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What I Saw When I Came Back to the Internet, 3 Years Later

I left social media three years ago, and when I say I left social media, what I mean is that I abandoned the preposterous idea that keeping up with Internet Culture at large was within my reach, nor desire.

I had a baby and turned 40 and there was a pandemic, so that certainly played a role in my Irish Exit. But also, the Internet became untrustworthy, as a whole. We knew this all along. We knew of filter bubbles and echo chambers and confirmation bias, but we liked to think we could outsmart the algorithm. We liked to think our sources of choice, no matter how independent, would remain true rather than loyal. But what we found is what we’d feared: black and white is unattainable. Ink, when pressed, will always smudge a little.

And in the overwhelming absence of truth, of goodness, of wisdom, I just… stopped logging on. I deleted apps, and in doing so, deleted any shred of influence that was unearned. Instead, I spent my time reciting nursery rhymes and mashing bananas, and when the postpartum fog lifted, I realized the air felt fresher than it had in years. I wrote a book for a friend, and it became a New York Times bestseller, and the truth was made evident: leaving social media permanently – experiencing strings of days unaware of comment sections, viral memes, and whatever rise of jeans we should be wearing this fall – would not hinder my work (nor life). But it just might help it.

And so, I left.

And then I wrote another book – this one for myself – and a fairly significant amount of Internet Culture research was required. And so, with trepidation, after three years of blissful innocence, I opened Chrome. 

Here’s what I saw…

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Currently

This weekend, Bee will don a polyester veil and trot down the sanctuary as Mary in our church’s pageant. Can you send me her measurements, or take a look at these size charts? our children’s director asks before sending me links to various costumes on Amazon. We sift through dozens of options, find ourselves giggling

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The World We’ve Created

  Months ago, I am stuck in San Luis Obispo. The plane needs this one part, says the attendant. We had to order it. Might be here Thursday? It is Sunday. The airport is small, and a sudden swarm of indignation thickens the air. We have homes, we argue. Lives! Babies who need our care,

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70,000

Tonight, I hit 70,000 words on my latest manuscript. It still has a ways to go – two chapters and a conclusion, then it’s off to the publisher for edits – but, for whatever reason, this feels like a milestone worth noting. Could be the windows flung open, four bunnies and a robin playing Oonch

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Holding it Dear

Ah, December. My daughter’s Advent book says that this month’s name is derived from the Latin word decem, meaning ten, because it was originally the tenth month of the year in the calendar of Romulus. But I’ve got another theory. Could it also be because everything – everything! – in the month of December is

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Lifing Up

A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing,

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We Are Not Monarchs

My daughter tells me over breakfast that certain butterflies die once they give birth. She points to a crayon drawing she’s made: a dead monarch falling down from the sky, little Xs where eyes could be. Sounds about right, I think as I grind the coffee beans. — The baby is 1 and a half

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Who We Follow

There’s a reason there are tea rings on my dining room table, tie-dye stains on my deck. There’s a reason Ken built a ramp to slide down the basements stairs and a rock climbing wall to reach the heights of our master bedroom. There’s a reason that, just a few months ago, we bought a

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