I think it’s just that we don’t talk about this stuff out loud very much. I feel the same way describing the kind of social anxiety I get from performative parts of social media—to detail it out loud feels unhinged. But I think most people are feeling similar stuff. It’s bleeding into everyone’s behaviors.

The curated feed of flatlays gave way to the sloppy photo dump; the finstas; the bedrotting. Finally, our real lives represented on screen. Finally, something real.

Except that this quickly became another role to be performed, a generation-defining content genre that has itself become subject to more and more extreme performances – filming oneself b... See more