Ace of Wands

Ace of Wands Playlist

I’m considering a social media fast.

Recently, I’ve been reading and thinking about how women are taught from the earliest age to self objectify, or see themselves from the outside in. Though I’ve never been particularly vulnerable to FOMO from social media use (perhaps because I’m kind of a homebody), I have not been entirely honest with myself about how social media affects my sense of confidence or self esteem, particularly about my body, or how it steals my creative energy and time.

When I’m online, I’m inundated with curated and expertly filtered images of other peoples’ bodies — bodies in swim suits, bodies in dresses, bodies on beaches, bounce back bodies, surgically enhanced bodies, revenge bodies, bodies bodies bodies. On TikTok, I am repeatedly served women giving tearful testimonials about Ozempic and other weight loss drugs. I try to flip past them quickly, in an effort to remain body neutral, and to also teach the algorithm that I’m not into its incessant body shaming. But, the algorithm also knows I’m a woman on the verge of forty, and what woman on the verge of forty, socialized under patriarchy, doesn’t want to completely change every fucking thing about themselves?

I wonder if I spend less time scrolling, will I feel better about myself? Will I be inspired by images and life experiences and funny little conversations with my children or my friends? Will the space time continuum suddenly open to reveal many more hours in each day? Will I finally be able to breathe?

Perhaps it’s time to turn my anger outward rather than inward. It’s not my fault I was born a woman in a world that treats women like ornaments (and property). It’s not my fault that I was taught that womanhood means constant body monitoring, shaping, contouring, minimizing, disappearing, ignoring... Do I want to continue to fret about my physical manifestation in the world, or would I like to get on with the rest of my business on this planet within the limited lifespan I've been given?

What would I write if I wasn’t constantly fretting about the size of my calves or whether my face is slightly rounder than it was yesterday? What ideas would come to me if I weren’t obsessing about my value in the world according to beauty standards set by filters and people I don't even respect? Who gives a shit if JD Vance would want to fuck me? I certainly wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole.

What could I think about if I were freed from the algorithm?

The ONLY thing I would miss online are the strange and beautiful art videos my friend, Jordan Stone, makes on TikTok. Jordan’s sister, Abby, is married to my brother, which makes us… we’re not sure. I like to think he’s my brother-in-law, but I don’t know if that’s technically true. Either way, I like him a lot. I like the way he thinks about and sees the world, and I’m completely blown away by the art he's making. Every time I watch one of his pieces, I'm reminded that though the internet can be a cesspool, it's also filled with beauty and LOLs, and every day interesting people are making weird, cool things.

As you’ll see in our conversation, Jordan isn’t sure what to call the work, or the person he is when he’s making it. I firmly place what he’s doing in the category of art, and he is absolutely an artist. His work reminds me what I love about collage — there’s something alchemical about letting your hands lead the way, about allowing images to draw you in and connecting, sifting, editing, and mashing existing images into something entirely new using intuition rather than rational thought. Making my Witch’s Mark Tarot deck connected me to an inner self I hadn’t tapped into since childhood, a self that didn’t second guess or criticize but sought to connect disparate parts of my own inner conversation.

My conversation with Jordan reminded me of the life-saving magic of creating personal art, and the trust you place in your subconscious when you’re an artist with a fledgling idea. 

Wands are the suit of fire, passion, and creativity. Wands burn bright (and sometimes quickly), but the suit reminds us that when you have the energy and fire of inspiration, harness it. The Ace of Wands represents an exciting new idea, a passionate beginning, a spark of inspiration. The Ace of Wands (like all aces) says Yes! Yes! There’s something here! Keep going!

Jordan made a new video inspired by our conversation that I will embed and link to below!

Eliza: Should we start?

Jordan: Yeah. And first of all, thanks, the way you support the little things I'm doing is so meaningful, it's really sweet. And I'm really flattered. I mean, you interview such accomplished, interesting people. So I'm really flattered that you wanted to talk to me.

Eliza: I think that you’re making incredibly important art. I’m very excited to talk to you about it. Do you think of yourself as an artist?

Jordan: That's a good question. I think it's particularly fraught given the work I'm doing on TikTok and Instagram compared to what my day job is. I work in advertising. I'm an advertising creative director, and there's kind of a tense relationship between commercial art, or some people wouldn't even say that, some people would take issue with that as a phrase. Historically, I wouldn't consider most of the stuff I work on, the stuff for brands that I do… that’s not art per se to me. There's all the hobby stuff I've done— photography, music projects... That ventures a little bit more into art, but then… the stuff I'm doing now, I don't know. I say it with a bit of… it’s kind of hard for me to to feel comfortable saying it's art, but I also think it is the closest thing to art that I've ever worked on.

Eliza: History will record it as art. When it is at MOMA that will have been decided. What we're talking about are these TikTok short videos that you make that are… hard to describe. It's part collage, part cultural criticism, part anthropological, part modern art. They're funny. They're sometimes creepy. I find them really powerful. How did the first one come to be?

Jordan: I think this will be a theme of the stuff we talk about, but I consider myself deeply online, extremely online. People have different terms for it. But, I spend a lot of time on the Internet. I'm not even that embarrassed of it. Some people are like it's a guilty pleasure, or, I really need to spend less time on my phone. I spend a lot of time on the Internet, and I wouldn't say I'm proud of it, but that's just a part of my identity. I started collecting videos that kind of felt, in aggregate, like a snapshot of culture and humanity right now. If I just scroll through all these videos I was saving, most of them had a bit of a humorous bent to them, I found them funny for the most part, but sometimes they were just interesting or poignant. They caught my eye for whatever reason. I had this collection of videos and I started posting them on my Instagram stories just as dumps, you know? There's creators who do that right now, people who just repost and curate a bunch of funny videos they find. I started posting them and my friends would like a lot of them. Out of all of the disciplines of film making, editing is the one I'm the most comfortable with. I've been doing that a really long time. I've edited TV spots for the work I've made, and that's the skill I'm most into creatively. I would make these year recap videos with my favorite videos that I took and create these kind of collages. I applied some of that thinking to the funny videos I was collecting — maybe I can put these together? And then, I mean, I think it's gonna come up sooner or later… But I think the most efficient way to describe the work I’m doing is that it is kind of an evolution of core core. Do you know what core core is?

Eliza: I am old and I am shamefully online, but in a very bumbling sort of way. I’ve seen “core core” in the comments of your TikTok videos, but I’ve been too embarrassed to ask, except for now, obviously, I've just come to terms with being a Luddite. What is “core core”?

Jordan: I'm almost nervous about articulating it, because I wasn't around or part of the genesis of it, and I don't claim any ownership of it. I actually think what I'm doing is different, but this is the easiest way for people to wrap their heads around it. A lot of the people that like core core, or have engaged with it for the past few years are the same audience who watch my stuff. It’s this kind of meta category of content. There’s all these different types of core, like norm core and cottage core. Core core is this kind of meta category which is self evident in some ways, and also means nothing. It’s kind of this pastiche of emotions and aesthetics. Time Magazine and Mashable and all these places have articles I'll send to people sometimes, just like a shortcut to be like: just read this article and you’ll understand. It was a thing that came up around 2020. And it was an aesthetic, more than anything, a vibe of cutting together different clips, capturing a feeling often of melancholy or malaise, or this kind of uncanny feeling. It was mashing up clips from the Internet with, for instance, clips from movies. It had this kind of collage effect, and it was often set to incongruous, dramatic music that evokes a feeling. What I'm doing is kind of an extension, or elaboration or evolution of that genre.

So, I made a video that wasn't referencing that work at all. If I look at the very first video I made, it doesn't even look like the stuff I'm making now. Even in the last few months it's been evolving. But I just made a video that mashed up stuff I curated. I love cutting to music. Finding good music is a really fun part of my day job. So cutting these clips to music was just… it didn't really have much deeper meaning. But it was the combination of curating these videos and my interest in editing and Internet culture.

Eliza: How long does it take you to make one?

Jordan: One fun thing about the Internet is, and it's kind of a cardinal rule of a lot of creators and people that make Internet content and have gotten a following… you can't be precious with socials. Youtubers will spend a month making a video, and it'll get no views. And then, a thing they casually put up the next day will go viral. So I try to remember that. I often think first idea, best idea. If I make something on the computer, and I’m like this is fucking good, I send it to my phone, and then if I watch it there and I like it, I'll generally just post impulsively right then. There’s a period of collecting the videos which is ongoing. That's always, just the moments in between when I'm messing around on my phone, I collect them, and then I download them and edit them, and that can take anywhere from a day to a week, sometimes more.

Eliza: I think one of the other reasons why I'm so drawn to your work is because I started doing all this physical collage recently. I made a Tarot deck… that concept of first idea, best idea feels like a function of collage. You don't want to second guess the impulse, which is so different from the other work I do where everybody has an opinion, and there's fifty rounds of notes, and you have to contend with your inner critic. To make something that has the kind of creative flow that your videos have, or that I feel when I’m using Modge Podge to put images together… there’s a subconscious at work there.

Jordan: I'm curious of what you think of your work, maybe more in the TV space or the entertainment space… do you think of that as art? Do you consider yourself an artist? I was curious to put that question back to you.

Eliza: That's a very complicated question for me, but yes, I do consider myself an artist. Prior to, let's say 3 years ago, I had a very cynical world view. I was also drinking a lot, which maybe has something to do with it, but I rolled my eyes at the idea of artist as a category or a thing you could describe yourself as. I felt like someone else can describe you as an artist, but describing yourself as an artist is somehow gross, cringey, or self important. But I've become a bit more earnest in my late thirties. There’s certainly a great deal of business that goes into television. I write plays occasionally, and when I’m doing theater that feels purely artistic, but maybe that’s because there's not as much money at stake. When I'm show running a show, I'm also an executive producer. On Y: The Last Man, I was overseeing a hundred million dollar budget. With that kind of money, you can't entirely just be an artist. You also have to be a manager, a therapist, a boss, you have to deal with budgets and complicated workplace dynamics, all that stuff. But the thing I do in my work is try to make sense of the world, put it through my own brain and figure out a way to express something, and honestly, that feels like art to me.

Jordan: That makes sense.

Eliza: In your early videos, it felt very collage, perhaps a bit more catch-all? But now it feels like you're really getting at a specific idea in each video, almost more of a video essay. Can you talk about that evolution?

Jordan: I think that they always were getting at some idea. It might have been more oblique, some of them are more indirect or vague. I think part of what you're reacting to is the stylistic choice of underscoring the visuals with some sort of archival audio that has more of an intellectual philosophical perspective, and the way that interplays with the visuals. That’s why I think people read them more as video essays. I mean, a lot of these terms sound too flattering…

Eliza: You are underselling the work. It’s phenomenal. Though I guess “video essay” could sound very, very serious, and your work is profound, but also quite funny.

Jordan: That's super nice. Thanks, I appreciate that. And yeah, I think that’s one of the most rewarding parts of this. The platform is a place where it's just literally this kind of dogmatic obsession, whatever gets engagement. That's how it works, the algorithm doesn't care about what you're making. It'll just surface it to people if other people are engaging with it, and I like the idea that the videos are meeting people where they are getting content. But then it’s recontextualizing the other things that they're seeing in that space. It gives me a chance to surface these really interesting thinkers that have had a big effect on me like John Berger. The people watching my video might have never come across this clip of John Berger with this prescient piece of audio about the way that human perspective works and how the invention of the camera fundamentally changed that. It’s hard for us to fathom that there was a time where all that you could experience was what you were looking at. And then there's this sea change in human evolution and existence with the invention of the camera. So it's this fun chance to kind of explore ideas in an arena where people don't expect that kind of content, and introduce these bigger ideas and themes. A big part of the work, whether it's top of mind or not, is just when you see an asinine or seemingly meaningless video in your feed, it’s actually always going to be a part of a bigger context. It’s a tiny reflection of something bigger that's going on. Sometimes it just needs to be plucked out of the endless scroll and put in a slightly different context and underscored with a different bit of audio. Then I think you realize, like, oh,  that's actually a much more profound, interesting, maybe damaging, maybe scary thing that's going on in culture or society or technology.

Eliza: How much younger are you than I am?

Jordan: I'm 34.

Eliza: Okay, and I'm about to turn 39. So you had the Internet a little bit earlier on in your childhood. There's a way in which older generations think about TikTok, that it’s all inane, stupid, self obsessed or self involved. But when you cut these videos together, and you take a video from a person who’s very earnest about some incredibly niche thing that they are excited about, it feels like you're celebrating or highlighting the weird, interesting ways that human beings see the world. I mean to speak about John Berger, there's definitely a Ways of Seeing vibe to all of your videos. It reframes the way I think about how people spend their time on the internet, trying to reach into the void, trying to communicate their point of view. Here’s a person recording a video of themself that they are going to post on the internet and hope somebody engages with it, but they have no control over it after that. You’re celebrating that reaching out that we’re all doing. To me, your work makes TikTok (and the internet generally) feel a lot more like an expression of humanity.

Jordan: Yeah, well, and the videos very purposely can be read multiple ways. At every point in history, new technology, going back to the beginning of printed word to radio and television, to the Internet, to social media… there’s always people that are scared about it and critical of it and have these predictions about this negative effect it'll have. And then there are also the people that are really optimistic about it. I believe on an atomic level that they're both right. It’s undeniable that there have been amazing things that have come about from social media and there are also bad things. Every video I make is a Rorschach test. 

Eliza: I was talking to your sister, who is my sister in law.

Jordan: I was wondering if there's a more efficient way to describe our relationship. But I think it's just… You are my sister's sister in law.

Eliza: So weird. I feel like you could just be my brother in law. You’re Uncle Jordan to my children, because you're Uncle Jordan to Arlo [my nephew]. Anyway, I was talking to Abby about your videos, and about the line you walk — are you making fun of these people? Are you celebrating them? Is it a little bit of both? There are certainly videos of yours where I'm laughing, and maybe I’m laughing at someone. But then sometimes I'll watch it again, and then I'm critical of myself for laughing. It doesn’t feel like you’re making fun of anyone. If anything, it feels like maybe you’re making fun of us as a collective. Humanity. Our species. Your work never feels mean to me.

Jordan: If authorial intent matters at all, I'm not laughing at these people, I’m not punching down or making fun of anyone I include. I've read most of the comments, and that's not the tenor of the conversation there either. People are not laughing at or making fun of the subjects in the videos. If someone is doing something and being critiqued, or you can interpret it as a critique, it’s never for anything that they can't control. It's not about the way they look, for example. I will try to use an example, a fake example that doesn't actually reference anything. But if someone is doing a really narcissistic, self-indulgent diatribe and I include a clip from that, and someone watches that and has a negative reaction, or thinks it's funny, then it might be a thing that's worthy of critique. But I'm definitely not trying to make make fun of anyone in the work, and I hope it doesn't come off like that.

Eliza: It doesn't. Well, and sometimes there are people who are, for want of a better word, funny-looking. But I always feel like those people are being lifted up, like you’re saying, pay attention, this person has something to offer. Those are not the people that are getting made fun of. If there's negative authorial intent ever, it usually stems from a self inflicted wound.

Jordan: I love the idea of celebrating or lifting up. That sounds maybe charitable when you watch the videos because it doesn't always feel like that. I think another important thing that's a big theme is excavating and archiving, and revealing esoteric, weird corners of the Internet that you might not see otherwise. There’s always some easy way to find a negative angle on that. But I think of that more in the positive light which is oh, I'm getting exposed to the breadth of human experience and emotion and perspective. I want to leave it as open as I can, but I also think that if you ever see someone that has a unique look I generally think of that as a positive. Say you’re seeing some guy in Tajikistan with a crazy haircut. That's cool and interesting from an anthropological perspective.

Eliza: Totally, and you've helped my algorithm because prior to your videos, my algorithm was pretty fucked up. I think maybe I was high or something, and I stayed for too long on a video of someone popping a zit, and now that's a thing I keep getting. I get a lot also ear cleaning. Or maybe I’m nasty, and that’s a thing I’m into.

Jordan: We want the technology to be a better version of ourselves, when we get biased responses back from AI, we think it's the AI’s fault. But it's just a mirror. It's literally just ingesting everything that's ever been written and giving it back to you. When you type in “nurse,” and it gives you only pictures of women, that’s not because the AI made a mistake. It's saying this is what your society has decided. Your algorithm is an amazing digital mirror of yourself. And it's really honest. It's just showing you what you've engaged with, or what it thinks you'll like. You might want to distance yourself from your For You Page, because it's almost too real sometimes. But I'm glad if my videos that you've engaged with online have helped steer it in a way you're more excited about. That's good.

Eliza: What I want are the funny videos. Every once in a while in your videos there's a clip that I've seen the original of, and that makes me feel extremely cool and hip and with it. That’s how hip I am, I use the word “hip.”

Jordan: I use that word too. That's a great, useful word.

Eliza: I've got the rizz. No, I'm just kidding.

Jordan: Not so much that one. I can't use rizz. Neither of us are allowed to use rizz.

Eliza: We're not allowed. It's fine. I'm okay with letting that one go. I'm always fascinated by the people in my life who are very into TikTok and get fed really interesting shit by the algorithm. Meanwhile, I’m like, why am I getting this video? Why does TikTok think that at 9:30pm I want to see a person pick a zit? It’s so gross. But clearly, I'm watching it for long enough that it keeps serving it to me. Anyway, that’s something that you know about me now.

Jordan: I'm not above a popping video. I'll go on record saying that.

Eliza: It's kind of satisfying. When the idea of ASMR videos came into my consciousness, I was sort of creeped out. But then I realized, there are sounds I enjoy and tactile experiences that I’m into. This is something that, like or not, human beings are into. But it is just plain weird that there are people creating content for others to watch like ripping paper and drumming their fingernails on various surfaces. That is just… weird. Wild. Sort of fascinating.

Jordan: ASMR is a crazy modern phenomenon. You couldn't have that content if you didn't have really high powered microphones, people never would have discovered they wanted that content or liked it. No one unprompted would be like damn I really want to hear a woman tear apart a piece of bread. You don't know that you want it until you see it. There's something amazing about it. And there’s also the question of do we really need to be mining our subconscious for every single niche of content that that excites us? What is the cost of that?

Eliza: In a weird way, and to sort of go completely left field, but when I quit drinking, I realized that I've been divorced from my body for most of my life. I have always felt like a brain being carried around on this thing that I begrudgingly lug around with me. When I quit drinking and started trying to address my desire to dissociate all the fucking time (although it feels pretty good to dissociate, honestly… anyway)… there’s something about realizing that I enjoy the sound of a fingernail scratching across skin or whatever that is obviously odd, but also kind of gratifying? Of course, there’s also a way that ASMR feels pornographic, like you want to watch a woman tear a piece of bread? That’s creepy. But it’s also an acknowledgement, maybe, of the weird ways that our brains work and the fact that we have bodies…

Jordan: It’s a very contemporary issue. In the digital world we talk a lot about losing connections with people. But it also separates us from tactile things, or like the collage stuff that you were talking about before. People in our world end up relishing or seeking out sensory experiences that connect us to what isn’t on our screens. And I think that's why in the design world, lots of creatives fetishize printed things that were not novel even twenty years ago, the way things are printed, or certain objects, because it ends up being a way that we connect to the physical world. 

Eliza: This conversation is kind of blowing my mind. It's fun to talk to somebody who actually enjoys the Internet.

Jordan: You think that there's generally a bit of pessimism and negativity around the discourse around the Internet these days?

Eliza: Well, I'm a mother to a 10 year old and a 6 year old, and a lot of the messages I get about the Internet are terrifying. It's going to ruin your child. Your child is going to see porn when they’re too young, and it's gonna ruin their ability to have a healthy relationship to their sexuality. There’s a lot to what you were saying about technology feeling scary in every era. New things are scary. That's why your videos have blown my mind. You've taken a form of content that feels very tossed aside, or even looked down upon, and turned it into a commentary about humanity that is really profound. It’s high/low art.

Jordan: Yeah, high/low hasn't come up yet, but that's obviously a huge thing I'm really interested in, and I think is pulled into relief in my work. I hate saying “my work.” Maybe “in the videos” sounds better?

Eliza: They both sound great, and I want you to say it with your whole chest!

Jordan: I think you know this, but I spent many years working at Snapchat and that informed a lot of my opinions about the Internet, because I spent a long time being even more of a tech optimist and really championing the way that these tools have the power to connect to people. I still work mostly in the big tech consumer space in my day job. But it's definitely complicated some of the things that I hold sacred in the past few years. Kids on social media and the effect it has on mental health… that was a big turning point for me. I've been thinking a little more critically about that. People have gained a lot. But what are they losing? What are the the hardships that people face online? That’s become a bigger part of my thought process. I think the thing about the Internet and being a big fan of it, and generally trying to celebrate it is.… I'd actually be really curious to know, because I know it's stuff that you care about, and it's just in culture right now, but have you tracked the Katy Perry “Woman's World” stuff?

Eliza: I mean I heard the song and wanted to die.

Jordan: Well, I’m not gonna dig into it too much. But there’s a Rolling Stone podcast l listen to that was explaining how this could have come to be, the way that she could have misstepped so badly and misread the room. It was kind of a throwaway comment that the Podcaster made that stuck with me. She went on to talk about other things, but in passing she kind of says that Katy Perry thinks she's really online, but actually maybe she’s not online enough. That's kind of a scary middle ground to be in, to really believe that you get what's going on. How online you are, how much you understand the zeitgeist… that's really profound to me. The podcaster is making the point that in today's era the idea that someone can speak with any sort of authority, or say they understand what's going on in culture, especially youth culture, without being deeply online… I'm very skeptical of that… I would love to talk to the person who really gets what's going on in the minds and hearts and emotions of especially young people who isn't spending a lot of time online. I love culture and I love people. And the internet is mainlining that. It's just the most direct way.

Eliza: Absolutely. “Woman's World” felt very much like an out of touch celebrity completely misreading the room. Maybe it’s a woman's world for Katy Perry, she can have an abortion anytime she wants. It felt very White Woman in 2016 who can’t see what’s coming (which, by the way, is who I was in 2016, but in the years since, oh how we’ve learned what depths of hell are possible). Have you always been a creative person? What did you want to be when you were a kid?

Jordan: As early as I can remember I had creative ambitions. I loved film. It wasn't always that direct path like, Oh, I want to be a director. Something about video and motion pictures really inspired me. I wanted to be in that world.

Eliza: How did you get into marketing?

Jordan: Well, I went to film school, and after, I had a really funny brief detour into journalism — I spent 6 months at CBS News, which was a hilarious miss. It was so silly. I essentially realized I needed to really figure out what I wanted to do for work. How can I do something creative? I realize that even more so than feature films and TV shows, even though I love consuming them, the types of things that I was most creatively energized by were short form. Music videos and commercials. So I got in with a commercial production company. And then, the industry kind of unfurled in front of me. I don't take any umbrage with calling it marketing, but I think of it more as advertising. Marketing has business associations, you get an MBA, whereas advertising evokes the 1984 Apple Spot, or any ad you love. I think of that as advertising, and that world is, whether people understand it or not, much closer to film and TV and music videos. You're working with directors and the same composers. The gaffer you're working with will be doing a film one day, and a commercial the next day. A lot of my favorite directors, some of their most interesting stuff is short form. Spike Jonze is the easy, obvious example. I realized that advertising was this amazing marriage of creative craft film making and the intellectual, cultural, Internet stuff we're talking about. I get to fuse those ideas into my day job. What’s going on in culture and how do you create a message that will resonate with people? I feel super lucky that I found it, it suits me very well.

Eliza:  It's also anthropological. It's kind of magical, you’re asking: what are people feeling? How can I elicit a feeling from them in a way that will resonate? It's super interesting to me. I'm so sorry I called it marketing. I don't know anything.

Jordan: I'm not offended. It’s helpful, even just to myself, to make it feel like it's a little cooler. Even though I work with marketers, and I think what they do is really impressive, it’s just not exactly the same to me.

Eliza: I'll never make that mistake again. Can you walk me through your creative process? Does the inspiration for a new video come first, or does something take shape in your mind after you gather a bunch of the pieces? We’re talking broadly about inspiration because this is the Ace of Wands. So how do you get inspired and then, what happens next?

Jordan: When you told me about this topic, I thought about what I could bring that would be an interesting perspective… but quickly, I'll put it to you first. It’s seems like it should be easy, and maybe you have a good answer, but how would you define creativity?

Eliza: Creativity! Oof!

Jordan: Right? It’s harder than you think!

Eliza: Very hard. I could more easily define my creative process than I could define “creativity.”

Jordan: It’s one of those questions like What is time? We all know it implicitly, but as soon as you try to define it, it becomes really hard. One definition I feel like you could use is that creativity is connecting things, connecting dots that haven't been connected before. You might be like, oh, I don't know if that's how I think of it. But then you think about it more. For example, in your work: Maybe it's like, I'm connecting this type of person with this circumstance or whatever. I think of what I do as connecting things in interesting ways, and I think the dots that I'm connecting are much wider, because I'm willing to go into Tiktok and find these crazy clips. And then I'm going way over here miles away, and finding a rare clip of Miles Davis giving an interview that's been unearthed over here, and I'm connecting those. And then music is this other big connection point. There's fuzzy dots that overlap and connect. And then I’m also connecting these dots to visual culture. Sometimes I put beautiful GIFs or clips from movies, beautiful images strung together that resonate with me or with a message from a film. Those are the four buckets I pull from: internet content, intellectual voice, material music, and visual material.

It can come about in any sequence. I might think of this video I want to start with from the Internet, or a song I really want to use. A lot of times I use film scores because that's another hook. People might be like, Oh, I love, you know, house of woodcock and phantom thread, and everyone in the comments loves it. Sometimes it's a song, sometimes the backbone is the intellectual or philosophical clip I find and that inspires it. Sometimes the clips have their own logic after I put them together. I’ll think, this underscores love in an interesting way, or nature, or being alienated, or whatever. And then I pepper in that fourth bucket, the visual materials are the sprinkle on top that helps it flow and brings it into an ethereal place.

Eliza: So cool. I love the idea of creativity as connecting disparate dots. I will sometimes have an idea, or a character that's been rolling around in my brain for a long time. The last play that I wrote was inspired by an an article about Dr. Oz that I found interesting. I wrote a 30 page scene, and then I put it in a drawer and didn’t take it out for years. That scene was all about how angry I was at these quack doctors leading people to believe that they shouldn’t vaccinate their children. It was just a scene. It was funny, it sort of poured out of me, but I had no idea what the rest of the play would even be about. And then, a couple of years later, I connected that scene to some feelings I was having about male feminists, or more specifically, men who masquerade as feminists, who make money from being supporters of women, but who do not live out those ideals in their real life. Then, suddenly from vaccines to male feminism, a play started to take shape. I always enjoy when I’m able to have two completely distinct ideas and then find a way to marry them. 

Jordan: I saw that play. It was amazing, I loved it. That's a great example of what I’m talking about. If you call those different ideas dots, it ends up underserving them, because y’know, Tony Soprano is a dot, but he's much more, or like your character in that play, that's a dot, but it's much richer than that. Connecting it to vaccines took you one place, and maybe it didn't completely resonate with you, but then connecting it to another character or another idea… It ends up creating a framework where something else starts to take shape.

Eliza: It sounds like you get in a kind of flow state when you’re working. Some of your process seems to be about instinct, intuition, following your gut. I like that what you were saying earlier about not overthinking it. I think that is a part of what makes the work so interesting. It’s an insight into humanity, into some specific topic, and also into your brain, the brain of the Creator.  Some of your videos kind of wash over me, and then others I have to think about more critically. What is he telling us? It’s really engaging. I’m really into it. 

Jordan: I really appreciate. In a meta way, this project that you're working on, this newsletter is such a good reminder. Your professional world, even more so than mine, I can't imagine the design-by-committee that's going on in a huge TV show.  You have to check so many boxes, and there are so many hoops to jump through. Sometimes your vision is uncompromised and exactly what you want, but I would guess it's almost impossible to—

Eliza: Yeah. Well, especially if you're a woman, you don't get to be uncompromising. You gotta compromise.

Jordan: But with your project, or my videos, we don't have to answer to anyone. I don't have to get any approval. I don't even get input. I don't get anyone’s opinion on what I'm doing. It's just exactly what I want to make. And the truth is that I uploaded them and they didn't get any  engagement for awhile. People thought it was weird. My friends thought I was weird, and the videos sat on TikTok, dormant for a while. They didn't have an audience, but I was still making them. I would probably still be doing them even if people weren't starting to like them and watch them, even if I wasn’t building a bit of an audience.

I think newsletters are the future of journalism, because you’ve had all these really smart reporters having to play by the rules and the economics of a big business. And now, instead, they can have more control. There's no editorial consideration other than what you think will be the best and most interesting story, and I think that's really powerful.

Eliza: This outlet has totally healed my relationship to writing. My show got canceled. It was a huge hit to my ego, to my heart, it really was heartbreaking. It made it really hard for me to write for awhile but having to do this every week, knowing that I have to put something out whether or not it feels ready, has just made it so much more fun. I'm just following the things I'm interested in. And it has translated into my other work. I’ve had a very creatively fulfilling year, especially in the last couple of months, in part because of these essays. I think I trust myself a bit more, I guess.

Jordan: Maybe what we're both learning through these projects is that side projects are not a “nice to have” or a “luxury.” It’s imperative to have side quests, and creative endeavors outside of what pays the bills. It sounds kind of trite, but it seems like it took you this cycle to learn firsthand how important this is.  I feel the same way. I can't imagine ever not having something like this on the side that I'm working on. This isn't meant to put down any of the other work I've done professionally, but this is the most creatively fulfilling project I've ever done, it's not even… I wouldn't say it's not close, but it's clear, you know?

Eliza: I think the fact that it belongs entirely to you is why. You’re getting to express exactly what you want to express. If you make one that you feel misses the mark or whatever, it’s like, well, in that moment, this is what I put out, and it spoke to me in that moment. I have the essays that I’m super proud of and the week’s where I’m like, okay, that one’s fine. But… it all belongs to me. That’s fulfilling in and of itself. The process of making it is what fulfills me, whatever the outcome.

Here's the piece Jordan made inspired by our conversation:

Recommendations!

First of all, if you're on TikTok, you should immediately follow @jrdnstn – your algorithm and your brain will thank you. If you're not on TikTok, Jordan also posts to his instagram stories, and you can follow him here.

The Work of Art: How something comes from nothing by Adam Moss. A book about the creative process, from inception and inspiration through to the final product. This book is very the suit of Wands.