In his latest special, Inside, comedian Bo Burnham begins his song, “Welcome to the Internet” by teasing, “We've got mountains of content—some better, some worse… We've got a million different ways to engage!” As Burnham sings, I’m just reaching the bottom of my Instagram feed, where I’ve spent nearly an hour scrolling through a never-ending stream of posts. When I’m done, I turn to TikTok instead. Another hour disappears.
But these platforms want you to do more than just consume content. Instagram’s slogan is “capture and share the world’s moments.” TikTok’s is “make every second count.” As Burnham suggests, the only way to meet the endless demand for Internet content is with endless supply. Yet while these platforms constantly beckon me to chime in and share parts of myself, I resist the urge. I have never made a TikTok. I’ve posted on Instagram once in the last year. But this isn’t a typical tirade against the conceitedness of social media feeds or the emptiness of online discourse. Instead, it is a lament: in a world in which millions of voices are constantly reverberating across the Internet, I cannot find a place for my own.
Once upon a time, there were distinct creators and consumers on sites like YouTube and Tumblr. I grew up on the “old Internet,” dominated by online forums, where the veil of anonymity protected me as I lurked in on others’ conversations. Over the years, however, the ability to strike up conversations with strangers became less novel, and the...
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