Recommendations #17: When the personal becomes #content, weekend loneliness, and the biggest fraud you’ve never heard of
Article: Will you be my #content? (The New York Times)
What is it: A piece about the social repercussions of broadcasting your friends’ private lives online. What expectations of privacy do friends and partners have a right to when hanging out with someone whose job or hobby it is to share everything about their day-to-day? Where do we draw the line between self-expression and unwarranted exposure?
Thoughts: I enjoyed this piece, although I wanted to put a big red mark across the Caroline Calloway section.
Since the invention of Instagram stories in particular, which encourage an off-the-cuff style, friends and once private experiences have increasingly become an opportunity for ‘content’.
It’s not quite the same thing, but I was reminded of this when attending a dance class a few months back. It was a hip-hop class, a style I’m completely new to, and I just wanted to give it a go in a judgement-free space. This wasn’t, however, the case for many of my classmates. To my slight horror, several people filmed much of the lesson on their phone, even asking other people to capture them throughout. The teacher also filmed her own videos of the class, which were later posted on social media without the consent of those featured. I felt so awkward and on show – wasn’t this a place we could express ourselves privately? Are any spaces social media-free anymore? All I could think was, I didn’t sign up to be your content.
Writer Ann Friedman is quoted in this piece about her relationship to Instagram, which she’s used less as her follower count grows. I love what she says here, “At the end of the day, it’s a company that is essentially trying to monetize your relationships to people that are close to you.”
Article excerpt
Despite what #wanderlust boards on Pinterest may want you to believe, it does not feel glamorous to arrive in a foreign country, in the dead of night, bedraggled from a long flight and in need of a cab. Ellen Wright, 29, found herself in such a situation last summer while traveling with a group of friends.
“We’re trekking through Milan, it’s 1 in the morning, we can’t get a taxi, and we don’t speak Italian,” she said. “And while we’re trying to do this — one of my friends, she’s just filming it all, trying to make it seem all fun, and like a joke, when really we were all very irritated, and nervous.” What they were not, however, was surprised: Ms. Wright’s friend is a travel blogger and often broadcasts her every move in an effort to inspire — and instruct — others in following in her footsteps.
When Ms. Wright and her friends eventually got to their Airbnb, locating the lockbox hidden on the darkened street was just another expected trial, the result of doing Europe “supercheap.” But for her blogging friend, it was just more fodder for the feed.
“She even filmed us taking the key out of the lockbox, because that’s her whole thing, showing every detail to her audience,” Ms. Wright said. “But me: I’m traveling for fun. I don’t care about your followers.”
Article: The agony of weekend loneliness: ‘I won't speak to another human until Monday’ (The Guardian)
What is it: A look at ‘weekend loneliness’ that sees highly functioning, working adults feeling ostracised on weekends.
Thoughts: My heart goes out to those featured in this story. Loneliness in any form, especially as a young person, is so stigmatised. It can be embarrassing to admit that no, you don’t have that picture perfect groups of friends you can always drop by on (despite what Friends, Seinfeld, Sex & The City, The Bold Type..basically every show set New York City show told us). As this piece shows, being single adds another layer to this loneliness, as it seems the world is set up on weekends only to cater to couples and families.
Excerpt
Liz is 41, with a rewarding job and family nearby – but she is living two lives. “In the week, I am a contented, fulfilled person. At the weekend, I feel like a lonely outcast,” she says. Increasingly, she finds herself out of step with her social group where she lives in Somerset. She runs her own training business from home, so weekdays are busy. But this is exactly when her married friends want to meet for coffee “and a moan about their husbands”.
Liz would like to see these friends at the weekend, too, but when Saturday comes, “it’s unsaid – but it’s like they’ve closed the doors to me. Weekends are for couples. It would be unheard of to invite me to a dinner party, because I’m single,” she says. “I wake up on a Saturday and feel down. It’s a struggle to pull myself out of bed if I have nothing planned.” When Monday dawns, “it is always a relief”.
For Liz, the loneliness of the weekend is exacerbated by an additional, painful sense that she is not only alone but locked out – “banned from the weekend”, as she puts it. Between Monday and Friday, she enjoys her neighbourhood, but at the weekend, the streets and parks seem to transform. They become questioning, forbidding, to the extent that Liz wonders if she has “absorbed” her loneliness from her environment, now full of couples, families, groups.
“What’s interesting to me is that I’ll sit on my own in a cafe easily in the week,” she says. But the same cafe at the weekend is a space she cannot enter. Even walking the dog takes on a different cast. “I don’t feel conscious at all during the week” – but on a Sunday morning, the same walk feels acutely sad.
Article: How an ex-cop rigged McDonald’s Monopoly game and stole millions (The Daily Beast)
What is it: A long read covering the McDonalds Monopoly scandal that saw Jerome Jacobson, head of security for the company who produced the game on McDonald’s behalf, steal and distribute as many as 60 game pieces over a dozen years, totalling over $24 million in prizes.
This article was first published in 2018 but is doing the rounds again due to the release of McMillions – a new HBO documentary series about the same scandal.
Thoughts: This is a long but fascinating read. I remember McDonald’s Monopoly well, but I hadn’t heard of this scandal before seeing the trailer for McMillions, which led me to this initial article. (The reason the case was so under the radar at the time is because the legal trial began on September 10, 2001, and was therefore understandably overshadowed by the terrorist attacks the next day).
I’m yet to watch the documentary series, but it’s been getting good reviews. With so many names in the story to keep track of, I think it will lend itself to the screen well.
Podcast episode: The woman defending Harvey Weinstein (The Daily)
What is: A podcast discussion between Megan Twohey, the investigative reporter for The Times who co-broke the story about the sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein; and Donna Rotunno, Harvey Weinstein’s lead defence lawyer.
Thoughts: My Facebook news feed was filled over the weekend with people discussing this interview. What starts out as a relatively restrained civil, albeit tense, conservation between two women with completely opposite views on Harvey Weinstein goes completely off the rails at the 24-minute mark. It’s at this point Twohey asks Rotunno if she has ever been sexually assaulted, to which she replies “I have not,” then, after a slight pause, adds, “because I would never put myself in that position.” Rotunno then goes on to equate going on a Tinder date as essentially providing consent, among other ridiculous claims.
Twohey does her absolute best to maintain her composure in this interview while still fact checking and pushing back on Rotunno’s infuriating takes. All I can say is, Rotunno’s overall argument that the current justice system “100% favours victims” is completely delegitimised by the very fact that she herself, a highly educated woman who has been presented with all the evidence, still sides with Harvey Weinstein.
More to read…
‘We keep him close, always’: how I survived the loss of my teenage son (The Guardian)
You remember Jessica Simpson, right? Wrong (The New York Times)
Australia’s top TV moments, ranked (The Guardian)
How ‘experiences’ became another form of materialism (Forge)
Dispatches from the front lines Of Silicon Valley sexism – an excerpt from Uncanny Valley (Elle)
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