End of coal: the long twilight at Yallourn power station

Victoria’s Yallourn coal-fired power station, built in 1970, is scheduled to close in 2028. At 63, sheet metal worker at the station, David Evans, is also nearing the end of his career. In this photo essay, End of Coal, Josie Hess depicts a day
in the life of Evans, who has worked in and out of the power industry since he was 17. Read the full article on The Citizen.

Why Kink Should Be At Pride – An Interview With MisKnickers

Image of hand made rope for shibari

Good news everyone, it’s that time of year again. It’s time to debate about if kink should be included at Pride or not. 

I spoke with MisKnickers from OurKink for a historical perspective on why kink is an important part of Pride, and how queer histories can help remind us of where we have come from. 

Further reading as suggested by MisKnickers
https://victoriancollections.net.au/organisations/australian-lesbian-and-gay-archives
https://Pridecentre.org.au/tenants/australian-lesbian-and-gay-archives/
https://www.archivesfinebooks.com.au/pages/news/7/leather-love-and-literature-building-a 

Additional reading in support of kink at Pride:
https://www.them.us/story/kink-bdsm-leather-Pride

One perspective on why kink shouldn’t be allowed that sums up a lot of the common arguments against. 
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bdsm-kink-Pride-lgbt-rights-celebrations-why-b1853859.html 

More about MisKnickers  

MisKnickers is a Melbourne-based writer and educator with over twenty years professional experience. Published in some of Australia’s major newspapers and magazines, MisK also spent time as a scriptwriter for both film and television, focusing mainly on comedy, but dabbling in soap, and sports reporting, and trying her hand porn. Her educational know-how is a unique blend of her formal training and experience as a University educator, and her own trial and error from many years of developing and running writing workshops. Currently, MisK is working with OurKink in creating an alternate education and communication hub for the kink and sex-positive communities, using Melbourne events and experts to celebrate and elucidate on a range of topics relevant to the lifestyle. 

As someone who loves variety (identifying as a gender-fluid, pansexual, switch!) her passions are always changing, but a strong sense of social justice keeps her committed to the sex-positive movement and striving for sexual and gender equality. She specialises in enabling sexual self-expression, improving communication skills, and inspiring confidence.

Podcast Transcript: 

Josie Hess (00:00):

It’s Pride month and once again, the debate has reared up about whether kink should be included at Pride.  Pride, which is in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots. Is a month long celebration and conversation about all things LGBTQIA+. My name is Josie Hess and I’m your theyfriend and local neighborhood pornographer. I wanted to get some historical perspective on this debate and examine why kink should be part of Pride? Daddy’s pups and all.

MisKnickers is part of the team at Our Kink, a Melbourne based organization that supports the kink community through education, communication, and promotional events

MisKnickers  (00:35):

I’m MisKnickers. And for many years now, probably going on around 12 years, I have worked actively in the kink community and written about kink for various publications. I’ve worked in Dungeons and, uh, helped people get to know the scene as a hostess and things like that, you know, worked at Sexpo and seen lots of different sides of the kink community, I guess.

Josie Hess (01:01):

Can you tell me about the tension between Pride and kink and what that’s been historically?

MisKnickers  (01:05):

Part of the tension is because, obviously, I mean, obviously to me anywhere, I guess, the LGB Q T I plus community, doesn’t want to be fetishized. And there’s an idea that kink is inherently fetishistic or, you know, is there to make something sexual of what Pride is about. And although Pride may have to do with the way that people might sexually identify, it’s not an inherently sexual event, it’s more to celebrate sexuality and what that means to people rather than be active sex itself, which kink is more strongly aligned with for right or wrong reasons. 

I mean, there’s also an argument from the kink community that a lot of people who participate in kink don’t do it for sexual reasons. It’s more about dynamics and relationships and things like that.

Josie Hess (02:06):

If Someone asks you why kink is important at Pride. What would you tell them?

MisKnickers  (02:10):

What should be a feature for Pride is people being proud of their sexuality. Pride should be what the people at Pride make it, if part of their identity is their leather and pups, then that should be fine and, and judgment free. And it would just be amazing if people could sort of realize that, you know, this didn’t just magically appear. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even know if kids these days realize that, you know, people died for their ability to be able to come out. I know that it’s not perfect and that it’s still a really loaded, problematic thing.  It’s not kind of like where you’ve got it so much better than we did in the old days, but that history is important. And, uh, and to be respectful and thankful of, you know, whether these people have done it the right way or the wrong way, it’s just being respectful.

That there’s been, people who’ve come before you who made really important strides for you. I think it’s probably always going to be a really tricky argument, but I guess the people who are crying about ‘think of the children’ should be thankful that they’re living in a world where they can actually go to Pride with their children because generations and generations ago, they would have been there without their children. And the heteros would have been walking past going, oh my God, you know, this is going to destroy my children. I mean, that’s, that’s kind of what I’m left with. It would be nice that if Pride of all places, we could have many, many more empathetic humans than not. So, yeah.

Josie Hess (03:53):

So I guess if you are confronted by something that’s at Pride that maybe you don’t understand, or like the look of, instead of immediately asking for it to be removed, just have a Google or talk to your queer elders about why it is important. I asked MisKnickers to share with us some resources for further reading, which she kindly did, and I’ve included those in the show notes with this episode. Now go celebrate Pride, kinks, daddy’s pups and all.

Feature Image Credit: Josie Hess/ BDSM Rituals + Worship in Berlin 

5 really simple ways you can make your website more accessible right now and why it matters.

May 20th this year marked the 10th annual Global Accessibility Awareness day. The organization works to raise awareness about digital access and inclusion.

The internet is such a prominent feature of our everyday lives, we need to ensure it can be usable by as many people as possible.  
There is a pervasive myth that designing for accessibility is just too hard. Pablo Stanley, CEO/ Cofounder of Accessible Blush Design, is quite clear – it’s not that hard.

“As designers, we have the power and responsibility to make sure that everyone has access to what we create regardless of ability, context, or situation.” - Pablo Stanley

To help dispel this myth, here are 5 simple steps you can do today to make sure your website is accessible by more people.

First let’s unpack the original 4 pillars of accessibility set out by w3, the World Wide Web Consortium. 

Content should be

  • Perceivable - Can people, see it, hear it (smell it, if Smell-O-Vision makes a comeback)
  • Operable - The way we navigate and control the site should be easy and intuitive.
  • Understandable - Not only do people need to see/ hear your content it also needs to be information that can be comprehended.
  • Robust - Content should be built using robust enough systems that it can be reliably interpreted by a variety of users and assistive technologies.

Great, classics, agree – so how can you ensure these principles are in place on your site?

1. Check that your text is scalable, and has high enough contrast.

There are plenty of plugins you can install to set this up very easily. WPaccessibility.io is a popular one for WordPress. We are actually using it on this site right now, have a play, find the icon in the top left of this page.

But if you are using a different platform, just google your CMS + accessibility plugin and you will find something.

Want to go a bit more low-fi? then you can ensure your text to background contrast ratio is also high enough with a checker like the one from Webaim. 

2. Start using Alternative Text for Images

This one seems straight forward, but many people don’t do it correctly. You may already be doing this for SEO reasons, but did you know the Alt Text is also displayed when the images aren’t loaded correctly, as well as being the way for text to speech/ other translation services can communicate to those with visual or certain cognitive disabilities. 

The general rule when writing these descriptions is that you need to be presenting the same function and content as the image. 

Example Alt Text for this image: A series of neon lights forming a rainbow heart

You can find a simple decision tree for knowing what kind of description you should use here.

Caption: Don't mix up the caption with the Alt Text. The caption for this image is: Photo by Jiroe on Unsplash

3. Create audio descriptions and closed captions for visual content.

If your website has a lot of video, consider adding audio descriptions to the tracks. W3 has a great page outlining the best practices here. You can also begin to add closed caption subtitles to your video content. You can use a service like Rev or do it yourself with a platform like Amara.

4. Set up Aria Landmarks


This one sounds tricky, but if you use a plugin it’s really easy. This is all about making dynamic content accessible, by providing written attributes to elements like widgets, windows, live regions and so on. Honestly, sounds harder than it is, the team again at WPaccessibility include a great Aria Landmark tool.

5. Convert any PDF forms to easy to use online forms.


Who hasn’t viscerally responded to the horror of being asked to fill in a PDF form online. This tip is honestly going to make the web better for everyone. Take your existing PDF forms or documents and recreate them in a service Jotform or Typeform.

Given that the internet should be accessible to as many people as possible, we as digital designers and content creators have a responsibility to ensure the content we make is usable.

Especially now that these tools are readily available and easy to set up, there is no longer a financial or technical barrier to making sure the accessibility of your website is up to scratch.

Header Image by Jiroe on Unsplash

Why IS video better?

Why is video the king of all content?

There is this pervasive idea online, that content is king, and the king of kings is video. If you’ve even skirted around the edge of any kind of digital marketing, agency, content studio environment you might have heard some of the regular catch cries about video.
That video engages users more, offers better ROI or even stand alone prophetic statements like ‘video is the future’.

Caption: If only we had a crystal ball for these futuristic predictions 

As a filmmaker, this has always sounded about right to me. But I got to thinking, what evidence exists to support these claims? And why exactly is video so enticing for humans? 

Starting from the obvious place, googling ‘why do humans love video?’ we find out all sorts of biological/ psychological rationales for quest to consume the moving image. Apparently we are over here, just casually processing visual stimuli 60,000 times faster than text based stimuli.

So is it that simple? Our brains are driven towards the most engaging stimuli and video tickles that itch? Well, it does seem like the pace at which we can receive video content does give video the edge over still images or copy. But there is more to ensuring the video you create retains a user rather than have them click away, on to cuter cats in another feed.

What makes someone stick around to watch a video? Especially with short form ad creative, you have about 3-5 seconds before a user will click away. Upending expectations is a good way to keep someone engaged, or by using familiar elements in an unfamiliar way. The brain will be hooked by the pattern or disruption to the pattern, wanting to know what comes next. 

The above ad is a video edit for an agency I work for. I took visually stimulating elements and used the cut-up method to change the expectation of what comes next. So that when on silent, scrolling through the feed, the visuals themselves are the hook.

Then of course we have the rise of the short-form content platforms. From Vine to Tik Tok all content is under 1 minute, and most is a lot shorter (often 15 for Tik Tok and Vines were only 6 seconds long, RIP)

Tik Tok specifically has been noted for its particularly addictive nature. This is a combination of the way the For You page works, pushing content you will like based on your previous viewing habits, and also that the platform seems to have a greater chance of users ‘going viral’. Like the golden days of Instagram, these tactics seem to allow platforms to grow at a rapid pace. Before they are then overrun with ads and tighten up their reach to increase paid spend – which then will kill the organic fun of a platform, ultimately likely leading to its death.

Back to video – another factor that makes it the king of kings when it comes to content is that video stimulates numerous senses all at once. We can use it to tell a story, evoke and provoke thoughts and memories, and the dreaded feels. 

Turns out humans LOVE stories. And there is science behind that as well, turns out hearing stories that we resonate with actually releases Oxytocin (No wonder we are all so desperate for good representation in media)  

Lest we not forget that video can also forge a sense of intimacy with audiences. Various online video formats, like vlogs, POV, mukbang, tea, lets plays all encourage and develop a sense of intimacy between the viewer and the creator.

This can work in everyone’s favour, healthy fandoms exist and it just means that the relationship between the creator and audience is evolving and able to adjust to the requests of the viewers. However, this can slide easily into the realm of the parasocial relationship. The asymmetrical feeling that you are friends with your favourite content creators when they likely have no idea who you are. 

Though on a small scale, during the pandemic I was able to create a YouTube Channel in my spare time. I could respond and adjust the content based on my audience’s comments. Most recently I was able to produce a video within 10 hours of the lockdown being announced. 

Video grabs us faster, stimulates us to the point of releasing feel-good chemicals, its intimate and immediate. So upon checking these fanciful claims about video being the future, I feel fairly confident saying my gut as a storyteller was right.  We should all go out and commission short TikTok dramas about our lives. It will be best for everyone. 

Header/Featured image credit Photo by Sirisvisual on Unsplash :

An exploration of toxic productivity, guilt and time.

I’ve spent 5 years of my life primarily focused on one documentary. The intensity of the work ebbed and flowed but for most of 2014-2019 I spent most of my time consumed by this task. I still worked a full-time job, made a bit of space to hang out with my partner and friends, and occasionally did other creative jobs, but in retrospect I can easily identify that I experienced creative burnout once we were done and the film was on the festival circuit.

As we all know, the pandemic made us all zoom lifestyle experts. All business up top, pyjamas below, cats in the background. The number of times I’ve said ‘you are on mute’ peaked in 2020. The privilege of being able to work remotely, while living in a country where life remained relatively safe as long as we stayed home and masked up meant that for a lot of us, we were suddenly faced with a lot of time.  The space of the pandemic, removed from the requirement to go out and do things was fraught with the two major directives from social media.

Our whole team became Zoom Professionals in 2020 - Image From Youtube upload from Fantastia Film Festival Panel the United Beat of Sex and Art

First we were productivity shamed then we were reminded via memes and twitter that to be shamed into creating while the world is on fire is a ridiculous expectation to set. Countless pieces back and forth. Someone on the internet was making money from the debate (hello adsense)

Sidebar: see the history of meme template ‘if you don’t come out of this quarantine here, and on Twitter here.

It takes time to work out how to function in the world as an artist with no capital. To learn how to set boundaries and keep them. To not accept every job, say yes to every unpaid opportunity for fear that there won’t be another. Am I working because of ‘the man’ or am I working because I want to create? Am I working because there is a global pandemic and I don’t know where my next source of income will be coming from?

When your creative output is both your paid work, but also your passion, it’s quite hard to not always be working. Especially if through your creative practice is how you deal with difficult circumstances. The lack of nuance on Instagram often means we are hearing a false dichotomy as an absolute. You are either a capitalist, workaholic who should be ashamed or an unproductive, pathetic loser who can’t capitalize on the free time.

I read (aka listened to the audio book) How to Not Always Be Working: A Toolkit for Creativity and Radical Self-Care by Marlee Grace which had me all the way up until it started suggesting crystals could help me. That part aside, it did offer some interesting ways to try to extrapolate work from not work. I ended up with long lists of what is work and what I consider not work. The defining characteristic of not work, was that it wasn’t performative or public.

This isn't the list, this photo is to demonstrates that Unsplash images are attribution only. Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Once I realised 95% of what I was doing outside of sleeping was in the work column, I attempted to move towards a better balance. I think the freedom to create for no one, that wasn’t work, that wasn’t on a deadline or for a client was what finally started letting my creative energy come back. I’ve made some terrible paintings, bad writing, shit photography that won’t see the light of day but it was fun to do and had no value of productivity to it, other than the act itself.

So now, I know how to not work, how to cycle through the shame of being able to work, the desire to work and then actually working and then wanting to never work again. On the other side of the pandemic, after flaggilating myself for not being productive enough I have slowly begun to work on new creative projects.

In one, I’m exploring the relationship between the arts as a mode of healing and the coal industry ravaging a small town that sits on the brink of literal and metaphorical collapse. Another is trying to unpack queer temporality and climate nihilism in a comedy. And another is a horror which is a Videodrome Meets Poppy experimental project with multiple shooting formats. 

Life after Coal - Image Credit Josie Hess
Lenore - Production Booklet - Provided by Rattle the Cage productions

I’m busy, and as the calendar starts to fill up to its pre-pandemic level I am hoping to be able to retain some of the downtime and nonwork that has been so useful to me. But hey, capitalism is a bitch so for the right price, I’m sure ill pick up my camera and go to work.

If you like this content, you can follow me here

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