Cyrena Touros
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cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Cyrena Touros
@cyrenatouros.bsky.social
1.2K followers 360 following 710 posts
cultural critic talking about new music, gender, labor, social structures, queer stuff, etc.

looking for a job outside journalism

member & organizer • FSP-NWU

Floridian white-knuckling her way through it

https://midnight-transmission.ghost.io/
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cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Hi, we heard about the layoffs and we're pissed off.

Read the statement here: nwu.org/polygon/
Screenshot of a statement from the National Writers Union in response to the sale of games and entertainment website Polygon. It reads: In a precarious industry in which freelance workers simultaneously compose the majority of journalists covering entertainment and compete for vanishing assignments at lower and lower pay, Polygon has been a bastion of ethical entertainment journalism. To our union’s knowledge, Polygon’s editorial staff have consistently followed the key tenets of the Freelance Solidarity Project’s Principles for Working with Freelancers: being transparent and fair with their rates, providing clear contracts at the outset of an assignment, and paying freelancers in a timely manner. Every website sold to Valnet is a tragedy for entertainment journalism and internet culture, but losing the workers who make Polygon a great publication both to freelance for and to read is a particular gut punch.
May 5, 2025 at 6:29 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Aha aha ahahahahaha what do you mean in one paragraph @katewagner.bsky.social summed up my inability to commit to writing my newsletter when thinking about the futility of capturing an audience in this media economy and feeling sunk under the weight of hypothetical audience scrutiny regardless?
A screenshot from Kate Wagner's newsletter, The Late Review. The post is titled "what the fuck are we doing anymore" and the text reads: Hence, to return to my opening statement, I am being driven insane. But a more vulnerable thing to say would be: I am afraid. Every day I am afraid that the end is coming for me, that the walls are closing in, that I didn’t play my cards right at the right time, that everyone hates me or has lost patience with me as a human being and thinker. It doesn’t matter if the fears are true or not — the fear itself is. These unbearable feelings are the end product — no, the end logic — of not only the media industry and what it’s done to writers and writing but of so many years of using tools that have constructed within my soul an evil little panopticon. As I told my psychoanalyst recently, my superego looks less like my mother these days and more like the X user interface.
January 16, 2025 at 4:23 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Well well well, guess what color is getting a second coat today!

(This is actually a 2017-era Valspar called Pink Chocolate that looks warmer and blushier in-person)

(Yes, my parents have been talking about painting the house since 2017 and finally I said ENOUGH ALREADY IM UNEMPLOYED I'LL DO IT)
A photo of an interior entryway to a house. Two perpendicular walls are painted a muted light brown with a pink undertone. On the left wall, there is a white door with a large glass cutout in the middle where light is coming through. There is green painter's tape lining the baseboards and the outline of the door, and a painter's pan wrapped in a white trash bag on the floor. A photo of a wall that has one coat of new paint on it. This interior wall is opposite the entryway to a home and the color in direct natural light looks like a light, earthy pink. In the background on the right, you can see part of a cream colored couch in a living area, and in the foreground on the left, you can see a wooden high top chair at the start of a kitchen counter.
December 5, 2024 at 4:07 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
I've never used generative AI to write, and I've repaired a structural crack in a wall that reached 12 feet in the air.

I am stronger than you.

You are weak.
A cropped photo in which the top part of a yellow wall is visible. There are windows in the bottom half of the frame and an 8-foot ladder in the foreground. The focal point of the photo is a large crack in the wall that is about 2.5 feet long. A cropped photo in which the top part of a yellow wall is visible. There are windows in the bottom half of the frame and an 8-foot ladder in the foreground. The focal point of the photo is a 2.5-foot long vertical section of the wall that has been puttied over with tape and drywall compound, leaving it an off-white color. A cropped photo in which the top part of a yellow wall is visible. There are windows in the bottom half of the frame and an 8-foot ladder in the foreground. The focal point of the photo is a 2.5-foot tall and 1.5-foot wide section of the wall that has been puttied over with a top coat of drywall compound, leaving it an off-white color. A photo of a wall inside a house with two large sliders on either side of a central load-bearing section. In the previous three photos, this wall was painted yellow and now it is a soft warm white with a peachy undertone. The drywall has been repaired and painted over.
November 27, 2024 at 11:28 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Why is my friend Ahmad's account @samargohar16.bsky.social being tagged with a content warning?
@moderation.bsky.app @support.bsky.team
A screenshot of a post being labeled with a content warning. The user, Ahmad Joher, links a GoFundMe with a plea to raise $5000 to escape Gaza. It includes a photo collage with a before and after of Ahmad standing in an internet cafe, and the cafe collapsed in rubble.
November 18, 2024 at 9:01 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
They are pruning our beautiful queen palms :(
A photo of a backyard in Florida. There is white pickup truck parked behind a copse of palm trees, and a man standing on top of a scaffolding extension from the truck who is cutting down fronds off the tallest tree. There is also a man in the foreground who is collecting the fronds into a large pile.
October 31, 2024 at 3:08 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
This rant is brought to you by such recent hits as:
A screenshot of the Vote Save America website in Firefox with the accessibility settings at 170 percent zoom. A popup asking the web user to manage consent of browsing and privacy cookies has taken over the entire visible screen, and the text of the popup is impossible to read in full as the right side of the paragraph is outside the visible frame. There is a big orange button at the bottom that says Accept, and a button to the right of it whose text is cut off. A screenshot of Frank Shyong's Substack essay titled "Why I Left the L.A. Times." The top part of the screenshot is a black and white pixelated headshot of a man, presumably Shyong, with red lasers coming out of his eyes like the Dark Brandon meme. The bottom half of the screenshot has text that is cut off across the right side because Substack pages do not load with text that fits to screen if accessibility settings are changed to greater than 100 percent zoom. A screenshot of a New York Times web page. The article is blocked by a pop-up. The main text is asking for the user to review Terms of Sale, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy, with a black button at the bottom labeled Continue. But the heading text is cut off at the top so that you can only see the end, which reads "updated our terms." It is unclear if there is a second button below Continue, as the screen cuts off.
October 24, 2024 at 2:38 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Adding alt text but also. This Tyla look just screams 2006 to me. This tropical hot pink, the bikini-esque cut of the dress, and lastly, this B'Day hair homage!!!!!
South African artist Tyla poses on the "pink" carpet at the Victoria's Secret fashion show. She's wearing a hot pink dress that looks like someone took some scissors to a toga, left the drape of fabric to cover one side of her body, and cut out a bikini top and sarong on the other side. She's wearing a white necklace and piercing in her exposed midriff, and she has her hair piled on her head in a very messy bun with long, highlighted bangs swooping down the right side of her face (the viewer's left). The cover art for Beyoncé's 2006 album, B'Day. A shot of Beyoncé from the chest up takes up the right side of the cover in the foreground. She's wearing a deep-cut, scoop-neck tank top that is potentially sequined and reflects a greenish-gold color. Her skin is absolutely glowing, and her caramel-highlighted hair is piled up on top of her head in either an enormous bun or a beehive (the image cuts off the top so it's unclear), with wavy pieces cascading down either side of her face and blending into her bangs.
October 17, 2024 at 4:16 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Imagine calling yourself a scholar on Catholic Social Thought and siding with capital over the dignity of all people!
www.usccb.org/upload/econo...
However, unequal distribution should be evaluated in terms of several moral principles we have enunciated: the priority of meeting the basic needs of the poor and the importance of increasing the level of participation by all members of society in the economic life of the nation. These norms establish a strong presumption against extreme inequality of income and wealth as long as there are poor, hungry, and homeless people in our midst. They also suggest that extreme inequalities are detrimental to the development of social solidarity and community. In view of these norms we find the disparities of income and wealth in the United States to be unacceptable. Justice requires that all members of our society work for economic, political, and social reforms that will decrease these inequities.
September 24, 2024 at 8:55 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
The National Archives needs at least $100 million to create a system for digital records.

The U.S. has spent $6.5 ~BILLION~ in "security assistance" to Israel since Oct. 7.

(And that figure, the most recent I easily could find, is from three months ago)

What are we doing here!!!!!!!!!!!
Even more worrisome is how to handle the coming shock wave of information. NARA must build a new electronic records system — a “system of systems” — that can take in the digital records, provide an online workspace where they can be processed, and create applications that can disseminate them to the public and government. These systems also must be able to deal with the complex storage and preservation of classified records and their declassification. Such a system could cost well north of $100 million.
September 22, 2024 at 7:27 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
It strikes me as a little too convenient that the Olivia Nuzzi news dropped late on the same day that the New York Mag Union launched a social media campaign about its fight with management over securing protections against AI in their new contract???
The NYMag Union has been asking for basic job protections around the use of artificial intelligence. For the last six months, our employers at NYMag and Vox Media have refused. Our employers claim they understand the value of our work, and that what we do cannot be replaced by AI. But they still won't enshrine job protections in our contract. Why won't they put their money where their mouth is? We never thought we'd have to say this, but humans make New York the award-winning magazine that it is — not robots. Over 96 percent of our members signed a letter to our leaders demanding protections that journalists across our industry should have — assurance that our bosses understand the cue of the work we do, and that we won't be automated out of our jobs. #WritersNotRobots
September 20, 2024 at 1:04 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Judith Butler:
The various vulnerable communities now targeted by such a rationale as harmful are threatened with exclusion and criminalization, pathologization and loss of fundamental freedoms...Such strategies of rights-stripping belong to a history of fascism...
A photo from the first chapter of Judith Butler's book, Who's Afraid of Gender? The text starts in the middle of a sentence and reads: to a history of fascism: they intensify the vulnerability of the very communities falsely held responsible for the precarious state of the world. They identify such communities as the "cause" of destruction so that they can promise that by destroying them, it appears that destruction is warded off, even though it is obviously intensified. They insist that such communities and their political demands are destructive forces, but they mobilize that very force as they externalize in the other. In effect, they rename the object of destruction as its cause, engaging in a contemporary form of fascist rebranding.
September 15, 2024 at 2:30 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
So please, let's not have another round of debating how politically powerful Taylor Swift is or isn't. Let's stop treating her like a Hail Mary play and let's start taking her fans seriously as people who already have all the tools they need to organize and win — as long as they want to do so
A screenshot of a Paste article by Kayti Burt with the headline "As the Genocide in Gaza Continues, Palestinian K-pop Fans Organize For Their People." The text reads: Fannishness is often treated as a superfluous identity, separate from the other kinds of belonging that shape the people we are and the choices we make. But fan communities are not separate from the real world, and they are not separate from the systemic biases, prejudices and injustices that often make it a cruel place. Events like the ongoing apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people make that fact particularly difficult to ignore, even for those of us who have the privilege to do so should we choose.
August 28, 2024 at 2:51 AM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
A screenshot from the Blood in the Machine newsletter by Brian Merchant. The text reads: All told, the last week has been a dizzying 180 for California journalists. From the prospect of real, lasting reform that might usher in a revitalization of the local journalism industry starved by Google and Meta, to a deal that may in fact benefit Google more than journalists. A $15 million tax write off, an escape valve from future attempts at legislation, strengthened ties with publishers and media executives—cutting out the journalists—and even, potentially, fresh arenas for AI training data and products. AI products that are already being used by unscrupulous content creators to generate work that competes with real news—Google News already has been shown to boost AI-generated articles in its rankings, after all—and further starves the wounded industry. No wonder the actual working journalists who once supported CJPA are devastated. It’s some serious whiplash.
August 27, 2024 at 8:17 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
God grant me the discretionary income to spend $100 on a set of silly ghost candles...
A photo of seven lit candles in various shapes of ghosts. They look small, about two-to-three inches in height, and all have the classic "white sheet with black eye-holes" aesthetic, although some have their arms lifted and others look like a shuttlecock used to play badminton. They are from the Etsy seller Shop Of Happy Gifts, all one word, and they are quite cute.
August 18, 2024 at 2:21 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 13:

I thought the hallways were going to be a quick task & I could practice some painting techniques in two areas that have (relatively) lower ceilings where people don't spend a lot of time (in case I made some visible mistakes).

Four days later, I finally finished 💀
A photo of a newly painted hallway that angles off to the left after about 10 feet. The walls are a warm white color, and there is a plastic tarp and drop cloth covering the tile floor. There are two doors on either side at the very beginning of the hallway, and the overhead lights are on. A photo of the second half of a long hallway after the bend. The walls are a freshly painted warm white color. There is a plastic tarp over the tile floor, and a recessed light is on overhead to illuminate the scene. There are two doorways next to each other at the end of the hall on the right with both doors open, but no visibility into the rooms. A photo of a small hallway, taken from a doorway. There is a freshly painted warm white-colored wall opposite the viewpoint, and a visible hinge of an open door, both on the right. On the left is an open entryway to the rest of the main living area, with the breakfast bar of the kitchen visible in the background.
July 20, 2024 at 9:46 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 12:

Another trip to the store to buy a new paint roller and have my paint re-stirred in their machines.

Finished 1st coat on the longer hallway and edged & rolled 1st coat on the smaller hallway.

Gave myself a repetitive stress injury on my right hand from edge work 🥲
A photo of a long hallway that angles to the left after about 10 feet. There are plastic tarps and a drop cloth on the floor, and the walls are wet with a creamy-white paint. A photo of the second half of a long hallway after the bend. There is a plastic tarp covering the tile flooring, and the walls are wet with a creamy-white paint. Natural light from two open doors at the end of the hallway on the right gives the back wall a bluer tinge that reflects the paint colors of those rooms. A photo of a small hallway taken from the open entryway. You can see into a bathroom that has the door open. There is an 8-foot ladder propped against the outside left wall, and natural light is coming from that direction. A plastic tarp is on the tile floor. The walls are a faded yellow color, and shadowed within the hallway, but you can see lines of white paint edged around the top of the bathroom door frame. A photo of a small hallway taken from the open entryway. You can see into a bathroom that has the door open. There is an 8-foot ladder propped against the outside left wall, and a plastic tarp is on the tile floor. The exterior walls are a faded yellow color, but inside the hallway, the walls are wet with white paint. An overhead light is on in the hallway.
July 20, 2024 at 2:28 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 11 (cont. 2):

I had just started my first coat on the hallways and the paint roller broke as I was reloading it 🥲 Luckily I only splattered my old shoes, but I had to call it quits for the night

(This was an old roller we had in the garage, so no big loss, just frustrating)
A photo of a broken paint roller. The top part, the metal cage is separated from the plastic handle. A white running shoe is in the image to the left of the roller parts, with a cream-colored strip of paint at the toe area. A second photo of a broken paint roller. The top part with the metal cage is flat on the floor and angled to the left. A disembodied hand is holding the plastic handle with the top facing upward so you can see the cracks in the plastic on either side of the hole where the metal wire should attach.
July 19, 2024 at 5:29 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 11 (cont.):

I bought this gooseneck brush to fit my extendable pole. I won't be able to reach the 12-ft ceilings in the main living area on my 8-ft ladder, so I'm hoping this helps. I wanted to practice with it on 10-ft hallway ceilings, and it took forever (6 hours) 💀
A photo of a hand holding a "gooseneck" angled paint brush with the paper covering over the bristles. It has a rubber handle which is slightly bent. A photo of a disembodied arm holding the handle of a gooseneck paint brush attached to a 4-foot extendable pole. The rubber handle of the brush is bent to the right.
July 19, 2024 at 5:21 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 11:
Did more drywall repairs (lots of cracked corner beads in this house), sanded my bad spackle jobs, sprayed primer on scuffed wall marks, and did my first edge of paint in the longer hallway.

(Very behind on posting, so this is not today's work!)
A photo of a corner of a wall that is a faded yellow color. A line about a foot long has been scored an inch and a half from the end of the wall. A small cup of spackle is sitting on the floor to the left with a scoring tool sitting on top of it. A photo of a yellow hallway that bends at an angle. You can see some natural light coming in from an open door near the end of the hallway, and the overhead lights are on, but it is still quite dark. There is a plastic tarp on the floor, and there are some white spots on the wall where primer has been applied. A photo of the first half of a long hallway, before it takes an angled turn to the left. The overhead lights are on and it's very bright, so you can see the yellow walls and a coat of fresh white paint around the edges of them. There is also a plastic tarp on the floor. A photo of the second half of a long hallway that turns on an angle to the left. There is a plastic tarp on the tile floor, and a coat of white paint has been edged around the walls, which are a base yellow color.
July 18, 2024 at 8:43 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 8 (cont.), 9, 10:

Finished second edging on day 8, didn't get to the second coat of the kitchen until day 9. Also did some minor touch-ups after peeling up the tape. Day 10 was mostly a rest day, but did some sanding & spackling to prepare for the next project: the hallways
A photo of a kitchen with plastic sheets covering the counters and the cabinets, with a drop cloth on the floor. There's an 8-foot ladder to the left, and the upper lip of wall space above the cabinets is wet with teal paint A photo of an exposed outlet set in a faded yellow wall. The sockets are covered with masking tape, and the drywall where the outlet sits has been repaired with white spackle. A photo of an outward-facing corner where two walls meet. The outer edge of the right wall has been patched with drywall tape starting at the baseboard, and spackled over. The walls are a faded yellow color.
July 17, 2024 at 8:12 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 8:

WE HAVE LIFTOFF. And before noon, at that. Only one coat right now, so I'm hoping to be able to sand again in a few hours once dry, and fingers crossed I can squeeze in the final edge and second coat before 9 pm

@zeets.bsky.social here's a lil lunchtime update for you!
A photo of a large kitchen with hanging cabinets and a breakfast bar on the right and a side view of more cabinets, a sink, and a fridge on the left. The walls are an extremely faded yellow. The photo viewpoint is looking in from the open-concept entryway with natural light coming from behind the camera and shining directly into the kitchen. A daytime photo of a large kitchen from an open-concept entryway. There are plastic sheets covering a row of hanging cabinets and breakfast bar on the left, the floor, and a sink area on the left. The overhead ceiling and upper walls have been painted a teal color, and the lower walls are still the previous faded yellow color.
July 10, 2024 at 4:40 PM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 7:

3 more hours sanding the kitchen after morning light revealed some rough spots I missed, and then I said "I can probably edge and roll the accent section, then start priming the main section before 5:30"

No I could not! This took 4 hours!! Damn you recessed lights!!!
An angled photo of half a kitchen ceiling. A wall of hanging cabinets are covered with a translucent plastic tarp, and a narrow lip of the ceiling above them is edged with teal paint. That lip is only wide enough to support the width of a recessed light, and then the ceiling retracts further another 2.5 feet. The tallest section of those walls remains the original yellow paint. A head-on photo of a yellow kitchen, taken from an open-concept entryway. There are plastic tarps covering most of the hanging cabinets, countertop, and floors. The lights are on overhead as there is no natural light source. The lowest portion of the ceiling and upper walls have been edged with teal paint. A photo of a yellow kitchen taken on an angle from outside the room, showing the full size of the decorative lip that juts out from three-quarters of the way up the exterior wall and hangs above the breakfast bar, and is currently edged with teal paint. Most of the kitchen is covered with plastic tarps, including the set of hanging cabinets nearest the camera, the countertop, and the floors. The lights are on overhead and you can see from a hint of another room in the background that it's getting dark outside.
July 10, 2024 at 12:42 AM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
Painting the house, Day 5:

Not very visually exciting because it took one day to vacuum all the walls, one day to wash all of them, and here is where you say "and one day to sand all of them?"

No 🫠 It took 5 hours to sand the kitchen. Other time was spent moving more furniture and measuring walls
A photo of a large, open-concept family room with tall ceilings painted light yellow. The wall opposite the camera person is a huge display of recessed mirrors that start hip height and go to the ceiling. There are two cream colored couches in the open space, as well as two ladders, an end table, and a fridge to the right. A photo of a large, open concept family room painted light yellow. In the foreground are two cream-colored couches facing each and book-ended with lamp-covered tables. In the background are a fridge to the left, a kitchen table in the middle, and a kitchen on the right with a breakfast bar and hanging cabinets. The light source is two large sliders in the back left wall. A selfie of a woman wearing a blue shirt, an old white baseball cap, protective goggles, and an N95 painting mask with a front filter. A photo of a large, open-concept living space that includes a family room with a large wall of recessed mirrors in the background, and in the foreground, a kitchen with hanging cabinets and a breakfast bar to the left and an eating area with a table covered with a plastic tarp to the left. All of the walls are a faded yellow color.
July 8, 2024 at 2:13 AM
cyrenatouros.bsky.social
My bad, Katy Perry is obviously in her Samus Aran/Metroid Dread era
The cover art for Katy Perry's new single, “Woman’s World." She's power posing with her hands behind her head and legs astride. The weirdest part of the photo is what she's wearing: a distressed white bikini with lots of underboob and her oiled torso showing, and also big, metallic, Bionicle legs like a sexed-up video game character. Photo Credit: Jack Bridgland The video game character Samus Aran in her power suit from the 2021 game, Metroid Dread. It's the classic design (full bodysuit with domed, red helmet, shoulder pads, and arm canon) but in white and blue from the chest down instead of the traditional orange and yellow.
June 17, 2024 at 5:17 PM