I’m currently reading The Nix by Nathan Hill. It was a birthday present and I’ve really enjoyed it so far. I’m about two thirds of the way through. Maybe I’ll write more about it when I’m done.
There’s a character in the book who is an exaggerated millennial. Entitled. Vapid. And obsessed with one of her apps, the fictional iFeel. You have contacts that you share messages with when you choose from approximately fifty pre-selected feel emojis to let everyone know how you’re feeling.
It’s a commentary on social media. And it’s in a book and this book wants to be considered literary, so, naturally it takes a satirical view of apps and social media. Apps are addictive nuisances that claim to connect us when really they dilute meaningful social connection and ultimately make us feel more lonely.
It’s not so much that the literary take is wrong, it’s that it’s becoming hack. It was done most cleverly in Super Sad True Love Story, which clearly was trying to exaggerate for comedic effect. I also really liked it in A Visit From the Goon Squad, which featured a not too distant future with text-speak and toddlers obsessed with gadgets.
The ways that the Internet and social media have changed how we absorb news and information is profound enough that I don’t know how long it will take for scholars to study and explain it. But one of the ways that I have noticed it change our discourse is that opinions become quickly recognizable and identifiable because they recur so often. Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun. Protest the right way. The problem with millennials is that they got participation trophies.
These opinions are expressed often enough that they seem to be copies of copies and are thus devalued. This is what I see with this take on social media.
Do you know what one of my favorite depictions of the future was? It was Back to the Future 2. Even though it was an alternate future where Biff reigned and it was meant to be seen as a dystopia, I thought it was accurate because it showed something that I had never seen in a depiction of the future before. Stuff was broken. At one point Michael J. Fox hits an appliance and says, “Retract!” when it doesn’t disappear into the ceiling like it should.
That’s the part that’s missing from the depiction of social media. The part where we know it’s bad for us, we know it’s broken, but we use it anyway.
There’s also a character in the novel who’s an exaggerated stereotype of a gamer. He’s an overweight shut-in with poor social skills. I’m cool with that one. I’ll leave it to a gamer to unpack that guy.
