Three days in a row last week, I scrolled on my little smartphone to see a different white girl posting a picture to Instagram of a chess board in various states of setup and play.
I looked on, livid, as these people proved their sophistication and love of The Queen’s Gambit – not through a picture of themselves playing chess, or a picture of their friend and a chess board. But simply an image of the board itself. Laid out in a park or at a table, photographed just so to represent not only the game they so quickly adopted as their own, but the sweater, purse and Fuji water that lay beside it.
No longer a game, but a status symbol.
I realize this is extremely petty, but my only poignant thought this evening, flipping through the notebook pages of the day, was my disgust with these photographs. I apologize. But now I will try and take this disgust, and think about it more and turn it into something that adds a little bit of value to the world.