for public consumption so it's released in a collection it's sold in bookstores I think at that point we are entitled to review and to compare and contrast and think about the the piece of art from an objective and subjective level and we are allowed to critique so yeah even if some people do take it a little too far sometimes like that there are some YouTube creators who have made like 25 videos just about Gabby Hannah that's insane that's actually just bullying maybe if you've made 25 videos about one person you might be the problem let's not get into that let's not get into that but um I just wanted to clarify that I hope that that makes sense and I think we have to stop being such intellectual snobs about this kind of thing it's not Milton it's not Shakespeare it's not Blake it's not Keat but it's not claiming to be it's very much staying in its own lane and if it explains something in the words you are struggling to find then that's important and that means something and that's the power of the written word that's what all authors really are hoping to achieve I think and it means it has value you know and I kind of can't believe I'm going to compare notes that poetry to religion but bear with me religion and mythology exist to help us to understand a very confusing world you know initially that was because we struggled to explain why trees existed or why the sun rises every morning especially in a time before science we would wonder why do plants lean towards the sun why do the tides work in the way that they do and often people turn to mythology or religion to say there is some higher power controlling these things and my point is human beings have a fundamental desire to understand the things that are happening to them the things that they are witnessing the things they are seeing and the things that they are experiencing so if you go through a time of heartbreak of tragedy of loss of longing those are big emotions those are difficult emotions and they're often something we go through alone and it's really hard to truly explain to someone else what it feels like and so someone else packaging all those feelings up into one neat little metaphor or simile or analogy or poem that means something something and so we turn to it because we almost appreciate that artist for being able to put our big thoughts into little well packaged words so if you enjoy it and your experience with the art is enjoyable then the art has value and that's that's the Simplicity of it and so for me that's why I think this poetry does have value it does I don't know let people Express themselves man just just let people have fun with the written word and look I since I'm sharing other people's poetry I'm going to make myself vulnerable and like have a scroll through mine through my notes out and see what the first thing I can find is oh yeah here we go this is one I wrote It's called that love was like a mosquito that love was like a mosquito landing on a baby doll looking for a place to plunge its pinces a place to pierce the veil of skin of Flesh of something nourishing but finding only plastic so the idea behind this one this piece that I can see was written all yeah at 342 a.m. I think the idea behind this metaphor was that the mosquito is the person looking for love and the baby doll is something that seems to resemble it on Surface value you know you see this thing that looks like everything you want but then when you actually sink your teeth into it you realize it was all a lie it was all a facade it's not the real thing it's plastic not flesh so I think the idea was that this is someone who you kind of think you can love and you put your energy into only to realize they're maybe not capable of giving it to you back they're maybe not able to supply what you need and maybe it was all fake maybe that's what plastic kind of has the connotations of too I definitely think of love as being something that is nourishing is good for your soul is kind of energizing um and so contrasting that with the the plastic the hard exterior of something else that isn't true isn't authentic isn't genuine I guess that was the idea so there's my notes at poetry like I don't want to suggest for a single second that I am above this I am very much I'm very much down with this thank you so much for watching this video you can subscribe if you're new follow me on Tik Tok on Instagram and I will see you very very soon with another video bye-bye

Channel: Jack Edwards

Views: 198,931

Keywords: rupi kaur, gabbie hanna, megan fox, pretty boys are poisonous, notes app poetry, video essay, booktube, tumblr poetry, tiktok slideshows, bookish video essays, booktok

Id: Of3sYnhLzJM

Length: 23min 49sec (1429 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 05 2023