With a pandemic spreading around the world, it seems like someone pressed the rewind button on a cassette player. It took us to more slowed down societies – back in times when we didn’t fly around the globe for holiday. People return to old habits: grab pen and paper, lay a puzzle, spend more time in nature. Who would have thought, 2020 would turn out like this?
We as the editors, designers, photographers and reporters of the International Angle experienced change by ourselves: The last couple of weeks we have worked together on a print magazine. Instead of meeting each other to work on this project, we made it happen through online conferences from 26 homes in 8 different countries.
Slowing down can be good and bad at the same time. While the environment has longed for a break, businesses like restaurants suffer from a stay home society. We see people who take the crisis as an opportunity for processing their past. And we have those around us who fight for their mental and physical health.
Press fast-forward!
What we also discover: We don’t want to accept our slowed-down life so easily. We try to keep going. Many of us move on with their usual lives through the internet. Children and students take online classes. Churches reach out to their communities with recorded fairs and concerts. Suddenly, instead of rewinding, we find ourselves on the fast lane – as if someone stopped pressing rewind and started to fast forward the tape in the cassette player.
It’s hard to say how we will look back at these times once this is all over. When history books mention the corona crisis, what will they say? With our magazine, either print or online, we don’t just want to explore the changes these times have brought, but we also want to provide a snapshot of life during a pandemic.
The upcoming days, we will share stories with you about a time of rewinding and fast-forwarding. We wrote about the latest changes we all experienced and what they mean for students, entrepreneurs, athletes, people, and for us.
Stay tuned for more on our blog and our socials!
Ruben and Lea – chief editors of the Rewind Magazine
