previously, on 'the internet' #8

My Twitter bio states: Reading the internet since 2001. NO SPOLIERS. Based on a joke (ok, not really) about what I'm currently reading, which is always and forever, the internet. I'm about 50% done guys! Previously, on 'The Internet', is a weekly listicle of what I eyeballed. Down to business.

I have been to this beach so many times, but never at low tide before. Look at this magic.

• I've been seeing a LOT around the internets on the new Nancy Jo Sales book "American Girls". You may know Sales, as I do, for her brilliant pop culture articles - the most famous being this Leo piece, or her work on The Bling Ring. But with this book, I fear she's going to make me angry. Girls are under a microscope - how they act, what they wear, how many selfies they choose to upload and why. And yet, where are the boys in all of this? WHERE. ARE. THE. BOYS? Social media culture is not exclusive to girls, boys have the Internet too people. And so surely, rather forging on with this divide and holding one gender up to a higher standard, we should be looking at this across the board? Sigh. This article in the Washington Post puts it far more eloquently than I can. 

• I liked this on your present vs your future, and the preoccupation with being busy. How we tend to focus on the present (isn't that the way to be mindful? I can't remember) at the detriment of our future selves. 

"Sometimes you need to be irresponsible with your current challenges in order to make real progress on your future self. You have to let the present just sit there, untended. It’s not going away and will never end. That’s the nature of the present."

• If you haven't watched Catastrophe, I URGE you, hunt it down and binge. A dark comedy (aka the best kind of comedy) which starts with a six night stands and follows the relationship from there. It is fucking hilarious. And this profile on Sharon Horgan will definitely sell it to you (plus a new HBO show coming!) Full disclosure, I have a ridiculous crush on Delaney, obviously, as he is bearded. Related, my Jeffrey Dean Morgan obsession.

• The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going To Miss Almost Everything. I find comfort in this, and also really love flipping th whole 'well read' thing on its head.

• For the first time in ages, I have my reading mojo back (in no small part due to woman lives book club, currently awaiting book 3 from the library) This listicle of Spring reads is exciting me.

• Staying in is the new going out. YESSSSSSS mate.

from a series by the novelist and artist Douglas Coupland, called ‘‘Slogans for the 21st Century,’’ painted between 2011 and 2014.

• Rebecca wrote about time travelling with her son. I love the way she shares her motherhood, and the tenderness of raising a boy. Ridiculously inspiring for me.

• Phone Lolz. What happens when you trade your iphone for a flip phone.

"Even stranger than that has been people's reactions to seeing my flip phone. The most common one is mockery—an incredulous "That's your phone?" as if I pulled out a can with a string attached that stretched out of the room—followed by an insinuation that I'm a drug dealer and that it's my burner."

• Memory fascinates me. My own memory is something I've especially wondered about (I should probably talk my theory through with a mental health professional, lolz). ANYWAY, I like this on whether your memory can ever really be accurate, and how we're all just narrative building.

• For my fellow Master of None fans - this just made me happy. I felt there was a sprinkling of Tom Haverford in Aziz here. Also, ROME!

• Female orgasms are definitely a feminist issue. The problems girls are experiencing with sex are the same problems women are still having. Another case of WHERE ARE THE MEN? Caitlin Moran wrote about sex education this week. It's all linked. If we teach our kids that sex is a two way, pleasure for all street, as well as how to do it safely, then everyone's a winner. I mean, look at the stats! We need this. Women deserve better than those figures right there. You need a Times subscription for the Caitlin article, but here is an excerpt - 

"Statistically, you’re most likely to learn about sex from pornography – NUS research found this is where 60 per cent of students got their information from. The problem here is that pornography, obviously, isn’t sex – it’s pornography. It’s a business – peddling a cold, emotionless simulacrum of humping, and prone to obsessive fads: anal sex; slapping; light strangling. I would pay a great deal of money for no 14-year-old boy or girl ever to have this as their formative education on what should be a joyous, friendly, occasionally ridiculous but hopefully life-affirming part of their lives." 

• Meanwhile offline, all I want to talk about is Luckiest Girl Alive. In fact I already instagrammed and tweeted it, so here we come full circle. Written by Jessica Knoll, it has depth and darkness and feels throughly modern and of the moment, IYKWIM. Plus a twist after The Twist. I finally watched the Marnie episode on Girls (episode 6 of all Girls searches are such beautifully crafted standalones) and this did not disappoint. I'm really enjoying this series, although We Need To Talk About Hannah. I made the wonderful/terrible decision to try a new Jillian Michaels workout. Obviously, I didn't really read about it until I was 15 minutes in, gasping for air and flailing, before realising it was not made for my level of fitness. I felt amazing/like death afterwards. I actually managed it twice last week so I'm going to call that a win. The biohacking episode of Note to Self is fascinating, if a little batshit. Living to 180? I'm ok thanks. aAnd the 'getting high on wearables' ep is total lolz and lifgoalz. There may have been a little bit of dreaming of summer and short dresses.