culture — B L O G | J A Y E M S E Y

past lives reflects the fragility of the american dream

My brilliant friend Sean Choi and I wrote this piece about Past Lives because neither of us could stop thinking about it, and we were sick of people calling it a love story

culturejayemseyMarch 10, 2024A24, Past Lives, Celine Song, John Magaro, Teo Yoo, Greta Lee, the Oscars, Academy Awards, Asian American, movies, identity, culture, New York, American Dream, multiverse theoryComment

truth, beauty, freedom, love

A love letter to my favorite movie and its Broadway incarnation, or how a TikTok reignited a decades-old obsession

tiger kings and tiger mothers

I’m finally ready to talk about Atlanta

culturejayemseyApril 6, 2021Atlanta, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Crazy Rich Asians, Isla Vista, school shootings, mass shootings, gun control, gun violence, Black Lives Matter, racism, sexism, misogyny, fetishization, grief, Gummo, Harmony Korine, Jacob Reynolds, Nick Sutton, Jacob Sewell, Chloë Sevigny, Minari, America, American Dream, Americans, The Joy Luck Club, stories, Oriental, Dragon Lady, tiger mom, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, history, perpetual foreigner, Maggie Q, Nikita, Tiger King, Steven Yeun, The New York Times, Byrdie, sexual assault, sex trafficking, catcalling, The Onion, empathy, The Atlantic, Anne Anlin Cheng, Faith Xue, Chinese, Chinese-American, Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese food, Museum of Chinese in America, #StopAsianHate, TikTok, Chinatown, This Land Is Your Land, Asian AmericanComment

the stolen history of new york

Examining the stories of the people and places lost in time to uncover the legacy of slavery and colonialism in modern-day Manhattan

culturejayemseyJuly 24, 2020New York, New York City, history, oral history, A Night of Philosophy and Ideas, colonialism, Benoît Challand, slavery, racism, anti-racism, systemic racism, Black Lives Matter, Occupy City Hall, protests, Manhattan, Mannahatta, Lenape, Walking Purchase, The Mannahatta Project, Wildlife Conservation Society, Chinatown, Spanish Harlem, Harlem, Flushing, Greenpoint, Crown Heights, linguistics, language, Endangered Language Alliance, Rivers Cosmogram, Langston Hughes, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, African-American, Dutch, immigrants, Harlem Renaissance, Great Migration, LGBTQ, El Barrio, El Museo del Barrio, Malcolm X, Puerto Rico, the Bronx, Latino, World War II, Casa Latina Music Shop, Tito Puente, Seneca Village, Seneca Village Project, Vox, Missing Chapter, Tanner's Spring, catacombs, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Catholicism, Memorial to Victims of the Injustice of the Holocaust, Holocaust, Auschwitz, Madison Square Park, Repertorio Español, Murray Hill, The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Stonewall Inn, Pride, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, Stonewall 50 - WorldPride NYC 2019, Gay Liberation, George Segal, Stonewall National Monument, Christopher Park, Washington Square Park, Dutch West India Company, Hangman's Elm, Astor Place, John Jacob Astor, La Plaza Cultural, art, 97 Orchard Street, Lower East Side, tenement, Little Guangdong-Hong Kong, Mott Street, Chinese Exclusion Act, Irish Hunger Memorial, Brian Tolle, Gail Wittwer-Laird, Great Irish Famine, Museum at Eldridge Street Synagogue, Greetings From Chinatown, Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, Little Fuzhou, Manhattan Bridge, Nom Wah Tea Parlor, bloody angle, Doyer Street, Wilson Tang, Wing on Wo & Co., Mei Lum, Walter Eng, the W.O.W. Project, COVID-19, coronavirus, Five Points, Gangs of New York, Triumph of the Human Spirit, Lorenzo Pace, African Burial Ground, New Amsterdam, national park, National Park Service, autonomous zone, community, justice, NYPD, Park Row, Ah Ken, 74 Wall Street, New York slave market, Atlas Obscura, The Seaman's Bank for Savings in the City of New York, Netherland Monument, The Battery, Black Gotham, Tenement Museum, Museum of Chinese in America, The 1619 Project, NYPL Community Oral History Project, NYPLComment

a rising tide

A guide for non-black people on anti-racism and supporting the black community right now

culturejayemseyMay 31, 2020Alison Roman, Chrissy Teigen, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, systemic racism, authenticity, privilege, cultural colonization, white supremacy, cultural appropriation, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Black Lives Matter, police violence, protests, anti-racism, Asian AmericanComment

on art and its existence in isolation

On International Women’s Day, a critical look at the cultural implications of art after #MeToo

culturejayemseyMarch 8, 2020Gretchen Carlson, Fox News, #MeToo, rice bunny, China, sex education, South Korea, France, sexism, Japan, Droga5, art, sexual assault, Minute Thoughts, ethical consumption, Time's Up, cultural legacy, Woody Allen, Manhattan, American Beauty, misogyny, Claire Dederer, The Paris Review, president, Surviving R. Kelly, Leaving Neverland, Wild Wild Country, The Interpreter, true crime, context, abuse, Hollywood, Last Tango in Paris, Bernardo Bertolucci, Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman, Kill Bill, Stanley Kubrick, Shelley Duvall, The Shining, Netflix, Nanette, Hannah Gadsby, Picasso, Vox, aesthetics, Jeet Heer, Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, A.O. Scott, films, The L.A. Times, Japanese internment, Warner Brothers, Looney Tunes, Carl Andre, Ana Mendieta, LA, celebrities, Michael Jackson, spectacle, attention economy, Kim Kardashian, Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey, Judd Apatow, The New York Times, The New Yorker, restorative justice, Kobe Bryant, Gianna Bryant, Vanessa Bryant, tragedy, cognitive strain, cognitive dissonance, Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, toxic masculinity, International Women's Day, Half the Sky, LinkedIn, Harvey WeinsteinComment

a tale of two book clubs: trick mirror by jia tolentino

Jia Tolentino’s debut novel, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, is a grim yet nihilistically optimistic opus for the millennial generation

culturejayemseyOctober 16, 2019Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, Korean skincare, Girls' Night In, The Cosmos, nihilistic optimism, reading, Pop Up Grocer, The I in the Internet, identity, cultural identity, white supremacy, #MeToo, #YesAllWomen, social signaling, The Truman Show, influencers, Always Be Optimizing, millennials, feminism, capitalism, pop culture, Pure Heroines, Little House on the Prairie, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Ecstasy, drug use, religion, A Story of a Generation in Seven Scams, Fyre Festival, Caroline Calloway, French macarons, Elizabeth Holmes, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, Hustlers, The Hustlers at Scores, New York Magazine, Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, attention economy, #GIRLBOSS, Facebook, We Come From Old Virginia, University of Virginia, Rolling Stone, rape culture, sexual assault, The Cult of the Difficult Woman, celebrities, Kim Kardashian, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Hope Hicks, I Thee Dread, weddings, marriage, commitment, writing, Reality TV Me, Asian AmericanComment

the logical fallacies of linkedin

What the comments on LinkedIn posts can tell us about empathy and workplace culture

pocket philosophy 2019

My second all-night philosophy festival

asian enough

A tale of two films, on how far Asian-American representation has come, and how much further it has to go

thoughts & musings

wanderings

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