Hello friends,
Welcome back to my newsletter where I share short, poorly edited notes about stuff I find interesting.
Between teaching and book work, it’s been ages since I’ve had anything to share, but this essay about selfies and aging I’ve been working on for The Walrus finally made it into the world last week.
This essay draws on a number of topics that have been swirling around in my brain lately as a longtime citizen of the Internet. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the way digital photography affects our relationship to aging and time. I wanted to think through a way to age in the public eye that wasn’t bound up by capitalism and the patriarchal drive to erase women as they age, but I kept running into my own sense of fear and disorientation. So I did what I always do when a subject attracts me and freaks me out in equal measure—I began researching.
To come to a better understanding of all this, I reached into the realms of pop culture, sociological research, technology and art. I thought I’d share with you some of the images, videos and texts that inspired me as I wrote:
And of course, my own strange and evolving selfies, even those weird AI generated ones.
How do you feel about selfies? Do you share compulsively or avoid them like the plague? Share your thoughts with me below (or on Instagram or Bluesky or Threads or whatever you’re using these days)! If you'd like to read more or subscribe for very occasional updates, you can do so here.
~Erika