New York Times: The Changing Online Language of Hearts
New York Times: The Changing Online Language of Hearts. “How to show a heart — the universal symbol of love — has shifted on the internet over the years, driven by new technology.”
University of Cambridge: Memes-field Park? ‘Digital natives’ are flirting with Jane Austen’s vision of the ideal man all over again
University of Cambridge: Memes-field Park? ‘Digital natives’ are flirting with Jane Austen’s vision of the ideal man all over again. “In a newly-published analysis, literature specialists examined the phenomenon of internet memes about Jane Austen and her fictional creations, in particular those from Pride and Prejudice and, above all, Mr Darcy. Austen’s work is ‘memed’ – turned into bite-sized, ironic snippets of online content – more than almost any other author of classic fiction.”
New Yorker: Turning YouTube Comments Into Art
New Yorker: Turning YouTube Comments Into Art. “…a ‘web experience’ [Chiara] Amisola created this past Valentine’s Day… explores ‘the rawness of human intimacy and confession in the YouTube comments left under love songs.’ The page is minimal: each comment appears in large black text above the video in question, which plays inside a small circle that rotates like an LP.”
WIRED: ‘Date Me’ Google Docs and the Hyper-Optimized Quest for Love
WIRED: ‘Date Me’ Google Docs and the Hyper-Optimized Quest for Love. “What do we talk about when we talk about Date Me docs, a kind of wiki to the human soul? On the one hand, none of this is new. The desire to find a mate, or just fornicate, has launched a thousand apps over the past two decades. Both Facebook and YouTube started out as versions of ‘Hot or Not.’ But Date Me docs are uniquely paradoxical. For one, they’re not apps.”
Boing Boing: The Ai Promise Collection allows users to submit a personal promise in the form of a photographed note
Boing Boing: The Ai Promise Collection allows users to submit a personal promise in the form of a photographed note. “The Ai Promise Collection allows users to submit a personal promise in the form of a photographed note. There are currently 60 promises which you can click and view, such as #29, which states ‘I will never forget my dream.’” When you see Ai, you may think AI, but I believe “Ai” in Japanese means love/affection, which is the reference here.
Associated Press: Scientists decipher Marie Antoinette’s redacted love notes
Associated Press: Scientists decipher Marie Antoinette’s redacted love notes. ” ‘Not without you.’ ‘My dear friend.’ ‘You that I love.’ Marie Antoinette sent these expressions of affection — or more? — in letters to her close friend and rumored lover Axel von Fersen. Someone later used dark ink to scribble over the words, apparently to dampen the effusive, perhaps amorous, language. Scientists in France devised a new method to uncover the original writing, separating out the chemical composition of different inks used on historical documents.”
His wife was in the ICU with Covid-19, so he stood outside for 10 days with a sign saying, ‘I love you’ (CNN)
CNN: His wife was in the ICU with Covid-19, so he stood outside for 10 days with a sign saying, ‘I love you’. “For 10 days, Gary Crane stood outside of his wife’s ICU room holding a simple reminder of his love for her. Donna Crane, 56, of Port Orange, Florida, told CNN she tested positive for Covid-19 just two weeks before becoming fully vaccinated, and about 10 days later she found herself in the ER, unable to breathe.”
BBC: Australian farmer draws heart with sheep in tribute to aunt
BBC: Australian farmer draws heart with sheep in tribute to aunt. “Like so many families separated during the pandemic, Ben Jackson wasn’t able to say goodbye to a loved one. The Australian farmer was 400km (248 miles) away in New South Wales when his Aunt Debby lost her two-year cancer battle in Queensland. Restrictions forbade him from travelling to Brisbane to attend her funeral. So he turned instead to his own sheep and pasture to show his love, laying out grain in the shape of a heart.”
PsyPost: The memes we read might influence how we love, study finds
PsyPost: The memes we read might influence how we love, study finds. “The prevalence and importance of social media has made the sharing of internet memes a primary method of communicating ideas today. Short and punchy, memes are pervasive and often emotionally salient, making them prime candidates for influencers of human behavior. This observation led a team of researchers to explore the influence of romantic memes on relationship beliefs. Their research is published in Psychological Studies.”
‘Look after yourself my darling’: poignant letters salvaged from 1941 shipwreck (The Guardian)
The Guardian: ‘Look after yourself my darling’: poignant letters salvaged from 1941 shipwreck. “The fragments of a 1941 love letter to a woman named Iris, found nearly three miles under the ocean in a shipwreck, have been painstakingly pieced together by experts, 80 years after it was posted….The letter is one of 717 that were never delivered by the cargo ship, the SS Gairsoppa, which was destined for the US. The ship was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat on 16 February 1941. Of the 86 crew on board, only one survived.”
Pandemic Love: Couples Who Found Romance in a Year of Tragedy (New York Times)
New York Times: Pandemic Love: Couples Who Found Romance in a Year of Tragedy. “The last time anyone celebrated Valentine’s Day, most of the world was carrying on as in any other year: Couples met at movie theaters, bars were full of dates and restaurants were brimming with lovers sharing candlelit dinners. Twelve months later, the year’s most celebrated date night looks drastically different in the shadow of a pandemic that has killed millions, battered economies and upended daily life. Theaters are closed. Most restaurants have limited capacity, if any. Many people are more reluctant to meet strangers or strike up casual conversations.”
The Northern Echo: Finding love beneath the waterworks tree
The Northern Echo: Finding love beneath the waterworks tree. “Whereas Vincent lived in the west end of town, and his father, William, became the town’s mayor in 1931, Alice lived in a terrace on Corporation Road and worked in an insurance office. These very different ends of town were united by the Greenbank Methodist Church, where both their families worshipped and where their eyes first met. The website also features Alice’s diary, so we can see the relationship developing from both sides.”
WSB-TV: Metro Atlanta couple married 50 years dies of COVID-19 just hours apart
WSB-TV: Metro Atlanta couple married 50 years dies of COVID-19 just hours apart. “A school nurse and her husband of 50 years died just hours apart of COVID-19 on Thanksgiving day. Nurses and doctors set Willard and Wilma Gail Bowen up side-by-side in the ICU in their final moments.”
BBC: Italian serenaded by husband outside hospital dies
BBC: Italian serenaded by husband outside hospital dies. “The image of 81-year-old Stefano Bozzini playing the accordion from an Italian street below his wife’s hospital window stole hearts around the world. Carla Sacchi was allowed out of the hospital near Piacenza a few days ago but has now died at her home. Although she had not contracted coronavirus, hospital rules meant her husband was unable to visit her.”
Who Dies: COVID took my grandfather. But it wasn’t what killed him. (The Cut)
The Cut: Who Dies: COVID took my grandfather. But it wasn’t what killed him.. “My grandfather died from complications of COVID-19. The last time I saw him, I wore gloves and a plastic gown, and put a face shield on over a mask. I stood next to his hospital bed with my family. The doctor warned us not to touch him, but I did, gently, one gloved hand over his. That he should die without touch felt intolerable, a punishment for a man who didn’t deserve one. We reminded him that we loved him. My mother told him that the neighborhood bear had returned, that the farmers’ market had good carrots. Despite our alien look, he recognized us. The virus was bad, he said, but he’d fight it. He tried.”