Issue #64: Ghosting, WhatsApp statuses, 24/7 news & other things we normalise (that aren't actually 'normal')
How the modern world makes us insane – and what to do about it.
Before I get on to this week’s essay, I want to share the effing fantastic news that The Shoulds is now a Substack bestseller! This is a big milestone – and something it’s taken me writing over 145,000 words of newsletters weekly over a period of 16 months to get to. Without paid subscribers who fund this reader-funded publication, this wouldn’t have been possible. I mean that literally (as the numbers speak for themselves) but also on a deeper level. This community of subscribers has kept me going, writing into the dawn hours – especially in the early days – to publish this newsletter around my work schedule.
It’s been my thirty-something career highlight to learn that readers are willing to pay for my writing directly, after ten years of working at national & global publications where I didn’t have half as much freedom to write about the ideas and themes I wanted to cover (the ones I had a hunch people would want to read – and, it seems, I was right!). If you’d like to join the paid reader community – and receive all the usual subscriber benefits – I’m offering a special 20% off deal on all subscription types to celebrate. Now… on with the show!
In novel-of-the-moment Green Dot by Madeleine Gray, Hera – the main character – uses Instagram to communicate with her older, married lover, Arthur. As a younger person’s medium, Instagram provides a digital safe space where Arthur’s wife is unlikely to find their message trail. It’s also what what gives the novel its title: ‘green dot’ refers to the small icon that shows up next to someone’s Instagram profile photo to indicate they are ‘Online’ – or, using the app.
The tyranny of the ‘Online’ status
While being the Other Woman is (hopefully) not such a common experience, the maddening vigil of watching someone’s Online status flicker on and off sadly is – from the MSN Messenger statuses that defined after-school socialising for Millennials like myself to the WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram statuses that we all share today. It doesn’t feel normal, but it is – or, at least, it’s normalised.
One of the perks of being a grown-up, I often think, is being able to opt out of activities that were compulsory when you were a child. Like P.E. lessons (shudder); eating foods you don’t like; tolerating the school bully; honouring a social pecking order on the school bus; doing Physics homework; going to bed at a certain time.
And yet, us adults opt into a lot of insane-making things instead: the ‘Online’ status being only one of them. If you’ve never experienced the anxiety of wondering why someone’s not replied to you despite them being ostensibly on the other end of the phone/computer, then honestly I’m happy for you – but it’s an experience that’s universal enough to theme a bestselling novel around. That unsettles me.
The news
I feel the same about our 24/7 news cycle, delivered to us from numerous devices on a near-constant basis. The news is something that I have not only been a consumer of, but also – as a journalist, and a former night reporter on a British tabloid’s website – a producer of. ‘Staying informed’ is something we’ve made an unquestionable imperative. But does it serve us?
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