Meanwhile, our lives as consumers of both digital and material content have begun to feel like endless, depressing remixes. We are promised the bliss of unending novelty. Infinite scroll. Shein dresses that cost less than a loaf of bread. AI chatbots who are smarter than you, who can whip up anything you dare to ask them for in seconds. Budget airline tickets that can take you to Spain or Iceland for the price of a nice dinner out. But of course it all feels like empty calories. We’re bored out of our minds, trapped inside the dopamine bunker, scrolling the phones we got hooked on during our pandemic-induced isolation. Every cheap new outfit falls apart in days. Every city feels the same, is lined with the same chain restaurants, filled with the same tourists from the same budget airline flights. The AI seemed so wondrous to behold at first, but now it’s just the same thing again and again, an endless unreadable re-assemblage of existing digital parts. This time the perimeter of our world is stalked by its own set of hulking guards: tech overlords, politicians promising that everything will feel better if we can just make Canada the 51st state, or reach the ever-shifting AGI target.
I found IWHNKM at the bookstore and was so shocked when looking up reviews after reading it that it was popular on tiktok!! Felt the same with Piranesi, which was recommended to me by a friend. I loved this article!!
This is beautifully allovertheplace. The Helen Keller analogy is brilliant, and kinda took me out of the essay for a moment to remember reading the kids' version of her book, in third grade, and being haunted by the image of her parents' helplessness to her assuage her terrified disorientation as an infant.
The image of the protag's heartbeat being the one grounding/constant detail to keep her situated within her situation also hit me as something deeper than I can necessarily parse at the moment. The center being inside the thing, but also separate from it.
You wrote, "When I was in third grade, my school counselor gave me two books. One was about a girl raised by dolphins. This girl is “rescued,” taught to use language and walk normally and generally act like a human. The other book was about a girl growing up in the nineteenth century who learns, suddenly, that it’s actually 1996: she’s been living in a kind of historical museum, as a living diorama, and now must enter the real world of telephones and cars in order to obtain lifesaving modern medicine for her community." Do you happen to remember the name of the two books?
Regarding the books from the guidance counselor: I remember that dolphin one so well. I borrowed it from a friend and the pages were all wavy from having been dropped in the pool. Can't quite tell whether I read the other one . . . the description kind of reminds me of Violet Eyes, a very fun, pulpy book that my middle-school self loved.
This is excellent, and yet--one of the things I loved most about Piranesi is his capacity for joy. Though he is certainly lonely and naive, his worldview is the literal opposite of the ultra-online consumerist doom-scrolling depression this piece offers as the post-covid human condition. I suspect I Who Have Never Known Men and Piranesi appeal for different reasons.
I love your analysis of I Who Have Never Known Men in this barren-feeling algorithmic age, but it feels like exactly the kind of novel to go viral on BookTok. Like The Secret History, God of the Woods, Bunny, The Girls, anything by Ottessa Moshfegh, etc., it’s a classic outsider novel where the primary conflict is between the protagonist and their society. I know the romance/romantasy girlies are the loudest contingency on BookTok, but it feels reductive to flatten the whole scene into one genre.
This was fucking great
Meanwhile, our lives as consumers of both digital and material content have begun to feel like endless, depressing remixes. We are promised the bliss of unending novelty. Infinite scroll. Shein dresses that cost less than a loaf of bread. AI chatbots who are smarter than you, who can whip up anything you dare to ask them for in seconds. Budget airline tickets that can take you to Spain or Iceland for the price of a nice dinner out. But of course it all feels like empty calories. We’re bored out of our minds, trapped inside the dopamine bunker, scrolling the phones we got hooked on during our pandemic-induced isolation. Every cheap new outfit falls apart in days. Every city feels the same, is lined with the same chain restaurants, filled with the same tourists from the same budget airline flights. The AI seemed so wondrous to behold at first, but now it’s just the same thing again and again, an endless unreadable re-assemblage of existing digital parts. This time the perimeter of our world is stalked by its own set of hulking guards: tech overlords, politicians promising that everything will feel better if we can just make Canada the 51st state, or reach the ever-shifting AGI target.
- fuck me, wow.
This is brilliant.
I found IWHNKM at the bookstore and was so shocked when looking up reviews after reading it that it was popular on tiktok!! Felt the same with Piranesi, which was recommended to me by a friend. I loved this article!!
This shifted something in my brain. So good.
I read every word. Brilliant I will be picking up that book
So brilliant.
This is beautifully allovertheplace. The Helen Keller analogy is brilliant, and kinda took me out of the essay for a moment to remember reading the kids' version of her book, in third grade, and being haunted by the image of her parents' helplessness to her assuage her terrified disorientation as an infant.
The image of the protag's heartbeat being the one grounding/constant detail to keep her situated within her situation also hit me as something deeper than I can necessarily parse at the moment. The center being inside the thing, but also separate from it.
Well-written, ambient, thought-provoking.
So well done. Deadening and hopeful simultaneously. Very good writing. ✒️
You wrote, "When I was in third grade, my school counselor gave me two books. One was about a girl raised by dolphins. This girl is “rescued,” taught to use language and walk normally and generally act like a human. The other book was about a girl growing up in the nineteenth century who learns, suddenly, that it’s actually 1996: she’s been living in a kind of historical museum, as a living diorama, and now must enter the real world of telephones and cars in order to obtain lifesaving modern medicine for her community." Do you happen to remember the name of the two books?
Sounds like "Island of the Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell and "Running Out of Time" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
I don't think the first one is 'Island.' I think it's one geared for younger readers . . .
'Music of the Dolphins' is my guess.
Regarding the books from the guidance counselor: I remember that dolphin one so well. I borrowed it from a friend and the pages were all wavy from having been dropped in the pool. Can't quite tell whether I read the other one . . . the description kind of reminds me of Violet Eyes, a very fun, pulpy book that my middle-school self loved.
I'm orgone-maxxing bro
I'm fascinated by this book now. I am looking forward to reading it. Thank you.
This is excellent, and yet--one of the things I loved most about Piranesi is his capacity for joy. Though he is certainly lonely and naive, his worldview is the literal opposite of the ultra-online consumerist doom-scrolling depression this piece offers as the post-covid human condition. I suspect I Who Have Never Known Men and Piranesi appeal for different reasons.
I love your analysis of I Who Have Never Known Men in this barren-feeling algorithmic age, but it feels like exactly the kind of novel to go viral on BookTok. Like The Secret History, God of the Woods, Bunny, The Girls, anything by Ottessa Moshfegh, etc., it’s a classic outsider novel where the primary conflict is between the protagonist and their society. I know the romance/romantasy girlies are the loudest contingency on BookTok, but it feels reductive to flatten the whole scene into one genre.