vox--2020-07-17--The 5 best movies you can now watch at home

Theaters are mostly closed .
Blockbusters are delayed .
Drive-ins are having a moment .
And with the Covid-19 pandemic still a clear threat to Americans , most people are choosing to watch films at home .
Luckily , there ’ s a regular influx of new movies to choose from .
Five engrossing films are premiering this week on streaming services and in virtual theaters .
There ’ s a documentary that follows a military family for 10 years .
There ’ s a light comedic drama about finding yourself in the mountains of Norway .
A critically acclaimed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the injustice of our system of capital punishment .
An iconic American writer ’ s legacy is explored in a new documentary .
And the friendships and creative collaborations that would transform American theater — and lead to the creation of shows like Hamilton — are now on display to audiences in a new film .
All five movies are nourishing to watch .
But if none of them pique your interest , you can always check out one of the 28 best films from this year so far , and last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are also available .
Bernadine Williams ( Alfre Woodard ) has spent years working as a warden at a maximum-security prison , and it ’ s clearly been wearing on her health , her marriage , and her soul .
She sees the most important part of her work as caring for the inmates and quietly supporting them as they approach their execution dates .
But then a lethal injection goes awry , and as the date for the next one approaches , she finds herself reaching a breaking point .
With Clemency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heavy , deliberate film , with rich , widely framed shots and dark colors that make the emotional toll on not just Williams but also her coworkers , their families , the inmates , and the inmates ’ loved ones extra clear .
Anchored by an absolutely stunning performance from Woodard , it ’ s an unusual way to expose the injustices of the capital punishment system without forgetting the individuals who are stuck in its gears .
In light of the US ’ s resumption of federal executions , Clemency has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through July 31 ) on a variety of digital platforms .
How to watch it : Clemency is newly available to stream for free on Apple TV , Amazon , and Fandango Now , Redbox On Demand , Spectrum , Xfinity , Verizon FIOS , Dish , Cox , and Altice .
It ’ s also streaming on Hulu and available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes , Amazon , YouTube , Google Play , and Vudu .
Movies have often explored the effects of war on families , but Father Soldier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ documentary ( a co-production between Netflix and the New York Times ) follows Master Sgt .
Brian Eisch and his two young sons through 10 years of their lives , from deployment to the effects of war on the home front to the question of whether the boys will follow in their father ’ s footsteps .
It ’ s an observational documentary that doesn ’ t push any one perspective too heavily ; it ’ s possible to watch it as a straightforward tribute to American soldiers and their families .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lurking beneath the film : a quiet examination of the ways the narratives that are pushed on Americans , particularly men , about the glories of combat and the soldiers ’ life , have long-term effects that extend far past one generation .
How to watch it : Father Soldier Son is streaming on Netflix .
There are more than a few documentaries about the lives of famous authors and public figures .
I ’ ve been disappointed by most of them , because they often function more as 101-level introductions than interesting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and legacy .
Flannery is an exception .
Though conventional in form , the documentary brings a number of voices — ranging from celebrities like Tommy Lee Jones and Conan O ’ Brien to writers like Mary Karr and Alice Walker to scholars of American literature — to its exploration of one of the pivotal figures in American literature .
O ’ Connor ’ s relationship to the racism of her hometown in the South ( as well as her own racism ) is explored by writers of color who often address issues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hilton Als .
And that ’ s framed by a broader exploration of her persona , faith , class , experiences with lupus , and scalpel-sharp needling of the hypocrisies she saw around her .
For those who ’ ve read O ’ Connor and those who haven ’ t alike , it ’ s a strong entry point .
How to watch it : Flannery is in virtual theaters this week , and a list of participating theaters is available on the film ’ s website .
( You ’ ll receive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support the independent theater you select on the page . )
The story is familiar : A young woman tries to escape her disappointing life by running away to a foreign land .
But The Sunlit Night has a few things going for it .
It stars the always-delightful Jenny Slate as Frances , an aspiring painter who takes off to Norway for the summer to assist a gruff artist in his work , only to discover she has a lot to learn , too .
That means the film also feels like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s enough charm and whimsy for the story to escape coming across as too predictable ; Frances sees the world through art , and she frequently narrates her thoughts to us while comparing people , colors , and experiences to paintings she loves .
The Sunlit Night is a light and occasionally messy story of discovery , and Slate ’ s performance anchors it all .
How to watch it : The Sunlit Night is available to digitally rent or purchase on platforms including iTunes and Amazon .
Andrew Fried started filming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an improv hip-hop group , in the summer of 2005 .
Nobody knew then that members of the group — like Lin-Manuel Miranda , Thomas Kail , Anthony Veneziale , and Christopher Jackson — would go on to help shape the future of American theater with shows like In the Heights and Hamilton , or that their own show would end up on Broadway .
We Are Freestyle Love Supreme recounts the group ’ s early days via footage of performances and interviews with the group ’ s members , and shows how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s a light movie , best for Hamilton and In the Heights fans or those who enjoyed the stage show and want to figure out how it came about , or even just for aspiring freestylers .
While the film itself may not be groundbreaking , its subjects certainly are .
How to watch it : We Are Freestyle Love Supreme is streaming on Hulu .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a @ @ @ @ @

Theaters are mostly closed. Blockbusters are delayed. Drive-ins are having a moment. And with the Covid-19 pandemic still a clear threat to Americans, most people are choosing to watch films at home.
Luckily, there’s a regular influx of new movies to choose from. Five engrossing films are premiering this week on streaming services and in virtual theaters. There’s a documentary that follows a military family for 10 years. There’s a light comedic drama about finding yourself in the mountains of Norway. A critically acclaimed drama tells of a prison warden illuminates the injustice of our system of capital punishment. An iconic American writer’s legacy is explored in a new documentary. And the friendships and creative collaborations that would transform American theater — and lead to the creation of shows like Hamilton — are now on display to audiences in a new film.
All five movies are nourishing to watch. But if none of them pique your interest, you can always check out one of the 28 best films from this year so far, and last week’s extraordinary slate of new releases are also available.
Clemency
Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodard) has spent years working as a warden at a maximum-security prison, and it’s clearly been wearing on her health, her marriage, and her soul. She sees the most important part of her work as caring for the inmates and quietly supporting them as they approach their execution dates. But then a lethal injection goes awry, and as the date for the next one approaches, she finds herself reaching a breaking point.
With Clemency, director Chinonye Chukwu has crafted a heavy, deliberate film, with rich, widely framed shots and dark colors that make the emotional toll on not just Williams but also her coworkers, their families, the inmates, and the inmates’ loved ones extra clear. Anchored by an absolutely stunning performance from Woodard, it’s an unusual way to expose the injustices of the capital punishment system without forgetting the individuals who are stuck in its gears.
In light of the US’s resumption of federal executions, Clemency has been made available to stream for free (through July 31) on a variety of digital platforms.
How to watch it: Clemency is newly available to stream for free on Apple TV, Amazon, and Fandango Now, Redbox On Demand, Spectrum, Xfinity, Verizon FIOS, Dish, Cox, and Altice. It’s also streaming on Hulu and available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, and Vudu.
Father Soldier Son
Movies have often explored the effects of war on families, but Father Soldier Son takes a different tack. The documentary (a co-production between Netflix and the New York Times) follows Master Sgt. Brian Eisch and his two young sons through 10 years of their lives, from deployment to the effects of war on the home front to the question of whether the boys will follow in their father’s footsteps. It’s an observational documentary that doesn’t push any one perspective too heavily; it’s possible to watch it as a straightforward tribute to American soldiers and their families. But there often seems to be something darker lurking beneath the film: a quiet examination of the ways the narratives that are pushed on Americans, particularly men, about the glories of combat and the soldiers’ life, have long-term effects that extend far past one generation.
How to watch it: Father Soldier Son is streaming on Netflix.
Flannery
There are more than a few documentaries about the lives of famous authors and public figures. I’ve been disappointed by most of them, because they often function more as 101-level introductions than interesting analyses of a person’s life and legacy. Flannery is an exception. Though conventional in form, the documentary brings a number of voices — ranging from celebrities like Tommy Lee Jones and Conan O’Brien to writers like Mary Karr and Alice Walker to scholars of American literature — to its exploration of one of the pivotal figures in American literature. O’Connor’s relationship to the racism of her hometown in the South (as well as her own racism) is explored by writers of color who often address issues of race, including Richard Rodriguez and Hilton Als. And that’s framed by a broader exploration of her persona, faith, class, experiences with lupus, and scalpel-sharp needling of the hypocrisies she saw around her. For those who’ve read O’Connor and those who haven’t alike, it’s a strong entry point.
How to watch it: Flannery is in virtual theaters this week, and a list of participating theaters is available on the film’s website. (You’ll receive a rental link, and profits help support the independent theater you select on the page.)
The Sunlit Night
The story is familiar: A young woman tries to escape her disappointing life by running away to a foreign land. But The Sunlit Night has a few things going for it. It stars the always-delightful Jenny Slate as Frances, an aspiring painter who takes off to Norway for the summer to assist a gruff artist in his work, only to discover she has a lot to learn, too. That means the film also feels like an escape to remote Norway. There’s enough charm and whimsy for the story to escape coming across as too predictable; Frances sees the world through art, and she frequently narrates her thoughts to us while comparing people, colors, and experiences to paintings she loves. The Sunlit Night is a light and occasionally messy story of discovery, and Slate’s performance anchors it all.
How to watch it: The Sunlit Night is available to digitally rent or purchase on platforms including iTunes and Amazon.
We Are Freestyle Love Supreme
Andrew Fried started filming the performers of Freestyle Love Supreme, an improv hip-hop group, in the summer of 2005. Nobody knew then that members of the group — like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Anthony Veneziale, and Christopher Jackson — would go on to help shape the future of American theater with shows like In the Heights and Hamilton, or that their own show would end up on Broadway. We Are Freestyle Love Supreme recounts the group’s early days via footage of performances and interviews with the group’s members, and shows how friendship can sometimes turn into world-changing collaboration. It’s a light movie, best for Hamilton and In the Heights fans or those who enjoyed the stage show and want to figure out how it came about, or even just for aspiring freestylers. While the film itself may not be groundbreaking, its subjects certainly are.
How to watch it: We Are Freestyle Love Supreme is streaming on Hulu.


vox--2020-07-17--Contraband cellphones have given us prison TikTok

When Adnan Khan was sent to jail in 2003 at the age of 18 , texting wasn ’ t all that popular .
But by the time he was released from prison in January 2019 , texting was the norm and social media was everywhere — even behind bars .
“ I ’ ve seen the videos .
I think they ’ re hilarious , ” Khan , the executive director of Re : Store Justice , said on a recent episode of the Reset podcast .
What Khan is referring to is “ prison TikTok , ” a hashtag @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the app by people who are incarcerated .
“ TikTok is one way , and social media is one way , for incarcerated people to show the world who they really are and to humanize themselves , ” Khan said .
The content depicted on prison TikTok varies ; some videos show terrible living conditions inside US prisons , like overcrowding and flooding , whereas others depict people in prison uniforms doing renditions of trending TikTok dances .
But what ’ s surprising about prison TikTok isn ’ t that people who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like anyone else .
Rather , it ’ s that folks in prison have access to smartphones at all .
Cellphones are not allowed in American prisons .
And people who are found with contraband in their possession can get hit with serious penalties .
“ You can get charged with a misdemeanor or a felony depending on what jurisdiction you ’ re in , ” said Nazgol Ghandnoosh , a senior research analyst at the Sentencing Project .
“ And at the very least , you ’ re going to lose good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parole.
” So why would anyone run the risk of posting on TikTok or calling a family member using a contraband cellphone ?
For Khan , having a cellphone while in prison , even for a short time , was a way to mend his relationship with his mother .
It allowed him to have real emotional conversations with his family without being monitored by corrections officers and without having to deal with a 15-minute time limit or the large fees that typically come with using a prison landline .
“ It was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really have these tough conversations of how I felt neglected by her , ” he said .
“ What the cellphone did for me — and we keep using the word ‘ cellphone ’ like it was the phone itself — obviously , what I ’ m really talking about is a form of community , consistent communication , and a safe space to have that communication.
” To find out more about prison TikTok and the use of contraband cellphones in prison , listen to the latest episode of Reset below .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Google Podcasts , Spotify , or wherever you listen to podcasts .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

When Adnan Khan was sent to jail in 2003 at the age of 18, texting wasn’t all that popular. But by the time he was released from prison in January 2019, texting was the norm and social media was everywhere — even behind bars.
“I’ve seen the videos. I think they’re hilarious,” Khan, the executive director of Re:Store Justice, said on a recent episode of the Reset podcast.
What Khan is referring to is “prison TikTok,” a hashtag that lets TikTok users view videos shared on the app by people who are incarcerated. “TikTok is one way, and social media is one way, for incarcerated people to show the world who they really are and to humanize themselves,” Khan said.
The content depicted on prison TikTok varies; some videos show terrible living conditions inside US prisons, like overcrowding and flooding, whereas others depict people in prison uniforms doing renditions of trending TikTok dances.
But what’s surprising about prison TikTok isn’t that people who are incarcerated appreciate great choreography, just like anyone else. Rather, it’s that folks in prison have access to smartphones at all.
Cellphones are not allowed in American prisons. And people who are found with contraband in their possession can get hit with serious penalties.
“You can get charged with a misdemeanor or a felony depending on what jurisdiction you’re in,” said Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a senior research analyst at the Sentencing Project. “And at the very least, you’re going to lose good time credits or harm your chances of parole.”
So why would anyone run the risk of posting on TikTok or calling a family member using a contraband cellphone?
For Khan, having a cellphone while in prison, even for a short time, was a way to mend his relationship with his mother. It allowed him to have real emotional conversations with his family without being monitored by corrections officers and without having to deal with a 15-minute time limit or the large fees that typically come with using a prison landline.
“It was through a cellphone where I started to really have these tough conversations of how I felt neglected by her,” he said. “What the cellphone did for me — and we keep using the word ‘cellphone’ like it was the phone itself — obviously, what I’m really talking about is a form of community, consistent communication, and a safe space to have that communication.”
To find out more about prison TikTok and the use of contraband cellphones in prison, listen to the latest episode of Reset below.
Subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.


vox--2020-07-17--Emoji reveal more about you than you think

Since these digital pictographs debuted on mobile phones two decades ago , emoji have become a ubiquitous facet of human communication .
There are now more than 3,000 emoji , and over 100 new ones , which are as varied as a woman wearing a tuxedo , a dodo bird , and the transgender flag , are expected to show up in our keyboards later this year .
Meanwhile , Snap ( which owns Snapchat and Bitmoji ) , Apple , Facebook , and Samsung all allow users to render themselves as personalized emoji avatars .
The appeal of emoji @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allow us to augment otherwise flat online messages by adding a dimension to our online speech that we may not be able to express with just text .
And they ’ ve quickly become a fundamental part of how we communicate online .
“ There ’ s a whole generation of children who ‘ learn to read and write ’ emoji before they can read and write , ” Jennifer 8 .
Lee , an emoji activist and founder of the grassroots group Emojination , told Recode .
But these tiny pictures are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to communicate , and they reveal more than we might expect .
They can help companies and platforms get a better sense of how we feel — especially how we feel about brands — and they can even be used to target advertisements directly to us .
So while we might be using emoji just to rant to our followers about a favorite soccer player missing a goal , by using emoji we ’ re also handing companies neatly packaged , juicy information about our emotions and interests on a silver platter .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not just the strength of your opinion , but the valence and sentiment of your opinion , ” said Goutam Chakraborty , the director of the master ’ s program in business analytics and data science at Oklahoma State University .
“ It ’ s now a staple for consumers to use emojis in personal conversation .
But , certainly on social media platforms , you should be prepared that the marketers are going to use it.
” On that front , emoji are influential enough that companies have fought for the recognition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keyboards .
Last year , Ford ran a somewhat-secret campaign to get a pickup truck emoji approved by the Unicode Consortium , the body that oversees the emoji available on our device keyboards .
Now that truck emoji will show up on our devices by the end of 2020 , though it won ’ t include any Ford branding .
“ Why are they important ?
Because they do carry cultural weight , ” Jeremy Burge , the head of Emojipedia , an online dictionary dedicated to emoji , told Recode .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re on every phone in the world .
What else do we have that kind of meets that criteria in the world ?
I don ’ t really know.
” What are emoji , and where do they come from ?
What makes an emoji an emoji ?
Put simply , they ’ re little pictures that can show up alongside lines of digital text .
Think of the smile emoji or the pile of poo emoji .
These images convey some kind of emotion — or reference an object or idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to the same fundamental code .
“ It ’ s a pre-curated visual means of digital communication , ” argues Lee .
They ’ re not quite a language , she says , but a medium of communication that ’ s “ language-y ” and has taken on a form of its own .
Emoji ’ s origin story stretches back to the late ’ 90s , when a pair of Japanese mobile companies , SoftBank and NTT Docomo , introduced sets of images with their phones .
SoftBank introduced 90 picture-like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often credited with creating emoji as we know them , with a set of 176 emoji that were released 1999 .
These icons , designed by Shigetaka Kurita and meant to describe parts of our world , were incredibly simple compared to the emoji of today .
The original set included mostly everyday items , like a car , camcorder , and umbrella , as well as symbols , including numbers and musical notes .
( MoMA added this set to its collection in 2016 . )
In 2010 , the Unicode Consortium @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and characters across languages that ’ s mainly composed of tech companies , finally standardized emoji .
A decade later , it ’ s a basic expectation that a uniform set of emoji is available on the apps and devices produced by major technology companies and platforms .
The Unicode Consortium is now responsible for setting these standards as well as creating new emoji .
Anyone can submit a proposal for a new emoji character , and , in a process that can take more than a year , the Unicode Consortium weights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ characters deserve to be added to an emoji set that will appear on billions of people ’ s phones .
Not every proposal makes the cut .
As emoji have gained prominence , the Unicode Consortium ’ s selective process has also become a stage for its members and emoji users alike to coalesce around international cultural and social representation .
Since their initial creation , emoji have also been expanded to include more skin tones , to be more gender-inclusive , and to incorporate icons that represent the disability community .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2016 campaign to include an emoji featuring a woman in a hijab , which was started by a 15-year-old named Rayouf Alhumedhi .
At the same time , brands have also tried to take advantage of emoji as a way to form personal relationships with their customers and , in a way , achieve a certain level of global status .
While Ford actually helped draft the ultimately successful proposals for a pickup truck emoji , Taco Bell threw its weight behind a petition for a taco emoji that also succeeded .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ successful .
Kendall-Jackson Wines has so far come up short in its call for a white wine emoji .
Durex ’ s campaign for a condom emoji and Kit Kat ’ s proposal for a chocolate bar emoji also failed .
But sometimes the process has its own marketing appeal .
“ Campaigning to have an emoji is almost as good even if [ companies ] know they ’ re not going to get one , ” Burge , from Emojipedia , explained .
“ The campaign gives them something to work with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can put it out in the public sphere.
” Still , even if it ’ s a brand pitching an emoji , the Unicode Consortium takes these applications seriously .
“ Whether the proposal was created by a company or an individual is not a factor in the consideration , ” Greg Welch , a member of the Unicode Consortium ’ s board of directors , told Recode in an email .
He added that Unicode Consortium will not consider applications for trademarks and brands to become emoji .
Like much of what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contain valuable data that companies can use to understand their customers and to target ads .
Emoji can provide a clear view into someone ’ s mood and emotions , which can be helpful for large brands conducting what ’ s called sentiment analysis .
This is when algorithms , typically employed by brands or companies , analyze content that ’ s mined through the web for content and social media posts about them , or potentially other topics .
And while some of its members do sentiment analysis research involving emoji , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different emoji are used .
Overall , Chakraborty estimates that half of the companies providing sentiment analysis — which might normally look at keywords and the text of posts — now factor in emoji , which is notably higher from when he first looked at emoji in 2015 .
The data that can be gleaned from emoji usage is valuable for a number of reasons .
While a computer might have a hard time understanding the tone of a tweet ’ s text , emoji can provide an algorithm with a big hint @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contains emojis , it ’ s much easier for our algorithms to detect just generally whether the author has a positive or negative tone , ” explains Lane Wagner , an engineer at the social media marketing firm Nuvi .
“ It ’ s kind of like hanging a picture frame , where it ’ ll be more well-balanced if you put two nails in the wall instead of just one , ” Nuvi ’ s vice president of marketing , Brian Collier , added .
“ So one nail on the frame @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the other nail in the wall to hold up your sentiment is emoji analysis.
” Beyond studying how their audience feels , brands can also use emoji to target their advertisements .
One of the best examples comes from Twitter , which has enabled emoji targeting since 2016 .
This type of targeting allows advertisers to direct advertisements to people who have recently shared or engaged with a specific emoji , like a soccer ball or a car , much in the same way they might do so using keywords or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s location or gender .
One example of this is a 2018 campaign for the Toyota Camry that involved dozens of versions of an ad , each served to specific users based on which emoji they recently used on Twitter .
One of the advertising partners that provide this Twitter tool , 4C Insights , estimates that use of the feature is now 10 times greater than it was in 2016 .
“ It gives more context to the mindset of the user , ” 4C CEO Aaron Goldman said .
“ There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infer from a 280-character tweet when you ’ re trying to decide , as an advertiser , is this good person or a good time to advertise to that person.
” Of course , deciding which emoji to pay attention to can be a double-edged sword for advertisers .
More common emoji , like the smiley face , tell a brand more about a user ’ s mood , but less about their interests , compared to a more specific emoji like a coffee cup .
Still , they can be used together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to one of his clients , a large American coffee company , which targeted messages to people who used the coffee cup emoji as well as others , such as smiley faces and travel-oriented emoji like the airplane .
The various combinations of emoji allowed the company to run a campaign around the idea of getting coffee on the go and found that engagement rate with the ads was more than double than what it was without this specific kind of emoji-based targeting .
Still , it ’ s important to note that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , AdParlor , told Recode it has never had an advertiser interested in emoji targeting .
While emoji can be helpful for expressing emotion , there ’ s a lot you still can ’ t say with them .
There was a sense when emoji first came out that they could become their own language , but several experts highlighted important differences between this new pictorial lexicon and written and spoken languages .
These differences include ideas , such as verb tenses like past and present , that you can ’ t express @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emoji are interpreted by various cultures and even from one device to the next .
“ One of the things that slowed down emoji pickup as a proper language is you can ’ t express new ideas .
You have to take existing emojis and [ find ] the best fitting one , ” said Paul Barba , the chief scientist at Lexalytics .
“ That ’ s very different than language , which does sort of evolve.
” He added that while a smiley face has a global connotation , for instance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ culture doesn ’ t necessarily mean the same thing in another .
Another issue is that emoji rendering can also change without notice , and they can also look different across different operating systems .
While the Unicode Consortium decides which emoji to include in the total set , it only provides guidance for how they look ; software developers and device manufacturers ultimately design the emoji themself .
Take “ astonished face , ” for example .
On Apple , the face looks more surprised , but on Facebook ’ s Messenger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and has Xs over its eyes .
That means emoji can have widely different meanings to different users , as a study from the University of Minnesota documented .
Still , technology is getting better at identifying consistent uses of emoji , even when interpreting their meaning can be subjective .
While it ’ s true that people express themselves differently with emoji , for example , AI systems can be trained to understand them based on how they ’ ve previously been interpreted by humans .
In 2017 , researchers at MIT @ @ @ @ @ @ @ train an algorithm to understand the emotion expressed in different tweets , including sarcasm .
This type of analysis assumes that we ’ re all using a limited number of emoji , but the Unicode Consortium ’ s emoji set is constantly evolving .
As emoji have become more popular , their number has expanded to better account and represent a wide variety of culture , objects , and symbols that humans find meaning in .
This fall will continue that expansion , with the Unicode Consortium adding a ninja , a pinched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bubble tea and the tamale , and new animals like the bison and the dodo .
Meanwhile , the popularity of emoji has given rise to other image libraries , some of which are completely customizable .
Apple ’ s Animoji , for example , offers the ability to animate existing emoji characters , and the newer Memoji feature lets users create customized 3D avatars .
Facebook has a similar product called Avatars , which is a competitor to the popular avatar app Bitmoji .
But despite these fancy emoji-like characters , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still the standard after so many years .
According to Burge , the Emojipedia founder , “ what people want isn ’ t just a physical emoji ; it ’ s the recognition of being on the emoji keyboard , and that ’ s what these custom avatar setups can ’ t replicate.
” As long as this universal language of sorts exists , brands and companies will want to capitalize on it .
But that ’ s surely in part because emoji have proven so useful at helping us express ourselves and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s just wild that we do have this one set of over 3,000 characters that are on every single phone in the world , ” Burge added .
“ The emoji keyboard is the most popular keyboard in the world.
” Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network .
All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today @

Since these digital pictographs debuted on mobile phones two decades ago, emoji have become a ubiquitous facet of human communication. There are now more than 3,000 emoji, and over 100 new ones, which are as varied as the transgender flag, a dodo bird, and a woman wearing a tuxedo, are expected to show up in our keyboards later this year. Meanwhile, Snap (which owns Snapchat and Bitmoji), Apple, Facebook, and Samsung all allow users to render themselves as personalized emoji avatars.
The appeal of emoji is their universality and dexterity. They allow us to augment otherwise flat online messages by adding a dimension to our online speech that we may not be able to express with just text. And they’ve quickly become a fundamental part of how we communicate online.
“There’s a whole generation of children who ‘learn to read and write’ emoji before they can read and write,” Jennifer 8. Lee, an emoji activist and founder of the grassroots group Emojination, told Recode.
But these tiny pictures are more than just a visual way to communicate, and they reveal more than we might expect. They can help companies and platforms get a better sense of how we feel — especially how we feel about brands — and they can even be used to target advertisements directly to us. So while we might be using emoji just to rant to our followers about a favorite soccer player missing a goal, by using emoji we’re also handing companies neatly packaged, juicy information about our emotions and interests.
Emoji “are powerful symbols for expressing not just the strength of your opinion, but the valence and sentiment of your opinion,” said Goutam Chakraborty, the director of the master’s program in business analytics and data science at Oklahoma State University. “It’s now a staple for consumers to use emojis in personal conversation. But, certainly on social media platforms, you should be prepared that the marketers are going to use it.”
On that front, emoji are influential enough that companies have fought for the recognition of their products showing up in emoji keyboards. Last year, Ford ran a somewhat-secret campaign to get a pickup truck emoji approved by the Unicode Consortium, the body that oversees the emoji available on our device keyboards. Now that truck emoji will show up on our devices by the end of 2020, though it won’t include any Ford branding.
“Why are they important? Because they do carry cultural weight,” Jeremy Burge, the head of Emojipedia, an online dictionary dedicated to emoji, told Recode. “There is a limited set and they’re on every phone in the world. What else do we have that kind of meets that criteria in the world? I don’t really know.”
What are emoji, and where do they come from?
What makes an emoji an emoji? Put simply, they’re little pictures that can show up alongside lines of digital text. Think of the smile emoji or the pile of poo emoji. These images convey some kind of emotion — or reference an object or idea — and they’re all standardized according to the same fundamental code. “It’s a pre-curated visual means of digital communication,” argues Lee. They’re not quite a language, she says, but a medium of communication that’s “language-y” and has taken on a form of its own.
Emoji’s origin story stretches back to the late ’90s, when a pair of Japanese mobile companies, SoftBank and NTT Docomo, introduced sets of images with their phones. SoftBank introduced 90 picture-like characters in 1997, but Docomo is often credited with creating emoji as we know them, with a set of 176 emoji that were released 1999. These icons, designed by Shigetaka Kurita and meant to describe parts of our world, were incredibly simple compared to the emoji of today. The original set included mostly everyday items, like a car, camcorder, and umbrella, as well as symbols, including numbers and musical notes. (MoMA added this set to its collection in 2016.)
In 2010, the Unicode Consortium, an international body for standardizing texts and characters across languages that’s mainly composed of tech companies, finally standardized emoji. A decade later, it’s a basic expectation that a uniform set of emoji is available on the apps and devices produced by major technology companies and platforms. The Unicode Consortium is now responsible for setting these standards as well as creating new emoji. Anyone can submit a proposal for a new emoji character, and, in a process that can take more than a year, the Unicode Consortium weights a wide range of questions about which characters deserve to be added to an emoji set that will appear on billions of people’s phones. Not every proposal makes the cut.
As emoji have gained prominence, the Unicode Consortium’s selective process has also become a stage for its members and emoji users alike to coalesce around international cultural and social representation. Since their creation, emoji have been expanded to include more skin tones, to be more gender-inclusive, and to incorporate icons that represent the disability community. There have also been grassroots efforts, like the 2016 campaign to include an emoji featuring a woman in a hijab, which was started by a 15-year-old named Rayouf Alhumedhi.
At the same time, brands have also tried to take advantage of emoji as a way to form personal relationships with their customers and, in a way, achieve a certain level of global status. While Ford actually helped draft the ultimately successful proposal for a pickup truck emoji, Taco Bell threw its weight behind a petition for a taco emoji that also succeeded. Other companies’ efforts have been less successful. Kendall-Jackson Wines has so far come up short in its call for a white wine emoji. Durex’s campaign for a condom emoji and Kit Kat’s proposal for a chocolate bar emoji also failed. But sometimes the process has its own marketing appeal.
“Campaigning to have an emoji is almost as good even if [companies] know they’re not going to get one,” Burge, from Emojipedia, explained. “The campaign gives them something to work with. It can be fun. They can put it out in the public sphere.”
Still, even if it’s a brand pitching an emoji, the Unicode Consortium takes these applications seriously.
“Whether the proposal was created by a company or an individual is not a factor in the consideration,” Greg Welch, a member of the Unicode Consortium’s board of directors, told Recode in an email. He added that Unicode Consortium will not consider applications for trademarks and brands to become emoji.
Emoji reveal our feelings in unexpected ways
Like much of what is shared on social media, emoji contain valuable data that companies can use to understand their customers and to target ads. Emoji can provide a clear view into someone’s mood and emotions, which can be helpful for large brands conducting what’s called sentiment analysis. This is when algorithms, typically employed by brands or companies, analyze content that’s mined through the web for content and social media posts about them or potentially other topics. And while some of its members do sentiment analysis research involving emoji, the Unicode Consortium itself tracks how often different emoji are used.
Overall, Chakraborty estimates that half of the companies providing sentiment analysis — which might normally look at keywords and the text of posts — now factor in emoji, which is notably higher than when he first looked at emoji in 2015. The data that can be gleaned from emoji usage is valuable for a number of reasons. While a computer might have a hard time understanding the tone of a tweet’s text, emoji can provide an algorithm with a big hint.
“When a piece of text contains emojis, it’s much easier for our algorithms to detect just generally whether the author has a positive or negative tone,” explained Lane Wagner, an engineer at the social media marketing firm Nuvi.
“It’s kind of like hanging a picture frame, where it’ll be more well-balanced if you put two nails in the wall instead of just one,” Nuvi’s vice president of marketing, Brian Collier, added. “So one nail on the frame of sentiment analysis is your word analysis, and the other nail in the wall to hold up your sentiment is emoji analysis.”
Beyond studying how their audience feels, brands can also use emoji to target their advertisements. One of the best examples comes from Twitter, which has enabled emoji targeting since 2016. This type of targeting allows advertisers to direct advertisements to people who have recently shared or engaged with a specific emoji, like a soccer ball or a car, much in the same way they might do so using keywords or demographic information, like a user’s location or gender. One example of this is a 2018 campaign for the Toyota Camry that involved dozens of versions of an ad, each served to specific users based on which emoji they recently used on Twitter.
One of the advertising partners that provide this Twitter tool, 4C Insights, estimates that use of the feature is now 10 times greater than it was in 2016.
“It gives more context to the mindset of the user,” 4C CEO Aaron Goldman said. “There’s only so much you can infer from a 280-character tweet when you’re trying to decide, as an advertiser, is this a good person or a good time to advertise to that person.”
Deciding which emoji to pay attention to can be a double-edged sword for advertisers. More common emoji, like the smiley face, tell a brand more about a user’s mood but less about their interests when compared to a more specific emoji like a coffee cup. Still, they can be used together.
Goldman explained this challenge by pointing to one of his clients, a large American coffee company, which targeted messages to people who used the coffee cup emoji as well as others, such as smiley faces and travel-oriented emoji like the airplane. The various combinations of emoji allowed the company to run a campaign around the idea of getting coffee on the go and found that engagement rate with the ads was more than double than what it was without this specific kind of emoji-based targeting. Still, it’s important to note that another advertising firm that offers that tool, AdParlor, told Recode it has never had an advertiser interested in emoji targeting.
Emoji remain open to interpretation
While emoji can be helpful for expressing emotion, there’s a lot you still can’t say with them. There was a sense when emoji first came out that they could become their own language, but several experts highlighted important differences between this new pictorial lexicon and written and spoken languages. These differences include ideas, such as verb tenses like past and present, that you can’t express in emoji, as well as how emoji are interpreted by various cultures and even from one device to the next.
“One of the things that slowed down emoji pickup as a proper language is you can’t express new ideas. You have to take existing emojis and [find] the best fitting one,” said Paul Barba, the chief scientist at Lexalytics. “That’s very different than language, which does sort of evolve.” He added that while a smiley face has a global connotation, for instance, a particular hand gesture in one culture doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in another.
Another issue is that emoji rendering can also change without notice, and they can also look different across different operating systems. While the Unicode Consortium decides which emoji to include in the total set, it only provides guidance for how they look; software developers and device manufacturers ultimately design the emoji themselves. Take “astonished face,” for example. On Apple, the face looks more surprised, but on Facebook’s Messenger, the same face looks more alarmed and has Xs over its eyes. That means emoji can have widely different meanings to different users, as a study from the University of Minnesota documented.
Still, technology is getting better at identifying consistent uses of emoji, even when interpreting their meaning can be subjective. While it’s true that people express themselves differently with emoji, AI systems can, for example, be trained to understand them based on how they’ve previously been interpreted by humans. In 2017, researchers at MIT released an algorithm that used emoji to train an algorithm to understand the emotion expressed in different tweets, including sarcasm.
This type of analysis assumes that we’re all using a limited number of emoji, but the Unicode Consortium’s emoji set is constantly evolving. As emoji have become more popular, their number has expanded to better account for and represent a wide variety of cultures, objects, and symbols that humans find meaning in. This fall will continue that expansion, with the Unicode Consortium adding a ninja, a pinched finger emoji, new food-inspired emoji like bubble tea and the tamale, and new animals like the bison and the dodo.
Meanwhile, the popularity of emoji has given rise to other image libraries, some of which are completely customizable. Apple’s Animoji, for example, offers the ability to animate existing emoji characters, and the newer Memoji feature lets users create customized 3D avatars. Facebook has a similar product called Avatars, which is a competitor to the popular avatar app Bitmoji. But despite these fancy emoji-like characters, the Unicode Consortium’s emoji set is still the standard. According to Burge, the Emojipedia founder, “what people want isn’t just a physical emoji; it’s the recognition of being on the emoji keyboard, and that’s what these custom avatar setups can’t replicate.”
As long as this universal language of sorts exists, brands and companies will want to capitalize on it. But that’s surely in part because emoji have proven so useful at helping us express ourselves and have therefore made themselves invaluable.
“It’s just wild that we do have this one set of over 3,000 characters that are on every single phone in the world,” Burge added. “The emoji keyboard is the most popular keyboard in the world.”
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network. All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists.


vox--2020-07-17--The case for unschooling

The case for unschooling

It ’ s 10 am and each of my three school-aged children are spread out around the house .
One is on his laptop , headphones on , eyes focused intently on his screen .
One has transformed our dining room table into his own makeshift STEM studio complete with LEGOs , popsicle sticks , food coloring , and other seemingly unrelated things .
And the last one is on his tablet listening to an audiobook while he follows along with his physical copy .
It might technically be summer , but this is what life often looks like for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t homeschool — in our household , several of our kids are unschooled .
Since March , I ’ ve watched as my friends scrambled to put together some sort of survival plan to make it through the school year as closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the nation .
“ How are we going to do this ?
” was the question on everyone ’ s mind .
It ’ s been a tough few months , and just as we ’ ve taken a moment to catch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closures in the fall , and there ’ s a new question on the horizon : “ What are we going to do about next year ?
” If you find yourself worrying over these questions , unschooling might be the answer you ’ re looking for .
Unschooling is a broad term that encompasses a range of labels , definitions , and practices , unique to each person or family .
But at its core , it ’ s the opportunity — and often for new unschoolers , the challenge — for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than adhere to the criteria and curricula predetermined by school boards or other entities .
Unlike the traditional homeschool model which often seeks to mimic the classroom or follow a defined curriculum usually with parents acting as teachers , with unschooling , children take the lead .
Adults , sometimes parents , but not always , typically offer support , assistance , and guidance when needed .
For the past three years , our family has been on a journey to reimagine the way we do “ school , ” a decision ignited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who was in third grade at the time .
Each day he came home requesting to be homeschooled : He told us that at school he felt bored , and his project-based honors program was discontinued due to the lack of staff — one of many challenges at his under-resourced public school .
It was becoming increasingly clear that his desire for independence and space to explore the things he was interested in wasn ’ t possible in the traditional public school classroom .
At the time , we had a younger child @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and an older sibling who wanted to stay in his public school .
Ultimately , we agreed to pull him out , and so began our journey .
In the beginning , I was much like parents a few months ago trying to recreate school at home .
I was also working from home as a freelance writer , and as the worksheets , packets , and strict lesson plans increased , so did my anxiety and frustration .
As I attempted to take on the role of teacher , I found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ balance lesson plans with side-by-side instruction and meeting my own deadlines .
My son seemed to be struggling with sitting in front of a computer screen for hours and filling out endless worksheets even more than I was .
It wasn ’ t until I noticed more ease and enthusiasm happening in our scheduled “ free time ” — like his decision to write a short story one day — that I understood the way we were homeschooling wasn ’ t working for either of us .
Then I remembered something I discovered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ homeschooling options .
A concept as simple as it was radical : People can learn , without “ school.
” Allowing kids to shape their own education It can be helpful to think of unschooling not as an educational approach , but as the philosophy that learning is a natural process constantly taking place .
The term emerged in the ’ 70s , popularized by author and educator John Holt .
After working as a teacher in a conventional setting for several years , Holt realized the motivating factor for many of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ learning , but a fear of failure and criticism .
He noted a marked difference between the natural creativity in preschool-age children and the lack of excitement and curiosity in elementary school students and beyond .
Over his lifetime , his writings on unschooling inspired many to reexamine the state of America ’ s public schools and our rigid expectations of children .
Today , unschooling is practiced by people across the world for all sorts of reasons , even within their own families .
For us , it ’ s an opportunity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looks like naturally for our youngest son , age 7 .
For our middle child , age 11 , the driver is independence : the ability to choose which projects to pursue , books to read , and even languages to study .
And for our eldest , 15 , who was attending traditional school before the pandemic , our decision to unschool this coming fall will allow him space to deep dive into the subjects he ’ s most passionate about .
Our days typically look like a mix of scheduled activities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed , and a dedicated amount of time for exploration or personal projects .
We have some expectations , such as using technology to support a project or interest rather than endless scrolling , or setting goals that we regularly check-in on , agreed upon together as a family .
Not all unschoolers do this , but this is what works for us .
A tool we picked up from our unschool community is the use of contracts to outline those expectations and requests .
We use them for everything from resolving conflicts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resources ( this can help with ensuring healthy use of the internet ) .
Daily there ’ s reading , their pick — for one that ’ s an audiobook , another a comic .
They may have a virtual class in the morning , something they may request on their own or something we noticed they were naturally drawn to .
They each have projects or interests they ’ re actively pursuing , so in the afternoon they could be doing that on their own or with our assistance .
For example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ four of his animated film , so you ’ d find him working on that , while our youngest is eager to read “ bigger books ” like his brothers , so more structured reading assistance could be happening then .
Before the pandemic , for two days a week they would attend Natural Creativity , a self-directed learning center featured in the documentary Unschooled , where facilitators would help support , guide , and assist them in their endeavors ( program costs are fairly reasonable , and there are financial aid options @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gave me two dedicated days to work without interruption .
Unschooling as a working parent can afford more freedom Will my kid actually learn anything if we let them do what they want ?
Will they fall behind their peers ?
And what happens in the subsequent years when they might want to return to school ?
These are all questions I ’ ve had myself and sometimes still think about .
Here ’ s what I know for sure : In practice , learning is happening all of the time , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and presented just right .
For example , my son mastered fractions simply by following his natural interest in cooking , where he learned early on how to double or halve ingredients when making his favorite brownies .
If you look for the learning , you ’ ll find it .
For working parents , any kind of homeschooling isn ’ t easy , but unschooling gives a different sort of freedom .
Think about it this way : With a defined curriculum , your role is teacher .
With self-directed learning , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or as we ’ ve liked to view it , a sort of partnership .
Children take the lead , explore subjects that interest them , play , and read while you support with assistance , help connect ideas , or introduce new material that builds on those topics .
On the days where more support , structure , or scheduled interactions are needed , especially for younger children who may need more assistance , there are platforms like Outschool , which offers countless live online classes with teachers and other students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ class , an hour each day that occupies a busy first-grader with a story and a STEM project .
Self-directed centers like Natural Creativity continue to offer virtual community and weekly afternoon activities .
There are also co-ops where parents rotate during the week to lead a lesson or activity for a group of children - virtually or socially distanced , of course .
I ’ ll admit — the concept of unschooling can be a lot to digest , especially in comparison to what we ’ ve come to expect from traditional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ designed for efficiency , to educate large groups of students .
Homeschool is a different strategy altogether .
If you ’ re considering homeschooling in general , it ’ s important to read your state ’ s laws so you ’ re clear on what ’ s expected of you .
And while reporting requirements may vary from district to district , unschooling is a perfectly acceptable homeschool method in all 50 states .
Even in the most strict states ( mine is one of them ) , there aren ’ t benchmarks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can unschool and make the transition back to traditional school if your child ’ s needs and preferences change .
Meanwhile , for older unschoolers interested in college , it ’ s a great practice to get in touch with the admissions office of their desired schools to find out what their requirements for homeschooled students are .
You might be surprised to learn that in lieu of traditional transcripts and test scores , colleges welcome the creative learning experiences from unschoolers and homeschoolers of all backgrounds .
Just like traditional school , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unschoolers .
In fact , in the absence of the high stress and rigid structure of high school , many unschoolers are quite successful in college .
Not only have they ’ ve had ample practice in taking the lead in their education , they ’ re also used to the freedoms in college that students in traditional schools aren ’ t necessarily familiar with .
While unschoolers frequently do go on to college and grad school as well , they also pursue vocational schools and other special skills .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internships that align with their interests , start businesses , or pursue large-scale creative projects that assist them as they navigate life beyond school .
For example , there ’ s 19-year-old Karen Leong who owns a successful custom cake design business after discovering videos on YouTube when she was 11 .
Unschoolers often find careers they enjoy and that support them .
I ’ m not saying unschooling is right for every child , and I understand the hesitation that comes with such unstructured learning for your kids .
As for heading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would simply encourage all parents to remember that even though it might be different than what we are used to , learning is still happening all around us .
Uncertainty is the theme for everyone right now .
But as we ’ re gathering research , looking over the data , and waiting to hear some sort of plan , perhaps you could consider a different approach to manage it .
Take the year into your own hands , let your children take the lead , and watch what happens when you learn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a freelance writer and brand strategist with a passion for storytelling .
By day she uses her words to bring brand visions to life and by night she pens essays on parenting , purpose , and other matters of the heart .
Find her managing a blended family of schoolers , unschoolers , and young people whose paths are yet to be discovered in Philadelphia .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox @ @

It’s 10 am and my three school-age children are spread out around the house. One is on his laptop, headphones on, eyes focused intently on his screen. One has transformed our dining room table into his own makeshift STEM studio complete with Legos, popsicle sticks, food coloring, and other seemingly unrelated things. And the last one is on his tablet listening to an audiobook while he follows along with his physical copy. It might technically be summer, but this is what life often looks like for us year-round. No, we don’t homeschool — in our household, several of our kids are unschooled.
Since March, I’ve watched as my friends scrambled to put together some sort of survival plan to make it through the school year as closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the nation. “How are we going to do this?” was the question on everyone’s mind. It’s been a tough few months, and just as we’ve taken a moment to catch our breath, schools are now announcing closures in the fall, and there’s a new question on the horizon: “What are we going to do about next year?” If you find yourself worrying over these questions, unschooling might be the answer you’re looking for.
Unschooling is a broad term that encompasses a range of labels, definitions, and practices unique to each person or family. At its core, it’s the opportunity — and often for new unschoolers, the challenge — for children to explore their own interests rather than adhere to the criteria and curricula predetermined by school boards or other entities. Unlike the traditional homeschool model which often seeks to mimic the classroom or follow a defined curriculum usually with parents acting as teachers, in unschooling, children take the lead. Adults, sometimes (but not always) parents, typically offer support, assistance, and guidance when needed.
For the past three years, our family has been on a journey to reimagine the way we do “school,” a decision ignited by our independent and headstrong son, who was in third grade at the time. Each day, he came home requesting to be homeschooled: He told us that at school he felt bored, and his project-based honors program was discontinued due to the lack of staff — one of many challenges at his under-resourced public school. It was becoming increasingly clear that his desire for independence and space to explore the things he was interested in wasn’t possible in the traditional public school classroom. At the time, we had a younger child who wasn’t yet in school and an older sibling who wanted to stay in his public school. Ultimately, we agreed to pull him out of his public school, and so began our journey.
In the beginning, I was much like parents a few months ago, trying to recreate school at home. I was also working from home as a freelance writer, and as the worksheets, packets, and strict lesson plans increased, so did my anxiety and frustration. As I attempted to take on the role of teacher, I found myself approaching burnout as I struggled to balance lesson plans with side-by-side instruction and meeting my own deadlines. My son seemed to be struggling with sitting in front of a computer screen for hours and filling out endless worksheets even more than I was. It wasn’t until I noticed more ease and enthusiasm happening in our scheduled “free time” — like his decision to write a short story one day — that I understood the way we were homeschooling wasn’t working for either of us.
Then I remembered something I discovered back when I first began researching our homeschooling options, a concept as simple as it was radical: People can learn without “school.”
Allowing kids to shape their own education
It can be helpful to think of unschooling not as an educational approach but as the philosophy that learning is a natural process constantly taking place. The term emerged in the ’70s, popularized by author and educator John Holt. After working as a teacher in a conventional setting for several years, Holt realized the motivating factor for many of his students wasn’t a love of learning but a fear of failure and criticism. He noted a marked difference between the natural creativity in preschool-age children and the lack of excitement and curiosity in elementary school students and beyond. Over his lifetime, his writings on unschooling inspired many to reexamine the state of America’s public schools and our rigid expectations of children.
Today, unschooling is practiced by people across the world for all sorts of reasons, even within their own families. For us, it’s an opportunity to release expectations and observe what learning looks like naturally for our youngest son, age 7. For our middle child, age 11, the driver is independence: the ability to choose which projects to pursue, books to read, and even languages to study. And for our eldest, 15, who was attending traditional school before the pandemic, our decision to unschool this coming fall will allow him space to dive deep into the subjects he’s most passionate about.
Our days typically look like a mix of scheduled activities, some guidance or instructional assistance if needed, and a dedicated amount of time for exploration or personal projects. We have some expectations, such as using technology to support a project or interest rather than endless scrolling, or setting goals that we regularly check-in on, agreed upon together as a family. Not all unschoolers do this, but this is what works for us. A tool we picked up from our unschool community is the use of contracts to outline those expectations and requests. We use them for everything from resolving conflicts to requests to use certain tools and resources (this can help with ensuring healthy use of the internet).
There’s daily reading, their pick — for one that’s an audiobook, another a comic. They may have a virtual class in the morning, something they may request on their own or something we noticed they were naturally drawn to. They each have projects or interests they’re actively pursuing, so in the afternoon they could be doing that on their own or with our assistance. For example, our eldest is currently on scene four of his animated film, so you’d find him working on that, while our youngest is eager to read “bigger books” like his brothers, so more structured reading assistance could be happening then. Before the pandemic, for two days a week they would attend Natural Creativity, a self-directed learning center featured in the documentary Unschooled, where facilitators would help support, guide, and assist them in their endeavors (program costs are fairly reasonable, and there are financial aid options). An added bonus: This gave me two dedicated days to work without interruption.
Unschooling as a working parent can afford more freedom
Will my kid actually learn anything if we let them do what they want? Will they fall behind their peers? And what happens in the subsequent years when they might want to return to school? These are all questions I’ve had myself and sometimes still think about. Here’s what I know for sure: In practice, learning is happening all the time, even if it isn’t packaged up and presented just right. For example, my son mastered fractions simply by following his natural interest in cooking, where he learned early on how to double or halve ingredients when making his favorite brownies. If you look for the learning, you’ll find it.
For working parents, any kind of homeschooling isn’t easy, but unschooling gives a different sort of freedom. Think about it this way: With a defined curriculum, your role is teacher. With self-directed learning, that shifts to a more supportive role, or as we’ve liked to view it, a sort of partnership. Children take the lead, explore subjects that interest them, play, and read; you support with assistance, help connect ideas, or introduce new material that builds on those topics.
On the days where more support, structure, or scheduled interactions are needed, especially for younger children who may need more assistance, there are platforms like Outschool, which offers countless live online classes with teachers and other students. A current favorite is Storybook STEM class, an hour each day that occupies a busy first-grader with a story and a project in science, technology, engineering, or math. Self-directed centers like Natural Creativity continue to offer virtual community and weekly afternoon activities. There are also co-ops where parents rotate during the week to lead a lesson or activity for a group of children — virtually or socially distanced, of course.
I’ll admit, the concept of unschooling can be a lot to digest, especially in comparison to what we’ve come to expect from traditional school. But remember, school is designed for efficiency, to educate large groups of students. Homeschool is a different strategy altogether.
If you’re considering homeschooling in general, it’s important to read your state’s laws so you’re clear on what’s expected of you. And while reporting requirements may vary from district to district, unschooling is a perfectly acceptable homeschool method in all 50 states. Even in the most strict states (mine is one of them), there aren’t benchmarks students are required to reach. You can unschool and make the transition back to traditional school if your child’s needs and preferences change.
Meanwhile, for older unschoolers interested in college, it’s a great practice to get in touch with the admissions office of their desired schools to find out what their requirements for homeschooled students are. You might be surprised to learn that in lieu of traditional transcripts and test scores, colleges welcome the creative learning experiences from unschoolers and homeschoolers of all backgrounds.
Just like traditional school, college is one of many paths for unschoolers. In fact, in the absence of the high stress and rigid structure of high school, many unschoolers are quite successful in college. Not only have they had ample practice in taking the lead in their education, they’re also used to the freedoms in college that students in traditional schools aren’t necessarily familiar with. While unschoolers frequently do go on to college and grad school, they also pursue vocational schools and other special skills. It’s common for high school-aged unschoolers to explore internships that align with their interests, start businesses, or pursue large-scale creative projects that assist them as they navigate life beyond school. For example, there’s 19-year-old Karen Leong who owns a successful custom cake design business after discovering videos on YouTube when she was 11.
Unschoolers often find careers they enjoy and that support them. I’m not saying unschooling is right for every child, and I understand the hesitation that comes with such unstructured learning for your kids. As for heading back to school next year, I would simply encourage all parents to remember that even though it might be different from what we are used to, learning is still happening all around us. Uncertainty is the theme for everyone right now. But as we’re gathering research, looking over the data, and waiting to hear some sort of plan, perhaps you could consider a different approach to manage it. Take the year into your own hands, let your children take the lead, and watch what happens when you learn without school.
Tyshia Ingram is a freelance writer and brand strategist with a passion for storytelling. By day she uses her words to bring brand visions to life and by night she pens essays on parenting, purpose, and other matters of the heart. Find her managing a blended family of schoolers, unschoolers, and young people whose paths are yet to be discovered in Philadelphia.


vox--2020-07-17--Why Washington, DC, isn’t a state

Why Washington, DC, isn’t a state

On June 26 , 2020 , the US House of Representatives voted to make America ’ s capital city , Washington , DC , the country ’ s 51st state .
It was a historic vote , and the closest the country has come to adding a new state in more than 60 years .
But it was also , for the time being , completely symbolic .
Because at least in 2020 , DC has virtually no chance of becoming a state .
That June 26 vote was almost entirely along party lines ; Democrats mostly voted in favor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
That ’ s because making DC a state would give Democrats additional seats in Congress , potentially affecting the balance of power between the parties .
It ’ s why President Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate have both promised to strike down any bid for DC statehood .
In fact , statehood in the US has always been a political issue .
In the past , the US has often added states in pairs to preserve the political balance .
Admitting a new state on its own has happened , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case for DC statehood is strong : The city has a similar population to several states , its hundreds of thousands of residents lack any say in national lawmaking , and its local government is uniquely vulnerable to being strong-armed by Congress and the federal government .
Simply put , the laws that created the district did not anticipate that it would one day be a major city .
And while the last time Congress voted on DC statehood , in 1993 , the Democratic-controlled House failed to pass it , today ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with it .
If 2020 ’ s election puts the Democrats in full control of the federal government , America might actually get its 51st state .
You can find this video and all of Vox ’ s videos on YouTube .
And if you ’ re interested in supporting our video journalism , you can become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to @ @ @

On June 26, 2020, the US House of Representatives voted to make America’s capital city, Washington, DC, the country’s 51st state. It was a historic vote, and the closest the country has come to adding a new state in more than 60 years. But it was also, for the time being, completely symbolic. Because at least in 2020, DC has virtually no chance of becoming a state.
That June 26 vote was almost entirely along party lines; Democrats mostly voted in favor of DC statehood, and Republicans against it. That’s because making DC a state would give Democrats additional seats in Congress, potentially affecting the balance of power between the parties. It’s why President Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate have both promised to strike down any bid for DC statehood. In fact, statehood in the US has always been a political issue. In the past, the US has often added states in pairs to preserve the political balance. Admitting a new state on its own has happened, but it’s unusual.
But the case for DC statehood is strong: The city has a similar population to several states, its hundreds of thousands of residents lack any say in national lawmaking, and its local government is uniquely vulnerable to being strong-armed by Congress and the federal government. Simply put, the laws that created the district did not anticipate that it would one day be a major city. And while the last time Congress voted on DC statehood, in 1993, the Democratic-controlled House failed to pass it, today’s Democratic Party is increasingly on board with it. If 2020’s election puts the Democrats in full control of the federal government, America might actually get its 51st state.
You can find this video and all of Vox’s videos on YouTube. And if you’re interested in supporting our video journalism, you can become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube.


vox--2020-07-17--The profound gay love stories of The Old Guard and Song of Achilles

One Good Thing is Vox ’ s recommendations feature .
In each edition , find one more thing from the world of culture that we highly recommend .
The Old Guard , Netflix ’ s newest blockbuster , is actually multiple love stories in a big action flick coat .
Based on the 2017 comic book written by the indomitable Greg Rucka and drawn by Leandro Fernandez , The Old Guard is ostensibly about a group of killing machines who can never die .
But it ’ s really about the aching loneliness of being a killing machine who can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Charlize Theron ) , a.k.a .
Andromache of Scythia , has been alive to know this better than anyone .
The story is set in the present day , but Andy ’ s birth predates the Ancient Greeks .
She has over time learned that the only way to survive forever is to never let mortals get to close to her .
Booker , another of Andy ’ s fellow immortals , tells Andy from personal experience that watching your kids die isn ’ t something you want to reckon with .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Andy teaches Nile ( KiKi Layne ) , the newest addition to her chosen family of immortal soldiers .
Joe ( Marwan Kenzari ) and Nicky ( Luca Marinelli ) , the couple that rounds out Andy ’ s never-dying family , are the lucky ones among the group — because they have each other , forever and always .
Joe and Nicky aren ’ t the main protagonists in director Gina Prince-Bythewood ’ s film , but since the film ’ s release on July 10 , they ’ re the characters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because of how rare it is that gay men are featured in action movies .
Even rarer is that we ’ re allowed to watch Joe and Nicky share a passionate kiss and other physical moments of affection throughout the film .
And The Old Guard takes their love story a step further .
Straight people are regularly part of myths and legends but LGBTQ people rarely feature in them .
The times that queerness does pop up in popular , mainstreamed ancient histories , myths , and legends , it can sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in code , or is found buried in footnotes , or is glossed over as “ brotherly ” love or friendship , not romantic affection .
That The Old Guard ’ s Joe and Nicky are unapologetic about their love allows queer people , and gay men in particular , the opportunity to see that throughout all of history , we ’ ve been there all along — and in such a mainstream , typically heteronormative medium , no less .
That representation in itself is not just thrilling , but revolutionary .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the most compelling things in The Old Guard Since the movie ’ s Netflix premiere , there ’ s one scene in particular that viewers have discussed over and over , rising above the battle axes and bullets .
Midway through the movie , the villains — who are seeking to steal the secrets of immortality — capture Joe and Nicky after an all-out assault on Andy ’ s team .
While transporting them to the lab where scientists plan to poke , prod , and experiment on them , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asking if they ’ re boyfriends .
It ’ s likely that to some queer people watching , the mocking isn ’ t unlike stuff we ’ ve heard on playgrounds or even in adulthood .
“ You ’ re a child , ” Joe snaps back .
“ He ’ s not my boyfriend .
This man is more to me than you can dream .
He ’ s the moon when I ’ m lost in darkness , and warmth when I shiver in cold .
And his kiss still thrills @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heart overflows with a kindness of which this world is not worthy .
I love this man beyond measure and reason .
He ’ s not my boyfriend .
He is all , and he is more.
” Joe ’ s response is equal parts snappy retort and love poem .
At its heart is a simple message : that straight people might not ever fully understand what it ’ s like to be gay and to find love .
Their love is not better nor more profound , but innately different .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ being taught that it ’ s unnatural , forbidden , and wrong by a society that , for many centuries , has relegated queer people to the margins and encouraged us to be people we aren ’ t .
The Old Guard gets at this adversity through Andy ’ s own broken love story , another queer romance .
Andy and Quynh fought together through thousands of battles , and it ’ s implied that the two women ’ s love is more than just platonic .
When captured and tortured for being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into an iron coffin at the bottom the ocean .
“ You are too powerful together , ” the guard tells Andy , as Quynh is pulled away .
The guard could have meant that their combined immortality was too frightening .
But he also could have meant that that these two women and their love for each other is something to be feared , too .
From then on , Andy lives every day carrying the weight of losing Quynh .
It ’ s so clear that neither the guard who separate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taunted Nicky and Joe can even begin comprehending that queer love is just as powerful as any other kind .
It may not immediately look like a heterosexual romance , but it is no less meaningful .
Joe ’ s declaration of passion for Nicky also invites the viewer to imagine the 1,000 or more years they ’ ve seen and spent together .
I , for one , hope they got to see spectacular , silly , beautiful things .
We learn that they met fighting on opposite sides of the Crusades @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s side for so very long , and will ostensibly continue to endure even after all of us turn to dust .
Thankfully , Joe and Nicky ’ s mythic queerness is far from the only foray into the genre — in fact , The Old Guard has a perfect complement in the novel The Song of Achilles .
If you loved The Old Guard , you should be reading The Song of Achilles A week before Netflix released The Old Guard , I was on vacation — at home , because that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finished reading Madeline Miller ’ s The Song of Achilles .
I was already a fan of Miller ’ s after reading Circe , her retelling of the immortal witch and temptress from The Odyssey .
The Song of Achilles is Miller ’ s first novel , from 2012 .
She gives life to the myths of Achilles from his companion Patroclus ’ s point of view , telling a story about love that endures when forces of nature , fate , and war are determined to tear you apart .
Growing up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foot thing and played a part in the the Trojan War , but all I really knew about Patroclus was that he was really good friends with the very heterosexual Achilles in 2004 ’ s Troy .
Beyond that not-great movie , Achilles and Patroclus ’ s homosexuality has been debated over and over , usually coming down to dissecting Ancient Greek culture and the semantics of “ gay ” .
Miller sees it simpler than that .
“ I would also add , more specifically , that I think the culture is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that transcends gender and time , ” Miller said in a Q & A about the book on her website .
“ I did not deliberately set out to tell a deliberately ‘ gay ’ love story ; rather , I was deeply moved by the love between these two characters—whose respect and affection for each other , despite the horrors around them , model the kind of relationship we all can aspire to.
” Miller has an uncanny ability to make you nostalgic for voices you ’ ve never heard , places @ @ @ @ @ @ @ novels leave you wistful for true love you ’ ve never had the chance to lose .
The Song of Achilles is something you should read if you think that The Old Guard , which spends most of its runtime on focused on Andy teaching Nile about life , should have been about Joe and Nicky ’ s infinite love above all else .
It expands on the themes touched upon Joe ’ s speech and the supernatural aspect of immortality thanks to gods , goddesses , and deities .
But The Song @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stand on its own .
Though Miller says she didn ’ t deliberately set out to create a gay love story , it ’ s a fantasy that unravels and justifies the feelings and vulnerability of the LGBTQ experience , gay men in particular .
Just as The Old Guard does for new Netflix viewers or long comic book fans , this novel indulges the desire to want and be loved , no matter your sexuality .
And The Old Guard and The Song of Achilles both reassure queer readers that we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ haven ’ t always been seen in the ancient history books .
The Old Guard is streaming on Netflix .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

One Good Thing is Vox’s recommendations feature. In each edition, find one more thing from the world of culture that we highly recommend.
The Old Guard, Netflix’s newest blockbuster, is actually multiple love stories in a big action flick coat.
Based on the 2017 comic book written by the indomitable Greg Rucka and drawn by Leandro Fernandez, The Old Guard is ostensibly about a group of killing machines who can never die. But it’s really about the aching loneliness of being a killing machine who can never die.
“Andy” (Charlize Theron), a.k.a. Andromache of Scythia, has been alive long enough to know this better than anyone. The story is set in the present day, but Andy’s birth predates the ancient Greeks. She has over time learned that the only way to survive forever is to never let mortals get too close to her. Booker, another of Andy’s fellow immortals, tells Andy from personal experience that watching your kids die isn’t something you want to reckon with. And it becomes one of the first things Andy teaches Nile (KiKi Layne), the newest addition to her chosen family of immortal soldiers.
Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli), the couple that rounds out Andy’s never-dying family, are the lucky ones among the group — because they have each other, forever and always.
Joe and Nicky aren’t the main protagonists in director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s film, but since the film’s release on July 10, they’re the characters who have garnered a lot of attention because of how rare it is that gay men are featured in action movies. Even rarer is that we’re allowed to watch Joe and Nicky share a passionate kiss and other physical moments of affection throughout the film.
And The Old Guard takes their love story a step further. Straight people are regularly part of myths and legends, but LGBTQ people rarely feature in them. The times that queerness does pop up in popular, mainstreamed ancient histories, myths, and legends, it can sometimes come across like it’s written in code, or is found buried in footnotes, or is glossed over as “brotherly” love or friendship, not romantic affection.
That The Old Guard’s Joe and Nicky are unapologetic about their love allows queer people, and gay men in particular, the opportunity to see that throughout all of history, we’ve been there all along — and in such a mainstream, typically heteronormative medium, no less. That representation in itself is not just thrilling, but revolutionary.
Joe and Nicky’s love is one of the most compelling things in The Old Guard
Since the movie’s Netflix premiere, there’s one scene in particular that viewers have discussed over and over, rising above the battle axes and bullets. Midway through the movie, the villains — who are seeking to steal the secrets of immortality — capture Joe and Nicky after an all-out assault on Andy’s team. While transporting them to the lab where scientists plan to poke, prod, and experiment on them, a security guard mocks Joe and Nicky, asking if they’re boyfriends. It’s likely that to some queer people watching, the mocking isn’t unlike stuff we’ve heard on playgrounds or even in adulthood.
“You’re a child,” Joe snaps back. “He’s not my boyfriend. This man is more to me than you can dream. He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness, and warmth when I shiver in cold. And his kiss still thrills me even after a millennium. His heart overflows with a kindness of which this world is not worthy. I love this man beyond measure and reason. He’s not my boyfriend. He is all, and he is more.”
When they say love is eternal, they're talking about Joe and Nicky. pic.twitter.com/QIx9hMgazR — NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) July 11, 2020
Joe’s response is equal parts snappy retort and love poem. At its heart is a simple message: that straight people might not ever fully understand what it’s like to be gay and to find love. Their love is not better nor more profound, but innately different. Their love is forged from generations of being taught that it’s unnatural, forbidden, and wrong by a society that, for many centuries, has relegated queer people to the margins and encouraged us to be people we aren’t.
The Old Guard gets at this adversity through Andy’s own broken love story, another queer romance. Andy and Quynh fought together through thousands of battles, and it’s implied that the two women’s love is more than just platonic. When captured and tortured for being witches, Quynh is separated from Andy and thrown into an iron coffin at the bottom of the ocean.
“You are too powerful together,” the guard tells Andy, as Quynh is pulled away.
The guard could have meant that their combined immortality was too frightening. But he also could have meant that these two women and their love for each other is something to be feared, too. From then on, Andy lives every day carrying the weight of losing Quynh.
It’s so clear that neither the guard who separates Andy from Quynh nor the one who taunted Nicky and Joe can even begin comprehending that queer love is just as powerful as any other kind. It may not immediately look like a heterosexual romance, but it is no less meaningful.
Joe’s declaration of passion for Nicky also invites the viewer to imagine the thousand or more years they’ve seen and spent together. I, for one, hope they got to see spectacular, silly, beautiful things. We learn that they met fighting on opposite sides of the Crusades, have been by each other’s side for so very long, and will ostensibly continue to endure even after all of us turn to dust.
Thankfully, Joe and Nicky’s mythic queerness is far from the only foray into the genre — in fact, The Old Guard has a perfect complement in the novel The Song of Achilles.
If you loved The Old Guard, you should be reading The Song of Achilles
A week before Netflix released The Old Guard, I was on vacation — at home, because that is how we vacation now — and finished reading Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. I was already a fan of Miller’s after reading Circe, her retelling of the immortal witch and temptress from The Odyssey.
The Song of Achilles is Miller’s first novel, from 2012. She gives life to the myths of Achilles from his companion Patroclus’s point of view, telling a story about love that endures when forces of nature, fate, and war are determined to tear you apart.
Growing up, I knew Achilles had that pesky foot thing and played a part in the Trojan War, but all I really knew about Patroclus was that he was really good friends with the very heterosexual Achilles in 2004’s Troy.
Beyond that not-great movie, Achilles and Patroclus’s homosexuality has been debated over and over, usually coming down to dissecting ancient Greek culture and the semantics of “gay”. Miller sees it as simpler than that.
“I would also add, more specifically, that I think the culture is ready for the kind of love story that transcends gender and time,” Miller said in a Q&A about the book on her website. “I did not deliberately set out to tell a deliberately ‘gay’ love story; rather, I was deeply moved by the love between these two characters—whose respect and affection for each other, despite the horrors around them, model the kind of relationship we all can aspire to.”
Miller has an uncanny ability to make you nostalgic for voices you’ve never heard, places you’ve never been. Her novels leave you wistful for true love you’ve never had the chance to lose.
The Song of Achilles is something you should read if you think that The Old Guard, which spends most of its runtime focused on Andy teaching Nile about life, should have been about Joe and Nicky’s infinite love above all else. It expands on the themes touched upon in Joe’s speech and the supernatural aspect of immortality thanks to gods, goddesses, and deities.
But The Song of Achilles is easily beautiful enough to stand on its own. Though Miller says she didn’t deliberately set out to create a gay love story, it’s a fantasy that unravels and justifies the feelings and vulnerability of the LGBTQ experience, and of gay men in particular. Just as The Old Guard does for new Netflix viewers or longtime comic book fans, this novel indulges the desire to want and be loved, no matter your sexuality. And The Old Guard and The Song of Achilles both reassure queer readers that we’ve always existed — even when we haven’t always been seen in the ancient history books.
The Old Guard is streaming on Netflix.