Who Gets to Be Messy on the Internet? Kelly Clarkson vs. a $15,000 Bird
Kelly Clarkson, a Brooklyn Curiosity Shop & a $15,000 bird named “Molly” sounds like the beginning of an incomprehensible joke. Instead, it has become the internet's latest drama around customer service, celebrity privilege, and the (perhaps unintended) consequences of taking a grievance public. I mean, really, Clarkson's ongoing dispute with the Brooklyn boutique, Art of Play, has all the markings of any absurd viral moment of the past few years. It has everything — Twitter rants, internet dogpiling and a Pretty Woman reference. But the crazy price tag and the competing accounts of what really happened leave a less amusing inference: who has permission to be messy on the internet, and who has to live with the consequences?
The spat started with Clarkson tweeting about her trip into Brooklyn to visit Art of Play, a self-described “modern wonder emporium embracing the power of curiosity”. Amongst its collection of curiosities lived “Molly”, a mechanical singing bird with a (reported) $15,000 price tag. Clarkson alleged that she had been made to feel as though she couldn't afford the piece, drawing a comparison to the iconic Julia Roberts shopping scene from Pretty Woman. Naturally, Art of Play disputed Clarkson's account & challenged the high-profile callout, dubbed by Art of Play as an “attack”, maintaining that Molly was a display piece rather than an item available to purchase, and that an alternative bird had been offered.
Mia Moohan Is Always Planning Her Next Escape
From fan pages and a law degree to full-time freelancing, Scottish creator Mia Moohan is building a career around social media, spontaneous adventures and a seemingly endless list of places to see.
For Mia Moohan, a holiday is rarely just a holiday. It is an excuse to eat something new, get lost somewhere unfamiliar and meet people whose lives look nothing like her own. Ideally, it is somewhere she has been talking about visiting for years, somewhere slightly off the beaten track, and somewhere she can convince everyone around her to come along for the ride.
“I literally live to go away,” she tells me. “I just love going to new places.”
Based in Glasgow, Mia has built a career around social media marketing and content creation, balancing client work with her own growing interest in travel and lifestyle content. Her itinerary videos offer an alternative to the familiar travel circuit, drawing attention to destinations that might not immediately spring to mind when planning a trip. Most recently, she has been exploring the Balkans, a region she had wanted to visit for years before finally convincing her boyfriend that it was time to make it happen.
No Such Thing as “Cool”: Inside Manchester’s T4T Club Night
To navigate public space as a trans person in Britain today is to carry an invisible, exhausting weight: a constant mental scan of street corners, casual misgendering at bar counters, and the oppressive static of an increasingly hostile news cycle. But cross the threshold of Islington Mill on a T4T night, and that heavy armour clatters to the floor.
Inside, the air tastes of heat, warm beer, and pure, unpretentious nostalgia. Under soft, non-strobing lights, camera lenses glint with small consent badges, and the floor shakes to an unapologetic 2000s pop anthem. There is no pretence here, no vigilant glances over shoulders, and no need to defend your right to exist. In a world that endlessly debates trans lives, this room responds with pure noise: a living sanctuary where having an uninhibited good time is the whole point.
“Yeah, I’m speaking this language, listen to what I’m talking about”: Etta-May on modernising Gaelic and better opportunities for young islanders.
Etta-May Olley (@ettamaigh on TikTok and Instagram) is bringing the Gaelic language into mainstream content with her own social media videos, as well as special brand deals with some of Scotland’s well-known brands.
Etta-May grew up on the Isle of Harris in the Western Isles – where the population is just under 2,000. With miles of untouched landscape and rolling hills, the Isles are known to be a great place of inspiration for artists and creatives.
As with any remote location, opportunities can be limiting. And while some find better opportunities away, Etta-May described it as a “pull” that keeps the connection to the island so strong.
She recently shared a video to her 6.7k followers on TikTok and 9.7k followers on Instagram about how she felt disappointed that she can’t make the islands her home while also progressing in her career.
From Derry to New York: Róise Nic an Bheatha’s Celtic Cinema
Irish-born Róise Nic an Bheatha is dedicated to bringing world-class filmmaking back to Scotland and Ireland, highlighting the power of celtic languages and culture on the big screen. Now, she’s set off to New York City to make connections and bring Scottish and Irish stories back to the screen. Director and filmmaker Róise was recently awarded $66,000 through the prestigious Fulbright BAFTA Scholarship, giving her the encouragement to go to New York City and study filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts. The 29-year-old is originally from Derry in Northern Ireland but moved to Edinburgh with her family when she was younger, where she learnt Scottish Gaelic. Before going into film, Róise completed her studies at Glasgow University and then worked at the national centre for Gaelic language, Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye. One of her highest acclaimed films, Le Chéile, went on to be showcased at film festivals across Ireland and Scotland and is known as the world’s first narrative film featuring both Irish and Scottish Gaelic – exploring how language and place can bring people together in unlikely circumstances.
Joan Didion’s South and West: Notes on Looking
Hey, Afua!: Making a Culture Out of Your City
Antagonizine usually likes to keep things Northern. We love the strange little pockets of creativity happening across Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield and everywhere in between. But every now and then, someone comes along with such a ridiculously bubbly personality that we simply cannot resist. And, well, who doesn't love a free, or at least cheap, cute and cultural thing to do in their city?
Meet Afua Owusu-Ansah, the woman behind @heyafua, a London-based platform dedicated to finding the best free events, exhibitions, workshops, community spaces and cultural happenings across the capital. If you've ever thought London was too expensive to actually enjoy, Afua would like a word.
Curating Yourself to Death
Curation used to describe a specific, slow, accountable act: a person selecting and arranging objects, deciding what belongs next to what, and being professionally responsible for the argument that arrangement made. It required expertise and restraint, because the whole discipline rested on knowing what to leave out.
Somewhere in the last decade, the word got detached from that discipline and reattached to an Instagram grid, a Depop shop, a For You page algorithmically arranged for you rather than by you. Everyone curates now. Almost nobody is exercising judgement.
The shift isn’t cosmetic. A museum curator’s selections are legible, arguable and attributable; you can disagree with a hang and say why. A TikTok feed’s curation is opaque by design, optimised for retention rather than argument, and arranges you as much as you arrange it. Calling both of these curation flattens a real distinction between a discipline with standards and a recommendation engine with a retention target.
Catch the Fever: On Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo
I’m not really sure how to begin reviewing Mumbo Jumbo, mainly because I’m not entirely sure I’ve finished processing it. It is one of those books where you can understand what Reed is doing without necessarily understanding everything he is doing. There are so many historical references, characters, myths, political ideas and conspiracies packed into it that I often felt like I was reading one story while simultaneously being given five others.
Set in 1920s Harlem, the novel follows Papa LaBas, a Voodoo practitioner, as he investigates the mysterious spread of “Jes Grew”; a supposed virus causing people to dance, listen to jazz and embrace African-American culture. The people attempting to stop it see Jes Grew as something dangerous that needs to be contained. But the joke, and really the central idea of the novel, is that Jes Grew isn't a disease at all. It is creativity. It is music, movement, freedom and self-expression.
Megan Welsh and Nadine Walsh: The Story Behind Us Two
What does 15+ years of friendship actually look like?
It's easy to glimpse moments of friendship through social media, a holiday photo, a birthday post, a quick appearance in someone's latest vlog. But those snapshots rarely tell the full story. The awkward teenage years. The difficult conversations. The heartbreaks, the inside jokes and the decision, over and over again, to keep choosing each other. Every great friendship has an origin story.
For Megan Welsh and Nadine Walsh, it begins somewhere between a mutual friend, a school playground and an apple pie bought from the Co-op after class. Fifteen years later, the details have become blurrier, but the friendship hasn't. While audiences may have discovered Megan through social media, their podcast or The Agency: Unfiltered, what people have truly connected with is something that existed long before any camera was switched on.
The Art of Dressing a Museum: Flora McFarlane’s Return to the Garden at the Burrell Collection
There are fashion shows, and then there are moments where fashion, place, and people seem to dissolve into one another entirely. What unfolded at the The Burrell Collection felt less like a traditional runway presentation and more like the beginning of a cultural conversation, one rooted deeply in Glasgow, in craftsmanship, and in the enduring spirit of Glasgow School of Art.
The room itself was alive long before the first model emerged. The audience was packed with GSA alumni, photographers, makers, collaborators, and friends, a creative ecosystem gathering around one of its own. It was the first runway show the Burrell has ever hosted, and there could not have been a more fitting debut. Beneath the museum’s soaring glass ceilings, with natural light flooding the space, the entire experience felt immersive and cinematic, as though the garments belonged not simply on bodies, but within the architecture itself.
At the centre of it all was Flora, whose collection carried the confidence of a designer already building a world far beyond graduation. Only two years out of university, she has continued to evolve the ideas first explored in her fourth-year collection at GSA, an achievement that feels increasingly rare in a fashion landscape obsessed with immediacy over development. That continuity gave the show emotional weight. This was not a disconnected new chapter, but a refinement of a language she has already begun to master.
Fashion is Art, and Art Belongs to the People (Met 2026)
The first Monday in May is a date fashion lovers around the world know well. This is the beauty and importance of fashion: like art, music, cinema, and poetry, fashion allows people to escape reality and become someone new.
The theme of the 2026 Met Gala, Fashion Is Art, was exciting for many reasons, most importantly because fashion has long been looked down upon within the art world. The Met Gala itself is a fundraiser for the Costume Institute at the museum, which originally struggled for recognition because fashion was not considered “real art” in the same way as painting or sculpture. This year’s theme finally acknowledged, on a large scale, that fashion is art, and its recognition as such feels incredibly significant.
The theme also offered huge creative potential. People wanted extravagance, garments that would never appear on a typical red carpet. Instead, what we received were underwhelming gowns and casual blue jeans. As expected, many of the men arrived in predictable black tuxedos, with only a few standing out: Luke Evans in Palomo Spain, Jordan Roth in Robert Wun, and Sam Smith in Christian Cowan.
This Music May Contain Hope Raye Album Review
Too Close for Comfort: Heated Rivalry and Parasocial Culture
“Parasocial” was named Cambridge University Press & Assessment’s Word of the Year in 2025. It’s a term whose relevance seeps through the cracks of the internet. According to Cambridge, it means “involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know.” If you have your finger on the pulse of social media, this definition likely feels familiar. Within fandom spaces especially, parasocial relationships are increasingly prevalent. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with feeling connected to a piece of media, its characters, or even the actors who portray them — but sometimes an invisible line is crossed. With the rise of the hit TV show Heated Rivalry, those blurred lines have become more visible. Can we consume media and love it without becoming too involved? Of course. But when does admiration become too much?
When the Muppets Met Sabrina Carpenter: A hopeful revival
A familiar format returns and shows that straightforward is, sometimes, better
For a medium that is built on suspension of disbelief, puppetry has always felt incredibly earnest. There's something very simple and engaging about getting a felt creature attached to you by the buttocks to say something silly or raunchy.
Jim Henson's Muppets were the pinnacle of this medium and the testament to the “reality” of these creatures. You can barely throw an anthropomorphic rock without hearing stories about acclaimed actors forgetting that the Muppets were actually controlled by a bunch of hippie puppeteers and were not, in fact, other actors.
Cut to the modern day, where The Muppets have been sitting in a Disney warehouse somewhere being forgotten while having 1 or 2 characters dragged out for the occasional Game Awards segment. Until now…
Behind The Runway: The Collective Vision Behind ‘Roots & Rebirth’ and Aberdeen’s Fashion Revival
As models paraded down the runway on Halloween night, clad in bold hues, vibrant patterns, and unique craftsmanship, October 31st marked a fashion revival for Aberdeen with the unveiling of a collection titled Roots & Rebirth. The night signalled the emergence of a dynamic, daring, and creative fashion chapter for the often creatively overlooked granite city. Nigerian-born designer Joy Kelikume Oziomaaka, the visionary behind the London Fashion Week success Kelikume Fashion and Styling, aims to bring the concept of a Fashion Week to Scotland and open opportunities for young people pursuing careers in the fashion industry—preventing them from taking their talents elsewhere.
The brand was founded by Kelly (as she is affectionately known) two years ago after working for 15 years at Chevron. Her pivot from the energy sector to fashion stemmed from a personal love for the industry, describing fashion as “the only language I enjoy speaking.”
It’s Not Me it’s You: Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl’ Album Review
Mainstream British artist, Lily Allen has been thrust into the media limelight with her divorce from sci-fi series Stranger Things actor David Harbour, of which she shines a harsh light on in her second album “West End Girl”. Allen, married to Harbour for four years, wrote and recorded the entire album in ten days, delivering a real-time account of the breakdown of their relationship.
Describing herself as a “modern wife” in ‘Relapse’, Allen gives a first-hand detailing of the toll her marriage took on her, and the guilt she felt trying to be a role model for her daughters amid her weary choice to agree to an open relationship. ‘Relapse’ is an album-defining track and an honest account of Allen’s unsteady relationship with alcohol, having been sober since 2019.
Where Girls Aloud meets Fiona Apple: Medb - Glasgow’s new rising star
Glasgow’s music scene has a new star on the rise: Medb, a singer-songwriter whose unique blend of pop, post-punk, and experimental sounds has been turning heads across the UK. From her early days in Belfast to her current life in Glasgow, Medb’s journey has been defined by resilience, creativity, and an unwavering commitment to her artistic vision
Music was in Medb’s blood from the very beginning. Both of her parents were recording musicians, regularly played on local radio, and introduced her to the thrill of performing from a young age. Alongside her brothers, who also formed their own band, Medb grew up immersed in music, singing into tape recorders and experimenting on a second-hand Yamaha keyboard. By her mid-teens, she was writing original songs, setting the foundation for the career she is pursuing today.
Progeny & Power: Designer Tarika Kinney Weaves Her Matriarchal Lineage Into Living Garments
Belfast-born designer Tarika Kinney doesn’t just make clothes; she resurrects memory. Her graduate collection Progeny, unveiled at Glasgow School of Art is less a debut than a declaration. Across translucent knitwear, cast surfaces and fraying edges preserved like relics, Kinney constructs a personal archive of womanhood, ancestry and renewal.
‘Mo Chridhe’: Katie Forbes on sharing the Gaelic Language with Modern Scotland
Katie Forbes sits down with Antagonizine to discuss her art, her love for the Gaelic Language and the family that inspired it.
What does Gaelic look like splashed across the walls of Glasgow?
Inspired by her stepfather's late mother – who she refers to as Granny Annie – and her native language, mural artist, Katie Forbes, brings the language to life with vivid colours and eye-catching designs, along with phonetic spellings to truly reach and include anybody. Katie felt drawn to learning Gaelic and truly embraced the rural Scottish side to her artistic ideas.