document your life!

before i kick off my “first” newsletter, welcome to culturelle (pronounced culture-elle) a semi-play on my name and the rebrand to my former, short-lived newsletter. this is just a personal brain dump for me to share my thoughts and musings on culture and whatnot.

a more refined version of my once-in-a-blue ig stories sharing things i really love, and an extra refined version of my close friends story where i kinda go off the rails on stuff i’m not a super fan of, but we probably won’t do too much of that on here. there are other newsletters, tik toks, instagrams, etc. that can give you that content.

anyway, i decided to refresh this newsletter as i wanted a space to speak about the interesting convos, movies, documentaries, books, tv shows, and videos i consume. most times, i just share these thoughts with friends on the phone or in-person. in fact it is my most preferred method for just about everything even down to career-related realizations. but writing was my number one at one point in time, and while it has been pushed to number two, i figured it’s time to bring it back.

which leads me into an easy segue on the importance of documenting/archiving your life. earlier this week, i went to a special experience hosted by airbnb in partnership with luar, where a few other guests and i got a chance to see luar’s SS26 collection up close and personal. the new collection debuted the night before, and raul lopez, founder of luar, sat down with us after a long night to talk about the collection. as the guests tried on the samples and got their pictures professionally taken, i sat down with raul and asked him a few questions.

i knew of raul since i was about 14/15 year olds thanks to vashtie kola. in the early 2010s, i spent a lot of time on tumblr, watching youtube videos, and just surfing the web. as i was scrolling down my dashboard, i came across vashtie; she had just released her air jordan 2s and was the first woman to ever collab with air jordan. i instantly became a fan, i was even influenced to wear tights underneath my shorts because of her. i became a fan of the air jordan black cement 3s thanks to her, and would end up copping my first pair in 2012 at flight club after saving up from my first summer job working at my cousin’s daycare center in bedstuy.

thank you vashtie for putting tights underneath shorts. we need to bring that back, it’s time.

i mentioned to raul that i knew of him – telfar, angelo baque, shayne oliver, kid cudi, and more – thanks to vashtie’s blog back then, where she documented her life. from partying and hanging out with friends to behind-the-scenes looks of her directing music videos, vashtie took pictures of what life was like in nyc’s downtown scene during the early 2010s, crowning herself as the ‘downtown sweetheart.’ even looking back at her blog now, thanks to the person who archive a few of her blog posts on the internet archive, it’s fun to see how so many of her friends have grown in their careers, most of whom who are in their 40s and early 50s., proving that it takes time for your dreams to blossom. raul mentioned that vashtie’s blog is probably the only place that has photos of him from his younger days, and he thanked her for always documenting those moments.

vashtie kola’s blog in 2008 designed by fishbucket

vashtie kola’s website in 2009, designed by fishbucket

seven years later, after discovering vashtie’s blog, i interned for her during my senior year of college. in some ways, i do think seeing vashtie’s blog inspired me over the years to document my own life. even as i dig for photos, i realize 15 years later, how much vashtie has influenced me.

i’ve been documenting my life since i was 14 years old, beginning with my freshman year of high school. i carried a classic black, hardcover moleskine journal with a squared layout (only!), covered in stickers and magazine cutouts i collaged onto the front cover. i was obsessed with graffiti art and a fan of only new york, and so on the back, i drew on two u.s. postal service labels. i also drew on a couple more and stuck them on light poles and mailboxes around fort greene. i only wrote in the journal - for the most part - with my favorite, pilot g2 retractable. if i didn’t have a pilot g2 on me, it had to be a black ballpoint pen or at the very least, a pencil, nothing else.

i wrote in that journal every day, even when absolutely nothing was happening, from october 30, 2010 to march 6, 2013. it covered all of freshman, sophomore, and half of my junior year of high school. all the highs and lows and the in betweens. i’ve gone back and read my journal from that time period and felt a wave of emotions. i’ve cringed at things i wrote, i’ve cried, i’ve laughed, and i was even impressed by how unknowingly intuitive i was back then for recognizing the demise of a friendship, but still not having the full knowledge of what to do or what was to come a few years later.

my first journal from 2010–2013

even reading my 15-year-old self writing off my undiagnosed mild depression as teenage angst was sad, as it would take five and a half years for me to go to therapy and get diagnosed with depression and social anxiety. but there were so many good memories in my journals, and i’m happy that i wrote my experiences in real time and that i have memories of my friends from that time period including my best friend, kamau, who ended up passing away a few months later in july 2013.

by the time i started my second journal in spring 2013, i started picking up a new medium to document my life – polaroids and film photography. technically, i started shooting film my sophomore year of high school. my first film camera was a white lomography fisheye camera which broke within 6 months.

kamau and i in 2011 (maybe 2012?) on my lomography fisheye film camera. rip kamau <3

i didn’t pick up film photography again until sophomore year of college, but in between that time, i did start shooting polaroids. my senior year of high school i was gifted a black fujifilm instax mini 9 for christmas. i would stack up on film and take pictures of friends, family, and classmates. luckily, i kept the majority of these photos and eventually, in 2020, bought a polaroid photo album to keep them all in a safe space. quick and easy, polaroids have always been my favorite way to capture a moment in time. i’ve used it on and off for years since then, but i was able to document my last year of high school and the majority of my college years with my instax mini.

as time went on, i ended up collecting a handful of point-and-shoot film cameras and one professional film camera that i’ve only used once. lately, i’ve been favoring the graininess of digital cameras from the early 2000s for videos, a medium i’ve never fully been into before. i also picked up a super 8, but due to how expensive it is to get the film developed, i use it sparingly. however, it is about that time for me to finally get the film i had in that camera since late 2023 developed.

my polaroid wall from high school (2014)

i’m so grateful that i documented so much of my life already. while i do not write in my journal as much anymore, and sometimes when i am spending time with friends and family, i get so caught up in all the laughter and joy that i forget to pull out my camera, i’m hoping that this new space can serve as another platform for me to document my thoughts, rather than my life per se, in a new way.

in one of my entries from my first journal, i wrote about spending the day with kamau. he had encouraged me to continue to write, to continue to document my life, because his grandfather had told him that you never know, maybe one day someone can come across that journal and make a movie about your life. i don’t know if someone will make a movie about my life, but i do hope that it can inspire others to document their life and the people around them to look back on fondly.

love,
s