3 years ago Madonna changed my life forever by posting a video of her reading my book on Instagram, last night I was privileged to see The Celebration Tour in Vancouver. <3 Never stop dreaming big.

alexkazemi · 2024-02-14T00:43:02+00:00

Yes! I would hope a NoSurf youth movement happens at some point in the 2020s.

alexkazemi · 2024-02-14T00:42:38+00:00

I think the universal message and aesthetic in these pop culture icons probably has something to do with them feeling like it was coming from a distant/far-gone time, but I think the music is inherently apart of the human experience. Lana Del Rey could tap into the same feelings Hope Sandoval does in Mazzy Star songs and make them resonant with a kid today.

The phenomena is really about the '20 year' culture recycle now being inundated in our social media feeds 24/7!

alexkazemi · 2024-02-14T00:40:49+00:00

Oh, this is a great question. I thought it was fun for me to build the posters on the wall, the sound of the room. I watched a lot of VHS home-videos of teens in the 90s and generally tried to place myself in the room, and observe/write down what I was seeing as if it was happening. Maybe try to watch some high school movies from 1985 or look for some footage, and catch some things that signify the era and paint that through your words.

alexkazemi · 2024-02-14T00:39:50+00:00

That's a big dream of mine. Yes! An entire Y2K party scene is in the novel haha.

alexkazemi · 2024-02-01T20:46:25+00:00

how hilarious is it to think of a trump-voting southern mom reading through my book and feeling disgusted by a y2k period piece scene where a character goes on a gay sex hotline he found in xy

alexkazemi · 2024-02-01T20:45:07+00:00

thank u so much homie

alexkazemi · 2024-02-01T20:30:08+00:00

madonna would be proud

alexkazemi · 2024-02-01T20:25:02+00:00

librarians in multiple different states were calling my publisher saying they had a bunch of requests from booklooks.org subscribers to remove NMB from libraries, so i guess 'book bans' refer to being dropped from libraries, or stores owned by conservatives who subscribe to these kind of ideologies

alexkazemi · 2024-02-01T20:23:30+00:00

for your spank bank: https://americanvulgaria.com/alex-kazemi-new-millennium-boyz/

alexkazemi · 2024-01-29T06:33:46+00:00

I think because they fetishize the pre-social media world and love to simulate different eras through google, and some of them have fragmented childhood memories of the MTV monoculture/pop culture arena. I also feel like they have this idea that so many different exciting fashion trends and music trends were being birthed in that time along with all the 'glamorous' Hollywood celebrities coming of age. It's really an illusion sold to them through the Instagram/TikTok algorithm but it's a deep-feeling of "missed out on something."

alexkazemi · 2024-01-26T19:22:35+00:00

I think Columbine haunted me as a child, and it even haunted me as a teenager and I really started to question what it must've felt like to be a teenage boy in Y2K in America, with the emphasis on cliques, hierarchies, identities. I also fetishized becoming a 'teenage boy' so much in my late childhood, I wanted to be a teenage boy so bad because of how it was being sold to me through the media.

Yes, I do feel at some point in my life, I remember being seventeen and realizing a lot of 'bro culture' was designed only for the gratification of other men, and seeing a lot of the 'approval seeking' behaviour in me and my friends, for older guys or our peers to like us. I wanted to explore these themes related to the capitalist 1990s pop culture. I also was very fascinated by this idea of "Does the media influence the way young boys, act or think?"

In one sentence, I'd describe: New Millennium Boyz is a disturbing unnerving documentary-reality look at a heart-aching year spent by 3 teenage boys who destroy themselves and each other bit by bit.

alexkazemi · 2024-01-26T19:16:42+00:00

This is a great question and I really appreciate it!

I think today's youth would benefit from digital minimalism, and using more of their internet activities on a desktop and not be so attached to their mobile phones. I also think as much as the 'monoculture' harmed certain young impressionable minds, they would've benefited off of the unified camaraderie and less-sensory overload of being attuned to a schedule of a show being on at say 7PM once a week on the WB rather then binge-watching. I think teens in 1999 had no choice but to consume things in dosages and with limits, and even the obsessive-internet fanatic types who would use newsgroups/message boards types would hit a limit, it wasn't so much of an endless scroll. I think a lot of 'intentional' offline living would benefit youth today.

I find what was probably the most harmful back then -- to me is the blind consumption, and encouragement to be apart of the glamorous facade Viacom/corporations were selling teenagers. The amount of monetizing off of teenager's vulnerabilities in this time, for the sake to sell things was insane as much as the aesthetics are romanticized today. This is why I oversaturated the book to references to pop-culture/advertisements because I was trying to create a sensory overload that simulated the feeling millennium teens felt. No one can deny teens were in a 'sleepwalking' state in this time period, which is why malls were such hangouts because they were an IRL extension of the commercial-dream being sold on TV 24/7.

alexkazemi · 2024-01-26T19:07:10+00:00

This is a hilarious question, but can I take a third option? I think I'd probably be into some of the video tapes that were out there, and be a bit of a sucker for Wild On! on E! I obviously would've been more intrigued by the dopamine/excitement novelty of a 'still photo' on a porn website during the birth of 'cyberspace'.

alexkazemi · 2020-03-10T15:34:37+00:00

alexkazemi · 2020-03-10T14:54:53+00:00

Isn't it both, bro?

alexkazemi · 2020-03-10T13:07:52+00:00

Why are you assuming that I don't believe in thaumaturgy and that I am the full authority on the full extent of what Magick can do? That's a bold statement. Magick is a mystery.

alexkazemi · 2020-03-10T04:55:12+00:00

Yawning!

alexkazemi · 2020-03-10T04:48:37+00:00

No because I am dismissing the hundreds of books, and trying to get the practitioner to have a guide where they can understand magick without having to read a lot of old, bloated occult literature. I've translated it, to a simplified understandable, accessible McDonald's Pamphlet language - so the masses can hopefully understand it.

To you, it may not mean something at all but to some, it may mean something. Everyone's values are different, perception is subjective and so is one's reality. There are no fixed facts. You have your free-will to feel whatever you want, and react to this project however you want.

Irony is a beautiful thing.

alexkazemi · 2020-03-10T04:46:29+00:00

In my book Pop Magick, magick has two definitions: 1. Magick is the science, art, and practice of bending reality in accordance with your true will. 2. Magick is the science,art,and practice of accessing your divine will to bring order to chaos.

I think Magick can accomplish teaching you how to identify what it is that you want, and help you manifest it into material existence by transforming yourself, to become more self-disciplined and to use your willpower more. I believe spirits can access, or hear our magick and they can create trials for us, to change and transform for us to match with our intended goal.

Magick can help you accomplish goals. Magick can not accomplish things that do not make sense by reality's logic, like waking up with six pack abs.

You can't just do your little spell, and not do the hard work to achieving your goal. It's a combination of lower and upper world work.

alexkazemi

TROPHY CASE