Speaking in Stickers — Real Life

In the end, to move through the world is to experience encounters that constantly pass us by, and to brush up against moments that we are not able to save other than as an unreliable memory. The increasing popularity of apps like BeReal that capture those moments—rather than try to contain and display them—seems to reflect an embrace of life’s flee... See more

- "To exist on platforms is to be subject to this kind of continual identity reconstitution, to fluidity. Self-branding attempts to hide this inevitability by claiming agency over it, as though by choosing to turn our identity into capital, it becomes a free choice. Self-obfuscation, on the other hand, effectively embraces it through a kind of acce... See more

The “language” that is created from these ways of consuming impacts our actual ways of communicating as well. Eventually after enough time is spent positively or negatively grunting at things, or making these vague, silent mental connections, we lose our ability to actually articulate our feelings toward something. Plug-and-play catchphrase reactio... See more