Ilayda Arden

the classic meme formats are classic for a reason.

it’s not too hot, not too cold: all you need is a light jacket!!!!!

my baby brother left for a new life in NYC yesterday and ive been ugly crying on and off every since btw. in case anyone was wondering.

look at spring giving us the most

serious question, is there a way to have less US centric feeds on bluesky? i’m going round liking and following things to try and shift the dial a little bit 90% of the content shown to me remains US driven.

like, yes brenda, i know using a random vid with overlaid text that says ‘this and yap’ doesn’t sound good but it WILL get more views than a carefully thought out piece to camera, pls I’m begging you to trust me

one of the most humbling experiences is trying to explain trending social video ideas to colleagues who don’t know the trends.

the thing about growing up in australia & being a mildly anxious person, is that to this day, if i sit on the loo without glancing down to check for spiders first, a part of me remains convinced a massive spider is in there waiting to jump onto my ass.

whoever added me to what i presume is some sort of
‘turkish people’ list, thanks! and merhaba to all the new followers! merhaba, hoşgeldiniz!

"Everything reminds me of her" I whisper, as I walk past a tree shaped like a bitch

keenly welcoming any tips and tricks from other VO performers etc

first VO demo request in weeks and of COURSE it comes right when my nasal passages are laden with snot because of a vicious pollen attack. no amount of vocal technique or vicks steam-bathing is helping me un-nasal my voice. aarrrgh

as though UNICEF, international courts and international aid & humanitarian organisations haven’t been sharing the same death stats. As though they haven’t been saying that what’s happening in Gaza is a crime against humanity with genocidal intent.

as though countless real time videos of flattened homes and bloodied bodies and lifeless babies and families screaming out in agony haven’t been reaching us for over a year.

nothing makes me lose respect for a journalist faster than when they follow death stats of Palestinians with ‘according to the hamas run health ministry’, as if to add a covert caveat about the unreliability of the stats.

big decisions rarely come with instant certainty - they raise questions, spark nostalgia and require support and hard work. this month the cards and i explore the messy, magical space between the past and the future. Read the full thing here: open.substack.com/pub/realvibe...

happy uk mother’s day to all the eldest daughters of immigrant families. if you know you fuckin KNOW.

So in the spirit of #EidMubarak, tell your family that you love them. Do something nice for someone. Share in something sweet and joyful together with your community. Be grateful for what you have and smile in thanks for your many blessings. And go demolish some baklava. (END)

But when I think back to my family’s sacrifices, and the way they managed to find & create small joys and comforts (admittedly, largely thanks to my grandma), in what must have been an otherwise wildly isolated existence, I feel nothing but pride and gratitude. (7)

It’s easy for the kids of first gen migrants to feel resentful frustration towards their parents: it can be enormously confusing, painful and testing to grow up trying to belong to multiple cultures and identities and feeling simultaneously like you belong nowhere. (6)

When I think about these memories of a little family doing what they could to nod toward their own culture in a land that knew and celebrated nothing of it, it makes me realise how much my parents gave up & changed their lives to move and start a new life elsewhere. (5)

So my grandma, being the elder of our little displaced community of Turks, always did 2 things: she would buy or prepare sweet treats to share - to signify the sweetness of the occasion. And, she would drop off clothes at a charity shop, which I would help her put into bags. (4)

We would also see more of the other Turkish families living out in Brisbane & have meals together. In Turkey, the end of Ramadan is also referred to as ‘şeker bayramı’, meaning the festival of sweetness, indicating the good will, charity & courtesy expected of the celebrations. (3)

We lived in Australia, far away from any of our family. On the 3 days intended for celebration that followed Ramadan, the house phone would be busy with my grandma calling relatives in Turkey & them calling us - all to wish each other a happy Bayram (Turkish for ‘festival’). (2)

From the archives:
My family is Turkish, but staunchly secular. Nevertheless practices of certain Islamic beliefs like #Eid are as much cultural as they are religious for many Turks. So though my parents & grandma didn’t follow Ramadan, do the fasting etc, there was a nod to it in my household. (1)

if i was 15 & less stable, i would bare my soul and write emo posts about all the metaphorical ghosts that are trying to haunt to me rn. but instead i’ll do this heavily censored cryptic version; a futile attempt to feel like some form of my truth is being recorded and sent into the world. (i’m ok)

gold medal standard of denial and justification gymnastics coming from the guardian.

Them: scuse me ma’am, what’s this?

Me: why, this? this be a bone i found on a beach in the outer hebrides. it serves as a reminder of the hidden stories contained within all our bodies, of the unifying inevitability of death that we all must face’

‘… just go inside ma’am’

travelling across london to a literary event to give readings to the guests and also a lil talk about the archetypal wisdom contained within the cards. bag is CHOCKABLOCK full of decks and various woo-woo paraphernalia. hope they have bag search at the venue entrance.

everything about this image is bliss. the lil nose. the tiny leg. the perfect ear. the probable doggy dreams 😭 thank you