The opening quote is one I've been thinking about a lot, and is in fact one of the animating themes of my life - because I grew up alienated and outcast from the majority of my peers, I spent far too long believing that my words had no power, and I was incapable of hurting anyone's feelings because no one actually cared what I thought. In college, and then again repeatedly in my twenties, I have been forced to reckon with my own Liz Lemon Pass (specifically the episode "Reunion," where Liz finds out that her cruel jabs at her classmates were not in fact unheard and under her breath but were the source of great trauma for many of them). I also wrote an essay about free will, and about how ultimately infantilizing it is to insist that no bad thing that has ever happened to me has ever been my fault in any way. Ultimately, I find all of this incredibly hopeful. While so much happens against our will, we do have so much choice in how we react to it, and what we take with us, and what we cast aside in favor of better fuel. Also, I'm currently in recovery from my most recent Sims hyperfixation...I should have known we were alike in this way.
I have ADHD. The gap between the impulsive thought and the considered one is something I manage every day. Your TikTok/Substack split maps onto that perfectly: the platform you think on changes what you're capable of thinking.
I am much newer to yapping on TikTok, but I find it so fascinating that you're the target of fury for your System 1 takes there when... that is LITERALLY the point of TikTok. If being an artist requires a social media presence, and a meaningful social media presence requires daily (if not more) content, there is simply no possibility of System 2 making it in there most of the time. I also suspect that System 1 gets artists closer to the version of their authorial voice that sparks emotional reaction than the reasoned, nuanced System 2, which again, is what the TikTok algo runs on. That said, your Substack is consistently System 2, which also... seems appropriate for the platform/medium! People aren't here for 2-second takes that'll fire them up enough to return to the drudgery of modern life. They're here to sip their coffee and stay awhile and think. Anyway!! All this to say, I don't think you're any meaner than anyone else on the internet. You just have the audacity to speak and people love to be mad
I was very snarky (read: mean) in middle school, high school, and my first year of college because I also grew up in a tough household. I softened from this thanks to some close friends in college who held an impromptu intervention, encouraging me to just open up and chill a bit with the harshness. It worked.
The people I met after college and even now are always shocked to learn that I was that way but tbh the "meanness" never really went away I just learned how to channel it differently, opting for being "kind" over nice—I once had a manager describe me as "tough but fair".
The downside of being this way is that there are some people who don't understand this distinction and will mistakenly misread me for nice initially (and equate that to being a pushover) and act surprised when I don't fall in line with that projection because I have boundaries, hold people accountable, have discernment, etc.
The benefit of being mean in my younger years was that few people crossed me, betrayed me, manipulated me etc., etc. because they were rebuffed by my gruffness but it also meant that many of my relationships lacked a certain depth and intimacy. I also suffered professionally (black women who don't perform likability are ruthlessly punished in professional spaces).
Choosing to be kind, or rather, "tough but fair", made me more empathetic, somewhat more likable, and desirable as a friend but now I find myself attracting people who want to mirror that behavior (without doing the work) or benefit from it without reciprocating, which lately has had me wondering if I should invite back some of the mean energy from my youth, or do I just need to be quicker to act on my intuition and discernment?
Like you, being kind hasn't really benefited me either (neither has being mean, it's a double bind for black women), I recently watched an interview clip where Keke Palmer mentioned how maturing for her meant realizing that there's no reward for goodness/kindness, and oof yeah I can relate. But fwiw I like this somewhat softer version of me, it feels better in my body and has given me the gift of better managing and conserving mental and emotional energy. All that to say, I'm right there with you and I'm trying to figure it out.
Your reflections have given me a lot to think about, appreciate you sharing.
ugh! really love this. as a very straightforward communicator and someone who appreciates really straightforward communication, i do think that there is a little bit of an epidemic in queer spaces / some online spaces rn of needing to speak to people like they are cornered baby animals anytime that you have a little bit of a discussion / conflict, and sometimes what people think is "mean" is actually just "a thing said in a straightforward manner that i dont want to hear about myself"..... AND ALSO, it has been a really important thing to do for my life & relationships for me to not always publicize my first reactions to things, because those reactions can often be very cunty & maybe i could say something in a way that might Get Through more while still valuing my straight-forwardness. it's a balance mayhaps!
yes the conflict is not abuse of it all! that said I have been thinking about this deeply for years i think it's time for me to make an effort lmao if it's feedback I'm getting a lot and constantly from many people it's time to admit that yeah maybe I don't need to lead with harshness and "everything is your fault" 100% of the time
precisely!! it’s hard & im right there with u…. always learning when’s the right time to be more the Reformed Bitch vs The Bitch. they both get their moments!
FWIW, in my parasocial online relationship with you, I don’t find you to be mean in the way I’d define it. I’d perhaps describe you as unsympathetic in your TikToks, but I think that’s different than mean. As someone who has to actively suppress my meanness constantly because it’s really important to me that my three sons approach the world with kindness and empathy (my very tiny and likely futile war against the patriarchy), I feel like I’m on the lookout for meanness lest I need to use it as a Very Special Episode teachable moment for my kids. So basically, I know mean when I see it.
While it seems that you may be aspiring to a bit more softness and sympathy in your online life, I want to let you know that your unsparing observations and social science-based perspectives are always a breath of fresh air for me.
Unrelated: I really missed the boat on Sims. I would’ve fucking loved that game and I can’t believe I never played it.
Enjoyed this so much! I agree with the sentiment of being tired of this default resorting to victimhood. I also relate this to the sentiment of constant doomerism thats seem really dominate these days(I can see and understand why though ofc). Also so freaky I just finished playing Sims 2 before reading this 😭Wish I could see the play, it sounds so interesting
“From 2004 to 2016, I was obsessed with The Sims 2. I participated in multiple Legacy challenges, where you play one family for ten generations, accruing points for every achievement: reaching the top of a career, having children, getting married, dying in creative and unexpected ways (the ghosts were different colors depending on how they died).”
I think the internet at large is conflating niceness and right to comfort (as you said here) with actual kindness. Your content isn’t nice but it isn’t without kindness. There’s a kindness in consideration and concern, both of which you show pretty regularly. I also wouldn’t say you’re mean for the sake of being mean, your content is firmly based in reality and analyzation with some snark, not entirely snipes and cruelty like the internet of the aughts and 10s. These people wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes on ONTD in 2008.
Along with the personal victimization of millenials is the unacceptability of conflict and I think you challenge both of those personal narratives in a way that is, to use a millenial word that I despise, “uncomfy” for them.
That’s not to say you haven’t caused harm, but that’s part of the human condition. You don’t have to be mean to do it.
This puts into words me growing up in a lot of ways and how it shaped me. I had a lot of medical challenges (80s kid, early 40s) and adults were downright mean about it, professionally I was never given any grace to fail. But I think what I say now is that I don’t lead with being nice (women are told very often to be nice) but to lead with understanding. That doesn’t erase my System 1 response, but it does mean that when I do speak, it comes from a more measured place. I am much less forgiving of those who choose to put themselves online though (very not sorry Jen Hamilton) thank you for your thoughtful writing.
It’s taken me a long time to even scratch the surface of the “unfairness” of my life and how that defined my childhood and who I am today, so this resonated with me as another mid-30s New Yorker untangling from a thing or two in my upbringing/luck of the draw or lack thereof.
A semantics thing, maybe this is my empathy coming through/something you know deeply and better than me!! But the line, “They say that being in your mid-thirties is about accepting responsibility for the way you grew up, and not using it as an excuse to define your life story anymore,” makes me feel protective of you/kid you. You don’t have to accept responsibility for the way you grew up, but the responsibility of the consequences. If you were raised to be mean that’s not your fault! If you’re (what you consider unfairly) mean to others now as a result, that’s where personal accountability comes in. Little kid you doesn’t deserve the burden of your parents/siblings/community’s actions that made that reality and environment true for you. Maybe this is what you meant though but I don’t want you to be unnecessarily hard on yourself!
You’ve given us something to chew on. It seems this topic is coming up on multiple feeds (lol just substack and Tumblr but I digress).
I think that as a society (context dependent but prominent in the Anglophone world), we didn’t know how to describe ourselves, our feelings, and our personalities in a clinical/ secular way until the book of the Internet of therapy speak. As much as it has helped the lay person name what they’re feeling and given them a vocabulary to understand themselves, it’s made us complacent and unable to see ourselves as capable of change/beyond a social label (don’t get me started on people labeling themselves as introverts/extroverts and making it the be all and end all of their social behaviour).
We’re “victims” of our circumstances rather than being active agents that change change who we are, what we do, who we can be and how we fit into/make change in greater social circles (in acknowledgment of systems of discrimination and power). Things can change but we fear the unknown I guess.
The opening quote is one I've been thinking about a lot, and is in fact one of the animating themes of my life - because I grew up alienated and outcast from the majority of my peers, I spent far too long believing that my words had no power, and I was incapable of hurting anyone's feelings because no one actually cared what I thought. In college, and then again repeatedly in my twenties, I have been forced to reckon with my own Liz Lemon Pass (specifically the episode "Reunion," where Liz finds out that her cruel jabs at her classmates were not in fact unheard and under her breath but were the source of great trauma for many of them). I also wrote an essay about free will, and about how ultimately infantilizing it is to insist that no bad thing that has ever happened to me has ever been my fault in any way. Ultimately, I find all of this incredibly hopeful. While so much happens against our will, we do have so much choice in how we react to it, and what we take with us, and what we cast aside in favor of better fuel. Also, I'm currently in recovery from my most recent Sims hyperfixation...I should have known we were alike in this way.
I have ADHD. The gap between the impulsive thought and the considered one is something I manage every day. Your TikTok/Substack split maps onto that perfectly: the platform you think on changes what you're capable of thinking.
The reward of being kind in my experience is that it allows for more self-compassion.
I am much newer to yapping on TikTok, but I find it so fascinating that you're the target of fury for your System 1 takes there when... that is LITERALLY the point of TikTok. If being an artist requires a social media presence, and a meaningful social media presence requires daily (if not more) content, there is simply no possibility of System 2 making it in there most of the time. I also suspect that System 1 gets artists closer to the version of their authorial voice that sparks emotional reaction than the reasoned, nuanced System 2, which again, is what the TikTok algo runs on. That said, your Substack is consistently System 2, which also... seems appropriate for the platform/medium! People aren't here for 2-second takes that'll fire them up enough to return to the drudgery of modern life. They're here to sip their coffee and stay awhile and think. Anyway!! All this to say, I don't think you're any meaner than anyone else on the internet. You just have the audacity to speak and people love to be mad
I was very snarky (read: mean) in middle school, high school, and my first year of college because I also grew up in a tough household. I softened from this thanks to some close friends in college who held an impromptu intervention, encouraging me to just open up and chill a bit with the harshness. It worked.
The people I met after college and even now are always shocked to learn that I was that way but tbh the "meanness" never really went away I just learned how to channel it differently, opting for being "kind" over nice—I once had a manager describe me as "tough but fair".
The downside of being this way is that there are some people who don't understand this distinction and will mistakenly misread me for nice initially (and equate that to being a pushover) and act surprised when I don't fall in line with that projection because I have boundaries, hold people accountable, have discernment, etc.
The benefit of being mean in my younger years was that few people crossed me, betrayed me, manipulated me etc., etc. because they were rebuffed by my gruffness but it also meant that many of my relationships lacked a certain depth and intimacy. I also suffered professionally (black women who don't perform likability are ruthlessly punished in professional spaces).
Choosing to be kind, or rather, "tough but fair", made me more empathetic, somewhat more likable, and desirable as a friend but now I find myself attracting people who want to mirror that behavior (without doing the work) or benefit from it without reciprocating, which lately has had me wondering if I should invite back some of the mean energy from my youth, or do I just need to be quicker to act on my intuition and discernment?
Like you, being kind hasn't really benefited me either (neither has being mean, it's a double bind for black women), I recently watched an interview clip where Keke Palmer mentioned how maturing for her meant realizing that there's no reward for goodness/kindness, and oof yeah I can relate. But fwiw I like this somewhat softer version of me, it feels better in my body and has given me the gift of better managing and conserving mental and emotional energy. All that to say, I'm right there with you and I'm trying to figure it out.
Your reflections have given me a lot to think about, appreciate you sharing.
This is fast becoming one of my favorite substacks! Great piece.
ugh! really love this. as a very straightforward communicator and someone who appreciates really straightforward communication, i do think that there is a little bit of an epidemic in queer spaces / some online spaces rn of needing to speak to people like they are cornered baby animals anytime that you have a little bit of a discussion / conflict, and sometimes what people think is "mean" is actually just "a thing said in a straightforward manner that i dont want to hear about myself"..... AND ALSO, it has been a really important thing to do for my life & relationships for me to not always publicize my first reactions to things, because those reactions can often be very cunty & maybe i could say something in a way that might Get Through more while still valuing my straight-forwardness. it's a balance mayhaps!
yes the conflict is not abuse of it all! that said I have been thinking about this deeply for years i think it's time for me to make an effort lmao if it's feedback I'm getting a lot and constantly from many people it's time to admit that yeah maybe I don't need to lead with harshness and "everything is your fault" 100% of the time
precisely!! it’s hard & im right there with u…. always learning when’s the right time to be more the Reformed Bitch vs The Bitch. they both get their moments!
For what its worth, I think making a concerted effort towards kindness has been one of the most rewarding actions Ive ever taken.
This has been my favorite of your essays!
FWIW, in my parasocial online relationship with you, I don’t find you to be mean in the way I’d define it. I’d perhaps describe you as unsympathetic in your TikToks, but I think that’s different than mean. As someone who has to actively suppress my meanness constantly because it’s really important to me that my three sons approach the world with kindness and empathy (my very tiny and likely futile war against the patriarchy), I feel like I’m on the lookout for meanness lest I need to use it as a Very Special Episode teachable moment for my kids. So basically, I know mean when I see it.
While it seems that you may be aspiring to a bit more softness and sympathy in your online life, I want to let you know that your unsparing observations and social science-based perspectives are always a breath of fresh air for me.
Unrelated: I really missed the boat on Sims. I would’ve fucking loved that game and I can’t believe I never played it.
Enjoyed this so much! I agree with the sentiment of being tired of this default resorting to victimhood. I also relate this to the sentiment of constant doomerism thats seem really dominate these days(I can see and understand why though ofc). Also so freaky I just finished playing Sims 2 before reading this 😭Wish I could see the play, it sounds so interesting
“From 2004 to 2016, I was obsessed with The Sims 2. I participated in multiple Legacy challenges, where you play one family for ten generations, accruing points for every achievement: reaching the top of a career, having children, getting married, dying in creative and unexpected ways (the ghosts were different colors depending on how they died).”
Josh I’m diagnosing you as a novelist
I think the internet at large is conflating niceness and right to comfort (as you said here) with actual kindness. Your content isn’t nice but it isn’t without kindness. There’s a kindness in consideration and concern, both of which you show pretty regularly. I also wouldn’t say you’re mean for the sake of being mean, your content is firmly based in reality and analyzation with some snark, not entirely snipes and cruelty like the internet of the aughts and 10s. These people wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes on ONTD in 2008.
Along with the personal victimization of millenials is the unacceptability of conflict and I think you challenge both of those personal narratives in a way that is, to use a millenial word that I despise, “uncomfy” for them.
That’s not to say you haven’t caused harm, but that’s part of the human condition. You don’t have to be mean to do it.
This puts into words me growing up in a lot of ways and how it shaped me. I had a lot of medical challenges (80s kid, early 40s) and adults were downright mean about it, professionally I was never given any grace to fail. But I think what I say now is that I don’t lead with being nice (women are told very often to be nice) but to lead with understanding. That doesn’t erase my System 1 response, but it does mean that when I do speak, it comes from a more measured place. I am much less forgiving of those who choose to put themselves online though (very not sorry Jen Hamilton) thank you for your thoughtful writing.
It’s taken me a long time to even scratch the surface of the “unfairness” of my life and how that defined my childhood and who I am today, so this resonated with me as another mid-30s New Yorker untangling from a thing or two in my upbringing/luck of the draw or lack thereof.
A semantics thing, maybe this is my empathy coming through/something you know deeply and better than me!! But the line, “They say that being in your mid-thirties is about accepting responsibility for the way you grew up, and not using it as an excuse to define your life story anymore,” makes me feel protective of you/kid you. You don’t have to accept responsibility for the way you grew up, but the responsibility of the consequences. If you were raised to be mean that’s not your fault! If you’re (what you consider unfairly) mean to others now as a result, that’s where personal accountability comes in. Little kid you doesn’t deserve the burden of your parents/siblings/community’s actions that made that reality and environment true for you. Maybe this is what you meant though but I don’t want you to be unnecessarily hard on yourself!
You’ve given us something to chew on. It seems this topic is coming up on multiple feeds (lol just substack and Tumblr but I digress).
I think that as a society (context dependent but prominent in the Anglophone world), we didn’t know how to describe ourselves, our feelings, and our personalities in a clinical/ secular way until the book of the Internet of therapy speak. As much as it has helped the lay person name what they’re feeling and given them a vocabulary to understand themselves, it’s made us complacent and unable to see ourselves as capable of change/beyond a social label (don’t get me started on people labeling themselves as introverts/extroverts and making it the be all and end all of their social behaviour).
We’re “victims” of our circumstances rather than being active agents that change change who we are, what we do, who we can be and how we fit into/make change in greater social circles (in acknowledgment of systems of discrimination and power). Things can change but we fear the unknown I guess.