From the Outside, You Look Great

Digital spaces are an urban geography in their own right. The trouble is, most of our online spaces are monopolized by entities ultimately trying to sell us a product. As a result, those spaces similarly embody the same Orwellian doublespeak that characterized the Soviet era. We are told we can use them for building connection and community, but we... See more

I worry about people being able to trust the kinds of material that they see online as emanating from human beings, and what it means to spend most of your day in an environment in which you’re never sure whether you’re surrounded by people or bots.

With Instagram there was the idea that my life is constantly available for perception and evaluation by other people. I had these thoughts: I’d upload a photo and then I’d view my Instagram story and try to pretend to be somebody else—a stranger—and imagine how they’d see me. I’d be trying to present myself to be legible in a certain way to complet... See more

I’ve been thinking about five intersecting problems: first, how the internet is built to distend our sense of identity; second, how it encourages us to overvalue our opinions; third, how it maximizes our sense of opposition; fourth, how it cheapens our understanding of solidarity; and, finally, how it destroys our sense of scale.