Alex Dobrenko

To imagine one’s recommendations as wholesale “generic,” rather than generic to one’s demographic, is a step stranger. It may be a tacit acknowledgment of one’s own claim to cultural domi­nance—the world might look flat if you are looking at it from above—or a concession to one’s own frictionless passage through space, online and off. A U.S.... See more

Compassion, in contrast, means that I identify with the afflicted individual so fully that I feed him for the same reason I feed myself: because we are both hungry. In other words, I have paid him attention.

Maya: My curatorial vision is very selfish [ laughs ]. I’m really excited about what I personally like, which is maybe true for all curators. Right now, I describe HEART as supporting artists who are engaged with the internet, software, and pop culture. That trifecta really describes the type of work that I gravitate toward. There’s a lot of... See more

But, like mental health conditions themselves, things weren’t as simple as that; they were knotty and complex, much like our minds. And instead, I found myself agreeing more and more with certain interviewees at the dangers of flippant mental health reporting, and began considering how “ghoulish,” to quote one, it is for us to become unwilling... See more

Take fiction. Chayka writes, “Young writers often find ways to cultivate public presences online even before they enter MFA programs, on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. They subject their voices to the force of social media flattening.” What could this mean? Did young writers—say, before 2006—have autonomous voices, independent of social norms,... See more

We need to find the minimum viable scaffolding to get our work started and then focus on doing the work from there, making little adjustments as we go.