Rachel Carson returned her borrowed stardust to the universe 60 years ago today, having forever changed our relationship to the living world.

Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are engines of distraction and cultural rot. They stand in front of the more difficult but more rewarding aspects of life: deep work, intimate connections with friends and loved ones, focused attention for hobbies with intrinsic rewards. By training users to crave constant novelty and the immediate approval of an... See more

Many things in modernity are brain dead, but I can’t think of anything worse than the short form dystopias of TikTok and Instagram. They’re materially making people dumber, breeding addict behavior (particularly in the young) and ultimately ruining the lives of normies. It’s depressing to think about the countless kids who might have started garage... See more

Don’t think your way there — feel your way there.

I do think that social media is largely a trap... for users and for brands. It’s purposely built to create insecurity and false proxies, metrics that get people to work for free to support the business model of the social media companies, as opposed to their own goals.

When Wendy’s or Oreo cookies pulls some sort of stunt on a social media platform,... See more

A relationship, notably, is not an algorithm. It is a gestalt. Far be it from me to say that I’ve figured out what relationships really are or really mean, but I know there is an intangible force formed between the centres of people that sits beyond the limits of interpretation, that is larger than itself and both of you, that cannot be explained s... See more

I have thousands of photos of my children but few that I’ve set aside to revisit. I have records of virtually every text I’ve sent since I was in college but no idea how to find the ones that meant something. I spent years blasting my thoughts to millions of people on X and Facebook even as I fell behind on correspondence with dear friends. I have ... See more

A few more years and my mind wasn’t suited for much else. I was anorexic and had no friends; I was absolutely killing it online. I had developed all these health issues and begun posting hospital selfies, crying selfies, depressive bathtub selfies. I was sick and sad. I’m fangirling, a girl said when she recognized me on the subway. I’m spiraling, ... See more

The peak of my influence was also the peak of my misery.