Who Would Tavi Gevinson Be Without Instagram?

“I’m tired of making everything about myself. My job requires me to look at myself, talk about myself, post myself, and reply to comments about myself. It is way too much of a self-obsessive job”

“On TikTok, you have to talk in short sentences. I’ve learned to not elaborate on my idea — which for years of my academic life, I was taught to elaborate ... See more

I’m extremely wary of the cult of contemporary self-making, and the fact that it’s become an expected part of life in the attention economy for middle-class workers.

From the college essay – the first time many of us are required to tell a selling story of ourselves in the service of social capital – to the dating website to Twitter or Instagram, we... See more

With Instagram there was the idea that my life is constantly available for perception and evaluation by other people. I had these thoughts: I’d upload a photo and then I’d view my Instagram story and try to pretend to be somebody else—a stranger—and imagine how they’d see me. I’d be trying to present myself to be legible in a certain way to complet... See more

“The villain here is not necessarily the internet, or even the idea of social media,” she writes. “It is the invasive logic of  commercial  social media, and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction.” The business model of platforms like this — which rely on advertising and clicks and “en

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