Sunday Bookmarks 08//22
mourning the end of summer and feeling bad about the internet
Good morning everyone, Happy Sunday. Welcome to August’s Sunday Bookmarks, some thoughts about current reads, lots of wonderful work from writers I admire and essay about online authenticity. enjoy.
READING // LONG FORM
I am in the middle of something like a reading slump, although I push back against that idea in general. It doesn’t feel slumpy, and I am not resentful of the slower pace I am consuming books at either. It is more a lethargy, perhaps one that is taking over multiple parts of my life right now. It is a lack of urgency to read books, to not beat myself up if I break my daily before bed habit.
I am part way through Trust, the much beloved Booker shortlisted novel by Hernan Diaz. I am enjoying the ride although I am feeling mild agitation (at myself mostly) for what my online consumption does for my reading habits. Everyone is talking about this book (in my corner of the internet) but no one gave away the details. Reviews cried - save this to read once you’ve finished - or - prepare for a genius twist - or - go into this book blind -. So i followed their instructions and yet the warnings given, have left me with some kind of readers’ anticipatory anxiety. I am trying to immerse myself in the story so far, it is full of books inside of the book, intertextual meetings of characters and their ancestors. But, I am waiting for something to change, to shock me, to turn my reading experience upside down, since that is what everyone promised.
A book I have been able to read, or listen to, without any predisposition, is Sophie Lewis’ Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family. I picked this up on a whim, a suggested title on my Scribd audio app. I was apprehensive as I wasn’t familiar with Lewis’ work and it seems right wing feminists are becoming more adept at non-descript book titles that entice readers only to spout vitriol and anti trans hate. Maybe that is the flip side to the above argument, of not knowing what you are in for if you are not served ready made thoughts of a title on social media. Nonetheless, Lewis opens her argument for reimagining the way we procreate, with a takedown of the textbook white feminism dystopia, A Handmaids Tale. I knew then I was likely in good hands.
She goes on to discuss how anti surrogacy movements often converge with anti LGBTQI+ beliefs as well as anti sex work rhetoric. So far it is a radical, socialist understanding of baby making in the context of neoliberal, state driven nationalism, and is creating many late night whirring thoughts. Although tonally the book is academic, some may say overwrought with word salad phrases, the content is also surprisingly listenable.
READING // SHORT FORM
Subscribe to Marguex’s new venture - a weekly(ish) newsletter notably named, The Onion Papers. Marguex’s debut novel, The Yellow Kitchen, was a favourite read of mine (and my mums!) this summer, so getting micro doses of her writing sounds like a cure for incoming winter doom.
Amrou Al-Kadhi writes a beautiful homage to queer love and changing thoughts on the institution of marriage in The Guardian. The piece retells the story of officiating their friends wedding this summer, their memories as trio of drag queens at university and why gay marriage is resistance.
“to watch two queer people I love dearly come out the other side, promising to love each other for the rest of their lives, felt victorious. It is always a triumph when queer people who have been taught to hate themselves finally believe they deserve another’s love. It was one of the most hopeful days I’ve ever experienced.”
Ps. you should also read their memoir: Unicorn.
Benjamin Zephaniah for Inews, on infertility and masculinity. I cannot bring myself to paraphrase this one, just read and sob along with me.
Rebecca May Johnson’s newest work in The Guardian - an essay about tomato sandwiches, but really some searing thoughts on food rules, culinary beef and the lack of imagination professional kitchen dwellers can perpetuate. She ends on a life lesson, “More than anything, I’ve learned that the making and breaking of rules about how we eat is a way of advocating for ourselves – of insisting on our own difficult and delicious ways of living.”
I realise now all of these pieces are penned by authors I love and admire, so you should also order Rebecca’s book which came out this summer too!
LIVING THROUGH //
I don’t owe you authenticity
There is a culture of suspicion rising around us. From the rise in populist politics to the most recent Monkeypox outbreak, fear of difference has festered. Discrimation against disabled people has risen, and the news has countless stories of full fledged invasions of privacy in the name of ‘public health and safety’. It is within this climate that the internet is craving reality.
BeReal is the latest in Instagram wannabe apps claiming to make us all less highlight reel prone. Full disclaimer - I haven’t downloaded it, just watched my friends use it all summer and it set my thoughts spiralling. In me fashion, I am reflecting on these things almost a month after they have happened but let’s call it crip time.
As we sat around the pool drinking sundowner beers, a friend rose quickly to grab her phone from the side. TIME TO BEREAL she shouts with irony. We pose, suck our stomachs and hold up half empty bottles. It felt no different to a pre meditated image for an instagram story or photo dump. But the immediacy of requesting images in the moment is what BeReal claims as the most authentic online space you can find. I am not pushed about being or not being on a new social media app, nor do I care if it genuinely brings my friends and strangers alike some kind of joy. What I am puzzled by is the continuous desire to make the internet real, an authentic experience for an online stranger to observe.
In the pages of Instagram, alongside the engagement announcements and book stacks, are a multitude of influencers claiming to make ‘real life’ content. Whether that is posting their (size 10) stomach roll (singular) or announcing a no makeup day, there is an underlying desire to appear desperately relatable, to show they are just like the consumer they are selling something to. This content sits alongside a curated appearance the rest of the time, a healthy mix of attainable capitalist luxury and reminders of similarities. It is contrived, tummy rolls and all.
Unlike perhaps other writing that starts with that influencer spiel, I couldn’t give a damn what a person who makes social media content as their job, uses to bring in their revenue. There is no role model chat or what about the young girls, coming from me. I think it is absurd to expect authenticity from these people, and I resent the idea of online authenticity all together so perhaps that is why I find the fake attempts at it so bizarre.
Nobody online owes anyone else a realistic look into their life. Parasocialism is one of the most disturbing parts of internet culture (and that’s coming from someone who has met up with/ befriended countless people through apps). Moreover, Parasocialism harbours the idea that you know something about a stranger’s life by consuming the content they choose to share about it, exclusively as still or moving images and short form writing.
In the online chronic illness and disability community, desire to be ‘real’ can take a specific form. I talk of this environment because it is one of the main spaces I inhabit both for work and in my leisure time. There are multiple theses to be written on the way this community inhabits the internet, but for now I am honing in on a specific set of observations. The distrust I mentioned at the top is alive within the community, as well as from the outside. Illness is policed by other sick folks, and proving you are sick remains top of many posters’ lists. This ends up reproducing a narrow vision of sickness where individuals dismiss symptoms and experiences that are not identical to their own. I note that it is not always the fault of the perpetrator, particularly when you consider the physical and mental impacts of illness on a person’s life. But it is still a problem.
I frequently see posts and stories that qualify each action with some kind of anecdote or reminder that goes along the lines of ‘I am still sick’. Although the poster may frequently refer to themselves as dynamically disabled, or living with a fluctuating condition, they cannot help but assure viewers of their lives that they still aren’t okay. I don’t begrudge them for that. I can’t say for sure why the trend occurs but I can speculate based on my own experiences of wanting to do the same. It is a qualification of ‘realness’ in some sense. It is a desire to push back against highlight reel culture, although in sick spaces it could be argued that lowlight reel is a more accurate term. It is a need to expose yourself in order to prove your humanity to onlookers, particularly those who aren’t sick themselves. It is answering the distrust of disabled people that we see everywhere, when you share images that say - let me show you how sick I am.
I am guilty of this in the past and likely will continue to slip up in the future too. It is a hard habit to break, when surrounded by systemic and individual examples of ableism. But it does not serve the poster nor the online gathering of sick people, to attempt to persuade a watcher that your real life, is real. That you have joy, and an ability to hang out with friends, alongside moments of suffering, pain and frustration.
By producing online material, (I shy away from calling it all content, which tends to have a strategy and purpose behind it), that claims to dismantle the online highlight reel culture, a person is participating in those same technologies to formulate a persona. That in itself is contributing to parasocialism and a false sense of reality, albeit a much more mundane one.
I have no smart way of ending this except yelling at my laptop ITS ALLLL FAKE. So you can do that too if you like.
BLOWING MY OWN TRUMPET //
In August I wrote:
My monthly piece for Screenshot. A short investigation into the ways carers and the overarching system of social care in the UK, is failing young disabeld people.
Interviewed my brilliant friend Catriona about the act of publishing your trauma and the holes in the support for new authors writing about difficult things.
Wrapped up the summer postcards trio at Bookish, with some Spanish reads. This was a super popular series so I will be sure to bring it back next summer too!
I felt slightly hard done by seeing only 3 pieces above but it also reminded me about how much time (especially with dwindling energy) it takes to produce pieces of work. I put hours into multiple articles and projects that haven’t come to fruition yet. I am almost certain they all will but I am reminded also of this twitter thread by friend Jennifer Brough, on feeling the loss of projects you doubt will ever be finished, sickness or otherwise.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS //
A collective of authors including Fatima Bhutto and Mohsin Hamid are organising a series of literary events to raise funds for the devastating flooding in Pakistan. More information is here, and the GoFundMe page can be found here
My boyfriend and best friend are running the marathon in Amsterdam for The M.E association, again, you can donate here
If you like this newsletter you can read the weekly version over on Patreon for 50p per letter, it helps me keep making this free version
That's all for this week folks,
catch you soon
Hannah x
Hi Hannah! I really appreciated reading your reflections on authenticity in "chronic illness online material". It's something I've been thinking a lot about recently too.