Writes Rachel Feintzeig, in "If I Don’t Post About My Vacation, Did It Even Happen?" (NYT)(free-access link).
What's the point of depriving yourself in pursuit of a feeling of vague moral superiority?! Why not confront your feeling of inadequacy and flip it into something positive? You're not "better" because you travel or because you don't travel and because you scroll or post in social media or because you don't.
Now, this lady — "a journalist at work on a book about staring down 40" — was able to get the story of her "really great vacation" published in the New York Times, so the answer to whether it feels as though the vacation really happened if she didn't post about it in social media is clearly YES!!!
But what is this "better" feeling that you want? Feintzeig is "staring down 40," and it was half a lifetime ago that I stared down 40. When I was that young — it really is quite young! — I was working out the difference between what it looked like everyone in general valued and what it was that I — personally and specifically — truly valued. I don't think the question is whether your vacation seems real if you don't show people photographs. I think the question is: Are you for real?
పోస్ట్లు
43 కామెంట్లు:
What's the point of depriving yourself in pursuit of a feeling of vague moral superiority?!
Are you joking? This is the entire premise of modern "liberalism."
Buy a scrapbook for crissakes.
posting on media, that you no longer are posting on media.
If tree is falls in the woods, and you don't post it.. What was the point?
If Schrodinger's cat is in a box, and we don't post it..
did the cat EVER exist?
Man's media is the measure of all things
"I think the question is: Are you for real?"
The reality famine at 242 West 41st Street is tragic. Maybe Trump can fly in a few hundred tons of emergency reality. All those pathetically swollen egos, all the aimless milling about... something must be done!
I have seen just about everything that is done under the Sun, and behold, all is vanity and a breaking of wind.
I think the question is: Are you for real?
At a minimum, is this bs story for real? Reads like a modern-day NY woman's version of "Dear Penthouse Letters, I never thought I'd be writing to you..."
"If I can't gloat and imagine great envy in my readers I just don't feel complete!"
If there is an AWFL anywhere in Gotham that needs self-actualizing through media exposure, the NYT is there for you!
Last winter, I did the noble thing and got off social media.
Thank you for your service.
Social media is good for getting people to journal their thoughts and experiences, but algorithms turn it into a hamster wheel.
When I got off of social media, I started my blog. No, I'm not promoting it. It's like social media, but only I get to post. Friends and family check in occasionally, and that's enough.
Ms. Feintzeig could try that if she can resist the urge to attempt to build it into some big thing.
I don't think she literally means morally Superior. It's just more ironic self-deprecation but they do too much of that and it gets tiresome. Anyway I hate that style of writing.
Feintzeig is too damn busy facing down 40 to change her own fucking password!?! If I were her husband, I'd change it and promptly forget it along with all the account recovery data I'd take the opportunity to alter as well.
If Feintzeig thinks neglecting Facebook for a span of several days confers nobility, perhaps she should aim for something higher -- social media asceticism. Give it up entirely, Rachel. Climb on a pole and contemplate, or go live on an island with only seagulls for company. Feintzeig can be a saint, and the rest of us can live more abundantly.
"I think the question is: Are you for real?" Let's ask AI.
You have a million followers
The product of your labors
But you feel a little hollower
Because you haven’t met the neighbors.
"I know that craving the high of posting, of all those comments and hearts, is lame, and likely indicative of low self-esteem."
While I think folks should work towards not craving attention from others, I'm not sure it means low self-esteem. Trump clearly wants attention from others, but I don't think anyone would argue he has low self-esteem.
In most cases, they are paying their colleagues/friends/relatives for writing these fluff pieces. From her website, Feintzeig lost her job at the WSJ in December. Very few of these contributors are genuine "Gorillas in the Mist" finds.
I’ve learned great vacations, especially to unusual places, are better shared with friends and family. But that’s because of the shared experience of being there makes it more enjoyable to discuss the memories of being there. Social media doesn’t make it real or better. It just allows someone to flaunt their affluence that got them to the destiny. Bragging in the NYT is just more on brand for flaunting affluence.
If you have other topics to talk about, scroll down to the last open thread (the sunrise post below).
Nice topic for an Althouse blog post. What does AA value?
Don't sell yourself short, Ms Feintzeig.
You're not just Noble, but also Stunning. And Brave.
The purpose of Social Media is to compare one's Insides to others' Outsides.
Obviously unfair to both Sides
“So what is value?”
“Let me propose a definition. After forty years in this field, I find it profoundly dispiriting although, unfortunately accurate. The definition is this: value, in economics, is the precise opposite of real value. That is, economic value is only that which has no intrinsic content at all. It is only commerce –only process.”
Sabin Willett, Present Value 376 (2003).
Without reading other comments - what is "noble" about getting off social media?
Millennials are the first people to reach 40 so it’s important they tell us about the experience.
"The problem is it’s July now, and I just returned from a really great vacation"
I, too, returned from a "really great vacation" (30 days in Europe, including 4 days in Paris) in July. One thing that really stood out for me is that the predominant activity of "tourists" was documenting their presence "on vacation" to the point that it appeared to be the focus of their "vacation". Perhaps "vacation" means documenting that I was there (like Kilroy)? From having difficulty seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre for all of the cell phones held high in the air to the sad spectacle of many, many visitors not even looking at the great Impressionist paintings at the Orsay (instead, rushing to take "selfies" in front of famous paintings), I wonder how many people actually participate in their vacations? An odd thing to watch.
Feintzeig is too damn busy facing down 40 to change her own fucking password!?!
I'm guessing the issue is that she doesn't use a password manager that can autogenerated a hard password, and she reuses passwords, and maybe doesn't want to be able to do the Forgot Password? thing (which ought to mean that he also had to change the recovery email to his) - but it could just be that she's a dick
+5, Althouse.
The "You" that craves experience and validation from others is not for real. Maybe when she stares down death rather than 40, she might glimpse that. But not likely, if she wastes her entire life before that in desperation.
boatbuilder writes: "What's the point of depriving yourself in pursuit of a feeling of vague moral superiority?!"
Are you joking? This is the entire premise of modern "liberalism."
--
Slightly incorrect. Modern liberalism is about feeling morally superior by putting in a tiny effort to get other people to deprive themselves for the sake of goals you set for them. You yourself can get on that private jet to Davos with a clear conscience.
Rachel seems to have planned her international travel as a vacation from her current reality. That is perfectly OK but that experience does not change your current reality. Another choice might include expanding your reality through relationships found in new places. That is a different type of trip in all meanings of trip.
If my family gets two photos from our months long trips, I'm doing well. (I feel kinda guilty about that.)
So, blogs are also "social media." What about the New York Times?
In the future, Google Glass will record everything you say and do on your vacation -- if it doesn't already (and assuming there is enough energy in the world) -- but why do you need to tell others about it? Can't it be your little secret?
Between this self-satisfied correspondent and the self-appointed cultural anthropologist roaming exotic Alpine Valley two posts above, we once again face our eternal dilemma; are we their kind, dear?
My wife and I took a ten-day Viking cruise on the Elbe, with stays in Berlin and Prague, in 2019. She took a lot of pix on her smartphone, which I assume she still has.
I took three photos on my dumbphone, which are gone (as well as others from closer to home) because I got a new phone and didn't bother to transfer them.
Oh well, isn't that what human memory is for?
Ain't no Luddite, but I only own a flip-fone. Helps me interact with the world when I'm outdoors.
People who show their life on social media want to be seen. They don't feel seen by people they are surrounded by. The emptiness within drives them to connect with others on social platforms. It makes them feel better for a short while. The lack of meaningful, loving relationships is real in today's world. Some people drink, do drugs, watch porn, others post selfies, all of them suffer from the lack of meaning in their lives.
Usually I dont take a lot of vacation pictures. Why revist the past, just keep moving ahead in life.
My husband is the picture-taker; he is also diligent about curating his pictures. I'm happy to offload this task because I don't like taking pictures for others' consumption (I take pictures that I like, which seldom include people, and use them in a rotating screen saver/screen lock) and am not at all diligent about deleting the lame ones (or accidental screenshots, or old boarding passes...).
NYT is social media.
Are blog comment sections a kind of social media? Seems like they were before and are still for some, a way to share thoughts, opinions, and experiences to those beyond immediate physical reach.
After 12 years on Reddit, I earned a shadow ban. It started when I signed out of my 12-year-old account and forgot that I never confirmed my email address and would be unable to recover the password I forgot. The new account I established was flagged on day one as 'suspect' and was banned. I was puzzled, figured it was a bad day for The Machine, and used my Gmail address to establish another account. This turned out to be a terrible sin in the eyes of the Reddit Machine - another account banned. After three tries, I decided maybe the universe was trying to tell me to Get the Hell Off Reddit. So, I haven't been able to respond to reddit comments in a month. Has my mental health improved? Not sure - I can still scroll through and expose myself to enough stupid to make my head hurt.
"Are blog comments sections a kind of social media?"
IMO, yes.
Most people take vacations because they want to personally enjoy the experience of their vacations, not because their online friends will enjoy it.
There are really too many people out there who care too much about other people's perceptions of them.
It's your life; not their life.
100% ignoble here, LOL. I feel like I use Facebook as it was originally intended. I post pictures there, basically a "journaling" activity ... I don't post everyday like the professor. It's my way of letting my friends know what's up with me and my family. I don't do as a "flex" as the kids say nowadays. I post to Instagram and on X too. There, I'm more careful about posting family stuff.
Can someone show me the current list of noble and ignoble endeavors?
There was an OLD joke where someone asked a guy if he enjoyed his vacation. The response was, "I won't know until I get the pictures developed".
The cost of developing film held the number of pictures down to a large extent. More composition, fewer shutter snaps.
Pixels are so cheap you might not know if it was a good trip for months as you view the hundreds of pics today.
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