Weekends are great, but they can also be kind of depressing, which why we at Plucky Media offer our Weekend Mix of content from cool creators that you can experience. Every week, you can find a nice list round up of cool essays to read, videos to watch, TV shows, and even some indie games. Especially because Mercury is in Retrograde right now, it’s a great way to beat the existential angst.

So here are some of our recommendations for September 1st- September 3rd.

What to Read

From the future of Augmented Reality for artists to the history of the tater tot, a feminist take on Sir Mix-A-Lot to remembering the effect of Princess Diana’s Death— these are some amazing end of week stories that I think you’ll love.

Nota Bene: The Taylor Swift article isn’t what you think it is. It’s actually really good commentary: read it.

• Is The Future of Art Augmented? by Tessa Love – The Establishment
• The Tater Tot is American Ingenuity at Its Finest by Kelsey McKinney- Eater
• The Butt Song by Katherine C. Sinback- The Rumpus
• Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” Is the First Pure Piece of Trump Era Pop Art by Mark Harris- Browbeat: Slate’s Culture Blog
• How Older Black Women Taught Me to Love Princess Diana by Ashley C. Ford – Refinery 29

What to Watch

I’m having a real dead week with youtube. Other than the video game streams I leave on, I don’t really have a lot to show you. So, here are some of our favorite shows right now that we’ve been binging, that if you’re not watching and need something uplifting to watch this weekend— here you go.

• The Mindy Project– It’s all on hulu and it’s what me and Sarah have been binging. There’s something about a pre-everything sitcom that’s just wholesome.
• The Bold Type– Also on hulu, but if you have cable, it is on Freeform. It’s about women in working at a Cosmopolitan-type magazine. It’s tbh just so good and empowering and cute. This is actually a CURRENT show on TV and the season finale is NEXT WEEK!
• Steven Universe– I’m being 100% serious when I say that after Trump got elected, Steven Universe taught me and Sarah how to love again. If you haven’t watched it, watch it. It’s so important. Also with Rick and Morty being off for 2 weeks, what else do you have to do?

What to Play

I also don’t have many new games to share this week, but I thought I’d share a couple of interesting indie browser games on itch.io. If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, I definitely recommend trying to make games on simple online editors like bitsy or twine. I love those systems and they have room for a lot of creativity if you want to. If not, here are some interesting games to try.

• NNC News– Part of the #ResistJam earlier this year, this is a free, in browser teleprompter simulation game in which you replace banned words on a teleprompter. That doesn’t sound great but it’s actually a very pretty game and an interesting concept.
• Sort the Court– An interesting and free browser game where you serve as a ruler and say “yes” or “no” to people’s requests. A little repetitive, but as a fan of city management games, it’s pretty fun.
• Grow Your Own Ghoul Girl– A dress up game/clicker where you grow your own “Ghoul Girl” from an egg. It’s short and sweet and has cute graphics.
• Lost Memories Dot Net– Free browser game, actually simulating a teenager’s browser. Very beautiful and interesting story.

… and that’s our weekend mix! If you have any other weekend mix suggestions, be sure to let us know!

One of the only reasons I used to use Youtube was to watch the Vlogbrothers. The quote above always resonated with me and I think that’s why I liked them a lot. The idea that you can be excited about things and want to teach others about things, and build a supportive community around that was always important to me. I’ve expanded my watch habits now, I watch a ton of Wisecrack, Theorist Inc. shows like Game Theory and Film Theory, and a great deal of video game streamers. I’ve been wanting to make analytical but ultimately wholesome and enthusiastic content about the world we live in.

That being said, I have to honor my roots. I’ve been a freelance writer for 5 years with an emphasis on SEO content and I currently work as a Content Manager for a local marketing company. Working with publications like Femsplain, Bitch Flicks, Hello Giggles, and being involved in the Medium community, I don’t want to turn my back on solid editorial content, even though it may be trendy now. If you follow writers or popular publications like Mic, MTV, or Fox, you’ve probably heard about the “pivot to video”. As Bryan Curtis argues in The Ringer,

“Why this is happening is simple: The web has a surplus of copy versus advertising. Companies have decided that sticking an ad at the front of a video makes it less ignorable than putting a similar ad next to an article. It doesn’t matter what the video is. I often get a paragraph or two into a Sports Illustrated story only to find MadelynBurke in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, giving me a summary of the sentences I’m already reading.”

As someone with a background in both writing and performance, putting all of my eggs in the video basket makes sense, it did, until one day I was doing research on The Financial Diet. I found that the financial planning Youtube channel I was watching for years had BOTH an editorial and a video presence. I decided that as a brand, we don’t need a pivot to video but we should be producing content that honors both mediums. So that’s our plan here.

Me and Sarah Koop, armed with a cadre of contributors are starting out with an editorial presence. On the editorial side, in the coming weeks, you can expect criticism and celebration of pop culture. You can get commentary on TV, movies, video games, politics, and whatever else we feel like writing about. In the coming months, we’ll launch our Youtube space, probably with the same cultural criticism (honed with what we’ve learned from Google Analytics from our editorial side), and some other projects like:

• A cooking series, wherein me and Sarah cook through a Burmese cookbook and other family recipes to uncover our heritage a little better
• Video game streams or playthroughs, featuring commentary by Victoria Peach
• A series on the history of memes (because we live in a time of meme chaos and we desperately need a record

And whatever else works. We’re starting out here, on this site, so if you want to keep following us, you can follow us on our social media platforms or sign up for our mailing list below. So, this is the beginning.