"We'll miss Vine, but not just for its goofy, raw, six-second looped videos. We'll miss the platform for its ability to incubate young black talent." Something that I want to focus on in my paper is how Milk and Vine not only steals formatting from Rupi Kaur, but it also steals content from talented Black and Brown people. The major issue with this is that very few people were able to make any kind of profit off of their vine content, but in just a few days Milk and Vine was able to become the number one best seller on Amazon.
"Adam Gasiewski, 19, and Emily Beck, 18, are best-selling authors." This is an article which references just how quickly these two came to publish a best-selling book which essentially ripped off content from Rupi Kaur and Black and Brown talent around the world.
I used these images from pinterest to illustrate the contrast between Milk and Vine and Milk and Honey.
An example of poetry from Rupi Kaur's "Milk and Honey"
Their argument for not citing the "viners" whose content is displayed in this book is that they could not find their names, but they wanted to cite them because they appreciate their content. This brings up the difference between cultural appropriation vs cultural appreciation.
Some of the questions that I had about how Milk and Vine got so famous so quickly were what makes a piece of media "spreadable" and what elements of this book made it catch on so much faster than others? What are the qualities of Milk and Vine that made it so "spreadable"?
A video of the entire book "Milk and Vine" by Temple University freshmen Adam Gasiewski and Emily Beck.
"'Milk and Vine' has gone viral and that’s a problem." This article phrases Milk and Vine's success as "white mediocrity" which is exactly what it is. They compiled the work of Black and Brown people into the framework of the work of a woman of color and found incredible success. I want to answer the questions "Why does this happen?" and "Why is this form of media only worth our money and fame when it comes from white people?"
"The book is currently ahead of Joe Biden and Obama on Amazon’s Best-Sellers list" A Temple University news source's report on "Milk and Vine".