Tyneesha.com

This post is me trying really hard to put the ‘good’ in ‘good riddance 2020’, which is an actual phrase I saw on New Years Eve party supplies. You remember those “I hate when people ask what I’ll be doing in 3 years” memes? Well, as it turns out, none of us had a 2020 vision. Who would have predicted a year-long, in-real-life Black Mirror episode? Probably The Simpsons. But no one else.

Our sense of time went out the window a long time ago, but retrospectively I can divide the year into a few solid clumps. So enjoy this generalised, almost chronological 2020 recap.

Pre-covid

On boxing day 2019 we watched recordings of cyclones in Fiji, where we headed on new years day. We’d heard about a virus in China, but at this point, it was just a distant flu-like situation. The only disaster making history was the bushfire crisis back home and our prime-minister being on holidays. Climate change was still the number one concern on everyone’s mind if any. We were trying to get Trump impeached, and Megan and Harry left the royal family. I moved to Wollongong, went to parties, concerts and Mardi Gras without fear of a crowd, not having owned a portable hand sanitiser since primary school.

Toilet Paper Crisis

There was a point where most people still weren’t really thinking about the virus, but somehow people convinced themselves that they needed 12 packs of toilet paper each. Genuinely the craziest part of this year (except perhaps the murder hornets? Whatever that was?). At this point, we knew the virus existed and was very much present in the western world, but we also for some reason thought that only old people could get it. Staying home was a light suggestion. There was a lot of misinformation and confusion going around.

Lockdown Acceptance

Lots of people lost their job. Most people had their entire routine and lifestyle readjusted in some way or another. Time and truth went out the window, and we had to stay inside. Everyone and everything went online. We found ways to entertain ourselves and connect with each other. We made up funny pandemic conspiracies. We hit the ‘continue watching’ button over and over; we let autoplay take us on a tour of every video on Youtube. We relentlessly consumed online content, and our standard for ‘good’ content lowered dramatically, hence the popularity of Tiger King. Everyone regressed into their old cringe interests or learned to bake sourdough. Everyone got bangs. I cut my hair off and listened to a lot of Taylor Swift.

Meanwhile, in the ‘real world’…

If you went into 2020 with the privilege of not caring about politics, it’s doubtful that you left it the same way. Even if you just sat at home, signed online petitions and went on Twitter, you heard about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. I went to the BLM protest in Wollongong and learned a lot about systematic racism and police brutality, in the US and also in Australia. 

There was also the Biden campaign, and Tik Tok users ‘sabotaging’ Trump to the point he threatened to take it away. The presidential debate was genuinely funny to watch, which is insane because when I watched the Trump vs Hilary debate in 2016, I cried…and now Trump’s presidency is just a joke. Biden’s still an old white man, but he picked the fantastic Kamala Harris as vice president, and he’s not Trump; and that’s what counts, right?

Also, just a side note – The footage of Trump on the balcony of the White House after his covid scare has massive president snow vibes – and in general Trump has president snow vibes – except Snow is smart and you have some sense of sympathy for him.

I checked YouTube; apparently, other people agree.

Donald Trump hosting the Next Hunger Games

Anyway, somewhere between the Wollongong BLM protest and Biden’s election, I moved back home. I did my second semester of uni online from Dubbo, dyed my hair blue, waited for it to fade through purple to pi

You may have noticed I’ve done some re-decoration. And by redecorating, I mean I bull-dozed my old place and moved my favourite furniture to this one. Sounds extreme, but it had to be done.

It’s only a few years but 15-year-old me made all the design plans. I trusted a 15-year-old to choose the wallpaper and curtains. At some point, I recognised that 15-year-old Tyneesha’s decisions were questionable. I outgrew it, like so much, which is honestly a big part of why I haven’t posted for like two years or more now.

I’ve learned so much about photography, writing, content creation, social media and various other topics since launching the original blog back in 2017. This new layout better allows me to put that knowledge to use.

I’ve separated my previous blog into two sites – Tyneesha.com, for general, personal, writing and other creative media content, and Neesh Photography – which will be a regular, uncluttered photography website. There will likely be photography-related posts on this site, but Neesh Photography will become photography-focused only.

This seemed like the logical arrangement going forward, as I’d love to find work either as a photographer or as a writer/content creator, and those who can give me those opportunities are far more enabled if I keep my work organised.

Tyneesha.com has been a labour of love for a while now, and a lot of effort has gone into making it look and feel as personal and self-stylised as possible. We’ve replaced that (arguably) awful purple colour from the original site with a soft, clean pastel palette which was actually extracted and adjusted from colours found in a photo of a beach in Wollongong.

I’ve experimented with podcasting recently, which you’ll be seeing (or rather, hearing) more of as I offer audio versions of my articles… for those who share my preference for consuming audio content you should follow my podcast on Spotify, Google podcasts or Apple Podcast.

This site will be home to my university projects as well as my personal creative endeavours. It’ll functionally present as an online portfolio, although I’ve also set up a résumé site (not finished yet, so ignore) for similar purposes.

For fellow Taureans and those of you who belong to the church of retail therapy, I’ll be working on opening a shop feature – an opportunity for online shopping which will hopefully bring me a little extra money and satiate my impulse to put every funny thing I hear on a T-shirt. I’m also looking at selling some of my photos as prints – so when that happens you should buy some – It’ll give you clear skin! Maybe! Don’t quote me on it, just buy stuff! You are of course welcome to send me money for no material benefit though, so if you’ve got an extra dollar or two and like my work, PayPal donations are open and available in the side menu.

Of course, with this site being under construction for quite a while, we have some catching up to do. Now and then I’ll post from the super-secret archives of 2018-2020 so that this site catches up on all that has changed. Otherwise, my Instagram account is probably the best representation of my photography work over the last two years.

So, if you’ve been here before, take a look around! So much has changed! If not – hey there, new friend!

“Allow me to act as if I’ve always had taste and style!”

People, grab your crackers, it’s about to get cheesy.

You’re about to read some heavy stuff. Like, grab a wheelbarrow with those cheese and crackers kind of heavy. Not to build it up too much, but if you understand what I’m about to put out into the world, then God bless you. If you don’t then pull up a chair, get nice and slightly uncomfortable, and indulge me while I walk you through the difference between a mother and a mum. (Yes, American peasants, that’s how you spell it, calm your undying patriotism.)

So basically, there are currently, at this moment, according to the slightly sketchy website I checked, 7,504,412,664 people on this earth. 233,829 of which who were born today. And we were all born, on a day, and we call that a birthday. We come from inside this other person’s body, and for some reason, our birthdays are a celebration of the miracle and not the miracle worker? Jesus gets a whole religion based on him, and all he did was split some bread, turned water to wine and tell people they were forgiven and how they didn’t have to sacrifice goats anymore. For the majority, your mum, the miracle worker, doesn’t just ‘split’ some bread… she gives you everything you need to survive, she loves you without any limit or condition, and she has made sacrifices for you which would beyond surpass those of Jesus on the cross in her eyes.

Okay, I’ll stop with the Jesus motif, don’t come after me with pitchforks or anything okay? I’m just saying, our mums give us their entire lives and they get one day a year in return. I present; Mother’s Day my dudes.

I’d like to firstly make the point that we are living in a somewhat progressive age where the circumstances which one is born in is becoming less and less important as to how their life plays out. Gender roles and the typical family structure are so much less on a pedestal, which I think is good for two reasons.

“Just wait until you get out in the big, wide world. What will you do then?”

The first being that no matter how well any family or indeed, an individual person maintains an outward appearance of being perfectly a-grade awesome all the time, things are always uglier up close. We are well on the way to finding value in the cold, hard truth of things. You know how your parents always told you something like “Just wait until you get out in the big, wide world. What will you do then?” well, honestly, you’ve always been in this big, ‘terrible’ wide world. It only shocks you to see the truth of it because you were sheltered from it, not because it’s really that scary. The way we’re going, with the freedom of conversation (about gender, sexuality or birth methods) this shock soon won’t exist. The second you are made aware of the very real stuff that goes on within families; or in the absence of one, you see everything else in contrast.

If some bratty little kid were aware of the consequences of all the bad stuff, then maybe this kid wouldn’t grow up a brat. Maybe they’d grow up seeing the bigger picture, not fixated on trivial matters, making the right decisions and having a hell pound more empathy for people in real situations. Remember when you wouldn’t eat your dinner because it was ‘yucky’ and your mum would tell you about the kids starving in Africa, and how you should be grateful to have anything at all, same thing. If you have no perspective, no starving African kid to compare yourself to, then you grow up selfish and naïve until something happens directly to you, and you have some sort of painful wake-up call. The world isn’t rainbows and butterflies. It shouldn’t be. Maybe if we didn’t decide to shelter kids as much, then other children wouldn’t end up in these bad situations, because their parents knew the consequences. Maybe there would be more decent people who̵