Jinn/Genie
by request: "A supernatural being in pre-Islamic Arabic culture, popularized in western culture as mischievous, granting wishes that ultimately victimize those who make them."
Culture
PewDiePie
110 million subscribers on YouTube. "In 2016, Time magazine named him as one of the world's 100 most influential people." --wikipedia
Eurovision Song Contest
"held annually (apart from 2020) since 1956, making it the longest-running annual international televised music competition and one of the world's longest-running television programmes." --wikipedia
Internet memes
"an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media" --merriam-webster.com
Grimms' Fairy Tales
"The first volumes were much criticized because, although they were called 'Children's Tales', they were not regarded as suitable for children, both for the scholarly information included and the subject matter." --wikipedia
the nuclear family
"a married couple which may have any number of children" --wikipedia
Robert Anton Wilson
by request. "self-described agnostic mystic... emerged as a major countercultural figure in the mid-1970s, comparable to one of his coauthors, Timothy Leary." --wikipedia
Timothy Leary
"He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy, such as 'turn on, tune in, drop out', 'set and setting', and 'think for yourself and question authority'." --wikipedia. Social impact (public) and personal LoC (paid-subscriber access).
Sen no Rikyu, tea master
1522-1591, "considered the... most profound influence on chanoyu, the Japanese 'Way of Tea'.... He was also the first to emphasize several key aspects of the ceremony, including rustic simplicity, directness of approach and honesty of self." --wikipedia
selected languages: English, Russian, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese
by request
Aruna Khilanani
Lecturing at Yale: "I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step, like I did the world a f------ favor,"
The 1619 Project
"The project was first published in The New York Times Magazine in August 2019 for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia." --wikipedia
On Having Whiteness
by Donald Moss (a white person) published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Is there systemic racism in the US?
And at what level does it seem to be true?
Memorial Day
“The holiday is observed on the last Monday of May. The holiday was observed on May 30 from 1868 to 1970.” —Wikipedia