Brandifying my online life was a mistake

Where we had once been free to be ourselves online, we were now chained to ourselves online, and this made us self-conscious. Platforms that promised connection began inducing mass alienation. The freedom promised by the internet started to seem like something whose greatest potential lay in the realm of misuse. Even as we became increasingly sad a

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A lot of social media these days makes me feel like I’m doing it wrong; I’m not going to the right places or wearing the right thing or doing the right workout (or any workout tbh). Sure, it’s kinda an obvious takeaway about a common feeling, but what was less obvious to me is how this week’s contributor Alex Dobrenko characterizes this experience:... See more

And that was the first real, unsettling realization: I had let the internet be the mirror that told me who I was. I had spent so long performing myself online that without social media, I wasn’t sure how to measure my own existence. What is a life unposted? What are thoughts that no one else can hear? Who am I, if not a series of updates and images... See more

The public arena of social media is a battleground between our most Compressed Identities. But it’s in private DMs, small group chats and offline conversations that I often find the most open and insightful conversations that show me who people are and how they want to be seen.