Cherry Picking with Alexia Benn

Baby we are back in a big way.
It's been a year! Literally. I hope it has been a good one for you. Your host Alexia has been caught up in the world in a whirlwind. It's been so long I barely know where to begin! So, without further ado, lets get into it. Today's episode is really more of a catch up, recorded in January of 2023. This one is to those who are personally invested. A book on the horizon? What was that?
The bottom line is, I've missed this, I've missed us, and despite the break in the show the world has continued to turn. Download this episode if you want to hear about what's been going on in my world, and check back next week to zoom out and take a bigger peak at the world at large.
As an aside, please forgive any potential janky audio. We are testing an upload in .wav format although the diva host is so out of practice it's already a botched trial because she recorded the whole episode in mono! Oopsies. Bare with me friends as we figure this out together.

Cheers,
Alexia
Instagram

Good morning and happy Wednesday! I'm pleased to have my first episode out on time in a little while here and man, does it feel good. Today on Episode 19 of Cherry Picking we talk about the Metaverse. Or Meta? The Meta. Metaverse. Something vaguely reminiscent of Facebook but more ominous and somehow even less cool. This episode covers a brief history of a long slew of the legal entanglements of FB and Mark Zuckerberg, our favourite lizard barbeque, before getting into some more.. opinion-driven ideas of what this transition to 'augmented reality' means for us.
In all honesty, I am a nerdy granola girl at heart. I love reading and being outside, and technology has a way of keeping me from doing that sometimes. I despise the metaverse and everything it stands for, but each day that passes I am reminded of how thin a line we walk as our lives become increasingly integrated digitally with technology. The social, economic, and political implications of the modern trajectory of social media are already profound, and what is sure to come next will be... more profound?
If any of this is interesting to you, hop on and join the ride. It is a weird world to exist in when the promise of an ideal, online, augmented, artificial reality genuinely appeals to ANYONE over the real thing. And if this world gives you the ick, you're not alone.

Cheers,
Alexia
Instagram

Hello! Before anything else, I would like to answer the above question with a resounding no! However, in today's episode of Cherry Picking, we'll dive into the opinion of someone who might disagree. To start off we'll discuss the concept of racialization, the process of developing and attributing features to a group of people on the basis of race with the intention of justifying a specific form of treatment. We'll be piggybacking off of some content from last week for this, so if you want to, check that out first! It isn't necessary though.
Then, we'll apply this concept to Indigenous people and the Canadian state, and how the social construction of race was used to differentiate Indigenous Peoples from the rest of Canada. This was done in order to apply them to a system of civic stratification, or the conditional application of rights and privileges based on one moral and legal social standing in society.
Finally, we'll close the episode off with a reading of one of the most interesting Instagram captions I've ever read. Yes, this is where the title of the episode comes from, and yes, it's because a white woman feels left out and wants to be Indigenous. This caption provides an excellent case of white privilege and the entitlement and ownership that many people express towards Indigenous identity and culture. Yes, these are sensitive topics to engage in. But it is valuable work to do and there is so much to learn from perspectives that are different from yours, even perspectives we may write off as wrong or bad.
Additionally, I would like to extend a big thank you to everyone who regularly listens and downloads the podcast supporting me and my creative pursuits. We've had over 400 downloads of the podcast now, and I am so happy and grateful to have each and every one of you here <3 Without you, this is nothing.

Cheers,
Alexia
Instagram

If you're anything like me, you might have a pile of dirty laundry somewhere in your room. On a chair, on the floor, maybe it's in a basket. It's a human ailment, clothes get dirty and need to be cleaned, they're worn again and it all starts over. What a thing. We all have different systems of organization we use on a day to day basis, even as ordinary as moving piles of clothes around.
In Episode 17, we do not talk about dirty laundry, but instead, a different endless cycle. Capitalism! The system that governs the functions of our everyday lives, the one that was created through legislature written in the 16th and 17th century, that spread across the globe through colonialism and slavery, among an endless list of genuinely sinful and evil crimes against humanity. People hate it, people love it (allegedly), but what is it?
That is a loaded question, highly philosophical, and answered in-depth many-a-times in the most brain-numbing way by many white men that died before your great-grandparents were even born. I am not them, but I have been forced to learn about them, and this is my rendition, to the best of my knowledge, of what this petrifying system is. Listen to this if you want to maybe learn some interesting and loosely objective thoughts, theories, opinions, and tidbits of info about capitalism. Some from me, some borrowed from professors accumulated over time, some from old white dudes. The more you know about something, the better you can use it.
In all seriousness though, if you made it this far, give it a listen. There's a little bit of gross academic language I use, but breaking this down in a clear(ish) way might make some space for that laundry. When systems I use don't make sense to me anymore, I run into a bit of resistance to changing them. But then one day something clicks and a better way to do things was found without even thinking about it. Until then, fold your laundry and enjoy the show :)

Cheers,
Alexia
Instagram

Today on Episode 10 of Cherry Picking, we address the 'bombshell' of the Pandora Papers dropped on October 3rd, along with Frances Haugen's blowing of the whistle, followed by an honourable mention to the outages of Facebook, Instagram, Facebook messenger, and Whatsapp which caused a loss of billions (though I see stocks are now making a swift recovery, hmmm).
I grew up with a dad who showed me Rocky Balboa clips. I now understand that this was preparation for this truly mean and nasty place that we live in. Articles online, such as those in The Guardian, will slather pictures on their stories covering the news of these leaked documents. Putin and other world leaders pasted on a backdrop of pink skies, paper bills, palm trees, and a great big yellow sun setting behind them.
The reality of these papers is this is not an accurate portrayal of what this money represents. This money represents the endless occupation and assault on Crimea, drug money, war money, stolen money, money withheld from the public, money withheld from our health care system, money that is starving families in 'developing countries, money that is killing our planet, money that is drilling into the core of the earth, sucking its soul out and suffocating our people. This is the money that owns us. And this represents but a fraction of it. I don't really talk about this much in the episode, but this is what is also real.
Mark Zuckerberg and all these people count on us not to care, not to see, not to understand, not to engage. They count on us being hopeless. Don't do that. I promise this episode is a lot less hopeless than this all seems, and I try to make this somewhat understandable. I am still learning too :) that's the point. We all are. But it is of the utmost importance that you at least try to understand.

Cheers,
Alexia
Instagram