I’m far from the first person to notice this. Trying to be happy all the time will make you unhappy
It’s a well-established truism that on social media, we are the product. And many of us are leaning into that idea through self-promotion. Photograph: iStock, and a couple of things on the menu aren’t available. Or you can ring a customer service line to address some issue with your phone or electricity bill. But the person on the other end of the phone line can’t do any of the things you want. Or a person who promised you a lift to work texts to say they are going to pretend to be sick today.
It’s a curious phrase to use in a situation like this, as if the person who has been failed is now required to comfort the person who has done the failing. Being Irish, we will of course say: yes, it’s fine, and b***h about it afterwards. The person who has done the failing, however, can come close to convincing themselves that they didn’t fail at all: that the interaction ended on a positive note. That’s the important thing.Daughter Number Two and partner finally found an apartment to rent.
Some examples of personal news: I finally had that cyst removed from my back. We’ve just paid off the mortgage. My shoes are killing me. These online announcements are not personal, but professional: I just got a new job. I’m tremendously excited because my book/play/album/podcast is about to come out.
Yes, I’m a vile curmudgeon. And yes, it is better than the other side of the digital street, where all the seething nutbags spew out their bile. But is that the only choice? Rather like the digital universe – a place of 0s and 1s – humans are happily reducing themselves to that binary form, where our self-presentation can only be one thing or another. Woke, or not. Deliriously happy, or not. There’s no nuance, no-somewhere-in the-middle, where the vast majority of human beings live.
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