Hell Is Other People’s Feeds
Forget the online filter bubble. It’s the network that makes your world so hellish.
Search for the phrase “we live in hell” on Twitter, and you’ll find plenty of people attesting to its validity. The phrase is ubiquitous. Hell is where a U.S. senator posts pictures of a deposed dictator in his last moments of life. Hell is where real life feels exactly like an old headline from the Onion. Hell is where you find out who Belle Delphine is, that she sells her bathwater to men online, and that she’s only 19. And in hell, O.J. Simpson is definitely tweeting about the Democratic debate.
Hell is where Donald Trump gets basic facts about the Revolutionary War wrong, where he jokingly tells Vladimir Putin not to meddle in the next U.S. election, and where he meets with meme creators at the White House. In hell, Proud Boys roam the streets of D.C., and white men feel persecuted by a rainbow sidewalk. It’s where right-wing psychologist Jordan Peterson hangs out in Congress and where QAnon stans believe John F. Kennedy Jr. will return from the dead.
It’s not just that a bunch of things suck — that’s been the case throughout human history. What emerges as a clear connecting theme is that many things that suck…
