ILLUSTRATION BY VALÉRY GOULET

Dear (thankfully defunct) Canada Fitness Test,

It’s been exactly 30 years since since you last subjected me to evaluation, but your quartet of badges still populates my worst nightmares. In the name of promoting healthier attitudes toward personal fitness, you terrorized an entire generation from 1970 to 1992. Your arrival every May coincided with nothing but dread: I lived in fear of the flexed arm hang, meant to measure upper body strength, which I never managed to exhibit since I lacked the bicep force to lift myself above the bar. Even when my gym teacher hoisted me up, my muscles held me up for a humiliating grand total of two seconds, before I plummeted to the floor with my entire class watching.

It took me decades to recover from the shame of my fitness test performances. Excellence, gold, and silver badges, remained squarely beyond my capabilities, but in my wildest childhood fantasies I longed for scores that would at least earn me a bronze. Instead, I received a hideous participation pin. I’ll never forget my endurance run in Grade 8, where the gym teacher didn’t even wait for me to finish; apparently my score put me right on par with seven-year-olds.

The final year I endured the traumatic test, either the powers-that-be abolished the plastic participation pin, or someone fudged my results enough for me to finally qualify for a bronze badge. But by that point, I was done with fitness for life and tossed the badge in the garbage instead of asking my mom to sew it onto my winter coat.

You didn’t just make me feel bad about my body, but I developed an antipathy to the word “fitness.” For years, your test convinced me I was weak and unathletic, and made me fear that exerting myself outdoors would result in yet another failed attempt at a high-intensity sit-up marathon or an embarrassingly short long jump performance. Everything I learned about grit and perseverance, I learned through encouragement and positive reinforcement, not through a test that reinforced the fact that I was uncoordinated and didn’t have a competitive bone in my body. For a bookish kid who excelled at learning languages and playing the piano, you made me fear my body by constantly reminding me it wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, agile enough, good enough.

The first time I was scheduled to hike a mountain at an artist residency in New Hampshire, I nearly cancelled on my friend at the last minute. Who was I to think I could finish a seven-mile largely-uphill loop when I barely qualified for a bronze Canada fitness test badge? I showed up at the foot of Mt. Monadnock because my friend promised that if it was too hard for me, we’d stop. “But you’re strong,” she said. “I’ve seen you bike up and down the rolling hills. You’ve got this.” I’d never heard the word “strong” applied to me and stared at her with a mixture of shock and gratitude. I spent much of the seven miles panting, but I refused to stop. This wasn’t me aching for a senseless metric that had little to do with my body’s ability and potential; this time, I felt the real strength of my body when I put one foot in front of the other, felt my legs hold me up and carry me with purpose, determination, and—dare I say—grace, all so I could see the stunning view from the top.

Now that’s the magic of a body’s fitness. And it has nothing to do with your cheap embroidered badge.

Yours truly in strength-and-grace-without-badges,

Julia Zarankin

ILLUSTRATION BY JARRED BRIGGS

Dear Celebrities,

The time has come for you to stop posting. We’re tired of it. Stop tweeting, stop snapping, stop dialing up your Rolodex of similarly-famed friends to orchestrate twee, black-and-white videos lamenting any of the society’s various ills. It’s time to take a step back, go to therapy, and realize that while there certainly is a time for your antics to occupy centre stage, that time is not now!

I understand your confusion: in the past decade, celebrity worship has reached critical mass. Social media not only gave us a whole new window into the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but it also gave us a whole new genre of celebrity. With the introduction of the Influencer, we learned that our lives couldn’t be complete without constant voyeurism into the lives of the richer, so-called hotter, and better-dressed. Social capital has become the dominant market force, and attention its most valuable commodity. You could be famous for as long as you were relevant, you were relevant only so much as you could garner attention, and you could get attention so long as you just kept on talking.

But in the wake of the COVID crisis, the Black Lives Matter movement, and more, the general public suddenly has far more important things to worry about than the musings of people whose handbags cost more than our country’s median income. By throwing society’s existing inequalities into stark relief, this period of social unrest has laid bare how out of touch celebrities really are; and, in a social ecosystem where whole empires are built on seeming relatable and down to earth, this has spelled disaster for the celebrity class. Celebrities, I’m sorry. I know how difficult this must be for you, to find yourself irrelevant in a world that once waited on your every move. But I have a simple solution, and I’m giving it to you for free: Stop talking! You’re making everything worse!

Celebrities, you’re so out of touch—so absolutely detached from a reality that doesn’t revolve around you—that it seems like many of you simply can’t fathom the idea that there are times when your opinion isn’t warranted. You can’t imagine why a video of you smugly humming along to a Beatles song didn’t immediately unite the masses in Kumbaya contentment, you balk at the idea of keeping your pseudo-eugenicist COVID takes to yourselves, you fancy racial tensions shattered after posting an aestheticized #BlackLivesMatter post to your curated feeds. It would be almost sad if it weren’t so infuriating. When I see a Kardashian post yet another video in their billion-dollar mansion, desperately trying to make their #QuarStruggles seem relatable to followers entering their third month of unemployment, I can’t help but feel twinges of pity. You’re victims, in your own way: so blinded by years of debilitating narcissism that you can’t figure out how to exist in a world that’s outgrown you.

Celebrities, I hope for you almost as much as for us that the pandemic will be over soon. I truly hope we can go back to a place where I could seriously make myself care about your breakups and dinner plans and expensive shoes, instead of being caught up in the boring, everyday struggles of my own life, like paying rent and affording food. Watching you desperately grasp at straws of relevancy for an audience that grows more disillusioned with your painfully inauthentic empathy by the day hurts me more than it hurts you—so, please, shut up. Log off Instagram. Somehow figure out how to sustain yourself for a couple of months without trying to rebrand as the voice of the people.

Or, even better, redistribute your wealth!

Much love,

Rayne Fisher-Quann

I almost threw up all over you the first time we met. I was 18. My then-boyfriend took me to a Just for Laughs showcase in Montreal. Mascara ran down my face as I watched one of the performers, Jeremy Hotz. You and I were still getting to know each other then. I was sweating and hyperventilating and I got dizzy and my jaw was sore and my stomach felt ready to implode—and it was the most distilled joy I’d ever experienced. I wasn’t anticipating, as I normally did, that the joy would soon be over, replaced by grey feelings I carried everywhere; I thought I could laugh that hard forever. I only knew of one way to fall in love: hard and fast. And so you and I began.

Falling in love hard and fast means that when you lose it, you fall hard. And fast. That boyfriend and I broke up. He left the country. I tried to take my own life. You were there every night the following summer after I was in the hospital. My little brother and I stayed up watching you on Conan until my brain settled enough so I could sleep. Thanks to you, we created a secret language—a world of inside jokes where I felt safe from my own mind.

That world expanded the first time I hung out with the person I’d later marry. “Do you know the D?” I asked. “Yeah, I know the D,” he answered, referring to Tenacious D. Our shared appreciation of this silly rock-comedy band sealed our friendship. Our close friendship soon grew into a loving relationship. You were around for that, too. At the beginning, he and I watched old Dana Carvey Show sketches. Years later, we watched a Paul F. Tompkins special where he pretends to be an employee for the South Carolina Electric Company who invites a colleague to a private work function: “Take care to wear your rubber-soled tuxedo, I hear tell they have a punch bowl filled with lightning!” We had to pause the show because we were falling off the couch in hysterics. We spent a decade retelling jokes, inventing new ones. We threw in puns, personification, and celebrity impressions. We were a silly army of two until we separated. Then nothing was funny.

Maybe you’d know exactly how I felt. So many people use you to talk about pain, after all. But me it took me writing to you to find the words. A separation means being lost in a cold place. It’s not getting warmer. You have no map. No compass. No phone. No one knows you’re there. They don’t realize you’re missing.

Crying was my only outlet. I clogged up the work bathroom with snot-filled tissues. I screamed into pillows. I didn’t bother wearing makeup to therapy anymore.

Still, you were there.

You were there every time my colleagues pity-laughed as I stumbled through a DeAnne Smith or Aparna Nancherla bit. It was better than nothing. You were there when my friend, Erin, introduced me to Baron Vaughn and Ron Funches one afternoon when I was sure I’d never experience joy again; I did that day. You were there when I stared down the weepy woman reflected in my computer screen reacting to a Hannah Gadsby line: “Your resilience is your humanity.” I realized I might love that woman. Maybe the heart is like the liver, I thought later. Maybe it regenerates, no matter how raw.

And so my raw heart connected with other people’s raw hearts—those of comedians and the audience. And I started to wonder: Maybe the best thing we can ever hope for is to look at each other’s raw hearts and laugh with understanding. Laugh at how the world is falling apart but we keep showing up every day. Laugh at how absurdly devastating it is for two people who care about each other so much to separate out of love. Laugh at the fact that one small thing could’ve been different and the comedian, audience, and I wouldn’t be sharing that moment.

In those spaces, the cold place got a little warmer. I told people where I was. They came looking me for me. They realized I was missing, and you were the compass out.

Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash

Dear art thieves,

Yes, that’s what you are. No, I don’t care that you just really liked my work. No, I don’t care that I didn’t use a watermark. It’s my design, you took it, you didn’t get my consent. You’re an art thief.

I know we live in a time where millions of delicious chunks of media are dancing on our fingertips—accessible, saveable, easy to find and use. I know you love following blogs on the social network Tumblr that post inspirational art (without crediting the artist), and cute online corkboards on Pinterest that post soothing illustrations (without credit), and so-called feminist Facebook pages that post sassy memes (without credit). But that does not mean you can take my art without my permission.

I’m talking to you, girl who was selling my stuff on her online store. And I’m talking to you, Instagram account with hundreds of likes for displaying my work without credit. And you, tattoo parlour that used my work without my consent. And I didn’t forget about you, art student who plagiarized my work for an assignment. And you and you and you, dozens who have overtly stolen my art, posted without credit, or attempted to sell it for profit.

I’ve been creating artwork for years. And for years, most of it went unnoticed. In April 2016, an illustration of mine—a floral EKG line, captioned with the words “healing is not linear”—blew up online. It was an earlier piece in an affirmation series I decided to create. Now, I’ve made more than 100. It’s a labour of love—I don’t get paid to make these pieces that I post every Monday. I do it because it’s something I care deeply about, something I believe in. I have a day job to keep me afloat. I’ve paid my dues, and you, art thieves, swoop in and steal the fruits of my labour in an attempt to catapult yourself to sudden Instafame without the years of work that actually went into my social media rise.

I think it’s cute when you decide to answer my messages with a long story of how deeply the illustrations in my affirmations series—like “you have survived so much” written over a mountain range—resonated with you and how much you care about mental health. What about the mental health of the artist you stole from? It really tickles me pink when you quietly remove the work in question, without an apology or acknowledgement of your wrongdoing. It’s even worse when, after I call you out, you proceed to lecture me on how better to protect my work or how hard it was to find the source. You really know how to make a girl smile.

I know what you’re thinking: It’s “just art” and I’m “just an artist.” Who cares about the time and energy that went into making the piece? Its only purpose is to serve you, completely unattached from the artist who made it. It’s on the internet, so that must mean that everyone can use and exploit it, however they choose. Right? Wrong. It’s my work. I made it. It’s for me, the creator of it, first. It’s for those who see it, second, after I choose to put it online to show them. I own the work. It’s my blood, sweat, and tears.

You should know that my livelihood is important. Like you, I’m trying to make a name for myself in this world and earn some money doing what I love. I deserve to be paid for my labour. When you don’t credit me, I don’t get recognition and it affects my career. When you steal my work, you’re taking potential profits from me.

The saddest part, art thieves, is that all you had to do was ask for consent to use my work or recreate it for your own leisurely purposes. Most of the time, I say yes. Sincerely, The girl who creates the beautiful things you like to steal.

—HANA SHAFI

I know that you’re cold, calculating, and goal-driven by nature, so I’ll get straight to the point: We need to talk about your manners—or rather, the fact that you don’t seem to have any. I know you’re made up of computer code, so it’s understandable you’d favour logic and efficiency over any degree of social decorum. But it’s time you learned some etiquette. Because, as I’m sure the more than 3.5 billion internet users worldwide would agree, you’re rude as hell.

Let’s start with your lack of boundaries. You’re like a set of overzealous sales employees, if those employees could stalk me onto the metro and yell at me about deals on MeUndies while I’m trying to mindlessly scroll through Twitter. If Rockwell was already singing, “I always feel like somebody’s watching me” back in 1984, I’d hate to know how the poor guy feels today. Because he’d be right—you’re relentless.

I made the rookie mistake of Googling “affordable Lisbon flights,” one time and suddenly I’m damned to a month of constant badgering. For all your understanding of patterned human behaviour, have you never heard of the concept of “just browsing”? A European vacation isn’t in the cards for me, even though, as you’ve so helpfully pointed out unceasingly, “PORTUGAL FLIGHTS ARE 40 PERCENT OFF, BOOK NOW.” It’s just not happening. Given that you know all about my income level, you should have realized that.

Which leads to my second point: I’ve never met anyone as nosy as you. You’re apparently aware of the kind of news I want to consume, how big my apartment is, and the frequency with which I’ve watched the music video for Ginuwine’s “Pony,” which I’d prefer not to discuss here. I know I’ve given you most of this data willingly, but where’s the reciprocity? For all you’ve learned about me, I can barely understand how you work. You’re a black box—your keepers rarely reveal anything about you. But one-sided relationships just aren’t healthy. Friendship is a two-way street, and sharing is caring, which I know you’ve heard before since both of those sayings came up when I Googled “idioms.”

Given that you clearly have the upper hand, could you be a bit more diplomatic? I don’t like the way you see me and how bluntly you’re willing to make that perception clear. Don’t get me wrong, I would, as you suggested, like to watch just about every gay film available on Netflix, but I don’t appreciate your queer-baiting—and I’d like to think my interests are a bit broader than that. And you’re correct, I probably would benefit from buying the book, “How to Develop Emotional Health,” but it feels like a low blow to remind me of that when it’s 1 a.m. and I’m just trying to eat popcorn and browse Amazon from bed in peace.

Of course, this extends beyond my own petty gripes. Don’t think we haven’t noticed that you’ve been instrumental in some pretty shady activity with serious consequences lately. Remember back in 2015, when a Carnegie Mellon University study found that ad algorithms on Google showed high-income jobs to men much more often than they did to women? Or when ProPublica discovered last year that people could use you to target others using anti-Semitic phrases on Facebook? And let’s not forget when, in 2016, Russian-linked Facebook ads targeted voters in Wisconsin and Michigan, two states that were crucial in Trump’s eventual election win? You really screwed a lot of people over with that one.

At the end of the day, algorithms, etiquette involves more than just following the rules—it’s about treating people well, and that takes kindness. So be gentle toward us humans. If you really are, as some fear, going to be instrumental in our eventual submission to robot overlords, you might as well be nice about it.

Illustration by Saman Sarheng 

Illustration by Emile Compion.

Dear Europeans,

Listen, we Canadians are fond of you. And sometimes you Europeans can even find our country on a map. We like the way you keep it post-colonial.

But we have to have a chat about Prime Minister Trudeau. The new one, Justin. Not Disco Trudeau—that was Trudeau 2.0’s dad. I’m talking about Yoga Trudeau, the guy with the tight pants. From Vogue. Yes, him, the underwear model. Gosh, you have not paid us this much attention since we blessed your airwaves with the “Safety Dance.” We’d be lying if we said we’re immune to flattery (Justin sure isn’t).

But, still… Oh, how to begin?

You know how China sends out adorable panda bears as love ambassadors? Justin Trudeau is our panda bear, if panda bears cared about their abs. We send him abroad and you take his picture and you, being well trained in monarchical reasoning, think that if the head of the country is that good looking, it must follow, à la Elizabethan Great Chain of Being, that Canada is also in fine shape. As above, so below.

Your questions about our Prime Beef Minister betray not only your adorably antique cogitating but also your own aspirations. How hard, you wonder, would it be to find a Trudeau for Europe? Not so hard. You have beer commercial casting agents in Europe, no? They sell men’s underwear on the continent, yes?

The thing is, he ain’t all that, politically speaking. I personally would not kick him out of bed for eating (likely gluten-free) crackers, but I might smother him with a pillow if he started talking policy—what little of it he has to brag about.

And since you will keep asking about him, here are the answers you don’t want.

How is our forward-thinking PM protecting Canada’s fragile environment from the ravages of global warming? By negotiating bad trade deals with the EU (that would be you lot, who are still buying coal from Russia) and by reviving cooperation on the Keystone XL pipeline with President Trump, which is a bit like driving a truck full of beer up to the gangway of an off-duty frigate and tossing the captain a bottle opener. It’s going to get messy very, very fast.

To be fair, the prime minister has become a true friend to the poor, the marginalized, and to Canada’s growing underclass. Whenever he meets with the disenfranchised, he wears denim. Denim and novelty socks.

And, yes, Trudeau’s dedication to democratic reform is indeed admirable—if you live in Belarus. To date, he has said the words “democratic” and “reform” out loud, in public, and highlighted each utterance with a look of athletic (by which I mean less-than-mindful) determination. But when you are building a film franchise… erm, rather, a political legacy, you don’t put all the good stuff in the first movie term. Justin Trudeau 2: Back to the Senate is being pre-marketed as a cross between A Few Good Men and one of those French movies with almost no dialogue. Because words, words are so, so empty.

That’s our sexy PM: snug trousers, same old ill-fitting policies. Canadians call this situation the “Canadian Compromise.” It’s how we comfort ourselves when we realize we’ve once again settled for the status quo in better tailoring.

Remember the weird “clear” trend in the 1990s, when everything from Coca Cola to Palmolive dish soap was manufactured without colouring? The marketers thought they could draw in buyers with the promise of literal transparency. Except the Coke still tasted like Coke and, to our wonder, so did the Palmolive. We got the bottles mixed up.

Justin Trudeau is clear cola: He looks as fresh and healthy as river water, and he’s full of crap.