The ideal woman looks beautiful, happy, carefree, and perfectly competent. Is she really? To look any particular way and to actually be that way are two separate concepts, and striving to look carefree and happy can interfere with your ability to feel so. The internet codifies this problem, makes it inescapable; in recent years, pop culture has

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Not to be all medieval peasant about it but I’m starting to believe that front facing video, excessive selfies, staring into your own eyes, watching yourself speak on zoom, etc., conjures something dark. Like imagine standing in front of the bathroom mirror and talking to yourself for minutes on end... that’s some ari aster shit. You’re the speaker... See more

The result is what Moskowitz describes as a “mirror maze”. We enter social media hoping to express ourselves but instead see endless refractions – ourselves as we want to be seen, as others might perceive us, as the algorithm is training us to become.

All of this has consequences for how we think and feel. Our sense of self begins to dissolve under... See more