{"id":13421,"date":"2020-04-20T21:39:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T01:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=13421"},"modified":"2020-04-20T21:39:24","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T01:39:24","slug":"kaleidoscope-6-trick-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2020\/04\/20\/kaleidoscope-6-trick-mirror\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaleidoscope #6: Trick Mirror"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, I started reading a book that has been sitting on my \u201cto-read\u201d pile for months: \u201cTrick Mirror\u201d by Jia Tolentino, a collection of essays on self-delusion. Some of the essays are about the Internet, a lot of them are about feminism in the 21st century, and one examines Tolentino’s stint on a reality TV show.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, \u201cThe I in the Internet\u201d has stuck with me the most. In this essay, Tolentino traces the Internet\u2019s humble beginnings to its current form as a time-draining, soul-sucking monstrosity. She then explores how \u201clikes\u201d and \u201cretweets\u201d have taken the place of real-life activism. How a surprising parallel can be drawn between scrolling and \u201crat behavior\u201d (staring at our phone is rarely rewarding, but we keep at it on the off-chance that it will next time). And finally, how the Internet forces us to always be performing. We always have to be \u201con\u201d for everyone \u2014 our family, our friends, our coworkers, and strangers\u00a0all at once. So much of this resonated with me. I couldn\u2019t help but think of all of the times I\u2019ve read a headline on Twitter, \u201cliked\u201d the tweet, and kept scrolling without ever taking the time to read the article or think more critically about the issue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All of this has got me thinking about what\u2019s working on the Internet (and what\u2019s not) in today\u2019s context. Gal Gadot and friends\u2019 \u201cImagine\u201d cover was practically booed off the Internet. Why? I think it\u2019s because it\u2019s easier to see through celebrities\u2019 \u201cretweet\u201d activism and for their performances to feel fake. On the other hand, something that I\u2019ve really enjoyed seeing are random livestreams on Instagram and Twitter from some of my favorite artists. They too are performing, but I think the difference is that they are explicit about the purpose of their performance. Gadot\u2019s cover sounds like millionaires\u2019 pity, a favorite musician\u2019s livestream sounds like your favorite music.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe what\u2019s most comforting about the Internet right now though, is what Tolentino condemns as rat-like: scrolling. Tiger King and Fiona Apple\u2019s <\/span>Fetch the Bolt Cutters<\/span><\/i> have made for fresh Internet fodder. The collective experience of quarantine has made for a daily new batch of memes, challenges, and viral videos. And honestly, it\u2019s all pretty comforting. My immediate reaction to reading \u201cThe I in the Internet\u201d was to get off of the Internet forever. By the next afternoon though, I had succumbed to the blue light. I have too much time on my hands not to give in to pleasant, mind-numbing distractions. Still, I think that it\u2019s incredibly important to be critical of the Internet itself, as well as the content it produces, as people are glued to their screens now more than ever. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, I started reading a book that has been sitting on my \u201cto-read\u201d pile for months: \u201cTrick Mirror\u201d by Jia Tolentino, a collection of essays on self-delusion. Some of the essays are about the Internet, a lot of them are about feminism in the 21st century, and one examines Tolentino’s stint on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2218,"featured_media":13422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13424,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13421\/revisions\/13424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}