The internet doesn't have to be like this
Living online can feel...numbing. Bo Burnham perhaps captured that best with That Funny Feeling, a song made up of various unrelated phrases that simulate the feeling of scrolling. deadpool's self-awareness/loving parents/harmless fun/the backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun On and on it goes, and on and on you scroll, until your thumbs (and soul) are numb. carpool karaoke/steve aoki/logan paul/a gift shop at the gun range/a mass shooting at the mall
It doesn't have to be like this. The internet could be wonderful, if that’s what we decide. We can connect with each other, if that’s what we decide. We can leave things better than we found them, if that’s what we decide.
I’ve worked in industries that see the internet, and human attention, as a commodity to be extracted. Over time I started to believe that is what everyone is doing—that cynicism is the only possible response to the modern web. It’s not. We can be humans in this space, even now, if we work at it.
Lately I've been wondering whether I'm burnt out. I write on the internet for a living, which means I swim in the soup expressed by That Funny Feeling. I try to be the best version of myself inside that soup, and I like to think that my writing is helpful. But sometimes the overwhelming numbness of existing online can make it all feel pointless.
This is why I've come to appreciate my newsletter audience. So many of you reach out to me after I publish something, saying that you liked it. I'm often surprised at how much I value those little bits of human connection—of realizing that there are actual human people reading what I like. So thank you. I hope I can live up to what you give me.
Last weekend I was at XOXO, a festival full of idealists who still think the internet can be a force for good in the world in spite of everything. Around 1,000 people met at Revolution Hall, a former elementary school in downtown Portland, OR. I cannot overstate how many people I admire were at this conference and how much I learned, both during the talks and conversations.
For a lot of people this was a chance to re-connect with friends. Not for me: I didn't really know anyone there, and came alone, so I mostly just wandered. I struggled with starting conversations more than I imagined would be the case. I think a lot of us are out of practice with this since 2020, and I was for sure feeling that.
One problem: I didn't know what to say when someone asked what I do. I tried saying things like "freelance journalist", following up with a list of publications if prompted. I tried to explain that I was a service journalist, which usually resulted in more confused looks (that's not a term people who aren't service journalists know). I tried explaining how I write reviews and tutorials, explaining how to use things, and essays about how to use the internet instead of letting it use you.
None of that quite clicked, though. It was only on the train home when I hit on what I should have been saying: "You don't know who I am but if you've ever had a problem with your computer you've read something I wrote." Because that's my bread-and-butter: writing articles that talk people through problems they might be having with technology. I've written thousands of articles on these topics, for all sorts of outlets.
It's not all I write. I sometimes do essays, or reported pieces, which I love. But on most days I'm writing some kind of review or tutorial with the aim of helping people get more out of their technology.
I'm convinced I won't be able to do this for much longer, though. Last summer I wrote a piece for The Atlantic about how Google's AI-generated results box at the top of search results are going to eat the internet alive, arguing that by summarizing the information found on the web Google will destroy the incentive to post anything there. Everything I predicted in that piece seems to be coming true. Google is taking content written by people like me, tossing it into an AI wood chipper, and regurgitating it to people. And, as The Onion put it so aptly, We don't get any fucking money if you don't click the link.
And publications are getting fewer clicks. I'm already seeing signs of this—friends are reporting that search traffic to their sites are down. There's been layoffs. I've heard rumors of managers scrambling to try to recover lost traffic, running to their SEO oracles in the hopes that the right incantation can bring the search traffic back. I hope their spells work, and that things can go back to how they were, but I worry that the die is cast—that the era of search traffic to media outlets is over.
So, yeah: I need to re-invent myself. Let me know if you have any ideas.
In spite of all that, though, I'm optimistic. This sounds odd, but in the past week I met and heard talks from so many people who keep trying to make things better, even as the internet seemingly gets worse and worse. That was the spirit of the last ever XOXO conference: pushing to make things better because it's more fun than giving up.
And I think that's the right approach. We're at an inflection point. We've seen how bad the internet can get, which is horrible, but it also means that we can learn from it. Systems that were dominant are starting to crumble, and there's a chance to build something better in the ashes. I hope it can be more human—and less numb—than what we had.
I Quit Twitter And So Can You Lifehacker
I wrote this in a fog of conference brain, but I think it turned out pretty well! An except:
Multiple XOXO speakers, not to mention people I talked to, referred to the social network as "zombie Twitter," which is a great descriptor. The soul of Twitter is gone, and has been gone for a while. What remains is a husk of the thing that was, walking the earth long after the end of its natural lifespan.
There's a moment in most zombie movies where a character needs to kill or abandon the zombie of a loved one, usually while another character says that the loved one in question is already dead. And that's what I'm here to say: Twitter is already dead. Read more
A few more things I wrote lately
'Cold Turkey' Makes You Practice Flash Cards Before You Can Open Addictive Apps Lifehacker
The Best Apps to Improve Spotify’s Awful User Interface Lifehacker
