In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
A luxury brand designer’s collaboration with a fast-fashion monolith is a marriage of two opposing ideals. The result, of course, is sarees and shorts at four-digit prices. But it’s the khaki-on-darker-khaki that stood out, a striking resemblance to a postman uniform. The collection sold out within minutes, reminding us the road to “inclusive” and “ethical” fashion is filled with hypocrisy, or well, mail.
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Recent children’s cartoons have made strides in showcasing neurodiversity on-screen. The thing about imperfections no one tells you is they are fun, beautiful, and necessary. Plus, representation not only makes it easier to accept oneself, but builds into a sense of community. One person writes: “watching other characters, I would’ve been less alone, knowing that there were other girls who were a little different too.”
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When Jammu & Kashmir lost its status in 2019, one justification was pastoralists would have the same rights as forest-dwelling people in other parts. A ground report traces the reality of Gujjar and Bakarwal communities, who continue to wield the short end of the stick due to the pale of law, property rights, religion, and identity.
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A heartbreaking story about grief traces a family’s life since 9/11 — charting 20 years’ worth of pain, longing, conspiracy. What remains decades after a disaster? “The dead abandon you; then, with the passage of time, you abandon the dead.”
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How far can Hollywood go to pander to the masculine panic? Chris Pratt’s “The Tomorrow War” is an example of using global warming in the backdrop to sell the “woke” father-of-daughter feminism. It almost always ends with “men gripped by a degree of masculine insecurity that demands the deus ex machina of a future alien war.”
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Talking about masculine panic, New York governor Andrew Cuomo resigned this week after multiple allegations of sexual assault. But his resignation speech sounded awfully like a boyfriend you just broke up with who lingers and whimpers. Take this quiz to see if these “break up lines” were used by Cuomo or not.
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The ancient Persian way to keep cool involved “wind catchers” or bâdgir, a way that rose to popularity but eventually became dated. But in a rapidly heating world, emissions-free cooling methods like the wind catchers hold immense promise: “People need to keep an eye on the past and understand why energy conservation is important.”
