I feel seen

Bonjour,

Today is not very funny, I’m just in my feels and feeling personally attacked by the below tweet. Enjoy!

ily,

Writer: Natasha (insta)
Editor: Deana

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I’ve been thinking a lot about identity lately: what it means to be known, what it affords, but also what limitations it presents. It seems the algorithms are reading my mind because unserious identity flattening took over my timeline this week.

Starting with this woman, who posted about a French upper class gf.

It’s unclear whether the woman who tweeted this is in fact the woman in the photo, but that doesn’t matter, I just added that for journalistic integrity.

The tweet blew up with over 42 million views. Folks had thoughts on this “identity.”

What became abundantly clear in the quote tweets, mentions, and replies was a universal desire to (further) flatten this woman’s identity based on the reader’s own perspective. It doesn’t matter who she is or the truth of her situation, the photo is now a tool for folks to exercise its identity assignment muscle.

The internet loves to do this, and sometimes it’s even fun for a second when it’s done to you. Case in point: the crypto Twitter timeline takeover of the Highly Regarded Quiz, which, based on a few questions, spits out your identity a la Buzzfeed.

Seeing yourself reflected back to you online can be beautiful.

There’s often a quick follow-up where I want to scream, 'Wait, no, I contain multitudes!' But maybe that’s just me and JP.

Catch up on the latest episode of the Too Online podcast.