By Alistair Mackay. Originally published by Daily Maverick (13 November 2025) We’re allowed to resist AI – even if we’re told there’s nothing we can do about it. I have a cap with the words “Please don’t talk to me about AI – I’ll kill myself” embroidered onto it. I wear it to go running […]
Interview with Wemar Strydom, originally published in knaap.brief (9 June 2024) Alistair Mackay and I chat about his sophomore novel, and about how our generation of gay, white South Africans gets to navigate both dashed idealism and eco-futurity. Note: This chat is not a literary review, so some knowledge of the plot might come in […]
Mambaonline | 2 September 2015 I’m usually a reluctant and late follower of fashion trends. I remember thinking the cardigan would never catch on again, and I held on to my silver sneakers for much longer than was acceptable. I can never predict, despite six years among the hipsters of Cape Town, what the next big […]
Marklives | 11 August 2015 In our globalized world countries and cities compete in an almost-open market for investment and tourism. That makes it as important for them to have coherent and compelling brands as it is in the private sector. But South African cities are struggling to define their brands, pulled as they are between wanting […]
Marklives | 28 July 2015 The Castle Lager ads of the 1990s put forward a vision of South Africa that was far removed from the lived reality of most South Africans then. That kind of footage seems cheesy and cliched now, but seeing a genuinely and happily multi-racial society back then must have seemed like looking into […]
Mambaonline | 27 July 2015 I have disliked dogs, quite intensely, for most of my life. They smell. They have no sense of personal space. Their movements are startling, confusing and sometimes scary. They feel no shame about their bodily functions. While I don’t really feel any compulsion to have a cat in my space either, […]
Marklives | 2 June 2015 “A customer that complains is a good customer,” said an entrepreneur while explaining his business idea to me recently. It’s definitely the right attitude to have, and an attitude that would do our politics a huge amount of good. South Africans don’t change their votes much. In the five general elections […]
Marklives | 26 March 2015 Where does #RhodesMustFall leave heritage brands? Mass protests, a social media storm and the occupation of the administration building have pushed UCT’s transformation record into the national spotlight, throwing up some interesting questions for heritage brands. What do you do if you were the favourite brand of an old generation of […]
MarkLives | 3 November 2014 When Vermont legalised same-sex marriage, US ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s celebrated by renaming one of its flavours “Hubby Hubby” with an illustration of two grooms on the tub. A few years later, in support of same-sex marriage in the UK, it changed its “Oh my! Apple pie!” flavour […]
MarkLives | 12 August 2014 An obvious marketing objective of the Democratic Alliance is to shift perceptions around race. With a disproportionately high number of white supporters, the DA has long suffered from the ANC pigeonholing it as a party “for whites”. As the marketing wisdom goes, if you fail to position your brand, the […]
Mambaonline | 20 January 2014 My grandfather always used to joke that being bi doubled your chances of a date on a Friday night. (Woody Allen said it first, I later discovered.) Actually, what I think it might do is halve your chances. It seems to me that hating on bisexuals is one of the last […]
Mambaonline | 16 October 2013 There comes a time in every coming out story when the mother, mischievous and cocky with wine, finally plucks up the courage to ask the question that’s been wriggling to get out since she first clapped eyes on the first boyfriend. The question that is simultaneously endearing in its naiveté and […]
Mambaonline | 11 October 2013 When I came out, neither of my brothers seemed surprised. They hadn’t expected it, they said, but it made sense and explained all kinds of things. I found that strange, because no one in my family is the kind of rugby-watching macho oke that our medievally patriarchal nation holds up as […]
Mambaonline | 28 February 2013 Fate has an unhealthy predilection for making us eat our words. Like a toddler trying to assert his authority over his younger brother, Fate has to prove that he knows best and what he says goes. Especially if it’s against your wishes. The world is full of married people who swore […]