It's the 21st century. Science and technology influence everything from day-to-day tasks to our health and longevity. And yet an ocean of advancement still awaits. The question is, how do we dive in?

The Doe takes a look at everything from computers to medicine, human interaction with science and tech and probably some kind of weird, scary robots, too. 

Expand your mindset with verified anonymous stories discussing topics related to science, medicine, technology and more from The Doe.

Science & Technology Anonymous Personal Narratives - The Doe

Science & Technology

The first time I remember vocalizing a concern about social media addiction was in 2014. I was in my therapist’s downtown Washington, D.C. office trying to explain the feeling that something had permanently shifted—not just inside me, but the world around me. I laid on a couch and tapped my sternum. 

“I feel something is wrong,” I said. “I stare at my phone for hours and it feels like I can’t stop.”

In 2014, my cell phone was never far and my “real” social life was disintegrating. I was a librarian at an elementary school and my students required constant attention during the workday. I mostly kept my phone in my desk drawer, but the moment I had a break or was back home for the day, I was glued to it. My therapist responded to the concerns I was trying to express with a question: “What do you think this might be a coping mechanism for?”

I didn’t have a clear answer. What was happening—this obsessive use that I struggled to break away from—felt larger than me. I was uncomfortable responding, as if I could identify a personal need I was seeking to fulfill and then develop a plan to eliminate or lessen it by myself, for myself, because of myself. Certainly, I knew what I wanted to escape—a stressful job, the loss of a long-term relationship, the subsequent cross-country move back East, the lack of a social life in a city that had changed since leaving three years earlier—but there was something outside of myself happening as well and I knew it. 

I have always been an online person. In the seventh grade, I taught myself HTML to make a Geocities fansite for the band Hanson. I regularly kept a Diaryland diary and then a LiveJournal. I was active on MySpace and Tumblr in their earliest days. But, before 2016, it still felt easy to disconnect. I could leave the computer and, later, put the cell phone down. Real life—life outside of a screen, with people and community in an accessible orbit where I could move, talk, learn and grow—was still more prevalent. I used social media with curiosity and imagination, with a desire to belong in a community while also expressing myself as an individual. 

My early Instagram grid contains no edited photos beyond the built-in filters. My posts are infrequent but contain snapshots from my life that I did not try to improve via caption or editing. I remember every detail of where I was when I took those first few years of photos. Over time, this eroded and turned into posting daily as some sort of proof that I had an interesting life, and one worth following. The personal significance of what I experienced and shared became much more focused on sharing what looked “interesting.” Beyond that, posting felt necessary and became compulsive—a dopamine fix.

Any feelings or suspicions I had about why I struggled to put my phone away (and, perhaps more importantly, who or what was making it so hard) were confirmed by the 2020 Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma. I watched it over a series of four days, needing time to pause and reflect on its confirmations of things I had long suspected—that social media is reliant on “the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in our own behavior and perception” to turn us into a product. “Our attention is the product being sold to advertisers.” 

But what stuck with me the most was one line: “Social media isn’t a tool that’s just waiting to be used. It has its own goals, and it has its own means of pursuing them.” 

The apps I had once viewed as tools—ones that led to connection-building, unique expression and meaningful interaction—were completely compounded, manipulated and fractured by capitalism and commodification. When I finally finished the documentary, I put my phone into a drawer and took a long walk into the heat of the Mojave Desert, where I now live. I felt sick. Yes, I had many new people in my life because of social media. Yes, I felt seen in moments of happiness, peace and grief. But my life—my living—was taking place more on a device than out in the world with land and people around me.

In a desire to get back to some sort of real and meaningful connection and community, I put out a call to my Instagram "Close Friends." Were there others who had watched the documentary and felt similarly ill? Were there those who wanted a total break and a group chat instead? I wanted out and away from an app that goaded me into excess and jealousy, feelings of self-doubt and unworthiness. Six people—all of whom I met through the very apps we were trying to escape—responded “yes.” The only “rules” were that everyone in the chat was bothered by the roles social media had begun playing in our lives. They hoped to have a space, and a group of supportive people, to turn to instead of using social media so frequently. Four of the six members, including myself, committed to only using Instagram once a week for one hour. I had an additional personal goal of only returning to social media when I felt I could “pop in,” catch up with friends and organizations, and then “pop back out” and into my real life. 

One member of our group is male; one is a female person of color; two of us are mothers; several of us are queer. Two members live in Portland, Oregon; one lives in Los Angeles; one in Chicago; one in New York City. We all do very different things for work. But we immediately and easily found commonalities and comradery. 

In the first few days of our detox, each of us reflected on the silly things we wanted to post (a good cup of coffee, a cute photo of a pet, a vanity license plate) and, eventually, the less-silly things we wanted to share. One member’s friend passed away from a battle with breast cancer and we had a lengthy conversation about grief, both offline and online. If K, one member of our group, popped onto Instagram to make a memorial post for her friend, could she continue to stay off? If she didn’t post a photo with a note about her death, would she look callous and uncaring to everyone in her life who was used to her honest and vulnerable posts? Each member expressed how much they understood this struggle with grief. We remained close as K attended her friend’s online memorial service. She shared her frustration with being unable to cry, and vented about the way the pastor was speaking about her non-religious friend.

Another member of the chat shared that she had recently become pregnant again after a miscarriage. Few people knew about the miscarriage, and we, the members of the group chat, were the only people she was telling about the pregnancy other than her husband and toddler son. One member—also a mom—offered tips for morning sickness. We all shared our solidarity around what it means to be a woman carrying a life into this world. I imagined writing a vulnerable post about any of this to Instagram, and the people whose only response would be a double-tap of their finger on a screen. I realized that these likes had begun to feel more desirable and valuable than the continued, extensive support in the group chat. Within a week, I knew more about these five people than some of my oldest friends. I began to feel curious about this, too. Is this what we all craved when we poured hours into Instagram? To be seen— really seen—in all of our mess and struggles, our happiness and joys? Or was everyone in the group such deep empaths (and, we all are) that not having a place to share our most overwhelming emotions was unfathomable?

In these questions, I felt a return to a before-time. Not before social media, but before social media became an obsession, a drug, an addiction. Here I was, asking questions, gathering information, finding breadcrumbs, reaching conclusions. With curiosity and care. It felt like coming home. The first two weeks I spent away from Instagram, in no unwavering terms, cleared my thinking. It made me more present, more curious and happier. When the familiar pull to grab my phone seized me, I still reached for it, but I reached for five people I knew and cared for instead of unknown thousands.

When I logged back into Instagram after a two-week break, convinced I could just “pop in,” I did not pop. I stayed and I lingered and I fell back into the pit of scrolling. It was easy, seamless, comforting. I’m now waiting on a package to arrive from a company that makes time-lock safes. I ordered one with a white lid instead of a clear one that would allow me to see my screen through the plastic. I plan to put my phone in it for several hours a day, locked up with no way to escape other than to break the box open. I am curious if this is what it will take to stick.

I told the group chat that I’m writing about them, about falling back into social media (four of us have returned to it), about this continual struggle that often feels maddening, embarrassing and out of our control. In return, they asked me how I’m feeling, what my plan for moving forward is, what support I might need. They mean all of it. They didn’t encounter any of my feelings through a brief, aimless scroll—they are invested in my life, and I am invested in theirs, in a way that feels solid and private and intimate.

We have plans to meet in person, to rent a large house and cook and eat and dance together when/if the world allows us to feel safe again. In the end, I think that image—the six of us laying out on the floor in a shared physical space, unworried about our appearance or what we’re producing or not producing, unconcerned with capturing it all for the internet—is going to keep me off social media. We have a connection no app will ever help me understand or capture or feel.

Why I Quit Social Media

If you found yourself waking up one morning as an 18th-century tradesman looking to make an unconscionable quicketh bucketh (observe my linguistically correct approach to the era’s slang), you’d have to embark on a perilous journey at sea, shoot cannons and actually risk death before being able to expand your business geographically. Today, however, all tech companies have to do is enable Stripe payments in a local currency and translate a few support articles to effectively growth-hack their way across the globe. 

But just like in old colonial times, this often comes with dire consequences—especially for those who live in an area that Silicon Valley has identified as “high-growth potential.” I worked at one of the leading fundraising tech companies and, one morning, I got a literal and figurative wake-up call (a wake-up text if you want to be precise about it): “I’m in danger, please help.”

The company I worked for provides digital platforms that let users raise funds for special projects, which range from the creation of sassy, enamel pins to the development of technological solutions that could potentially solve the world’s environmental issues. It’s hugely popular. In Asian countries, hardware projects have especially taken off in recent years, prompting the company to open up for business in places like Singapore and Hong Kong. These places aren’t like the United States, however. Things work a little differently there when it comes to politics. 

The social unrest in Hong Kong was at its peak when I worked at my company’s downtown Asian office. Some creators had just launched a project that criticized the city’s leadership and police force. But as it became hugely popular overnight, the creators hadn’t realized their verified ID names would be visible publicly on the website, alongside their controversial project. After an explosion of online speculation about their identities and whereabouts, one creator became so concerned for their safety that they considered committing suicide. A young Hong Konger who had expressed sympathy for the movement on Facebook had just disappeared at the border, and protestors were being arrested at scale, so this creator was certain of their impending doom.

As already mentioned, politics works a bit differently in Hong Kong than in the United States. Whereas a lot of American supporters saw the movement in Hong Kong as a means for an individual to express one’s discontentment with the government, the local authorities saw it as a form of domestic terrorism. 

People tend to forget that it’s a Western right to protest—a right which isn’t exported as easily as Pop-Tarts. Just last year, a Singaporean man and his wife got detained for offenses under the public order act. Their crime? Wearing a t-shirt to a sports event calling for an end to the city-state’s death penalty.

Protesting is also dangerous in America, as we recently saw with Black Lives Matter activists getting maced in the face to make room for a presidential photo-op. That’s in the country where free speech is protected under the constitution. Imagine what it’s like in countries where protest or political dissent is forbidden by law, and you can get arrested for wearing a t-shirt. Should American companies profit by expanding to these countries and offering tools that make it extremely easy for people to break these (admittedly egregious) laws?

This is not about reshaping politics and protest rights. It’s about questioning the business of exporting Western culture into other geographic spaces that don’t operate on the same legal grounds. It’s also about taking responsibility. 

Back home in Hong Kong, the situation I faced kept snowballing and involved more and more people. Not only did the creators leave behind a big, fat digital footprint for the authorities to follow, but literally thousands of other users had supported the project by donating and submitting their personal information. After completion of the fundraising project, the creators (as is standard protocol) received a plain Excel file with everyone’s personal details—depending on your perspective, these were supporters of a good cause or advocates for domestic terrorism and separatism. I, for one, wouldn’t want to have my full name and address on a list that lingers inside a Hong Kong laptop.

The company I worked for took the issue seriously, but the c-suite’s romantic Western dreams of global democracy meant that the project wouldn’t just be deleted, as requested by the creator. During one of our crisis meetings, I remember an exec saying they thought the project was really cool, which sent shockwaves through my body because it showed how radically different we looked at this situation. While the creator and I thought of all the ways this could go horribly wrong, leadership at the company saw it as a great example of the site supporting democracy in Hong Kong, turning a user into an unwilling martyr. The reluctance to stop projects like these from endangering foreign users was seen by some as a testament to the company’s values, while others, including myself, saw it as reckless. I felt it wasn’t our place as Americans to enable users to do things that would change their lives forever—if not cut them short altogether.

The company ultimately took measures to protect the identity of the individual creator, but images of the project still circulate online, and that Excel file with thousands of names remains out there. A new sweeping national security law has since passed in Hong Kong, making any form of protest relating to this issue severely punishable, and nobody knows what has since happened to the people who implicated themselves by supporting this project.

So why does this happen? Surely, the incredibly talented people working in tech don’t want it to, right? As problematic as Facebook is, I’m pretty sure the people who work there didn’t foresee the genocide they helped enable in Myanmar. But the fact that they didn’t foresee how it could have happened is precisely the problem.

Westerners grow up with the notion that our democratic way of living is inherently superior to all other forms of governing and society. Heck, we can even invade a country if we want to bring them democracy and plant the seed of freedom. Unfortunately, history has taught us that when the white man shows up to a foreign harbor, it hardly ever turns out well for the local population. Tech companies have similarly turned into digital imperialists, taking whatever they want, and only offer hollow consolations and best intentions when shit hits the fan. Some might find this uncomfortable to hear, but there is this deeply-held belief, especially in Silicon Valley, that we are these brilliant people everyone can learn from, that wherever we show up with our slick software, we can change things for the better. Locals or foreign, yet-to-be-converted users, just don’t know it yet. When Airbnb first entered Europe, many did not foresee it leading to skyrocketing rents for residents, and pushing out low-income tenants who suddenly found themselves living in a building that would soon become an unregulated hotel.

Centuries ago, the Brits hooked Asian people on lucrative opium, ultimately leading to colonizing Hong Kong. It was a long and bloody battle, but at least we can hold history’s colonizers accountable by knocking over their statues and denouncing their actions today. Digital imperialism is much more invisible—all it takes is a few lines of code and a celebratory Slack message to learn a new country has been added to global operations. When things don’t work out in a certain market, tech companies quietly withdraw, but the damage to people’s lives who were misfortunate enough to come into contact with these unadapted services isn’t any less real.

I’m not saying tech companies don’t have the right to expand geographically. They just need to be held accountable. Whether this means disabling certain features and enabling others (switching off the ability to download a backers’ personal details and switching on increased anonymity in certain parts of the world) or integrally adapting the product to comply with local laws, human lives must be valued above profits. That seems like a basic tenet which we could hopefully all agree on.  

So, if you work in tech, the next time you’re about to victoriously roll-out your expansion plans, please consider the impact your product might have on those foreign to the world from which you sip your Bevi and write your code.

Insiders

Think Big Tech Is a Danger in the U.S.? American Tech Is Far More Lethal Overseas.

I thought we were getting a little old for all-nighters in the car. But it seemed worth it to give the rocket launch another try and still make our return flight out of Atlanta without incurring those pesky change fees. We had tickets to watch the launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on a Monday, but it was canceled as we boarded the busses to the viewing area. The next attempt wouldn’t occur until Wednesday evening, and we had our flight home booked for early Thursday morning. Watch the launch, attend the after-party in Cocoa Beach, drive seven hours to make the morning flight.

I’m not part of the TESS team, but several of my long-time colleagues are. I’ve been following their efforts and progress over the years with excitement and increasing anticipation, especially after NASA officially selected TESS as a Medium Explorer mission back in 2013. TESS is surveying the whole sky, looking for telltale tiny and short dips in the brightness of thousands of nearby stars, which indicate that an exoplanet has crossed in front of its host star. So far, it has discovered at least 79 new exoplanets and found more than 2,000 “transit-like” events. Some of those exoplanets might even support life.

People who don’t follow science developments with particular interest might still occasionally take note when an especially alluring mission gets launched into space, and perhaps think of it as a common occurrence. However, for most scientists, whose field necessitates access to outer space, a single launch is often the highlight of their careers. Ideas for space science missions get tossed around all the time. They often start with a single idea, founded on years of practice in the field, triggered by a paper or a seminar, followed by discussions with peers, presentations at conferences, etc. The best ideas develop a following, and leaders will try to gather collaborators to improve and round out a concept.

At some point, you decide that you are ready to enter the competition. For a proposal to be competitive in the Medium Explorer NASA program, which only accepts proposals every two to three years, a team has to be formed consisting of multiple expert institutions (universities, spacecraft builders, NASA centers, etc.). They must invest at least a year of hard science simulation, as well as give design, engineering and technology demonstrations by many dozens of people. Countless boxes have to be checked—from the science addressed by the mission, to the required performance of the science instruments, to the readiness level and development of all technologies needed for a successful mission—along with management, schedule, cost and risks associated with all of the above. 

Call this the regular season. Out of maybe ten to 20 separate 200-page proposals, NASA will typically select the top two for a ten-month so-called Phase A concept study (the playoffs). If you don’t make the playoffs, you can try your luck again next time around. During Phase A, every aspect of the mission gets refined and technologies are improved as much as possible within the given time and fiscal constraints. The proposers submit a study report, NASA has it reviewed by a team of outside experts and, in the end, there can be only one: NASA selects a single proposal for flight. The winner features the most compelling new science (which often requires the most advanced technologies), with the highest probability of success (defined as building and launching on schedule within budget and achieving the science goals). At this point, NASA (and the American taxpayer) is getting an amazing package, without having spent any significant money: the best, least risky idea, crowned from a competition of more than 1,000 highly trained scientists and engineers.

A well-known saying in our circles is “Be careful what you wish for, because you may get it!” For the next four to five years, the chosen team will have to dedicate itself exclusively to turning its mission into reality under a tight schedule and budget—and with NASA constantly breathing down its neck. Things will go wrong, suppliers will miss deadlines, schedule and cost reserves will shrivel up. Missions can even get canceled if the team falls behind too much.

With this background in mind, we finally arrived on Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center’s Apollo/Saturn V Center viewing area, about six miles from Launch Pad 40, for the second launch attempt. Excited tourists, delighted TESS team members and their families and friends filled the bleachers. How much work, sweat, effort, late nights, worries, sacrifice and enthusiasm had it taken to get to this point? How many years of education and training for the hundreds of contributors before they could even put themselves into positions where they could become part of this endeavor? The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying TESS was patiently standing upright in the distance across the Florida swamps. I had seen many rocket launches on TV and YouTube before, but I wasn’t ready for the viscerally uplifting experience of being there in person. 

The countdown went all the way to zero. White clouds started billowing, and to everyone’s delight, ever so slowly and gracefully, the white rocket pencil elevated itself, balancing on a surprisingly bright little “welding spot.” Some 30 seconds later the unearthly sound of the rocket engines reached us, with the lower frequencies reverberating through our lungs and guts, while we continued to watch the rise in awe. For a few minutes, mankind was uniting, witnessing and fulfilling the age-old dream of ascending to the stars—a culmination of the best of knowledge and skill, wrested from the secrets of nature over the course of millennia, driven by curiosity and the desire for exploration.

It is a privilege to be able to contribute to such endeavors in a society that still finds them fascinating enough to be willing to support them. In the case of TESS, all of this excitement was achievable (including launch) for under $300 million—less than the cost of a single F-22 fighter jet.

On a different scale, many of us hold marvels of technology in our own hands, another result of generations of discoveries in science and hard-won knowledge arduously gained by millions of inventors, scientists and engineers. They’re based on the same types of achievements that made space flight possible: smartphones, which would be impossible without more than a century of global investment in basic science that brought us quantum mechanics, lasers, semiconductors, LEDs and so much more. Most of us appreciate science and technology, as long as they uplift the mind, create physical comfort and enable enjoyable activities.

Of course, the scientific method doesn’t care whether we appreciate it or not. Engineers cannot build working products that violate the physical laws of nature. Science is, for all intents and purposes, objective. Our opinions don’t matter: It is what it is. We happily use the fruits of science and engineering, typing away on our computers, surfing the internet on our phones and watching TV on 8K flat screens in our air-conditioned homes.

However, the moment these same foundations—the same laws of physical science and how they are applied to technology—produce results and predictions perceived to inconvenience everyday life and activities (global warming, environmental pollution, the coronavirus pandemic), they get politicized and attacked in the U.S. to an extent that is unparalleled in the “enlightened” Western world. All of a sudden, the people at the foundation of our knowledge and technology infrastructure that brought us most of what we use all day are dismissed as “elites.” We quickly choose to follow and believe whatever comes out of the mouth of certain individuals and groups solely because we like what they are saying, even if it completely contradicts established scientific facts.

I learned early in life that things aren’t always the way I want them to be, and sticking my head in the sand won’t change that. Have we given up on critical thinking and facing reality, just because it takes a little effort and inconveniences us? This is a sure path that will take us faster than we think from the top of the world to wading in mediocrity.

Why do people from all over the world want to study at American universities? Because over many decades, they offered academic freedom to the best of the world who fled repressive regimes, and provided a strong scientific and technology infrastructure for basic and applied research. The best joined the best, and these institutions rose to the top, becoming more and more attractive and able to select from the most talented people across the globe. But this self-reinforcing cycle is getting weaker fast. Not only is the rest of the world catching up with better and better universities and research infrastructure (in some cases already exceeding the U.S.’s), but we are falling behind in support of basic science (less than three percent of our military spending), while current U.S. policy is actively making it more and more difficult and undesirable for international students and researchers to come here to work and study and to finish their degree programs. 

In doing so, we are on track to limit our top universities to a talent pool that makes up only about four percent of the world’s population (i.e., people living in the U.S.), giving up on the remaining 96 percent and leaving them to help the rest of the world to surpass the U.S. I would call this shooting yourself in the foot—but this is what happens when your head is stuck in the sand.

The Politicization of Science Is Causing America to Fall Behind

The internet has changed a lot in the past ten years. No shit.

When I first started posting online, I was maybe eight years old. I began building a GeoCities web page of parody lyrics for top pop songs; I moved onto LiveJournal in middle school, where I made a friend that I am still in touch with to this day; then I tried Flickr in high school, which taught me so much of what I know about photography; and then I created a Tumblr in college. In those early days, Tumblr felt like a plot of personal, digital land, where I could freely express myself and share things. The little community I formed ended up connecting me to the apartment in which I live, every friend I’ve ever made, and even multiple jobs across tech and social media. It felt vast and infinite. 

Then came post-college life, and the mass-professionalization of all these platforms. Now we have rules for what and how we can post—not to mention the consolidation of a million niche channels into a handful of dominant megaliths like Instagram and TikTok. It feels like that vast, infinite space is being crushed into nothing. 

These days, “community guidelines” inform us what we should post, how often and in what way. They’re meant to help us be our best selves, but they’re rarely or consistently enforced to eradicate poor behavior, and seemingly serve to rigorously homogenize output. TikTok’s infamous “For You” page, which is run by a cracked-out algorithm and considered the “holy grail” of placement for most users, takes multiple factors into consideration when suggesting videos to users, including sounds, hashtags, captions and device types. Leaked internal training documents have also revealed that the company instructed moderators to suppress videos of people who don’t fit a certain ideal (wealthy, attractive, able-bodied). This creates a kind of echo chamber effect: what these platforms highlight goes viral, creates more copycats, creates more virality. They’re always bumper-laned by encouraging product features and smiley language about the importance of “community.”

The algorithms all effectively make generic what people make and how they look, creating a dominant visual monoculture optimized for likes. How do you take a selfie? How do you photograph your food? Beneath those questions, how do you tell a story? Today, we know to stand in front of a window or a brightly colored wall, take a photo and post it in the morning, when engagement metrics are highest. We alter the way we share our lives and our interests, which then alters our lives and our interests. And for what? The potential of “blowing up,” so that we can be attractive to advertisers as vessels for their brands? So we can post that caption that says “Thank you so much [insert company name here] for letting me participate on such an incredible campaign” and everybody knows how important you are? Remember when the internet was a place for sharing interests to connect with other people and not just a clout-accumulation machine for us to flex on our friends and strangers? I miss that.

The goal in life isn’t to gain an audience (you’re not entitled to an audience nor should you need an audience for your interests). I’ve worked in social media for five years, in generic creative and editorial roles, and witnessed too much of what's online. I’ve also seen a lot of frustration from colleagues about why their social engagement is low, and then seemingly giving up on their passions because they don’t elicit likes. That seems bad. Just because nobody likes your piano-playing videos doesn’t mean you should simply stop playing the piano. Nor does it mean you should pander to what you think people want to see from you. Do whatever freak shit on the piano that you want to! 

I know this isn’t always the case. Recently, a friend showed me the YouTube channel of a user named madcatlady, who uploads freaky animated videos multiple times a week. They average around 300 views per video, and she’s demonetized her channel. I don’t think that in order to be a “true” artist you work for free, but I found it refreshing (and honestly, reinvigorating in my faith in the internet) to find somebody making and sharing videos—regardless of the views or the money—simply for the pleasure it brings.

Before you say it, I’m not somebody who needs to “take a break” from social media. It doesn’t impact my mental health, I don’t feel jealous and I don’t get FOMO. I just think everything is so fucking corny now. Remix culture runs both ways—sometimes it takes fun stuff and makes it more fun and weirder. Put advertising in the mix, though, and it just ruins it. Look at everyone's favorite cranberry-juice-drinking, Fleetwood-Mac-listening, longboard-riding video, which has now basically (and smartly) been turned into a gigantic ad campaign for both TikTok and Ocean Spray. No shade intended toward its star @420doggface208, who is getting some money and exposure. I’m glad about that. But what does it say about the state of our online selves?

Anything we do is advertising now, whether we like it or not. These platforms have streamlined the presentation of ourselves and created such specific boxes to check that anything we say, share or do inherently becomes “our brand.” The internet promised us frivolity, anonymity and infinite malleability, but hungry advertisers have frozen us in amber. Our profiles feel permanent, without room for growth or exploration—it feels like they own us instead of us owning them. Want to experiment with what you post? Just make a new account, so that you don’t “mess up” the original one, which has a makeup sponsor. Who cares if you used to be into eye shadow and now you’re into baking? This is the least important shit on earth but people agonize over it. Why the fuck are you on a posting schedule? You’re a normal person. 

We are allowing these companies to corner us into one iteration of ourselves so that we may one day help fuel the spending they depend on to survive. I wish for us to share with passion, to free ourselves from self-imposed (but really algorithmically and corporately imposed) rules, and to be fucking boundless humans with ever-changing and never-ending creativity. 

Bring back the way we used the old internet.

Nostalgia

Bring Back the Old Internet: Social Media Is Turning Us Into Homogeneous Beings

Drugs & Alcohol

Up, up and away! Time to get out of the house with The Doe.

Travel

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American Stories

LGBTQ Voices

Motherhood

Earth Day or any day, let's celebrate our planet. 

Mother Earth

Tearjerkers

The Doe celebrates its authors this Black History Month.

Black Voices

Extra, extra, read all about it! The news-media industry has shifted dramatically over the last decade—heck, within the last two years. Between print journalism, podcasting, social media and infotainment, The Doe turns over every rock in this evolving ecosystem.

Media

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New Beginnings

The ol' nine to five has changed quite a bit in the past couple of years, from working remotely to, well, not working at all. This month we take a look at how cash still does rule in our capitalist society and what the future of business and money might just look like.

Money

The Doe's editorial team takes a look back at the year and shares its favorite narratives.

Best of 2021

I believed Roe v. Wade would remain part of the legal fabric of our country’s culture forever. It protected my college abortion—one of the best decisions of my life. In my view, a woman’s right to dictate what to do with her body was a permanent stance. I read the leak from the Supreme Court as nothing more than a scare tactic by political parties stirring the pot.

Then, additional news landed in my inbox, flashing warnings of the impending blow to women’s healthcare.

Meta Pixel lives within the code of thousands of sites (hospitals, crisis pregnancy centers, newspapers). The tracking tool responds to search keywords such as “terminate pregnancy” or “schedule abortion,” downloading information as personal as names, addresses, phone numbers and even medical alerts, a discovery found in a joint investigation by the Markup and STAT. The pixel sends the data into storage on Facebook, whether a user remains logged into the app or not, and remains for years, a startling revelation found in a joint investigation by the Markup and Reveal. And any company—or legal system—with access to the system can obtain the information.

The leak and 26 states waiting to trigger abortion bans became real. As did the anti-abortion activists howling for the prosecution of anyone seeking or aiding a person seeking the procedure. I stared at my phone, laptop and computer and saw not objects of technological convenience but spy tools.

And the one part of my abortion I never processed crept back over me: the fear.

“Abortion is never acceptable under any circumstances.”

My friend wasn’t shy about her stance on the topic, and neither were others in my dorm. We attended a top-ranked school for science, but we were in the middle of conservative Florida. Emotions ran high whenever the controversial topic arose in a conversation. And while social media was in its infancy in 2000, gossip circulates in insulated populations like a college campus.

Roe v. Wade was legal, but the hostile environment turned me into a criminal evading detection from the moment I considered the procedure.

I shoved my positive pregnancy test into a half-empty box of tissues, burying it in a trash bag of ramen cups and banana peels. I stared at the ceiling that night, waiting until my roommate started snoring before I carried the bag to the dumpster behind the building. And I threw it into the furthest corner, ensuring it would stay out of sight of anyone dumping their trash before the truck arrived in the morning.

Lacking the tech smarts to hide my internet activity in those years, I avoided Google and its early search offerings. Instead, I found a corner out of sight of the library cameras to open the Yellow Pages. I huddled over the book and scribbled the first number I found on a scrap of paper torn out of a notebook. Then, I crumpled the note and pushed it to the bottom of my backpack.

When I was ready to make the call, I skipped an afternoon class and waited for the dorm to empty. I circled the floor twice, listening at doors for sounds. Then, I locked my door, propping a chair under the handle on the off chance my roommate might return early. My hands shook as I dialed the number on the landline; radio speakers aimed at the door and window.

Despite my right to the decision, I felt an overwhelming fear of persecution from my peers if they learned the truth. All it would take was one person and everyone would know. I was a little over a year from graduation, and I envisioned everything from potential job offers to my academic record getting torn away.

I honestly believed a faceless mob of conservative feelings held that power.

Before the advent of smartphones, protestors deployed analog methods to dissuade, track and humiliate patients at abortion clinics. Allowed to congregate outside, they tasked people with photographing anyone who approached or entered, capturing images of license plates entering parking lots.

When I scheduled my appointment, the receptionist was blunt. “We recommend your driver stop a few blocks away. Cover the license plates. It will stop the protestors from getting their information.” She paused. “You may want to wear a hat or hood.”

Her voice was soft. “It’s legal, sweetie, but protestors look up cars and vandalize homes. We want to keep you safe.”

I repeated, “This is legal,” in my head as my driver pulled the car into a deserted alley and we taped cardboard over the license plates. “This is legal” became a mantra as I pushed my hair under an old baseball cap and slid sunglasses on. I spoke, “This is legal,” aloud as protestors converged around the car, brandishing signs with human embryos and slogans such as, “I am a human life,” “I deserve to live,” and, “Abortion is murder” printed across them. 

But surrounding a frightened woman and waving signs in her face while screaming “murderer!” is considered a legitimate protest and protected by the First Amendment. The clinic didn’t have enough staff or volunteers to provide escorts, so I walked in alone.

I held my hat tight, afraid a sign might bump the brim and knock it off, revealing enough of my face for a photo to identify me. Camera flashes blinded me through my sunglasses. It was a sick gauntlet of aggressive paparazzi.

I looked back once to ensure my driver was clear of the fray. I didn’t want her to suffer because of me. Her car turned the corner as I reached the door, cardboard safely in place.

I collapsed into a seat in the curtained waiting room, leaving my sunglasses on so no one could see me cry.

Roe v. Wade was legal in 2000. That didn’t prevent patients and clinics from suffering abuse and persecution.

The clinic that performed my abortion was broken into and vandalized regularly. They had everyone pay with a cashier’s check to prevent paper trails. A police officer escorted all of us to our drivers in the afternoon—the only time they could spare. The clinic moved twice to attempt to evade protestors.

The nurses and doctors who cared for me demonstrated patience and compassion and deserved better treatment. It’s why I raised my voice among the pro-choice movement, determined to speak up on their behalf. I watched in furious disbelief as crisis pregnancy centers paid for Google ads in later years, disguising themselves as abortion resources. The religious groups stole graphics, mimicking genuine clinics and misleading women with lies.

And then, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. My fear of a faceless mob tracking everything to do with abortion returned full force. Except now, those fears were confirmed, aided and abetted by social media giants. Worse, Facebook isn’t subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Nor are popular period tracking apps many have come to rely on. Technology people felt comfortable using turned on them. Overnight, our sense of privacy disappeared, replaced by fear.

I turned off my phone, closed my eyes and felt myself transported to a corner of a college library, flipping through the Yellow Pages. Except this time, for thousands, that act teetered on the precipice of criminal.

When I scheduled my abortion, I feared the opinions and retaliations of a nameless entity. I ran from the anger and hatred of protestors. I allowed the panic of discovery to prevent me from speaking up for my rights.

Now the same fears are alive for thousands of others.

Every piece of technology holds the potential to reveal someone we know and love. And anti-abortion activists lie in wait to enact judgment.

Despite having a legal right to my procedure, I allowed protestors to make me feel small, scared and criminal. And I regret the power that panic took from me.

It makes me wonder how far we—as a sex, as a society—are willing to allow ourselves to fall before making a stand.

Fear is a powerful emotion; it can debilitate or motivate. I hope this is a step toward motivation. Because I’m not willing to stay afraid any longer. It’s time to start talking.

Women

Abortion Was Difficult Enough Before Technology Elevated My Fear

I was involuntarily phoneless for 10 days. As someone who knows the pain of losing a loved one, it’s no exaggeration to say that I experienced all five stages of grief during that desperate period.

It was the epitome of a first-world problem, but on the first day of my romantic Italian holiday with my new beau, I dropped my iPhone into a hotel pool. I made a pathetic attempt to rescue it but ended up waddling through the hotel lobby in my new—and rather soaked—dress with a device that no longer worked.

I briefly considered how this avoidable accident might impact my life, but I couldn’t have predicted the emotions I was about to endure. Although I was partly on holiday to get a break from screen time, the immediate panic that set in once I realized I was without a functioning phone only confirmed how closely technology was tied up with my own sense of peace. Breaking my phone forced me to come to terms with the fact that I had reached a point of technology burnout. If I didn’t already realize how much my life depended on that little 4.7 inch screen, I was about to.

During those dark 10 days, I quite honestly, and rather alarmingly, experienced all five—or arguably six, if you include anxiety—stages of grief. By no means do I wish to diminish the experience of grief; as a child who lost a parent in my early 20s, I know full well its impact on your life. But being forced to go off-grid and unable to communicate freely with my family and friends provoked familiar feelings of anxiety and trauma that I had only known in the depths of grief.

Before my holiday, I had been experiencing digital fatigue after moving cities and trying desperately to keep on top of messages, work emails and calls. I often thought that notifications on my laptop had been warning me for months that my iCloud storage was at capacity—a perfect metaphor for my own life.

It soon became clear that navigating this trip was going to become somewhat of a logistical nightmare due to that unfortunate poolside mishap. But along the way, I realized there were some upsides to being without a working smartphone. To start, my mum and my still-new-to-scene romantic partner seemed to hit it off after she tracked him down on WhatsApp when she hadn’t heard from me. For the rest of the trip, I decided to embrace the opportunity to remain offline.

I spent the next day wandering through the romantic city of Sorrento, with its historic cobbled streets and beautiful plazas filled with alfresco diners and drinkers. The day proved to be nothing short of a Hollywood rom-com until my current reality hit home again. When my partner headed to pick up the rental car, I went off on my own to find a bathroom. Safe to say all the gelato stands look remarkably similar in Sorrento, and I soon found myself lost in a maze of residential alleyways with not a clue where I was or how to get back.

Google would have been my savior at that point, but I was left without the powers of Maps and Translate at my fingertips. Trying to find my way back to the original gelato stand, I was forced to speak school-level Italian to a pair of bemused-looking locals who passed me by. It was not until I mimed the universal sign for licking an ice pop that their faces lit up, finally understanding what I was fumbling to say. They confidently pointed me in the direction of the main square, shouting a series of words I’d never heard before—let alone would be able to translate.

Following their directions and journeying back to the square, I soon bumped into a friendly American family enthusiastically digging into double-scooped ice cream cones. A-ha! I must be close to the town square now. I asked them for further directions, and a few moments later, I walked down some steps and out into the familiar place where my man and I had parted ways.

It was a half-hour of stress, frustration and desperation, but I’d made it back—without the crutch of a phone in my hands. I thought, even though not much of it was verbal, thank goodness for old-school communication.

After a restful but rather challenging holiday, we touched down in the U.K. to encounter our final hurdle of the holiday: passport control.

Without my own digital boarding pass, my international partner was forced to stay in my British citizen queue for 50 minutes before getting back in his own non-citizen queue for another half hour. I stood there waiting and wincing, feeling beyond guilty for the inconveniences I’d caused my beau on this holiday.

“I owe you,” I said while his smile became increasingly weary.

When I returned home, the first thing I did was buy myself a new phone, hating the feeling of not being contactable at all times. Of course, it took another week before I could use it because I got locked out of iCloud. I felt desperate and, on one occasion, close to a panic attack during a three-hour bus ride knowing my family couldn’t reach me.

I couldn’t believe how much that phone—as resentful as I was of it—meant to me. But since coming out the other side, with a working phone in hand, I have seen the whole ordeal as an answer to a prayer.

The whole rigmarole forced me to free up space on my laptop, organize my files and photos and even led me to rediscover some old articles written by my younger self, which reminded me why I had chosen my stress-including job in journalism in the first place.

It turns out that Italian adventure gave me more than just respite from the day-to-day grind. It showed me that I needed to simplify my life, do more of what was bringing me joy and be more comfortable getting off the grid every once in a while.

I Survived an Italian Holiday Without My Smartphone

Maybe you saw the images on forums or the YouTube clips. Some had assumptions and racial slurs. Some declared me some white nationalist ideal. The one thing I agree with was my handwriting was (and still is) sloppy.

It started at a “community” event that was supposed to bridge the “division” between people after Trump’s 2016 election. My then-boyfriend wanted to go. He wore the distinct red hat because he felt alone as the only vocal Trump supporter amongst his classmates. I met Trump voters of all ethnicities and liberals and leftists of all ethnicities who spoke to each other in good faith about populist topics but who were talked over by belligerent people who wanted to cuss out/physically corner people before they could even speak. The atmosphere was tense and the people were either debaters or garden-variety artist-activists who vaguely promoted “peace and love” along with their social media links.

I was intrigued by the concept but extremely angry at the scenario. I felt that a majority of the people there were more concerned about self-promotion instead of actually creating discourse to heal the division (fair enough—there was a camera live-streaming the event; you had to look good). I felt so angry, it compelled me to go up to the camera and say my piece. If people really cared about America “breaking down,” why weren’t they taking direct action to create tangible, material change? Why weren’t they trying to create support systems, models or legislation to make their goals attainable? As I was saying what I had to say, a man invaded my personal space and yelled at me for insulting him.

Up until that point, I was not one to get involved in discourse, given my cynicism about the politics of both sides. Immigration? There are tons of potential opportunities for human trafficking that go unnoticed sometimes. The wall? Obama wanted strict border security. Cancel culture? I knew people of all ethnic backgrounds who would make edgy jokes between their peers who were different than them. I met as many Hispanic/Latin American people who voted for Trump as I did white people who voted for Clinton. The only successful organizing I saw up until 2016 was from punk scenes that created mutual aid or alternative housing systems. I thought the two main parties were held up by stakeholders and shrouded by people who took bribes. I saw the average citizen’s vote as a participation trophy. Even though I reluctantly voted for Jill Stein, I thought what gave Trump an advantage was his no-frills dialogue about how his policies would help a “legal” citizen become self-sufficient regardless of race/gender/etc. He knew people were sick of the idealistic fluff from politicians and how people were fear-driven about material circumstances. He knew how someone could be untrusting of those who didn’t follow “the rules.”

After that day of fruitless discussion with people at the event (which was slated to be ongoing), I learned that I was viewed favorably by the “MAGA/patriot” crowd online for being for “facts and logic.” I also learned that I was treated with scorn and called “arrogant” for calling the event a glorified narcissistic platform that might’ve given power to the surveillance and police state (to paraphrase). I felt that the original point of the event was destroyed by the participants and exploited by certain individuals it was meant to "create peace" between. People were seeking to go viral for self-gain without foresight into how to constructively use the opportunity.

I felt empowered for sharing my opinion but annoyed my dialogue would be used in ways that I didn’t agree with. I was also frustrated by the increasing fighting and chaos at the place, so I decided the next time I was there, I would make insane signs to troll the entire event to help shut it down. I thought that I would be yelled at or talked over, so I just used a flip pad to write everything I would've said. Some of the slogans included, “This is a potential snuff film,” amongst many others. I made it on some live-streams and received comments ranging from admiration to visceral disgust. I felt my seizure disorder acting up, but I felt better knowing I tried to help add to the absurdism and farce of the entire event and distract some people from the toxicity. Much to my happiness, the event was shut down a few weeks later.

I found a new world through whom I met. Most of the people I befriended were moderate Republicans, and I would still consider some to be good friends. I also met lovely people from the left who handed out cookies and were annoyed by the people who hogged the screen and only talked about themselves ad nauseam. I was invited to parties that made the news, met people who ranged from celebrities to some (now) on government watchlists and quite a few controversial conservative internet media personalities. I was hidden in plain sight, but the people who met me can confirm that I held some staunch opinions different from theirs.

I learned how divisive and spiteful a lot of media narratives were and how the most moderate of people (of all ethnic and religious backgrounds) who just said, “Yeah, I hung out with these people a few times,” had their lives ruined because of being civil and not trying to “speak up enough.” They were smeared for pointing out how some people’s views aren’t just black and white and how the shades of gray have been painted over.

For all the nice people I met, there were a few snakes who would shed their moderate Republican skins and try hard to convert me and others to their extreme ethnonationalist factions and harass those who they thought were their “enemies” or “Republicucks.” While this was going on, my mixed-race ex (who isn’t an “ethnically pure” white person by alt-right standards) was becoming radicalized behind my back; he was spreading propaganda online and starting fights for “the movement.” He was becoming more involved with white nationalist and Nazi (using the definition from the 1930s) peers. During one occasion of his “activism,” he was doxxed with my name attached to his, despite me having not been at the protest he attended. I changed my name’s spelling on all social media and hid as much as possible. During this time, he was growing abusive, isolated me from friends and also threatened to hurt me; though he never laid a finger on me, he invaded my space and came close to it (as someone with a seizure disorder, I can’t handle a physical fight). It took a year to escape and break up with him.

I was afraid that speaking out about the entirety of my experience, the people who I've met and everything that went down behind the scenes would hurt not only me but put my (apolitical) family at risk. I was trapped in limbo from speaking my truth, sharing my experiences, not “taking a side” and for being a “bad liberal” for thinking doxxing was unethical. People refused to believe my account of events and cut me off because I was “problematic” or an “active agitator.”

Coinciding with these previously mentioned events, I was graduating from college and applying for entry-level jobs. For the whole year after going viral, I was underemployed and almost all my emails weren’t responded to. Even though the doxxing link was deleted, were recruiters using Internet Archive? Were people using AI tools to reverse image search to find my face or similar things with my face in them? Were people taking anonymously created and hearsay memes as the truth?

I never set out to create a media brand or be a figurehead; I was just a fed-up citizen. How will the average person get their redemption arc without a big platform? What is the average person’s hypothetical apology tour if I wasn’t ever in complete control or able to communicate my narrative without fear of harm? How much of our futures will be at the mercy of algorithms and simple snapshots from our pasts that may or may not be out of context?

Justice

Going Viral Because of Trump Changed My Life

My avatar tapped its foot patiently. My date was late. Am I at the right place? Is this the right metaverse?

I was a tall, handsome Black man—no shirt, printed three-quarter length spandex tights, desert boots, a cowboy hat and sunglasses, even though it was night. “How the fuck did I end up here?” I asked myself. I’m not a computer nerd; I don’t play video games. I don’t even watch that much TV. Yet there I was, on a virtual date in the Burning Man metaverse, aptly named “Multiverse.”

Wind back the clock six months on Earth metaverse. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was single and alone in my Brooklyn apartment. I started talking to an old friend; we comforted each other through isolation with marathon six-hour FaceTime sessions. Something was kindling between us, but without the physical connection to gauge whether there was chemistry, it was just all talk. It was hard to tell if she was just bored and I was balls-deep in the friend zone. When restrictions started to loosen, she decided to stay in her home country, leaving the Pacific Ocean between us. I was desperate to know: Was this real? The difficult question with online dating is when and how do you make first contact? How do you escalate from digital banter to IRL?

We are both softcore Burners. For me, the pandemic became real when Burning Man was canceled. If anyone could pull off a COVID-19 miracle, it was a bunch of wealthy, creative-obsessed Burning Man people stuck inside for six months. We talked excitedly about what they might create. And just weeks before Burning Man announced it was on, albeit virtually, I bit the bullet and asked her on a virtual date. 

“You mean like a date date?” she replied.

 “OK, sure, not like I’ll be doing anything better.” 

That sounds like friend zone chat, I thought to myself.

If there was a credo for lockdown, it might as well be, “OK, sure, not like I’ll be doing anything better,” and during those times, going on a virtual date to Burning Man was a pretty exciting prospect. When she finally arrived, 30 minutes late due to a connection issue, her avatar looked hot as hell. We cruised around the virtual playa on our hoverboards. We stopped to admire virtual art; we interacted with other avatars; and we danced to our favorite DJs. Four hours passed like it was no time at all. At one point, we stumbled upon a piece of art in the deep playa. I hovered my avatar close to hers, heart racing and said, “So, um, this is the point in a date where I would usually ask to kiss you.”

In the most unromantic first kiss ever, we smashed our avatars together. And with the sexual frustration akin to watching porn with dial-up internet, I successfully made it to the virtual first base hurdle that can torment nice guys in the friend zone for years.

Fast-forward 12 months Earth-time to 2021. Mark Zuckerberg presents a 77-minute keynote explaining that Facebook is now Meta. The summary of this presentation? Facebook is going all in on the metaverse. Why is this important? If you use Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp (3.5 billion people do daily), you will be subtly drawn into the metaverse. At first, it will be slow, but before you know it, you’ll be participating in a virtual orgy at Burning Man from the comfort of your dust-free couch. Whether you like it or not, the metaverse is coming and you’ll be coming in the metaverse. We will be rendered choiceless but to create sexy avatars and join the fun. 

The thing about the metaverse which will be fundamentally different from planet Earth is that you will not be confined to your meat suit we call a body. You’ll be able to teleport anywhere you can imagine. You’ll be able to create worlds so vastly different to the one you were programmed into. You’ll work and play virtually. You will spend more of your waking life in the metaverse than on Earth. Think I’m exaggerating? Go look at your screen time on your phone. You’re already living in an early metaverse—just a really shit version. 

The whole Meta presentation sent me down a rabbit hole of thoughts. The people who say The Matrix is a documentary just added a little more ammunition to their argument. The world as we know it is colliding with virtual worlds at a quicker rate than ever. Metaverses are popping up all over the place, like Wilder World, built by artists and living on the blockchain. We will build millions of metaverses, and eventually, these worlds will become so lifelike, it will be hard to distinguish between the real and the meta. Which makes you think, are we in one right now? The odds that we are in the genesis metaverse are one in a million. But it sure feels real.

Let’s imagine for a second (or at least for the rest of this article) that we are in a virtual world. You are the main player. The game is your life and you have one life. I’m here to tell you that what you experience is not really reality—it’s your reality, but it’s not the reality. In fact, no one knows the real reality because you are only as informed as to your point of view.

When you and your friend both see the same thing, you might each experience it differently. If this world is virtual and your experiences are fundamentally different from the person next to you, what is truth?

The truth is, there is no truth. No certainty. What one person sees, hears, tastes, touches or smells can be so vastly different to whatever you experience. So what’s the point of arguing? What’s the point of being right or wrong? Why can’t everyone be right?

When you are born, your consciousness springs to life. Earth is your metaverse. As you develop, your world is shaped by your early experiences, your family and your environment. Into adolescence, you start to find your own way, you start to discover who you are, but your world is largely still defined by your early years. A lot of people never get out of that worldview, and they pass that view on to their children and the metaverse becomes more concrete. But here is the exciting part: It’s your metaverse and you can change it. You get to decide how you view your world.

Once you start creating your own reality, you start attracting other people doing the same. Dreamers, doers, creatives and visionaries. There's a fair chance if you’re reading this right now, you are in the fine cohort of people taking control of your own universe and, ultimately, your own destiny. Who knows? The first time you kiss your future life partner might be on a virtual dusty date. It happened to my spandex-wearing avatar, and it can happen to you. 

Creating your own reality comes with caveats. Don’t hurt people; don’t be mean; and don’t be an asshole. But if you do choose that direction, know that you will attract other people just like you, and that’s a pretty shitty metaverse to hang out in.

I admire people who choose their own way, people who are running their own race. The people who know there is no finish line are playing infinite games, which we can all win and everyone can be right. We don’t need to be the way we are formed or conform to the environment we were brought up in. It’s one big video game where no one gets out alive. Enjoy the ride and be nice to people on the internet and IRL.

I Went on a First Date in the Burning Man Metaverse

I don’t think that I’m more pessimistic than the average person. I’m certainly prone to a mercenary kind of pragmatism in my more introspective moments, but I consider myself a fairly “glass half full” kind of person. Having said that, I think Clubhouse is contributing to a breakdown in the healthy formation of relationships. This is not a new sentiment, and it has been levied against any number of social media apps currently plaguing the masses. But Clubhouse is a specific kind of bleak, foisted on us at the most opportune moment of isolation and craving for human interaction. I’m not given to indulging in conspiracy theories (unless they’re so entirely ridiculous they have a ring of truth), but its explosion as the newest, shiniest, most exclusive app at the height of pandemic paranoia feels sufficiently suspicious to me.

Clubhouse is a mobile-only social media app that allows users to create audio-only chat rooms. It allows users to host these rooms in a live format where thousands of people can join in as listeners or active participants, subject to the whims of room moderators. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like The Next Big Thing in social media. There’s no endless timeline to scroll, no "like" counts to silently scrutinize, no virtual marketplace to peruse. Android users couldn’t join until May 2021. But its user base now numbers more than 10 million, spanning the globe despite its limited feature set. Clubhouse’s soaring popularity has inspired copycats from competitors with far more longevity like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Slack.

How did Clubhouse become such a runaway success in such a short period of time? What experience does it provide that so clearly and consistently draws people in? 

By my estimation, Clubhouse has managed to capture our collective attention by perfectly mimicking the natural experience of forming relationships at a time when our ability to do so has been severely hindered. Clubhouse has removed the screen and impersonal text, reintroducing tone and context to conversations. It returns tonal variety, texture, timbre and even humanity to conversations—while global health and science bodies tell us to avoid these things for our collective safety. Clubhouse was the closest approximation to in-person interaction that was available when the world was locked down. 

I can’t explain why predecessors like Google Hangouts, Skype or WhatsApp didn’t capture the public’s imagination during the pandemic in the same way. Maybe it’s solely the appeal of something new and relatively exclusive, or maybe it’s because we’ve stopped trying quite so hard and we’re all getting too ugly to look at. Maybe it’s the ability to see a list of the room’s participants before joining a conversation. This, combined with Clubhouse’s demand for a functional cellphone number and its beta status (which it just recently evolved out of ), encourages a feeling of exclusivity and privacy. Whatever the reasoning is, Clubhouse is the hottest, newest thing, and I hate it.

I’ve limited my Clubhouse usage since my initial obsession began in June 2020. I joined Clubhouse that month after being invited by a fellow photographer. I intended to use it for networking purposes, but I was quickly sucked in as more and more friends, colleagues and the occasional nemesis joined. I would spend hours on the app, searching for rooms about photography or sex work or organizing that I could join, either as an active participant or just to listen in.

My greatest frustrations, borne from my experience being cyberstalked and a long-running fear of police surveillance, were the rooms where sex workers frequented. It’s no secret that social media platforms have targeted sex workers following the passage of SESTA/FOSTA and the recent press surrounding SISEA. Secretive algorithms, vague content moderation rules and an inconsistent appeals process for account deletion have left sex workers scrambling to find and keep communities, build networks and offer material support to each other.

The appearance of Clubhouse, a new app with little to no guidance on allowable content, and its wider strategy for longevity, was like a beacon—a beacon that eroded all sense of apprehension and basic rules for internet safety. A beacon that encouraged strangers to admit to felonies to each other, with no real assurance as to who was listening beyond a phone number whose true ownership could easily be changed, manipulated or otherwise concealed. 

After the initial honeymoon period, I started feeling an apprehension about what I was doing that I couldn’t explain. Opening the app felt like a chore, another opportunity to monetize my existence. One room after another boasted titles like “HOW TO BECOME A CLUBHOUSE INFLUENCER” and “GETTING PAID TO HOST THIS ROOM” or “FREE IG AUDITS WITH PR GURU TO THE STARS.” Even rooms related to photography or writing were touting claims like “MAKE $80,000 YOUR FIRST YEAR AS A PHOTOGRAPHER” or “SEO TIPS TO MONETIZE YOUR BLOG.”

Inside rooms that were supposedly an opportunity to connect with others, I was admonished to add my Cash App to my bio so I could receive tips for sharing hard-won advice. I’ve felt this malaise before with other apps, but this was different. It was a tangible drag on my mood that eventually led me to block notifications at the iOS system level and eventually stop using the app altogether. 

After a measured return to Clubhouse—joining in very specific rooms at predetermined times—I get it now. I’ve done my best to limit my exposure to it, but there’s just something about Clubhouse that inspires people to overshare and trauma dump without knowing exactly who’s on the other side. The app encourages a false sense of intimacy—everyone on there is a friend of a friend. By keeping the app invitation only and tying those invitations only to numbers saved in your contacts, Clubhouse has created an environment where every user is possibly one degree of separation apart.

There’s a devious ring of truth—albeit a surface-level one—to the experience. The world doesn’t seem that big on Clubhouse, unless there’s a global finger wag in your direction if you aren’t staying as isolated as possible. In a new world, where it’s possible for public figures to lose work and favor for not embracing COVID distancing and safety guidelines, the need to connect is greater than ever. The idea that anyone on an app with 10 million users could be in the contacts of your best friend has to do something to your psyche. Combined with being trapped alone with your own thoughts—plus maybe a husband, kids or an overbearing in-law—for 18 months, it’s a recipe for a perfect emotional storm.

Is it any wonder then that, despite knowing the general insecurity of social media and the danger of saying anything in a roomful of strangers, people will unload their trauma on Clubhouse without a second thought? I felt a twinge of this discomfort with the rising popularity of Tabitha Brown, the vegan cooking “internet auntie” on TikTok. Brown’s content is usually focused on creating vegan alternatives to common Black Southern dishes, working as an actress and interacting with her family. Occasionally, however, Brown will reply to a comment or message, usually thanking her for her soothing voice and kind spirit because it made them remember a parent or teacher.

Those made me uncomfortable—first because I don’t like when it's assumed that a Black woman, particularly an older one, is assumed to be willing to take on the emotional labor of any and everyone who finds them sufficiently comforting. And secondly, I didn’t like the idea of teenagers and young adults flocking to an adult on the internet with their deepest insecurities, shame and concerns for the world. Again, this is my own post-stalking paranoia speaking, but it made me feel weird in ways I wasn’t sure how to articulate. Is her voice soothing? Sure. But not enough to unload a running commentary on my ever-present anxieties. But when I voiced this, the most consistent feedback was that I should stop trying to play pop psychologist. So I did, even after learning that her husband was a cop.

While Clubhouse mimics the intimacy of a person-to-person conversation, it cannot replace the experience of building a true relationship. It cannot replicate the building of trust needed for true vulnerability between two people. And so, the tenuous beginnings of a relationship are fractured at the first sign of conflict. Simple miscommunications and natural disagreements are pathologized as abusive or manipulative by a rapt audience of spectators.

I should admit that I came of age on Tumblr. I’m no stranger to internet friendships that fade into nothingness or those that result in extremely public, extremely embarrassing fits of pique. I’ve spent years attached to my phone, at first because I was being paid to, then because I’m mentally ill. But after years of therapy, a lot of edibles and a stint of freelance writing, I am proud to say that I think I’m getting over my internet addiction (or maybe I’m just getting old). The constant churn of social media, now with its new trauma-dumping feature, is getting to me. Then again, here I am telling all of my innermost thoughts and feelings to the internet at large.

I’m hesitant to say “everyone go to therapy” because, in essence, that also means telling all of your secrets to a stranger, but I don’t have any other answers. Unlike seeing a licensed professional, one trained to help guide you through the admittedly painful process of understanding yourself, Clubhouse has become a designated zone for trauma dumping. One where unsuspecting, unconsenting audience members are treated to a full-color reenactment of a strangers’ worst trauma. The audience is given no time to adjust or decide if they’re willing to take on the role, the intimacy of being in possession of this knowledge and the resulting emotions. And there’s no plan in place for any emotional distress felt by the audience, no mitigation strategy for anything these stories might trigger. Whatever tender feelings the false exclusivity of Clubhouse may generate, there is no guarantee that everyone in these rooms is a friend or one step removed. 

Friendship is not conferred by proximity or shared space. It’s grown alongside time spent building and resolving conflict and cultivating trust. The intimacy of real friendship is more than temporary because it is hard-won.

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Clubhouse Is Creating Toxic Online Relationships

Have you ever had the overwhelming urge to get a piece of art out of your head and into the physical realm? That was me with this drawing. It was the bust of a woman from the sternum up. The right side of her face was either scraped or melting off, with blood, muscle and bone exposed. She held her right hand up to her face, as if saying, "What happened to me?" I hadn’t intended for her to look like me, but I’d used a mirror to guide her facial proportions, so it's easy to see how we ended up looking similar.

I’m no stranger to artistic impulses guiding me to work feverishly on a project. This time I felt like I couldn’t stop until I had at least finished the initial sketch. Tuesday night, I stayed up until 3 a.m. to sketch it, with plans to paint it in watercolor the next day. A few hours later, I was found unconscious, tangled up with my bike, in downtown San Francisco.

My bike gave me freedom. At this point in my life I’d been biking everywhere I went, every day, for over eight years. The whole time, I’d never been in an accident. I don't take big risks with my body, and with my asthma, I would never push myself too hard for fear of not being able to breathe. On top of all of that, I also have a healthy respect for the fact that cars are big, dumb, murderous tanks that can't see me as easily as I can see them. Perhaps this caution is why I felt impervious, and how this whole situation caught me off guard and drastically changed my life. 

The details of this day are fuzzy, as happens when massive head trauma occurs. I remember hopping on my bike in the morning with the intention of going to the courthouse downtown, in order to try and figure out how to finally clear a bunch of old tickets on a car I hadn't owned in many years. I remember bombing down a hill with the cool San Francisco fog on my face. Then I remember total darkness and a feeling of flying. I didn't have control of where I was flying, but I never felt scared or in danger. It was surprisingly fun. The next feeling was as if I had slipped into the world's most comfortable memory foam pillow top bed, with the softest, plushest blankets you’ll ever feel. There was an immense warmth and an all-encompassing feeling of love all around me, as if I was getting the biggest and best hug of my life.

Eventually, I started to shake out of it. A thought popped into my head: "Wait, you're not in bed. Weren't you just biking? Am I dead?" It yanked me out of my comfortable bed of hugs and I woke up in an ambulance, strapped down on a stretcher in a head restraint, with at least three people hovering over me trying to figure out if I was still alive. 

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