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| @mushroomalice |
First off I just want to thank everyone who read and or shared my last blog post 'When Are You Having Kids?' It was my most read blog post to date! It was amazing to see so many people resonate with it and share it with others, so thank you for that! This post is going to look a little different. I reached out to an amazing creator for an interview. Jun and I have never met in person before but I am a big fan of his content and I figured this would be an interesting way for both you and I to get to know him.
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Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Jun, and I am a landscape architect currently based in Singapore. On days when I’m not writing or making collages on @mushroomalice, I spend my time imagining and creating liveable open spaces for people, gardens and greenery that encourage physical activities for everyday users.
Whether I’m designing the world of @mushroomalice or creating landscape gardens, I believe in taking reference from nature and my surroundings. To me, everyday life, though mundane at times, can be perfect inspirations for the whimsical. The play of scale and sizes of the ordinary, the pull and push of energy interacting between different elements, each and every one of them can be shaped and reshaped, sculpted into forms and ideas that provide imagination for both readers and visitors.
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| @mushroomalice |
How did @mushroomalice get started?
Like almost everyone on Instagram who dabbled with the platform in 2010, @mushroomalice first began as a little personal digital diary, comprising an assortment of random posts including photography, sketches and portraits. During that time, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter had been around for almost half a decade, and the introduction of Instagram seemed like the perfect in-between for posting bite-sized updates and photos of everyday life and thoughts. The name @mushroomalice, a play of words between mushroom, alice and malice, was chosen both for privacy and as a bold but irreverent persona to connect with like-minded individuals interested in language and design.
This digital diary of sorts went on for a few years, where a change in direction occurred after I moved to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. With age and a change in environment, I was inspired through the energy of the city and the generous friends and families I met while travelling to curate bit by bit the pieces in the account, profiling sets and collections of designs. One of the first curated sets was a collection of vintage portraits featuring a family of mushrooms and their little side stories. These collections slowly evolved with time and experimentation, where @mushroomalice eventually found its full expression in collages and rhymes.
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| @mushroomalice |
What word best describes your content?
Personally I find it hard to describe @mushroomalice with a single word, because to me it’s pretty much all over the place! But if I had to choose one, it would probably be nonsensical. Or whimsical. Or dreamlike. Or whimsically, nonsensically dreamlike. Or..You get the gist.
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| @mushroomalice |
What struggles do you feel millennials face today that other generations did not?
Economically speaking, Millennials are the new Lost Generation, having experienced 2 once in a lifetime economic crises during key points in their lives, namely entering the workforce during the inherited Great Recession, and trudging through the current Pandemic during the peak of their careers. This has left Millennials on vulnerable grounds with dimmer financial prospects, grasping on to the short end of the stick when compared to the preceding and following generations.
Though economy aside, I feel that Millennials definitely have the best of both worlds when it comes to comparisons with the preceding and following generations, though with that edge too comes the challenges doled out by both worlds.
To me, Millennials have traditionally been instilled with some if not most of the ethics and resourcefulness passed down by Baby Boomers and their siblings in Generation X, principles that are cultivated from a time when having a nuclear family and a 9-5 job is regarded as a basic form that’s most functional in society. At the same time, Millennials have successfully managed to advance quickly with the rapid growth and change in technology during an economic downturn, competing directly with Generation Z, a whole generation that has comfortably embraced technology, having been born into it.
With this edge in having the best qualities of both worlds, it is also inevitable that more pressure is placed on Millennials. They are expected to be as self-sufficient and reliable as the preceding generation to whom they look up to, while at the same time as confident and quick-witted as the next to whom they admire, a struggle that both generations before and after do not have to face. In a quickly advancing and evolving society, Millennials have become the Sandwich Generation caught between Videocassettes and TikTok!
But that being said, our Millennials should take pride in being the generation that is the most curious and confident in navigating through our current landscape, having the courage and willingness to question the rights and wrongs of the previous generation while armed with the innocence and sincerity of the next, all the while holding their avocado toast in hand. These are traits which should never be taken lightly or for granted, and traits one should be proud of.
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| @mushroomalice |
How do you deal with stress or anxiety?
I’ve personally gone through many trials and errors with finding the perfect mix of solution to stress and anxiety, from vices to virtues, and have come to the conclusion that there is no quick fix to it. I am sure many wiser women and men well versed in mind, body and health will concur that there are consequences to quick fixes and actions that ignore the bigger problem, consequences that we never had to deal with in the first place.
A beer after work or stress eating away might make one feel better for an evening, while hiding under the covers away from problems might seem to make them disappear, but these are temporary fixes that do not help with the overarching situation. Instead, they create new problems to existing stress and anxiety without resolving anything.
Habitually, I must admit that my first reaction to any problem, be it medical or social, would be to do a self diagnosis through Google. This knee jerk reaction unique to generations that have spent countless hours connected online has resulted in dozens of solutions, from medication to self exile in remote monasteries. I feel that the solution could be far simpler and closer to heart than we think. (Ps: I would strongly suggest that readers not self-diagnose themselves online on medical conditions, for in most cases it near guarantees that they have cancer. Or a tumour. Or 2 tumours. Or a week left to live.)
Personally, I feel that the most important part of dealing with both stress and anxiety, is to consciously cultivate a healthy state of body and mind. Reminding oneself to eat well and exercise, to slow down and take regular breaks might sound like a no brainer to anyone, but we constantly break down simply because we do not follow the most basic set of rules, which is to take care of our body and our mental state.
By creating healthy routines and rituals like exercising regularly and having enough sleep for our mind and body to focus on, we can take back the control we had over our lives and tackle in perspective the problems that come with them. But it all has to start with the conscious acknowledgement that we need to tweak our routines, and to commit to living a better lifestyle.
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| @mushroomalice |
What's your view point on social media?
As an individual, privacy issues aside, having spent my teenage years growing up with social media, I feel that while it has connected me with my peers and helped us stay in touch, it has also distanced us to a certain extent. We no longer communicate directly, relying on Stories and Posts to piece together an individual’s life, however different or far-fetched it may be from real life. Interestingly, the ease of connecting with someone has also made one more reluctant to initiate contact. Instead of a regular call or a old fashioned card sent during holidays asking about the wellbeing of a friend, we now use occasional likes and emojis to communicate our feelings and curiosities. This lack of connection within a connected atmosphere is certainly something which has to be addressed, even if it’s personally on an individual level. The upside to it all though, is that we do get to see memes of cute cats on a regular basis.
As a creator, social media has definitely given me more opportunities in bringing my art out to a wider audience. It has also given me a platform to communicate and share my thoughts easily. In this sense, social media was instrumental in giving @mushroomalice the chance to share and inspire the audience that it has now.
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| @mushroomalice |
What advice would you give to your younger self?
I would probably tell myself that it is alright to be different, and that difficult times are usually temporary. I’ve spent a lot of my younger self worrying about painful and seemingly unsolvable situations, about how I should conform to my surroundings and the people around me, when instead I should have been spending time on simply living the way I would have liked to. As I grow older, I’ve begun noticing that days appear shorter where time seems to pass faster, and the amount of time not spent living is time wasted.
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| @mushroomalice |
Do you feel pressure in regards to putting out content/ artwork on social media?
Definitely! With every piece of content that I put out, besides the pressure of trying to stay relevant in an ever-changing digital environment or the fear of being forgotten after extended periods without new posts, there is also the self-instilled personal obligation to the audience in sharing new content that is better than the last. Be that through different techniques in content creation or new ideas to lasting topics, as a creator, I hope that each piece would be able to constantly evoke personal feelings in its audience both existing and new, where the readers will associate certain moods and inspirations to particular images that they’ve seen on @mushroomalice.
That being said, I believe that it is important to keep a healthy state of mind while managing and growing one’s presence on social media. No amount of “likes” or audience is worth ruining your health over. The importance of sharing at a comfortable pace and taking a step back to slow myself is always on my mind, as it helps to put things in perspective and allows me to share the best side of my works to the audience, without compromising on quality and sanity.
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| @mushroomalice |
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After doing this interview with Jun I realized that him and I have very similar views. He is a unique soul and I highly recommend checking out his page @mushroomalice on Instagram. I am beyond grateful to of connected with him! Social media has allowed me to connect with talented people like Jun along with many other people all around the world. It's truly amazing to be able to reach out to someone you've never met and cheer them on along their journey. Both love and support are extremely important especially during these testing times we are having right now. Millennials are often shamed for being on their phones and avoiding direct interactions or contact with people but social support may be all that someone has access to. I hope you have learned a thing or two from Jun as I know that I most certainly have. I hope this interview opens up your viewpoint to this world in which we are living no matter what generation you are (Millennials, Generation Y or the so called 'boomers'). Be present, be happy and live your life.
Xx. The Stressed Out Millennial
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