We Gon' Ride into the weekend
An oral history of Aotearoa's most expensive music video
Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend, brought to you by the brilliant benevolent brews of Coffee Supreme. I’m excited to announce that I have a new hobby (because I was soooo short of them before), which is spinning yarn. Since my mother dug out her spinning wheel from the garage, it’s basically been all I can think of: the geometry of pulling and twisting, the rhythm of the treadle. I woke up at three am one day hoping it was spinning time (it wasn’t, sadly), and I’ve never felt more like I’m living in a fairytale. With a hat tip to my colleague Alice for the joke, spinning yarn by night and spinning yarns all day is basically what The Spinoff is all about. I’m definitely working for the right company — and wow are there some good yarns this weekend.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
We Gon’ Ride: The definitive oral history
2004 in Aotearoa: CDs were still a big industry. Hip-hop was increasingly popular. C4, the music-oriented channel, was appointment viewing — and one of the only ways to watch New Zealand-made music videos. It was this confluence of factors that led to the making of Dei Hamo’s smash-hit music video for the impossibly catchy ‘We Gon’ Ride’. I highly recommend you watch the music video above, just to remind you of that heady time (or enjoy it as something entirely new, which it was to me). Then read Alex Casey’s oral history of how they made the $60,000 music video. She talks to heaps of the people involved — it’s funny, detailed, moving and a reminder of how much the popular culture landscape has changed in two decades.
Introducing, the Coffee Supreme Iced Coffee range. Roasted for flavour, cold-brewed for taste and canned for convenience —good times by the can are here.Perfect for those rushed mornings. Available online by the 4-pack now or by the can at your local cafe who uses Supreme. Grab yours.
The latest scapegoat
Over the last month, there seemed to be a tipping point: people blaming trans people for society’s perceived ills. Directing animosity towards one group — often perpetuated by powerful people — isn’t something new, as Toby Morris analyses in the latest edition of The Side Eye. The stereotypes that are used to characterise trans people are clearly nonsense, but the dynamic is complex. As trans people become more visible, there’s more ugly disinformation, but there’s also more understanding and acceptance. It’s important to understand the dynamics that create that hate — and it’s important to remember that the story about trans people being a threat is a fiction.
A new report highlights the increase in online hate towards trans people after Posie Parker’s visit to Aotearoa in March
Restore Passenger Rail doesn’t need you to like their tactics
Over the last few weeks, activists from a group called Restore Passenger Rail have been gluing their hands to roads to protest the lack of affordable car-free transport. Toby Manhire attended one of their recruitment sessions. One of the members pointed out that their demands — making public transport free permanently and, well, restoring passenger rail — are popular. “We don’t need everyone to like us. All we need is to make our highly popular demands impossible to ignore,” she said. The group is explicitly non-violent, but they say that they’ve tried petitions, submissions, protests, and the results haven’t shown. The disruption experienced by people who encounter RPR protests is but a shadow of the disruption that climate change will cause, they say.
New Zealand’s rail system is “emaciated”, says Dr. André Brett
A message from Toby Morris, illustrator and long time collaborator of The Spinoff
If you love the work we do, please consider becoming a Spinoff Member. The truth is, without the support of our members The Spinoff wouldn’t exist. Help bring the important stories of Aotearoa to life by becoming a member today.
What are the limits of mental health apps?
Rates of mental distress are high. There aren’t enough counsellors and psychiatrists and mental health nurses and clinical psychologists to respond to all of them. In many ways, digital applications are a good solution: they’re often developed with expert input, are easy to scale and accessible to people who already have phones. For this story, I spoke to several people who have used mental health apps, helped to create them or are thinking about their effects. What does it mean to receive solace from carefully designed pixels on a screen? And who do apps not work for?
Arm wrestling: To win at any cost
I recently made the mistake of asking my cousin if he wanted to arm wrestle me and was thoroughly shamed by my showing. Maybe I could learn some tips from New Zealand’s greatest arm wrestlers? Chris Schulz says this about his piece on the arm wrestlers of West Auckland: “Later this month, the biggest arm wrestling contest ever held in Aotearoa will take place when Uzbekistan and Australian arm wrestlers battle it out for supremacy in West Auckland. I met two of those competing, and they told me about the secret training sessions, years of conditioning and some quite horrific injuries they've endured to be there. There’s lots of mutual support among the arm wrestling community, but it's also about winning. ‘You’re a warrior at that specific moment,’ one told me. ‘Your inner demon comes out. You want to win at all costs.’”
Everything else
I really need to highlight some wonderful reporting from Stewart Sowman-Lund about Nigel Skelt, an Invercargill councillor accused of sexual harassment in his capacity as the general manager of Stadium Southland, how mayor Nobby Clark responded, the allegations of a “cover-up” and Skelt’s resignation on Friday. Very cool to read each piece to see how a story develops over the week.
Health data is essential for showing how disabled people experienced the pandemic
Treebooks, ebooks, or audiobooks: How does New Zealand read in 2023?
Hollywood writers are on strike. Chris Schulz explains what that means for your favourite TV shows and upcoming movies
Dichotomies: a great game to play with people you know about people you know (are you thunder or lightning?)
A charity told Chris Bishop that bringing back no-cause evictions would be good for vulnerable tenants. Wait, which charity????
I really enjoyed this mediation on the complex ethics of having pets
Auckland’s trains: both pathetic and apathetic
Being a chocolate judge: cleansing the palate is very important
Very dramatic storytelling here about why Michael Sun refuses to learn to drive
How little badges make tiny, important statements
This article about how men are sold products for their testicles was very thoughtful on how companies try to profit from all people feeling insecure about their bodies
I hear the people crying out for even more arm-wrestling content and I offer them… this
Help Me Hera gets better each week and this week’s advice on how to have white man podcast confidence is a beautiful example
Rereading this exquisite piece from Jamaica Kincaid about what clothes mean to her
And finally, this article is perfect fodder if you want your weekend to include spirited discussion with friends: which NZ YA books should be made into movies?
