online, there is only online

a machine for replacing meaning with positioning

Photo: Jules Verne Times Two / julesvernex2.com / CC-BY-SA-4.0

Recently, I felt moved to comment about a few different stories in the news that all felt related to me. In all of them, people died. For instance: a man out on a walk in Brooklyn was stabbed to death. After he died, some people decided his death was cause for celebration, because they didn’t like his politics. That was their response to the murder of this complete stranger, rather than mourning, or pious silence, or even indifferent silence.

I was upset. I felt like I ought to say something. So I drafted this piece about the news. Well—but it wasn’t really about the news. That was just what it was. It was about how people were talking about the news. I had many opinions about how people were talking about the news. After working for a while on the draft about how people were talking about the news, and sending the draft to a few friends for notes, and so on, I ultimately decided it was not worth publishing.