Jia Tolentino: The Worst Year Ever, Until Next Year (The New Yorker)
Hope is elusive, but it will return eventually. What I’m afraid of, this December, are the conditions that allow hope to take hold. I’m worried that the “worst year ever” feeling is half a condition of the Internet, of the way we experience the news as delivered through social media. Everything feels too intimate, too aggressive; the interfaces that were intended to cheerfully connect us to the world have instead spawned fear and alienation. I’m worried that this sense of relentless emotional bombardment will escalate no matter what’s in the news.