How QAnon entered mainstream politics

While Coronavirus swept across the globe, another pandemic went viral online

In 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch opened fire outside Comet Ping Pong pizza parlour in Washington DC using two guns and a pistol. He was there, he said, to save a group of children from a sex-trafficking ring led by Satan worshippers and the presidential nominee Hilary Clinton.

Welch was a believer in what is now known as ‘pizzagate’ – an unfounded conspiracy theory that claimed Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey were part of an elite peadophille ring. 

The theory formed the basis of what is now known as QAnon: a collection of online conspiracy theories that say America is controlled by an elite group of Satanic, Democrat child traffickers. Donald Trump, so the theory goes, is waging a secret war to free America from this elite. The theory is anti-media, anti-science and anti-establishment, and promotes a distrust of the media.

The theory originated on the right-wing social media platform 4chan in 2017, where a user named “Q” claimed to have inside government knowledge, and said to have seen first hand the work Donald Trump was doing to fight these influential Democratic paedophiles.

The conspiracy theory has achieved such influence that the FBI has now deemed the conspiracy a “domestic terror threat”. Yet despite this, Donald Trump has refused to denounce the theory. 

QAnon support has grown exponentially during the coronavirus pandemic. While countries across the world went into lockdown, populations were forced inside, and online. The average time people spent online increased by almost a third in lockdown, and this has directly correlated with a rise in QAnon support. Between April and August, engagement on QAnon Facebook pages grew by 700% according to the BBC. 

What makes QAnon different to other conspiracy theories is how it has established itself in the political mainstream. In Tuesday’s election, 27 people running for Congress are known QAnon supporters. It is predicted that as of January 2021 over 2m Americans will be living in areas controlled by Congressmen and women who have publicly expressed support for the theory, including the likes of Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene who is firmly predicted to win her congressional race.

While the theory might sound outlandish, it has resonated with Trump supporters who are distrustful of ‘the mainstream media’ and who feel isolated from an increasingly liberal world. 

And one thing is for sure: after the increase in vigilante violence of its believers, its rapid online support and imminent political power in Congress, this is a political force – and voting bloc – that is here to stay. 

Why our Instagram addictions are killing the planet

Half of millennials say that Instagram makes them feel pressured to buy clothes. But at what cost?

“Instagram is awful for my wallet,” says Lydia Jones, 28 from Cornwall. “I scroll through my feed and see all of these influencers wearing the perfect outfits, and my friends look like they’re having the perfect life as well. I just can’t help it. Sometimes treating myself to something from Asos helps give a rush of adrenaline that feels like the only way to counteract it.”

And Lydia’s not alone in her habits. In a survey released in May, 49% of millennials said that they had spent money that they couldn’t afford on clothes after scrolling through social media according to Schwab’s Modern Wealth Survey. This comes after a report by insurance company Allianz last year in which 57% of millennials admitted to spending money they hadn’t planned to because of what they saw on their social media feeds.

But what impact is our spending habits having on the environment? The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, we’re buying more clothes than at any point in history, but we’re wearing them less. Around 73% of all clothes eventually get thrown in landfills after we’re done with them, causing countless environmental issues.

“It feels so inconsequential,” Lydia says. “I get that it’s bad for the environment, but ultimately the pressure to look good and the pressure to have the latest trends outweighs any guilt I feel towards the industry. I try not to think about it.”

Fast fashion: a quick fix?

And why are we spending more money on clothes than ever before? The reasons for this are varied, but social media is undoubtedly a major cause, especially for millennials and Generation Zers.

This is not just an environmental issue, Elma Parry, 21 from Sheffield says, but a class issue as well.

“I definitely overspend as a result of Instagram influencers,” says Elma. “A lot of the people I follow are middle class and can afford nice things because of their income, whereas I can’t. It’s really demoralising,” she says.

Elma explains that one of the biggest pitfalls with bloggers and social media is that it normalises spending.

“I think maybe my biggest downfall with Instagram and things like Tumblr is that it normalises this need to buy clothes more regularly. You never see an influencer wear an outfit more than once, and that has definitely rubbed off on me,” she says. “Sometimes I have to catch myself when I’m about to by something and ask, ‘Come on Elma, do you actually need this?’”

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, on average we only wear around 20-30% of what’s in our wardrobes. This has decreased from 30-40% in the early 2000s.

Small changes, big impact

Sometimes the biggest impact comes from everyday changes. It’s about making small changes to your wardrobe, which affect our overall attitudes towards fast fashion.

Geena Whiteman, 25 from Milton Keynes, has been buying her clothes second hand for two years. She says that she decided to stop buying clothes new after she couldn’t go vegetarian for health reasons, and wanted an alternative way to cut down on her carbon footprint.

The only thing Geena buys new is underwear. Everything else she gets is from eBay or charity shops. “It’s like killing two birds with one stone – you’re being good for the environment and you’re donating to charity. It’s a win-win situation,” she says.

“Everyone has a responsibility to be more sustainable… the ‘gram is not that important”

“I also got frustrated at how influencers are constantly peddling all these one-wear clothes,” she explains, “and the damage it does to both young girls who feel the need to keep up, and also the environment.”

Geena says that she feels liberated having given up buying clothes new, and that it is something we should all try doing.

“I think everyone has a responsibility to be more sustainable, it’s such an easy thing to do and we really do not need to be buying new clothes every week – the gram is not that important,” she says.

HURR: a collective approach

HURR Collective, the UK’s first clothes renting app that was launched in January this year, was born out of a need for a more sustainable approach to fashion, but also as a pushback against influencer and Instagram culture.

“A huge percentage of people don’t wear things that have been photographed more than a couple of times on social media,” explains HURR co-founder Victoria Phew. “We wanted to tap into people’s love of clothes without them having to spend money on fast fashion.”

Victoria says that HURR is the fashion industry’s answer to Airbnb. It works by people uploading stylised photos of their clothing onto HURR’s website, and then people will rent them out. People can rent clothes from anywhere between a week to a month, with the average rental price for an outfit being around £35 a week – not bad when most clothes on the site are meant to have an RRP of around £200.

She points to how millennials and Gen Zers are the ‘rent generation’, and that we’re currently going through a shift in the idea of ‘ownership’: “We’re used to renting,” she says. “Who’d have thought five years ago that we’d be renting houses and sharing rooms with strangers off of Airbnb? The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries across the world, so this was the next big industry that needed to be disrupted.”

Interestingly, when Victoria first set up HURR with business partner Matthew Geleta, the pair assumed occasion dresses would be the most popular items on the site. But it has been holiday wear that’s been most popular.

“What you wear on holiday is now just as important as what you wear at a wedding. People feel the pressure to look great at all times, and on holiday you’re meant to be having the perfect time, people want it to look perfect,” she says.

And what does the future of fashion hold in a world of throwaway t-shirts and fashion not built to last?

“Wardrobe sharing is the future of fashion,” Victoria says, “renting is the future of fashion.”

 

Down and out: Why New York’s LGBTQ homeless youth are at increased risk amid the coronavirus lockdown

One of New York’s most vulnerable communities is being put further at risk by the coronavirus lockdown: its LGBTQ homeless youth.

LGBTQ young people are one of the demographics world-wide who are most likely to be homeless, but in New York these figures are especially high. According to homeless charity Shelter, as many as 40% of New York’s homeless youth identify as LGBTQ.

As a result of the lockdown, countless of New York’s LGBTQ homeless shelters, health centres and HIV facilities are shutting their doors or facing reduced services, putting hundreds of young people at risk and leaving the remaining services overburdened.

“It’s pretty bad here at the moment,” says Kate Barnhart, the executive director of New Alternatives, a New York LGBTQ homeless youth drop-in centre, and one of the only LGBTQ homeless services still operating in the city. “We have a couple of homeless people who hang out by our building, and two of them have dropped dead on the sidewalk in the past week,” she says.

Despite New Alternatives being one of the only LGBTQ services still running during the lockdown, the non-profit organisation has had to massively change the ways it operates.

The charity has introduced a food delivery service to homeless LGBTQ young people after they began receiving messages from young people saying they were facing troubles accessing food after other youth shelters were unable to provide enough food for the city’s homeless population. Since introducing the measure, New Alternatives has been delivering over 100 hot meals every few days to vulnerable young people across the city. A system reliant on volunteers willing to travel to some of New York’s most deprived and crime ridden areas – an ask that not every volunteer is comfortable with.

LGBTQ youth face added risks from the forced lockdown that their heterosexual peers may not. According to the LGBTQ charity the Trevor Project, 77% of New York’s homeless LGBTQ community said they were homeless in part due to parental rejection of their sexual and gender identity, and LGBTQ young people are 3.5 times more likely to suffer from mental health problems. This isn’t to mention the higher rates of drug and alcohol addiction reported amongst the LGBTQ community.

These specific issues mean that LGBTQ services are more important now than ever. Barnhart says the city’s non-LGBTQ specific homeless shelters are “notoriously unsafe” for LGBTQ people, meaning that the LGBTQ community in the city is left with little to no support during the crisis.

On top of this, the remaining shelters report being left unsupported by state officials. Many of the youth homeless shelters are located in church social halls. If one person gets ill, there is no option to self-isolate.

One of Barnhart’s clients who is living in an LGBTQ homeless shelter was told to get tested for coronavirus after he began displaying symptoms in a shelter – a small community hall. However, he was unable to get tested as he had not been admitted to hospital, and he was forced to return to the shelter untested. He had to remain in the shared hall, risking his own safety and the safety of others.

Barnhart and Reverend Tony Newmark who runs the LGBTQ youth homeless shelter contacted the state government over what to do about the matter. Barnhart explains that they were told, “when they come back from the hospital you have to isolate them and we said, we’ve got one big room. We don’t have another room to isolate them. There was no response, not one instruction, nothing.”

To keep up with the increased use of their services, New Alternatives is having to apply for emergency funding in an attempt to continue operating and protecting LGBTQ young people during the lockdown.

Navigating the world of online dating with autism

Discrimination on Tinder, but liberation on kink and fetish sites. Welcome to the world of online dating for people with autism.

“I avoid saying I’m autistic on dating apps like Tinder and Bumble because people unmatch me or try and take advantage of me, assuming I’m slow and will be manipulated into doing things,” says Emma, a 22-year-old student from St. Helens in Merseyside.

For most of us, dating apps are a staple, if not an integral part of our modern dating lives. Research released earlier this year by Stanford University showed that meeting online has now become the most popular way for couples to meet, surpassing meeting romantic partners through friends or family for the first time in history. But sites like Tinder are not always accessible to some of society’s most overlooked people.

More than 1 in 100 people in the UK are diagnosed with autism, according to the National Autistic Society. The factors causing autism are not yet fully understood, and it is a lifelong condition which can affect everything from how people with autism communicate, understand social situations and can potentially lead to anxiety and learning difficulties.

“The dating apps are for neurotypicals who want to hook up,” Emma says adamantly. She explains that ‘neurotypical’ is the word given to people who do not have conditions like autism, but to her, it clearly has a negative connotation. “People have associations with autism and think we’ll only be suited to other autistics. They’re embarrassed to be with us,” she says.

Simply Autism Support

Emma was diagnosed with autism when she was 15 (or, as she tells me, on 7^th January 2016, to be exact). Like a lot of young people her age, Emma is sharp and socially and politically engaged. After realising the extent to which autism was misunderstood in the mainstream media, Emma set up Simply Autism Support, a Facebook support group for people with autism.

“There’s such little support for people with autism that’s either for everyone, offers all year support, free to access or something that’s even just run by someone on the autistic spectrum,” Emma explains. She says her experiences with online dating was one of the reasons she set up the support group.

Emma says she had men talk down to her while she used dating apps, saying they assumed she’d be “too thick” to understand their intentions. She also says she had to stop using Tinder after becoming too self-conscious of people’s perceptions of her once they met up in person. For Emma, she finds communicating through her phone and laptop a breeze, but “seriously struggles socially” face to face.

And this is heartbreaking to hear: identifying as bisexual, Emma has been teased for her sexuality growing up, has never been in a relationship, and was bullied throughout school because of her autism. The discrimination hasn’t stopped online, but she’s at least been able to foster her own safe space through her support group.

Alex, who is 26 and was diagnosed with autism when he was 10, says dating apps are a microcosm of wider societal discrimination against autistic people, and the swiping system on apps like Tinder encourage people to make snap judgements about a person.

“I think stigma is the main issue we face,” Alex explains. “I think people don’t understand autism because it is such a unique thing and everyone is different. It’s such a wide ranging spectrum of people. I also think in general one of the biggest misconceptions with autism is how wide ranging the condition is. I don’t think that’s taken into account, especially with how things like Tinder encourage you to make such snap decisions about someone.”

Autistic dating

Jeff Lobel set up AutisticDating.net in 2010, a dating site designed for people with autism, after witnessing his 18-year-old son living with the condition. He was a mortgage adviser at the time, and had friends who also had autistic sons.

“They all just sat at home so insular,” Jeff explains, “and I thought, ‘how are these guys going to meet anyone if they can’t even go anywhere?’ Then I had the idea of setting up a dating website, and it all went from there.”

The site now has over 14,500 worldwide users, and has grown into not just a romantic platform, but an online community for people with autism, which Jeff says is the site’s biggest appeal. The site also has a ‘blog’ section where users can post blogs and interact with other people’s blog posts.

He says that sites like this can be a lifeline in tackling loneliness among people with autism, and points to how the more traditional dating apps like Tinder are not always autism-friendly.

“One of the core symptoms of male autism can be abject anxiety and social awkwardness. Autism can leave people feeling very anxious and not knowing how to talk to people. So meeting like-minded people who have the same condition as them can be a saving grace for some,” he explains.

Symptoms of autism exist along a spectrum, and Jeff says the severity of some people’s symptoms means the chances of people with severe autism “having a relationship with someone who is neurotypical is quite remote.”

The autism glass ceiling

Jeff says one of the barriers in trying to set up a dating site for people with autism is the disparity in diagnosis between men and women. For every one woman diagnosed with autism in the UK, three men are diagnosed with the condition, according to the National Autistic Society. Consequently, the gender balance of the site is about 70% male, 30% female.

Stuart Murray, a lecturer at the University of Leeds whose research focuses on representations of autism in the media, explains this disparity. “It may be that there are specific elements in the makeup of the male brain lead to autism being more prevalent in men, but no-one actually knows this. I’m not sure about this and there’s been some shoddy research into it,” he says.

He explains, in his opinion, the lack of diagnosis in women comes down to a wider male-centric medical system. “Because autism is seen as a condition that affects men more than women, the processes of evaluation and diagnosis are extremely poor at spotting autism in women,” he says. “So there might be a biological element, but it’s definitely socio-cultural and too many girls and women go undiagnosed.”

This can lead to problems on the site. “You get a lot of frustrated men who sometimes jump in all over the women on the site, and then I think the women get scared and run occasionally,” Jeff says.

However, despite these setbacks, the site has resulted in marriages for various autistic partners.

“It feels great to have created something like this which has resulted in people getting married,” Jeff says.

Good connections

For some people with autism, social interaction can be overwhelming. Social media and dating apps which are conducted through online communication can consequently be a far more accessible and comfortable way of meeting people for those with autism.

Alex explains he was diagnosed with autism when he was 10. However, for Alex, one of his biggest symptoms of his autism is severe anxiety, and he says it can be hard to distinguish between the two conditions.

As a result of his autism and anxiety issues, he was housebound throughout his late teens and early twenties. He says that online interaction and online friendships he made through the likes of Twitter were “a major part of my recovery process.”

“I’d say more than half of my friendship group now is people I first got in contact with through Twitter,” he says. “In some situations, I’ve been talking to people through Facebook and Twitter for one or two years before actually meeting them for the first time and having really in-depth conversations with them about everything and anything.”

He says he believes online interaction allows for a level of vulnerability and intimacy he can’t muster in real life. “Most of the conversations I had with people were about mental health problems, and in a face to face environment that would be very intense and emotional, but because you are behind a screen it’s less so.”

Alex also says he thinks people are less judgemental of autism on social media because they’re not able to see any physical symptoms. “It can definitely be less judgemental online. When you’re speaking to someone online, they’re speaking to you. Not to someone they think has autism.”

Breaking boundaries

Emma is particularly passionate about how people with autism are misunderstood and misrepresented in the mainstream media.

“People see the word autism and avoid it because they assign a stereotypical image and behaviour to it. Neurotypicals think we’re thick. People have heard of autism but know nothing of it or just assume we’re like their 4-year-old brother who has autism – there’s plenty of stereotypes,” she says.

Stuart says he believes autism is one of the most misrepresented neurological conditions out there, and says hit films and TV shows like Rainman and The Big Bang Theory have helped paint an inaccurate picture of what people with autism look like.

“There is the commonly held assumption autistic people can’t and don’t show emotion, and can’t read the emotions of others. This seems a widespread idea but is wholly non-sensical,” he explains. “It makes people with autism out to be robotic or uncaring, when the opposite is very much the case. It angers me that people feel they ‘know’ what autism is because of this.”

As Emma and Alex are keen to point out, autism effects every person with the condition differently, and the reality of people with autism is they’re constantly breaking the stereotypes expected of them.

The day I speak to Alex, he’s suffering with a cold. His voice is hoarse and occasionally cracks. When I ask him where he picked the cold up from, his answer took me by surprise.

“I also use a fetish and kink dating app,” Alex tails off, obviously shy from the confession, but also giddy at the same time. “There was a kink and fetish convention on at the weekend, so I went along to that.”

Alex explains to me he has never had sex. He has tried online dating, but to no success. He went on one date with a girl he met through OkCupid, however he found himself ghosted by her after the date.

He explains that being housebound for a number of years due to his autism and anxiety has left him feeling “10 years less experienced than other people.” He says, “I’m 26 now, and just trying to figure this out almost like a 16-year-old going through it for the first time.” It’s bad enough having to go through being a 16-year-old once, let alone twice.

Sites like OkCupid which make you fill out a form before you join are too invasive in Alex’s experience, leaving him in a moral conundrum. “On OkCupid it asks you these questions like ‘are you more sexually experienced,’ ‘less sexually experienced’ and all that. Quite a lot of people want more sexually experienced. And it’s how you answer it. Do you be honest and get potentially less people, or do you lie and mislead a bit to get more potential connections?”

The event featured kink workshops, demos, “play things” and educational sessions. Alex says the weekend was an empowering experience. It was a non-judgemental, educational safe space, where everyone was there to explore their own interest in sex and kink, whether that be as a newbie or a kink-connoisseur – unlike the dating apps which he feels judged on.

As Alex points out, online dating apps like Tinder are a microcosm of wider societal issues. The snap judgements encouraged by the endless stream of swiping can allow for subconscious bias to creep through. Consequently, Alex is putting less pressure on himself to find love through the apps, trying to foster a healthier relationship with them.

“I still use dating apps regularly,” Alex says. “But I’m trying to put less energy into it and what will be will be type of thing. Even though I hate that sort of bullshit, there’s an element of truth to it.”

So, was the kink convention worth the cold? I ask him.

He laughs, sniffling.

“It was definitely worth the cold,” he beams.

Meet the Gen Zers who are falling in love with strangers online

“It’s not just a screen. It’s a screen that shows a person” – Gen Z are redefining relationships. But would you enter into a relationship with someone you hadn’t met IRL?

It’s no secret that Generation Z – or those born after 1997 – are making waves and leaving their own unique mark on the world, despite most Gen Zers being under 20 years old. Growing up in a ‘post-digital’ world where they’ve grown up in an increasingly globalised society thanks to the likes of social media, these young adults and teens are defined by their liberalism, acceptance of racial, sexual and gender minorities, and living their lives online.

But beyond this, Gen Z are reshaping traditional ideas of love and relationships in the wake of this post-internet explosion.

This hasn’t come without its downfalls. Gen Z has been characterised as a generation of commitment-phobes who are killing romance as we know it. And this is all while being labelled as the least sexual generation to walk the planet. One Medium article that went viral in May pronounced that Gen Z are “more interested in their smartphones than the opposite sex,” (assuming Gen Z to be an entirely heterosexual generation) and The Atlantic even said that American young people were in the middle of a “sex recession” and a “sex drought.”

But new evidence shows this is not the case. The Singles in America 2019 report released at the end of July showed that 70% of Gen Zers said they were motivated to find a long-term partner. And again, despite the characterisation Gen Z may have got, one third of Gen Zers said they had stopped dating someone who refused to label their relationship. This is a generation of young people who know their worth and won’t accept anything less.

“What we’re finding is that young people are interested in love and are taking it quite seriously,” Justin Garcia, a senior researcher for the Match.com report, told USA Today.

“There’s a whole generation of people who are appreciating the extent of relationship diversity that’s possible, and we’re seeing more people being open and assertive about what kind of relationship they want,” he said.

But how far are Gen Zers really willing to go for a relationship, and how far has the digital revolution transformed what it means to be in a relationship in the 21^st century?

While Michael Spencer’s comment that Gen Zers are too concerned with their phones to care about relationships may be a tired cliché young people are tired of hearing, it is true that social media and relationships are no longer two separate entities, but deeply connected.

Gen Z: going the extra mile for love

Naomi fell in love with her boyfriend in 2017 when she was 20 years old. Being part of the heavy metal music community, they had both felt like outsiders their whole lives, struggling to form deep emotional connections with anyone around them. That is, until they met each other. But there was a catch: Naomi is from Bath, England, while her boyfriend Spencer is from North Carolina, USA. That, and they didn’t meet in person until their one-year anniversary.

The pair met on Twitter and fell into a relationship after developing a deep attachment to each other after months of online interaction. In total, the pair have spent six days in each other’s company throughout their year and a half relationship.

The couple began speaking after Naomi posted a picture of herself taking part in a hashtag started by the band Asking Alexandria to promote their new album. Spencer commented on the picture, and the pair began to enjoy back and forth banter from across the Atlantic. They began messaging each other, before progressing to Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.

Naomi and Spencer opened up about their issues with bullying, mental health problems and previous toxic relationships, until one day Spencer suddenly confessed, “I am hopelessly in love with you.” They officially became boyfriend and girlfriend on Christmas day. “I literally had my own Love Actually storyline,” she giggles, in a way only those experiencing their first love can.

It wasn’t until one year into the pair’s relationship that the infatuated couple locked eyes on each other in the flesh.

“You know that feeling of when you’re about to do something really exciting like you’re going on a trip or you’re going on this day out?” she says about that plane journey to America to meet him in person for the first time. “It was like that but on a much bigger scale. I was there thinking, well either he’s going to be there or he’s not.”

But really, Naomi had little doubt he was going to be there. A digital native who was used to meeting up with people from the metal community who she had met online, she says their communication had left her sure of his identity. “Once we started Snapchatting and he sent me videos, I knew this person was real. I never doubted it.”

Fibre optic love

And Naomi isn’t the only Gen Zer who’s willing to go the extra mile for their relationship. Kieran met Lily on Twitter in 2014. Kieran was from Surrey, Lily from a small village in France.

“I remember talking to friends at school before I met her, explaining to them, ‘I’ve met this girl, I’m going to go visit her in France soon.’ It felt normal,” Kieran says, who was 17 at the time. “There wasn’t any weird reactions to it. I think it was more the distance thing rather than meeting someone online my friends found strange.”

Kieran was secretive of his relationship to his parents. Kieran and Lily had been chatting for 5 months when Kieran developed feelings for her. He soon flew out to France and met her for the first time. “I told them that I was staying with a friend,” he says. “I was quite tentative to discuss it with my family because if I said ‘oh I really like this girl I might start a relationship with her and she’s over in France and I’m going to go over and meet her for the first time,’ it sounds a bit strange,” he admits.

Telling her parents was also an issue for Naomi. Despite her confidence in her relationship with Spencer, she faced some opposition from friends and family before she embarked on her trip to America.

“He was a bit apprehensive,” Naomi says hesitantly about her dad when she first told him she was in a relationship with a guy she met on Twitter. Naomi lives with her Dad and stepmother, after her mum died in a car accident when she was 15. Trying to hide the relationship wasn’t an option, she says.

“My dad is a liberal person, but I think this was on the edge of what he could cope with,” she says.

Her stepmom had the typical reaction people have when she tells them about her relationship, she explains. “When I spoke with my stepmom, she was very much like why don’t you go for people who are from around your area. But I was just like, no one local is like Spencer.”

Love: an open pursuit

What connects Naomi and Kieran is their faith and openness to online relationships. Both are heavily involved in different internet subcultures, and the idea of forming relationships online whether that be platonic or romantic is nothing new to them.

Kieran is a self-described online vegan activist. The day before we speak, he partook in the London Animal Rights march, which attracted over 12,000 marchers to the country’s capital. While there, he met up with various friends he had met on Twitter through the online vegan community.

In fact, Kieran thinks meeting people through social media is an optimum way of meeting people you’re interested in, rather than being forced together by circumstance. “It’s a more accurate way of finding people you actually like,” he says about social media. “Say at school, you’re around all these people but you’re forced to be around each other. If you go on social media however you can follow who you want to. You can base friendships on common interests. It’s a more refined way of meeting people.”

For Naomi, there isn’t a difference between living a relationship online, and living a relationship with someone in person.

“I don’t think there is a difference aside from the fact it’s formed online as opposed to forming in real life,” Naomi says adamantly. “Most people think, oh you have that screen blockage, you don’t know each other. You just see a screen and you don’t know they’re an actual person, but that’s just bullshit. Because it’s not just a screen, it’s a screen that shows a person.”

Naomi says that falling in love online is all about “openness” and how willing someone is to drop any performative element to our online personas which might prevent someone from getting to know us.

“If that person is willing to be open to you, that can lead to so many different stories about them. And that is the same thing as when you meet someone in real life, it’s the same thing,” she says.

The kids are alright

In many ways, Naomi and Spencer’s relationship is the embodiment of Gen Z tropes. When the pair first met when Naomi flew to North Carolina, to break the ice they found comfort in quoting Vines at each other. While there, they made a YouTube video together discussing their favourite albums. They had a date night watching their favourite YouTubers. Since returning to the UK, Naomi has remained connected to Spencer by making joint TikTok videos with him from across the globe. Their relationship was formed online, connected through a love of digital culture and online humour.

But, despite the uniqueness of their situation, there is an undeniable relatability to their relationship.

Naomi points to how every relationship has its pitfalls that couples must overcome. “I didn’t go into this relationship thinking it’s going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time,” she says. “And I think that’s the reality of every relationship, that it’s not going to be happy 24/7, Stepford Wives nonsense.” Rather than be nervous of whether he was going to be at the airport to meet her, she says “the main thing” running through her head was, “why is anyone interested in me?”

Say what you want about couples who have fallen in love online with people they haven’t met, but for the people involved, it is inextricably, unquestionably love, whether people agree with them or not. And if people think they’re in love, then who’s to say they’re not?

An unlikely source of wisdom for this question comes from Kevin Wong, who set up a pen pal letter writing app called Slowly. Kevin set up the app in 2017, after experiencing what he called the “magic” of having a pen pal when he was a child. The app mirrors traditional letter writing in which users are matched with a pen pal from around the world, and won a Google Play App award for ‘best breakthrough app’ in 2019. Users send digital letters to each other, which have a ‘delivery time’ as if being sent through the post. He describes how the company was being increasingly notified by users who were finding romance through the app from across the globe.

“The world is a strange place,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it works for everyone [falling in love with people online], but chances are for those who are willing to open up their mind and take the first step, then it can 100% happen. The world is full of surprises, and you just have to be open to what it throws at you.”

Naomi’s mum and dad met at church. Kieran’s grandparents met at a local hall dance. Maybe social media is the Generation Z equivalent of a local dance hall. It’s all about being in the right place, at the right time. Or in this case, being logged on to the right social media and being connected.

#InPoverty: Why LGBTQ people are over-represented within homeless statistics

With 1 in 4 homeless people identifying as LGBTQ in Wales, is enough being done to tackle the hidden problem of LGBTQ homelessness?

For most, home is a place of sanctuary, a place of security, a place of safety. It is the foundations that keep our lives rooted.

However, for many, this is not the case. The idea of ‘home’ is a far-off idea that doesn’t resemble their own lives.

In the UK around 300,000 people are homeless, according to the leading homeless charity Shelter. While it is a known fact many sleep rough on our streets every day, what is less known is how the LGBTQ community is grossly over-represented within these figures.

In fact, around 24% of the homeless youth population are LGBTQ, despite only around 5-7% of the population identifying as LGBTQ according to LGBTQ charity Stonewall. This means one quarter of all homeless young people identify as LGBTQ.

The reasons for these statistics are clear. Reports show that LGBTQ homeless people are often rejected from the family home, or have faced significant homophobia and abuse that has led to their homelessness.

“Almost one in four members of the LGBTQ community in Wales experienced a hate crime in 2017 alone”

“A flatmate committed a hate crime against me,” said Amal, 23 from Wales, to Stonewall Cymru. “The police advised me this was illegal and I shouldn’t return. My letting agents tried to force me to return and tried to get money from me for a place that was unsafe for me to live. This scenario made me homeless days before Christmas.”

Despite progress being made with LGBTQ rights, according to Stonewall Cymru’s Hate and Discrimination report, almost one in four members of the LGBTQ community in Wales experienced a hate crime in 2017 alone. And the issue of LGBTQ homelessness highlights the social inequalities in a way like no other.

Here, queer, and vulnerable

There are added vulnerabilities LGBTQ people face when homeless.

LGBTQ people are more likely to suffer from mental health problems. In a study carried out by the NHS released in November, they found LGBTQ teens are almost three times more likely to suffer from mental health problems than non-LGBTQ teens.

Mental health rates in LGBTQ teens compared to heterosexual teens according to NHS data

Ben, a 28 year old gay man, spoke about the difficulties he faced with his mental health after finding himself homeless and being placed in a temporary housing hostel. A place which he felt was unsuitable for his needs.

“I think being gay and identifying as LGBTQ made living there more tough, as I didn’t know if anyone else living there was also LGBTQ,” Ben said in an interview with Mind Out, an LGBTQ mental health charity.

“I feel being isolated like that among other people heightened my anxiety again because it wasn’t a stable place to live.”

In a report by the LGBTQ homeless youth charity the Albert Kennedy Trust, almost 70% of LGBTQ homeless young people had faced parental rejection and suffered physical, emotional or sexual abuse from their own families after coming out. In fact, 77% of homeless young LGBTQ people said their sexual/gender identity was a crucial factor in them becoming homeless.

Being rejected from the family home was in itself “damaging” and likely to cause long-term mental distress, the report said.

Support for the down and out

Wales has one of the only government-funded projects to tackle the issue in the UK.

Shelter Cymru, a leading homeless charity here in Cardiff, has an LGBTQ homeless outreach and awareness project.

“We have a lot of young people approaching Shelter after coming out to their parents and then getting forced to leave their family homes,” said Kath Dobie, head of the LGBTQ project at Shelter Cymru. Shelter also work alongside Stonewall Cymru, having cross-organisation collaboration to provide more nuanced advice for LGBTQ people facing homelessness. Shelter receives £7,000 from the Welsh government a year for their LGBTQ support.

She explained how the project is mainly about raising awareness of the specific issues that LGBTQ people face when homeless, including their increased vulnerability and the factors that often lead to their homelessness. She said that they work alongside housing companies to help promote equality within the housing sector, after Stonewall Wales Cymru found that 10% of LGBTQ people had felt discriminated against while trying to find housing.

“My partner and I were looking to rent a property,” Ceri, 43, told Stonewall Cymru. “There was also another couple interested in renting, who were given the tenancy of the house. When my partner and I enquired as to why we didn’t meet the rental criteria, the estate agent said the landlord decided to let the ‘normal’ couple have it.”

“More needs to be done to ensure the safety and future of the LGBTQ community”

However, despite this, there are no specific LGBTQ homeless hostels in Wales.

In fact, shockingly, the UK only has one permanent LGBTQ homeless shelter.

The shelter, which can be found in London, was granted funding in July. The shelter provides work-access schemes and mental health support.

Bob Green, the chief executive of Stonewall Housing, said in a statement that having a specific LGBTQ shelter was important so LGBTQ people can “access a range of services and social networks” and “celebrate their identity and achieve their full potential.”

However, for the people of Wales, a hostel in London is not an option. Lisa Powell, a campaign activist for Pride Cymru said there needs to be more support for people outside of the English capital.

“The government is not doing enough to help LGBTQ people,” she said. “More needs to be done to ensure the safety and future of the LGBTQ community.”

‘Coming out’ shouldn’t equate to down and out. People should be able to come out in the safety of their own homes, with a roof firmly over their heads.

Every LGBTQ person deserves a home.

For the love of plants: interview with Eartha’s Stephen Peckham

The owner of new pop-up plant shop discusses personal growth, mental health and his love of plants

Stephen Peckham, 28, has brought a millennial flare to Cardiff’s plant scene. With his pop-up plant shop, Eartha, having just opened a stall within Cathays’ vegetarian restaurant Milgi, the two businesses are a perfect pairing.

He is trendy, warm and approachable. Even though he says this was not intentional, his plant shop taps into the rising popularity of house plants and Instagram-ready work spaces.

From humble roots to rosier outcomes

Despite the wholesome community feel to Eartha, the business arose after Stephen suffered from a series of mental health difficulties, and had to take four months out of his previous job as a film festival coordinator for the Iris Prize Film Festival.

“I started thinking about what helped me with my mental health,” Stephen says, “what brings me joy and what do I really want to bring to other people, and I came back to plants.”

“I learned quite young that these life circumstances can be quite crushing, but I learned to not let them define who I am and where I’m going,” he said. And indeed, Stephen explains how he had a turbulent time growing up. His parents died when he was 13, and he and his four other siblings lived together in a council house.

He continued, “It took getting to a very low place and accepting that I hadn’t dealt with a lot of what I went through in my adolescence and then also thinking, ‘fuck it’, maybe I should do what I always wanted to do from the beginning.”

Nurturing plants for all

Stephen had a love of plants from a young age. He always wanted to study botany at university. However, he says, “especially after that background, botany seemed quite foreign to me. I attached this elitism and academia to it that I just couldn’t see myself in.”

Instead, he studied art and book design – something which he still uses to this day. He makes “care cards” to go with the plants so that people know how to look after them.

He notes how while he lived in Madrid for two years, the plants were rarely labelled, and it made it harder to look after them as a result.

“I really want to encourage and enable customers regardless of their background to be able to look after and care for plants. It’s all about nurturing,” he says.

 

More than just the plants

“On the surface,” Stephen says, “it’s just a plant shop. But a hidden message beneath it is accepting that life is not always easy and it can’t be, but when you’re in the face of adversity you get through it and you grow from it, and that these things happen for a reason.”

Stephen was able to set up the shop after starting a crowd-funder to cover the initial costs. He reached his target of £1,250 within 24 hours. He got donations from across the globe after getting donations from people he met while travelling South America. Community is at the heart of the shop.

Eartha is more than just a plant shop: it’s a conversation. On the shop’s second day in Milgi, people are coming up to Stephen, asking him about plants. The people enjoying their Saturday lunchtime coffees can’t help but discuss the plant-filled utopia they find themselves in.

After all, he says, “I didn’t do this to make a lot of money”, he pauses, “it was more about surviving.”

The lover, the nurse and the thief: Incredible story of three criminals hanged for murder at Birmingham prison

[Originally posted in the Birmingham Mail]

Birmingham’s history is one full of murders, death and public executions.

Our hallowed streets were haunted by a series of crimes and cold-blooded killers were met their fate at the gallows for their crimes.

A shocking total of 39 executions were carried out in Birmingham’s Winson Green Prison between 1885 and 1962.

A plaque marking Birmingham’s final public hanging was unveiled in 2008, 202 years after it took place. An astonishing 40,000 people turned up to witness the brutal execution – half of the city’s total population at the time.

Philip Matsell, a member of a notorious gang of thieves, was convicted for shooting dead ‘peace officer’ (an early type of police officer) Robert Twyford. He is said to have been hanged on 22 August 1806 on the very spot that he shot Mr Twyford near Snow Hill.

While this was Birmingham’s last ever public hanging, the final one in Britain did not occur until 60 years later in 1868 in London.

However, Birmingham Live reported in 2012 that Matsell’s conviction is far from certain.

Amateur historian Kay Hunter, who spent over two years examining archives, said that, ‘at the trial, Matsell’s alibi wasn’t thought credible.

‘After his death, it was found it could have been credible. On the night of the murder he was actually drunk and totally incapable’.

Matsell’s final words before facing his execution on the gallows were the hallowing final utterance of ‘here goes’. What a way to go.

Henry Kimberley, 1885

Henry Kimberley – the first man hanged in Winson Green

The case of Henry Kimberly is a tragic Christmas tale involving an ex-lover, a revolver and a hanging.

Kimberley became the first man to be executed in Birmingham’s Winson Green Prison in 1885. In fact, he was the first person to face capital punishment in a Victorian jail.

His execution came 79 years after Birmingham’s final public execution. Consequently, the Birmingham Daily Post at the time reported that the case ‘acquired greater interest than commonly attaches to the hangmen’s duties’ as a result.

Kimberley was convicted in 1884 for murdering Emily Palmer, who wasn’t even the intended victim of his crime.

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This was a tragic tale of male entitlement, one that sounds like it could only come out of a film.

The 53-year-old tool maker had split up with his lover, Harriet Stewart, before begging her back two days after Christmas.

After refusing his advances which complied of pleas lasting a reported 45 minutes, Kimberley then drew a revolver on his former lover, who was only 24 years old.

Despite shooting her at point blank range in the left of the skull, Stewart somehow astonishingly survived the blow.

However, her best friend Emily Palmer – whose husband owned the White Hart pub on Paradise Street where the incident took place – jumped to save her, when a bullet intended for Stewart hit her instead. Palmer died instantly.

The Birmingham Daily Post also reported that ‘a crowd had assembled outside the gaol and as time wore on, and the fatal moment more nearly approached, there were many additions to the assemblage, until at the hoisting of the black flag it was estimated that there were at least 15,000 persons present’. They also described how all onlookers could see was a ‘grim-looking bunch of black bunting’ – an eerie setting for an eerie case.

A tale that could have been a Dickens’ novel, but one that occurred on the very streets of Birmingham.

Dorothea Waddingham, 1936

Nurse Dorothea Waddingham, hanged in April 1936, for the murder of Miss Ada Baguley, who died in the home of Nurse Waddingham at Devon-drive, Sherwood, Nottingham

Dorothea Waddingham was a cold blooded murderer who turned her Nottingham home into a fake hospital in order to murder her patients.

The unqualified nurse murdered two of victims by poisoning them with deadly levels of morphine, but only after she left herself an estate worth £1,600 in their will.

One of her victims, Ada Baguley, had originally left her mother a £1,600 estate in her will. However, her family were shocked to find that Ada had changed her will shortly before she died, suspiciously leaving everything to Waddingham and her husband.

While initially the death of Ada and her mother were treated as unsuspicious, Waddingham was finally caught after a post-mortem examination discovered alarming levels of morphine in the pair’s organs.

Despite the brutality of her crimes, she gained a surprising amount of public sympathy. 10,000 people protested outside the Winson Green prison on the day of her execution. They chanted, ‘stop this mother murder’. The 37-year-old wife won public support despite her crimes due to the fact that she was breast feeding her 3-month year old son at the time of her execution.

During her trial she pleaded for mercy on the basis she was mother of 5 young children. But these pleas were denied.

She was found guilty and sentenced for execution at Winson Green on the 27 February 1936.

Oswald Augustus Grey, 1962

The last person to be hanged in Birmingham’s Winson Green prison was Oswald August Grey, who was only 20 years old when he was sent to the gallows on November 22 1962.

This was only 3 years before capital punishment was suspended in 1965, before it was totally abolished in 1969.

Grey was sent to death after the murder of Thomas Arthur Bates, a news agent from Edgbaston.

But his conviction was hardly certain, and once again showed the harsh punishment people could receive despite somewhat shaky evidence.

Bates had been watching the TV in the back room of his shop, before he heard a customer enter the shop.

The site of the last public hanging in Birmingham in 1806

After hearing a loud bang, his mother found him collapsed on the floor. She had assumed that he had died of a medical emergency. However, doctors found that the 46-year-old had been shot through the chest, through the heart and lungs.

A black man had been seen outside the shop around the time of the murder, and Grey was one of several men arrested.

Throughout his trial, Grey maintained his innocence. In fact, during his trial, four women testified his innocence, insisting that he was not the man that they had seen outside the news agent.

However, one witness was certain that Grey was the correct man.

It also didn’t help his case that he admitted to stealing a pistol from the room of a 60-year-old Handsworth man. Grey insisted, “I stole a revolver but I did not shoot anyone.”

Grey was found guilty on 13 October 1962 where he was sentenced to death.

Despite the sentence, Police were accused of using ‘third degree methods’ to force a confession out of Grey.

Violent methods for a violent end.

Love Island terms translated and the social media guide to dating

Originally posted on Birmingham Live

Navigating modern dating can be a nightmare.

As Love Island has shown, millennials’ approach to dating can be an alien thing. From ‘grafting’ to ‘chirpsing’ to ‘gaslighting’, it can often seem contestants are speaking a different language. And in many ways, they are.

Social media and, most importantly, Tinder, has not only changed the way we date, but the language we used towards it. Social media has added a whole new level to flirting, how we flirt, and our methods of flirting.

So next time you’re trying to navigate your way through modern flirting, make sure you know all the modern lingo and dating etiquette to ensure your dating success.

The next time that guy in the office you’ve been making eyes at over the coffee machine likes your latest Insta post or someone ‘slides into your DMs’, don’t miss the perfect opportunity to secure your flirt.

Catfish

Originally a term used when someone adopts a totally fake online persona traditionally to take advantage or manipulate someone, it is now meant in a more informal sense.

A ‘Catfish’, as it’s more commonly used, is someone who uses flattering photos of themselves on dating apps which are considered significantly hotter than they actually are to attract people in, before meeting up with them in real life.

While we’re all guilty of using flattering photos on social media and dating apps, a Catfish is almost unrecognisable.

Chirpse

The absolute cornerstone of modern dating slang. To chirpse is to flirt. But also maybe somewhat confusingly to people, not up to date with dating lingo, your chirpse is the person whom you are chirpsing. Simple, right?

Cracking on

Similar to chirpse, but not quite. Cracking on is when you decide to cut the waffle, and just get down to the flirt.

Cuffing season

There’s a reason why there are so many Christmas rom coms. Cuffing season refers to the winter months when the winter blues gets to even the most hard-line singletons out there.

It is when all single folk suddenly start getting broody for a relationship and, more importantly, a cuddle to help keep them warm during the cold winter nights. Who said cuddling was underrated?

Exclusive

Why make things simple when you could just make things complicated?

Commitment, security and long-term happiness is the Tinder generation’s greatest fear, it appears.

Exclusive is when you and the person that you’re seeing are 100% totally NOT in a relationship, but you text each other constantly, see each other constantly, sleep with each other constantly, and agree to not see anyone else. But as I said, you’re TOTALLY not in a relationship. Totally.

Feels

The oh so dreaded ‘feels’. ‘Feels’ is when you start to catch feelings for someone you didn’t necessarily intend to, or necessarily want to. With negative connotations, ‘the feels’ are typically seen as an unwanted nuisance, like getting feelings for a fiend, college, or a friend with benefits, for example.

Fire

Referring to the infamously used fire emoji, ‘fire’ is when someone is heart eye emoji FIT. If you’re still referring to people as ‘hot’, just know that you’re so still stuck in the noughties.

Facebook official

If you and your significant other make it official on Facebook then you’re essentially signalling to your friends that you may as well be getting married.

Ghosting

‘Ghosting’ happens when you’ve been speaking to someone online – you never know, you may have even gone a couple of dates with them – and then, bam, they stop replying just like that, no explanation.

If the ghosting came especially as a surprise, you might send the odd follow up message in the hope that there is a totally reasonable and totally not rude reason as to why they’re blanking you.

So you send a few messages of, ‘how are you?x’ or ‘wanna go for a drink sometime?’ and still… nothing. And just like that, your fling is over. Their eerie silence saying more than words ever could.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting recently made headlines following Adam’s behaviour on Love Island.

Gaslighting is a more serious one, it’s when someone emotional manipulates you and makes you doubt your own understanding of events, making you feel bad for actions they have done.

Following Adam’s treatment of Rosie on Love Island, domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid issued a statement saying that his behaviour showed ‘clear warning signs’, after he accused Rosie of overreacting when she got jealous of his behaviour with Zara, before he went off with Zara and left Rosie alone.

Graftin

Ah, grafting, we’ve all been there. ‘Grafting’ is the agonising and elongated process when you are trying to attract your chirpse’s attention. Involves a lot of hard work and often involves an increased amount of time getting ready, ruthlessly ensuring that you look better than any person your crush has laid eyes on. Because whoever just tries to tell their crush they like them anyway?

Online flirting

Not so much a word but a concept. Online flirting or ‘social media chirpsing’ as it is sometimes known as, is when you have a thing for someone, and you consistently like their recent Instagram posts/Tweets/Facebook updates.

It is rarely anything outside of social media, but is just meant as a flirtatious effort to let your crush know that you’re interested. Risks however include looking too keen and overreading even the most innocent of likes.

Proofing

Has anyone ever sent you a text and you don’t know what to reply? Proofing is when you screenshot the message causing you grief, send it to the group chat, and your friends help you draft, edit and proofread your response. This is what friends are for after all, right?

Sliding into the DMs

Often accompanied by that slightly odd emoji with the slanty flirtatious smile, sliding into someone’s DMs refers to messaging someone on social media but with flirtatious motivations. DMs – or ‘direct message’ – is the messaging system on Twitter, and ‘sliding into someone’s DMs’ often occurs after a little bit of the old online flirtation. Classic.

The ‘Ick’

the unexplained phenomenon of when you’ve been on a few dates with someone and it’s been going well! And then, for some unknown reason, you suddenly start hating every single thing they do. Not only that, but you realise that you’re even a little bit repulsed by them. Well, it was fun while it lasted.