Alicia, the point and sentiment and thinking and writing in this piece resonated in general, of course, but if it's okay I'd love to comment on one particular part because it's something I've been considering and toying with and figuring out my feelings on a lot the past couple of years - the discourse around using the internet or choosing to bow out of using the internet, and that there's a certain admiration of those who announce that they aren't online etc.
You wrote: "I think it’s important to be endlessly aware and self-critical when scrolling takes up inevitable time in our lives—time that is well spent if we are using it well: to understand other people and culture better, to understand our tastes and desires, to just have a laugh or relate to someone."
This is a very important and true note, and I'm glad to see you say it. It feels like there's a narrative these days that using the internet is this embarrassing or shameful thing, and that we're all going to pass away mindlessly scrolling some bullshit. It isn't shameful to scroll. It isn't shameful to become addicted to an addictive thing. But, when we have the wherewithall, the awareness, the strength etc, we can choose to manipulate that addiction (and it's an addiction that is maybe inevitable for many in a world where technology moved faster than the human brain has the ability to comprehend and we were in it before we understood it) and use it in a way that suits us. Rather than try to avoid maybe being in unhealthy situations, it's kind of more realistic, more of what living entails, to get into them, to learn from them, and how to best manage them. We have the privilege of choice and discipline around how we use the internet - it isn't this thing that we should be afraid of or behave as if it's in charge of us. And when we can figure out how to do that, the internet can be used in an important and joyful way.
Sorry for being on a tangent that's only slightly about what you wrote. It's just so boring when people are so black and white about the internet; this narrative that it's irredeemably negative and we were better off when we didn't have it and we should all go on a bike ride instead of be on the internet. The internet is a reality of current life, and we can absolutely choose not to engage with it if that suits us better, but there's no denying the loss that comes with that choice, just like every choice. Because, as you said so well, if we're using it well, the internet enriches our lives, our brains, our souls. I would never have come across your newsletter, other writers, favourite music and films and TV shows without it - and, yes, maybe I would have been fine because I wouldn't have known any better - but I'm glad I came across all of those things.
Managing time and attention in a way that suits what we want and need from life is a better way to live than just disregard everything offhand - it shows a lack of curiosity about the world, about culture, about each other to be so proud of yourself for hating the internet and not giving a shit about what goes on there because you're so happy out offline. (And, I am happier offline in many ways, so I get it!). But, I'm also unhappier in many ways when I don't have access to certain things that the internet provides - and, so, it's a case of figuring out how to engage with something that you love and need and appreciate but that is bad for you in some ways. Like with most things, this is just the deal of being alive - figuring out how to make the mess and chaos suit you.
"The internet is a reality of current life, and we can absolutely choose not to engage with it if that suits us better, but there's no denying the loss that comes with that choice, just like every choice."
Thank you so much for this comment because it's precisely what I was hoping to get across—we have to take the good with the bad and enact the boundaries. I was thinking about whether I'd rather not know what's "in" via social media—whether it's a style of shorts or a kind of coupe—and I was like... no, I want the context! This is part of life now! But it's scary what it does to us and what it's doing to culture all the same. I loved the internet so much as a kid and found so much and so many people that became so important to me. I always want some of that back and I'm just trying to do that somehow.
Oh wow, I came here to voice such a similar comment to Kelly, but she’s articulated better than I would’ve. This move beyond thinking about simply “opting offline,” or the duality of being off or on, which isn’t doable or desirable for me, for a lot of reasons I won’t get into here at the moment, is one of my favorite things about this essay. Thank you!
So happy that came across! I don’t think opting out is desirable or doable, the way people frame it. There’s no reason it just couldn’t be better were it less monetized / were its monetización not so easily accepted and supported. (Keeping my keyboard’s code switch lol)
So glad I was able to put that into words in a way that made sense and resonated - I'm always worried about coming across really black and white about things in short comment form when that's not how I feel about them; I know people's relationship with "online" is such a fraught and individual thing, and naturally so. The internet is such a crazy thing when you think about the vastness of it, and there are so many ways it can overwhelm and cause damage. I didn't want to word my thoughts in such a way as I came across being like: get over yourselves and get online, babies!
I totally understand why a lot of people need to not be online, either longterm, or for blocks of time throughout the year, as a self-preservation thing, or to only "log on" for like admin/life things rather than get involved in other things. I've had long periods of being very offline because I needed it. Taking those longer breaks when they were needed is the only way I've come to my current conclusion on it, and ability to deal with it - that, for me, it's more desirable and doable (great way to word that), for what I want and need in life right now, to engage online with the things I enjoy and benefit from (and, also, the internet is just helpful and necessary in very practical, daily necessity ways depending on where we live, our ability, or lack of, to travel / pop out to town etc) - but just learn through trial and error to spend time on it in as well-managed a way as possible in order to not totally drown in it all; and to learn my own tolerance for when things are becoming more than I can cope with at any given time, and to act on when it does become too much to have all that "everything all the time" seeping in, ie: with breaks when I can feel in my body and mind that I need that break from bombardment.
I think my main point, and I'm glad it came across, is that, when we can, it's better we learn how to engage with things that can be good and useful and necessary and fun for us rather than just wholesale opt out of things that have difficult sides - even if that ability comes after taking prolonged time away from the thing to get our heads on straight about it. In general, just stepping away from anything that's complicated or has bad sides feeds into a way of looking at everything in life as: this is good, this is bad, rather than being able to see the positives and negatives in things, and being able to weigh those up against each other etc.
Sorry for contributing to the bombardment with another long comment !! Alicia's comment section seems to be a place every so often where I tease out things on "paper" that I spend a lot of time mulling over in my head lol
ALSO, I meant to say: I've recently been on a Deborah Levy kick, too! Never having read her but having meant to for ages - I listened to the audiobooks of Hot Milk, and Swimming Home (audiobooks are the only way I'm finding myself able to fall asleep lately - I used to be like audiobooks aren't reading, and sort of avoid them. And, then I understood, yes, they're not the same as reading, as looking at a sentence on a page and underlining and absorbing in that way, but they're a separate and equally valuable way to immerse in someone's writing when reading isn't an option.
Also, I'm not listening to them for the same reason as I pick up a book. I'm looking for nighttime storytime to fall asleep to - like a baby, yes).
Looking forward to getting into the trilogy you're reading, too, but at a time when I can handle it better lolol
Absolutely. I'm often thinking of the simulacrum (simulacra? I struggle with singular or plural of this word) of it all. Of our desires to want to be seen liking xyz because of the social capital that can get us. And how being seen liking xyz often necessitates buying xyz. And in the end the love and acceptance, and also power, that being seen liking and with xyz can get us. And to your point, maybe the apartment or even house we can then be able to afford after being seen liking and with xyz. And then I think of this excerpt from the book Fashioning Identity: Status Ambivalence in Contemporary Fashion by Maria Mackinney-Valentin: “Jean Baudrillard (1992) described postmodern culture as a dance of the fossils in which chronological history has collapsed into a perpetual present. In a similar vein, Fredric Jameson (1983: 115–116) declared that “all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum . . . the failure of the new, the imprisonment in the past.”” pg. 22
Novelty is too risky in this scenario it feels like.
Thank you for your brilliant writing and I love Dries Van Noten too lol.
Beaudrillard is so relevant here! The social capital -> capital-capital via nothing but image is fascinating, and the acceptance of it as fine, the constant normalization of ever newer frontiers of individualization and endless laboring for corporations… it is so much!
Thank you for this—going to check out that book!!!
"We’re served something uncannily like what we do like but often not quite all the way there." !!! I will often freak myself out by obsessing over if I actually like something or do I just think I like it because I've seen it 9 million times on instagram. One of my favorite adjacent reads is https://forscale.substack.com/p/the-eternal-sunshine-of-un-curating that makes a case for un-curating: "When one reaches complete CURATOR MINDSET and ‘achieves’ “CURATED HOME”, what awaits is not nirvana, but instead extreme fragility (“ACK! Only wooden baby toys, please!” etc.) – the smallest infractions disrupt."
Loved this piece and hate how all of this is making us all dumber. I feel so dumb and impotent joining bake sale after bake sale while the California dept of food and ag has fully signed on to Israel's agro-diplomacy, and all the gross soft power stuff that comes with that.
I like Miyoko’s vegan butter (and oddly, I woke up this morning wondering if vegan butter is the same thing as margarine and I’ve just fallen victim to branding but the internet has assured me they are not the same thing and vegan butter is worth the markup 😅).
Alicia, the point and sentiment and thinking and writing in this piece resonated in general, of course, but if it's okay I'd love to comment on one particular part because it's something I've been considering and toying with and figuring out my feelings on a lot the past couple of years - the discourse around using the internet or choosing to bow out of using the internet, and that there's a certain admiration of those who announce that they aren't online etc.
You wrote: "I think it’s important to be endlessly aware and self-critical when scrolling takes up inevitable time in our lives—time that is well spent if we are using it well: to understand other people and culture better, to understand our tastes and desires, to just have a laugh or relate to someone."
This is a very important and true note, and I'm glad to see you say it. It feels like there's a narrative these days that using the internet is this embarrassing or shameful thing, and that we're all going to pass away mindlessly scrolling some bullshit. It isn't shameful to scroll. It isn't shameful to become addicted to an addictive thing. But, when we have the wherewithall, the awareness, the strength etc, we can choose to manipulate that addiction (and it's an addiction that is maybe inevitable for many in a world where technology moved faster than the human brain has the ability to comprehend and we were in it before we understood it) and use it in a way that suits us. Rather than try to avoid maybe being in unhealthy situations, it's kind of more realistic, more of what living entails, to get into them, to learn from them, and how to best manage them. We have the privilege of choice and discipline around how we use the internet - it isn't this thing that we should be afraid of or behave as if it's in charge of us. And when we can figure out how to do that, the internet can be used in an important and joyful way.
Sorry for being on a tangent that's only slightly about what you wrote. It's just so boring when people are so black and white about the internet; this narrative that it's irredeemably negative and we were better off when we didn't have it and we should all go on a bike ride instead of be on the internet. The internet is a reality of current life, and we can absolutely choose not to engage with it if that suits us better, but there's no denying the loss that comes with that choice, just like every choice. Because, as you said so well, if we're using it well, the internet enriches our lives, our brains, our souls. I would never have come across your newsletter, other writers, favourite music and films and TV shows without it - and, yes, maybe I would have been fine because I wouldn't have known any better - but I'm glad I came across all of those things.
Managing time and attention in a way that suits what we want and need from life is a better way to live than just disregard everything offhand - it shows a lack of curiosity about the world, about culture, about each other to be so proud of yourself for hating the internet and not giving a shit about what goes on there because you're so happy out offline. (And, I am happier offline in many ways, so I get it!). But, I'm also unhappier in many ways when I don't have access to certain things that the internet provides - and, so, it's a case of figuring out how to engage with something that you love and need and appreciate but that is bad for you in some ways. Like with most things, this is just the deal of being alive - figuring out how to make the mess and chaos suit you.
"The internet is a reality of current life, and we can absolutely choose not to engage with it if that suits us better, but there's no denying the loss that comes with that choice, just like every choice."
Thank you so much for this comment because it's precisely what I was hoping to get across—we have to take the good with the bad and enact the boundaries. I was thinking about whether I'd rather not know what's "in" via social media—whether it's a style of shorts or a kind of coupe—and I was like... no, I want the context! This is part of life now! But it's scary what it does to us and what it's doing to culture all the same. I loved the internet so much as a kid and found so much and so many people that became so important to me. I always want some of that back and I'm just trying to do that somehow.
Oh wow, I came here to voice such a similar comment to Kelly, but she’s articulated better than I would’ve. This move beyond thinking about simply “opting offline,” or the duality of being off or on, which isn’t doable or desirable for me, for a lot of reasons I won’t get into here at the moment, is one of my favorite things about this essay. Thank you!
So happy that came across! I don’t think opting out is desirable or doable, the way people frame it. There’s no reason it just couldn’t be better were it less monetized / were its monetización not so easily accepted and supported. (Keeping my keyboard’s code switch lol)
Thank you for this, Cameron!
So glad I was able to put that into words in a way that made sense and resonated - I'm always worried about coming across really black and white about things in short comment form when that's not how I feel about them; I know people's relationship with "online" is such a fraught and individual thing, and naturally so. The internet is such a crazy thing when you think about the vastness of it, and there are so many ways it can overwhelm and cause damage. I didn't want to word my thoughts in such a way as I came across being like: get over yourselves and get online, babies!
I totally understand why a lot of people need to not be online, either longterm, or for blocks of time throughout the year, as a self-preservation thing, or to only "log on" for like admin/life things rather than get involved in other things. I've had long periods of being very offline because I needed it. Taking those longer breaks when they were needed is the only way I've come to my current conclusion on it, and ability to deal with it - that, for me, it's more desirable and doable (great way to word that), for what I want and need in life right now, to engage online with the things I enjoy and benefit from (and, also, the internet is just helpful and necessary in very practical, daily necessity ways depending on where we live, our ability, or lack of, to travel / pop out to town etc) - but just learn through trial and error to spend time on it in as well-managed a way as possible in order to not totally drown in it all; and to learn my own tolerance for when things are becoming more than I can cope with at any given time, and to act on when it does become too much to have all that "everything all the time" seeping in, ie: with breaks when I can feel in my body and mind that I need that break from bombardment.
I think my main point, and I'm glad it came across, is that, when we can, it's better we learn how to engage with things that can be good and useful and necessary and fun for us rather than just wholesale opt out of things that have difficult sides - even if that ability comes after taking prolonged time away from the thing to get our heads on straight about it. In general, just stepping away from anything that's complicated or has bad sides feeds into a way of looking at everything in life as: this is good, this is bad, rather than being able to see the positives and negatives in things, and being able to weigh those up against each other etc.
Sorry for contributing to the bombardment with another long comment !! Alicia's comment section seems to be a place every so often where I tease out things on "paper" that I spend a lot of time mulling over in my head lol
ALSO, I meant to say: I've recently been on a Deborah Levy kick, too! Never having read her but having meant to for ages - I listened to the audiobooks of Hot Milk, and Swimming Home (audiobooks are the only way I'm finding myself able to fall asleep lately - I used to be like audiobooks aren't reading, and sort of avoid them. And, then I understood, yes, they're not the same as reading, as looking at a sentence on a page and underlining and absorbing in that way, but they're a separate and equally valuable way to immerse in someone's writing when reading isn't an option.
Also, I'm not listening to them for the same reason as I pick up a book. I'm looking for nighttime storytime to fall asleep to - like a baby, yes).
Looking forward to getting into the trilogy you're reading, too, but at a time when I can handle it better lolol
I've gotten into audiobooks too for walking the dog, books that I wouldn't really want to read or need to read on paper. It's so fun!
You had me at 1994 Baffler. Looking forward to reading this at least 3 more times.
A reference I was pointed to by an essay I otherwise hated, proving it’s good to read things we vehemently disagree with lol
Absolutely. I'm often thinking of the simulacrum (simulacra? I struggle with singular or plural of this word) of it all. Of our desires to want to be seen liking xyz because of the social capital that can get us. And how being seen liking xyz often necessitates buying xyz. And in the end the love and acceptance, and also power, that being seen liking and with xyz can get us. And to your point, maybe the apartment or even house we can then be able to afford after being seen liking and with xyz. And then I think of this excerpt from the book Fashioning Identity: Status Ambivalence in Contemporary Fashion by Maria Mackinney-Valentin: “Jean Baudrillard (1992) described postmodern culture as a dance of the fossils in which chronological history has collapsed into a perpetual present. In a similar vein, Fredric Jameson (1983: 115–116) declared that “all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum . . . the failure of the new, the imprisonment in the past.”” pg. 22
Novelty is too risky in this scenario it feels like.
Thank you for your brilliant writing and I love Dries Van Noten too lol.
Beaudrillard is so relevant here! The social capital -> capital-capital via nothing but image is fascinating, and the acceptance of it as fine, the constant normalization of ever newer frontiers of individualization and endless laboring for corporations… it is so much!
Thank you for this—going to check out that book!!!
"We’re served something uncannily like what we do like but often not quite all the way there." !!! I will often freak myself out by obsessing over if I actually like something or do I just think I like it because I've seen it 9 million times on instagram. One of my favorite adjacent reads is https://forscale.substack.com/p/the-eternal-sunshine-of-un-curating that makes a case for un-curating: "When one reaches complete CURATOR MINDSET and ‘achieves’ “CURATED HOME”, what awaits is not nirvana, but instead extreme fragility (“ACK! Only wooden baby toys, please!” etc.) – the smallest infractions disrupt."
LOVE this piece—thank you for linking!!!
Loved this piece and hate how all of this is making us all dumber. I feel so dumb and impotent joining bake sale after bake sale while the California dept of food and ag has fully signed on to Israel's agro-diplomacy, and all the gross soft power stuff that comes with that.
Vegan cheese IS the worst. The only decent one I’ve ever had is TJ’s feta. But otherwise, they’re like eating savory, partially dried out Play-Doh.
🤣 I have one brand in mind that I hate but Miyoko’s and Treeline are good!!! And now there are new ones that are aged.
I like Miyoko’s vegan butter (and oddly, I woke up this morning wondering if vegan butter is the same thing as margarine and I’ve just fallen victim to branding but the internet has assured me they are not the same thing and vegan butter is worth the markup 😅).
Algorithm
Algorithm
Algorithm, who could ask for anything more
To the tune of I’ve got rhythm.