First newsletter feelings
A new book, fexting, slack-splaining, celebrity worship syndrome, superbad fiscal feels, and collective effervescence spotting
Iâm writing a book about internet emotion đł
If you know even a little bit about me, then you are aware of my borderline unhealthy obsession with:
new words for internet feelings
ways we communicate emotion online
the weirdness of being steeped in other peopleâs feelings on social media
technology that tries to pick up human emotional signals and translate them into emotions
sensory augmentation tech like brainwave headsets for meditation or good old Nintendo Rumble packs
robots that âfeelâ and our strange attachments to them
Well, now all that energy is being channeled appropriately. Iâm writing a book about internet emotion!
And itâs okay to talk about it now, according to my outstanding agent Justin Broukaert (who, by the way, has a newsletter about being an agentâitâs meta). I have an editorâthe extremely online Maddie Jonesâand a publisher, Algonquin Books which is a division of Workman Publishing which is part of the Hachette Book Group.
Itâs still early days, so stay tuned for updates on writing progress, publication date, cover design, and so on. As I go along, Iâll be sharing what I learn, reviews of new emotion tech, lists of strange emotion words, and behind-the-scenes interviews.
To celebrate hereâs the first official issue of the newsletter!
đ¤ŹÂ Fexting
Dr. Jill Biden, First Lady of the US, made a very relatable admission in a recent Harperâs Bazaar interview, introducing a new word to the emotional lexiconâfexting, or fighting over text. To keep their personal disputes private in front of the secret service, she and President Joe Biden discreetly carry out their disagreements over text. Of course, texts arenât exactly private, especially for the president. Biden himself joked that a recent rude remark would âgo down in historyâ since it would be preserved with all the other presidential communications. I, for one, am much more curious about presidential archives now! đ¸âď¸
This new term was picked up everywhere from The Washington Post and AP News to Refinery 29 and Jezebel, each pointing out that fexting may not be the healthiest way to argue. Looking back at those momentary flares could memorialize them, sustaining grudges. According to behavioral psychologist Jo Hemmings, interviewed by The Guardian, text fighting can seep over into how you communicate as a couple too. Not to mention that fexting might be missing some of the emotional nuances of an in-person row.
There is an upside to fighting over text though. Anjula Mutanda, also quoted in The Guardian piece, says that text disputes can provide a way to de-escalate conflict since peopleâespecially teensâtend to take more care composing messages than articulating their thoughts in a face-to-face argument.
đSlack-splaining
Sure, Slack-splaining doesnât exactly feel like a feeling but a lot of discussion about internet language turns out to be about emotion too. This week Business Insider posted a piece about how we use overheated punctuation and abundant emojis on Slack, Admit It: Youâre a Totally Different Person Over Slack.
All this extra emoting can feel exhausting but is ultimately worth it to cement our workplace bonds. So even though it might seem over the top to add a âyou got this!!! đŞâ to a soften a request or a âand itâs only monday lol đ¤Şâ to lighten the mood, itâs a step toward more empathetic communication!!!
That âlittle something extraâ is a pattern I call amplification, our tendency to really, really, really make sure weâre getting our feelings across when we donât have the benefit of body language to help us out.
But that extra something-something is not always over-emoting. Humans are complicated! If you spend any time on Slack at all, you know that thereâs subtle messaging behind some of that good cheer. The upside-down smiley đ is the embodiment of passive-aggression emojis, usually followed by a âNo worries!â or âThanks!â The peace sign âď¸, as in âfine I guess Iâll see you next time âď¸â, can seem a little pissed. So far, thereâs never been a better summary than this one from r/funny in 2019.
đŹÂ Celebrity Worship Syndrome
Itâs been almost impossible to escape coverage of the Depp-Heard trial. Now that the trial is receding into that very distant place called last weekâs news, it leaves behind a new syndrome. In Fandom Is Out of Control, Lindsay Crouse of The New York Times attempted to untangle all the complicated emotions that rise up when a preoccupation with a public figure becomes an obsession.
Yes, thereâs always been celebrity adulation but social media has changed the conventions around how we display it. The massive amount of celebrity news coverage alongside intimate details shared by celebs themselves can create intense parasocial relationships.
This syndrome isnât contained to moral grandstanding on social media. During the trial, in-person outbursts had the same vitriol of an online flame war: âThe normalizing of these fan reactions reveals the increasingly fraught intersection between the online and the real, where the actions of prominent people become parables for tenuous moral codes.â Put another way, the emotional behaviors of the online world are leaking into the physical world!
I do wonder if âworshipâ is the wrong word. MIT social scientist Sherry Turkle pointed out that where we were once content to be adoring fans weâve now turned into controlling lovers: âIt has all the passion, but the filters, the boundaries are gone.â Maybe not all celebrity parasocial relationships though. While the lecturing, heckling, and name-calling may be aligned with the moral policing we see on social media, we still greedily digest every detail of what Padma Lakshmi eats in day and swoon over Harry Styles in concert. Like everything emotional, it lives on a spectrum.
đ¤Â Superbad Feelings and Financial Therapy
Elon Muskâs superbad feeling is the most recent example of how monetary moods can start a vibe shift in the entire economy. Collectively, panics can trigger shortages while consumer confidence can shake the entire economy. Individually, we have weird conflicting feelings about how we make money, how we save it, and how we spend it.
Financial therapist (a much-needed new speciality IMHO), Lindsay Bryan-Povin writes in Vox: âTo better understand your relationship with money, think about how money makes you feel. What emotions come up when you make a credit card payment, get a tax refund, or have to negotiate a deal at work? Do you feel calm and confident? Or do you feel anxious and avoidant?â
Iâd suggest we consider the online dimension to fiscal feelings too. Thereâs the Robinhood Effect where the day traders can create irrational stock price movement. Thereâs the extreme gamification of trading apps (again Robinhood is the most famous) that can lead to addictive behaviors. And letâs not discount the persuasive design features in e-commerce that make retail therapy all too easy.
đĽŁÂ Bowled Over By Collective Effervescence
This week, Twitter collectively came together to solve the mystery of two bowls inadvertently stuck together. Chi Nguyáť n posted this conundrum and the responses did not disappoint.
Physicists explained vacuum chambers, engineers linked to academic papers, chefs contributed test kitchen clips, and music lovers suggested stereo systems with subwoofers. All kinds of folk remedies were shared, often involving rice as a cure-all for damp objects everywhere. Every cringeworthy take you can imagine was offered. Why not stop and restart the bowls? Or put them on a high shelf out of view? Or leave them alone to bond?
Some people set reminders so they wouldnât miss the denouement and others enthusiastically shared the happy outcome. Yes, if you havenât heard, the bowls have since been separated!
A brief glorious time of community creativity like this one (my personal favorite was the epic saga of the skyscraper-scaling raccoon) doesnât have its own name yet. So, Iâll call it. Itâs an example of collective effervescence.
The sense of harmony people feel when they come together around a shared purpose was named by French sociologist Ămile Durkheim over a hundred years ago. In The New York Times, Wharton psychologist Adam Grant described it as âthe synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service, or teammates on a soccer field.â While it might be easier to spot in person, it most certainly happens online too. Think about the early days of the pandemic when Italians sang on their balconies or New Yorkers banged pots and pans on their porches, all of which were shared on social media to similar effect. Does sharing in-person collective joy online dilute the feeling or enhance it? Maybe both ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ
Until next time!
xoxo
Pamela đ