Neela tousled her short-cropped hair, disturbed by the idea that simply showing up or existing was a skill. How was that different from being white? RUK-MINI beamed in her large costume gold earrings, bangles and rings; she looked like she had just stepped out from a Little India shopping spree. Maybe this is why the audience was so captivated by her, their Bollywood dreams come true.
Neela hoped that the other panellists would respond by describing their rigorous creative practices or by highlighting how they drew on their cultural ancestry or family influences. But each response was distressingly similar — a low bar and a lack of remorse (and an overuse of the word “folks”). Were they composing their answers for applause or were they being sincere? Which was worse?
“What might POC art that isn’t just a response to a lack of representation or oppression sound or look like?” This was the question Neela wanted to follow up with, but she didn’t think the panellists (or the audience) were interested in tackling this. Instead she asked, “Can all of you speak to the systemic barriers you face in your career and how it impacts your artistry?” still attempting to redirect the discussion to a core issue. The discussion devolved into a bitchfest about the perils of public exposure and social media. Embarrassed by the panellists’ complaining, in public, about being “public personas” on Twitter, Neela kept her gaze away from the audience and on the neon-green spike tape beside her pointed flats. Given that she had never even heard of the panellists prior to this event, the real danger seemed to be that the internet made everyone believe they were a lot more famous than they actually were.
Once Neela returned home from the panel, she raced to the shower. She scrubbed her body with her loofah, hoping to wash away the memory of the panel. She couldn’t brush off RUK-MINI’s comment about the lack of “people like her.” Presumably she meant other brown women? How could she talk about her invisibility sitting next to Neela — unless she didn’t actually see her. Stepping out the shower, her body dripped a trail of large water coins. She beheld her reflection in the slowly defogging mirror. RUK-MINI was right. Neela was nothing like her.
* * *
Six months prior to the panel, Rukmini wouldn’t have called herself a musician despite clicking away in her new basement studio space. Instead of recording, she was blowing another evening tumbling through a YouTube wormhole.
Creating her YouTube account had been a gesture of allyship. A troll had been shit-talking Too Attached in the comments for their “Diversity” video and Rukmini was livid. Her options were:
a) to continue composing clever rebuttals that would have no impact because she never posted them, or
b) to respond directly.
Popular advice was that responding was “a waste of time” and that she should “ignore the comments,” but what was a better use of time than fighting hate?
She found herself procrastinating on writing her Toronto Tops articles about the city’s Best Hot Dog Salad or Hottest Pansexual Party by visiting any of the eight boxes of “Recommended Videos” displayed at the bottom of her homepage — Kay Ray, Aparna Nancherla, Hasan Minhaj comedy clips and makeup tips. After a few weeks, she branched off into the world of daredevil stunts and gradually began paying attention to the number of views as well as the actual videos.
Before she had started her own account, YouTube had been a place to find old music videos and upcoming movie trailers. She had never thought about it as a distinct medium with its own personality. YouTube popularity seemed to defy the cultural value of aesthetics and even quality. Crisp or informative content rarely won more views. Lo-fi sibling gag videos reliably had higher stats than big-budget American music videos. This triumph of the everyday over the exceptional fascinated and comforted her. After she’d hustled through her twenties, YouTube made her feel as though she didn’t have to try so hard.
Eventually, her fixation with beatboxing competition videos led her to music production lessons.
“Welcome to the twenty-first century. There are tutorials for everything on YouTube,” Sumi chided when Rukmini shared her discovery before their monthly pitch meeting.
“But these videos are so comprehensive.” Rukmini gestured at the YouTube page on her sticker-covered laptop. “I think there might even be a story here. Something along the lines of Toronto youth turning to YouTube for accessible education instead of traditional schools?”
“I think ‘Toronto’s Trending YouTubers’ is closer to what they want around here, tbh.”
She and Sumi had met soon after Rukmini started working at Toronto Tops. Rukmini had been admiring Sumi’s oversized men’s blazer at her first staff meeting, when Sumi said to her in a monotone, “So, you’re diverse too.” When Rukmini retorted, “And you must be Diverse 1?” Sumi’s manicured left eyebrow had lifted.
From then on, she and Sumi always sat together at meetings and signed off emails to each other with D1 and D2. Sometimes they “accidentally” signed emails to the rest of the team with their abbreviated nicknames, which their colleagues never acknowledged. The advice columnist, a white gay guy who lived in a Front Street condo that his parents had bought for him, had once signed an email he sent them about a Pride-related pitch as D3. They didn’t reply.
Sumi’s dry but realistic response prevented Rukmini from making her pitch but didn’t stop her from continuing to watch the tutorials. Writing for Toronto Tops was generally amusing and had covered her rent for the past five years, but constantly chasing a story made her feel submissive. She felt nostalgic for a time when she was more in control, when her creativity and skills were poured into something more meaningful than generating clickbait. She downloaded an illegal copy of Ableton and began relearning how to program drums.
“You should convert the basement into your office-slash-studio,” her roommate Puna had suggested when Rukmini told her about her new hobby.
“Why? Am I making too much noise?” She often waited for Puna to leave the house before she did any recording.
“You don’t make enough noise! This way you can be as loud as you want, no holding back.”
“Okay, but what if I get murdered down there?”
“Then I definitely won’t be able to hear you.”
When they had moved into the house on Palmerston, they had ambitious plans to turn the cavernous basement into a screening room with a projector and folding chairs. They had even discussed programming (beginning with a Deepa Mehta retrospective), snacks (Puna’s papadum mango scoops or chili lime popcorn) and charging friends and neighbours for admission to raise funds for the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre. But the dampness and darkness of the space had dissuaded them from using it as anything more than a storage dump for their suitcases and still-unpacked boxes.
Glancing up from her screen, Rukmini was impressed by how a little cleaning and a few accessories had enlivened the basement — the fairy lights she had hung along the rafters and the fuzzy rug she had relocated from the living room. But something, or someone, was missing. When she had worked upstairs, Puna’s movements around the house had not only provided company, they had also offered rhythmic inspiration. Rukmini had developed a habit of using Ableton to mimic some of the muffled sounds outside her bedroom door: dishes breaking, cupboards closing and even the frenetic pace of Puna’s footsteps.