The unbearable necessity of being online

On loving and loathing the internet as an artist and why we need to be here anyway.

I once read an interview with the artist SZA about her tortured relationship with the internet. She relies on the internet's incredible publishing abilities to send her musical albums out into the world, she said, but then the internet, often in the form of social media, shouts so much hate at her that she implodes into herself—the hate touches her art and turns it bitter, until her next album can only be a sad anthem of self hate. 

She’s become known as a “sad girl” artist, and I’ve often wondered if this is the conundrum of the internet: Without the internet, no one would know about her music. But because of the internet, her music can only be sad. Perhaps she could have produced something bright and beautiful if she had kept it to herself, but no one would have heard it. But to get her work to be heard means opening it up to be hated, and so her art can only be smudged with gray. 

I can feel this tension: The more I write, and the more people read what I write, the more I am exposed to people who have opinions about what I write, and the less I want to write. One opinion too many and I start to wonder whether it might be much more enjoyable to think privately rather than publically.

On a call recently with several of my writer friends, many admitted that they were self-censuring their work, avoiding certain topics because of how vitriolic they’ve become and how difficult it was to have a nuanced take on the internet. When I shared that I’ll often have five people a week telling me why I’m a horrible person, one friend (and very good writer) said, “yeah it’s not even worth being a writer anymore.” 

But it is.