Leandra Medine's Blog, page 686

Locating Style in the Doldrums

Women tend to believe that when it comes to fashion, there is one saving grace — an article of clothing or pair of shoes or depending where you live, a decadent scarf — that changes the course of your wardrobes and its narrative forever. So we search. Aware that the pursuit can be long and tiring, we convince ourselves that this grace must exist to keep the wheels of exploration in motion.

And there are rules about this item: it never gets old and thus is worth of any (vaguely reasonable) dollar amount. It doesn’t go out of style or barricade your creativity. Like a good partner, it shines The Relationship Flashlight on you, making you feel like the best version of yourself in perpetuity. If you’ve never known companionship like this, it can be likened to your mother, or best friend — an individual you’ve never grown tired of knowing.

But the thing about the grace is this sense of impossibility. That many of us might go through life and never really find it. We may think we see variations of it but upon ownership, it is often determined that it’s never as magical as we thought it would be.

Once the novelty of proprietorship wears off, there is chance you will continue to wear the item in question but frequently what you’ll find is that you let impulse dictate the purchase. You confused your excitement-in-conjunction-with-a-relentless-pursuit-of-the-new for investment and what you’re left with is a hole in your wallet and possibly too, a closet full of stuff that you really, really don’t want to wear.

So I ask you to consider a point that runs counter to a tempting case Kayla made for impulse investing yesterday. If marrying the “right kind of man” is like investing in a bond rather than a stock with little risk but guaranteed reward, it might pay to apply a similar tenet to our shopping habits. Last year, I bought a pair of brown boots on sale. They are attractive in the predictable way that a pink rose is but similarly, too, fairly quiet. If you saw them immediately post purchase, I’m sure you wouldn’t notice they were new. If you saw them today, I don’t think you’d notice them at all. They didn’t excite me then and they don’t excite me now but they have both quelled several bouts of wardrobe anxiety and seen the best and worst of New York. Heretofore, they’ve made it out with great aplomb.

Around the same time, I bought another pair of shoes. They were black patent leather, 6-inch wedge boots that looked like a pair of mary-janes stuck in a white sock, which was actually a patch of white suede. I’d ordered them from overseas and waited eagerly for their arrival. It took three days and when they came, I congratulated my feet on the new comrade they had just achieved. I wore them out that evening. I haven’t worn them since. I still look at them admirably but in the grand scheme of feeling my best, they’ve provided little worth.

So maybe there’s value in waiting — for excitement to subside, rationality to set in and the sparkle of what’s familiar to prove itself worthwhile enough to make you comfortable with the fact that there is no saving grace. It’s just you and your clothes.

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5 Things for Your 5 Senses

It’s hovering right above 30 degrees fahrenheit in New York City today (though my dumb phone is currently downplaying it to 41 — I’ll blame the windchill). There’s no snow, unlike in Buffalo, but little icicles have formed on the tips of my nostrils and they’re just about the only things I can feel right now. You too?

Below, find five things to rejuvenate your five senses, because I’m pretty sure I just lost my ability to smell.

See: Pitch Perfect 2 Trailer

“We’re back, pitches.” And we’re just praying there’s another Salt-N-Pepa aca-tribute.

Smell: Boulangerie’s Pumpkin Souffle Candle

In spite of yourself, you’ve refrained from purchasing a single pumpkin spice latte this season. Good on you. However, that doesn’t mean your apartment should be void of the smell. I speak from experience when I say that this candle will make your room smell like brown sugar coated leaves. We hear it’s Betty Crocker’s choice substitute for Lysol.

Touch: ASOS  Faux Fur Coat

Just in case you’re still skeptical that a pink fur coat is a sound investment, a faux vintage shearling is always a good idea.

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Hear: Seeds

TV On The Radio’s fifth studio album was released this past Tuesday, November 18th. Listen to their single, “Happy Idiot,” here. I dare you not to dance in your seat.

Taste: Diageo’s Pie-Flavored Whisky 

Because Diageo knows that the holidays are hard, they’ve just released their new Piehole line. Sample apple, cherry, and pecan pie flavored whisky and tip your hat to the freaken’ almost-weeken’.

Underrated Fashion: Seinfeld’s Various Girlfriends

Seinfeld’s Kramer had style: Hawaiian shirts, high-waisted pleated slacks, polyester everything and a signature trench. But it was Jerry’s various girlfriends — the brave dalliances of the show’s eponymous normcore star — who should be credited with outfits to replicate now. Has 1990’s butt-warping denim ever felt more relevant?

Jerry’s girlfriends wore things like ribbed turtlenecks and large blazers with the sleeves rolled, bras as shirts and artfully hole-y sweaters. If American Girl dolls are today’s Urban Outfitters models, then the women of Seinfeld’s past look straight out of an ASOS catalog.

They’re whom I used to picture when thinking about powerful ‘90s women of New York. Growing up in the Midwest, I had two things to reference: this show, and Linda Evangelista’s Versace ads. Thanks to fashion’s resurrection of that very decade and the show’s eternal syndication (which allows for one to binge on Seinfeld episodes regardless of cable status), it’s time these women received credit for their underrated ensembles. I’ve narrowed the list down to Jerry’s five most stylish, short-lived lovers:

Nina (The Artist)

She’s probably the closest adopter of “grunge” that Jerry dates. Played by the beautiful, wild-maned Catherine Keener, Nina the Artist is a notable forerunner for me. This is actually how artists dress. I know because my mom is an artist and this is exactly how she dresses. Ratty men’s sweaters (the more worn-in, the better), half slung overalls, and t-shirts with paint splatters. Artists are cool because they don’t give a shit about clothes — or fit, for that matter. They have more important things to worry about, like their cigarettes, their craft or the untrustworthy comedian they’re dating. Please note her oversized-pearl hair tie. Karl Lagerfeld, is this what inspired those chokers?

Christie (The Repeat Offender)

We all know that getting dressed can sometimes be as fun as inserting a tampon at the wrong angle. So can you really blame Christie? We all have that outfit: the one you put on when you can’t be bothered to put anything coherent together, and you know you won’t be mistaken for a 15-year-old boy in it, either. It’s the outfit that is both utilitarian enough for your apathy and just stylish enough for your neurosis.

Christie was true to herself by wearing hers, well, everyday. This is not recommended because should someone notice (especially if he or she finds an old photo of you in the repeat outfit) then he/she might go crazy trying to figure out if you’re a potential maniac. Still, Christie gets points for persistence and maintaining her aesthetic.

Isabel (The Siren)

Is anyone not attracted to 1990s Tawny Kitaen? Answer: no. Her character Isabel gave Jerry’s wiener and brain something to fight over. True, Isabel wasn’t bright, or talented, but her style was spot on. Let’s break down the elevator look, shall we? Body-con black mini dress, purple suede gloves, drape-y mustard jacket…the quintessential ‘90s babe. I feel like you could see this in the Opening Ceremony store on Howard Street, worn by a mousey DJ with silver hair and a septum piercing, It works on a lot of levels, but is indisputably best on the memorable “Isabel.”

Sue Ellen (The Braless Wonder)

Sue Ellen is wearing a bra here, but only because Elaine gave it to her — and then Sue Ellen stopped wearing tops. This “menace to society” was so before her time. Who hasn’t tried a variation of this at home before going out?

The bra says “I know you’re looking anyway” and the blazer says “I don’t have time. It’s the ’90s and I’m working.” I think we can all take something from Sue Ellen’s confidence. I often go braless and you can too. If you get dirty looks, just glare back at them — straight in their anti-feminist eyes — and say “I’m pulling a Sue Ellen and it works, okay?” Alas, Sue Ellen and Jerry never actually dated, but she makes the list for inspiring everyone, from me to Lady Gaga.

Sidra (The Maneater)

Teri Hatcher-as-Sidra slayed in this episode. When we weren’t gawking at her in the sauna with Elaine, we admired her in what I like to call “powerful cas(ual)” with just a hint of Southwest (very common in this decade). For me, Sidra wins. The high-waisted denim, long sleeve boat neck (a crotch-connecting leotard, no doubt), chunky jewelry and belt dominate everything. When simplicity won over bulkiness in the ’90s, the era redeemed itself. (Thanks Calvin.)

Sidra was a super empowered beauty with breasts so spectacular they begged the question of authenticity. But isn’t that what style is all about, anyway? Knowing your best attributes and then celebrating them with clothes that make you feel great? That’s what I learned from the plethora of Seinfeld’s women.

Written by Mary Sucaet

Rushmore Rules

The satisfaction of declaring a uniform is ephemeral. The uniform itself, if it’s a good one, will last — that’s the point — but that self-congratulatory high five starts to feel more like a left-to-right-palm seal-clap once the novelty of no novelty wears off. Spend two seasons max in nuanced variations of the same outfit and you start to feel like Pepper Ann or Doug Funny.

Our sartorial minds are frustrating that way. Those who lead busy lives or have tightly-kept budgets or who feel anxiety when faced with 10 different styles of jeans take comfort in knowing that the right choice, the only choice, is waiting for them each morning. Even if your uniform is not a matter of simplicity — perhaps you’re actually someone who thrives in chaos and lives for that spontaneous, wild moment of going rogue and adding a brooch (watch out world!) — you’ve still set the repeat button on your daily look because it reflects the drop-pin holding court on your current timeline.

I currently don’t feel right if I’m not wearing high waisted jeans and a turtleneck. (For the former I’ll blame Leandra and the ’70s. For the latter, Diane Keaton.) Something about that says something about me right now. It’s like a craving that comes about due some unconscious trigger — the end of fall? November? Stress? The need for comfort? — and until it’s fully satisfied, it won’t go away.

But that’s the thing about style…it’s never fully satisfied. That’s what keeps it chugging along; what encourages us to buy new variations of the same exact thing. It’s why uniforms seem to repeat themselves in different iterations, and if insanity is repeating the same thing over while expecting different results, then the majority of us are officially kooks.

There’s a remedy to the madness, however. A way to trick your own mind, to scratch the itch while satiating the need for repetition:

Tell yourself a different story.

A few years ago I took inspiration from the Dead Poets Society. Thanks to Spring ’14, it was new-prep runway. I’ve cited books, my grandfather, the men of Milan — the list goes on, but the outfit stays the same. And now that it’s almost winter and that nagging need for a jolt in my wardrobe is back, this season’s story is Wes Anderson’s Rushmore.

I’ll just need one blazer, like the main character, Max.

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While I can only praise his green velvet suit — mostly because the best version I found is over 3k), I definitely can find a great shirt to wear backwards, like his love interest, Rosemary Cross, does in one scene.

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To further copy Rosemary (a master of the basics) I’ll need one simple crew neck knit, a modest skirt, a pair of loafers, a touch of blush, maybe a discreet chain.




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And then, for color, I’ll pick up the same “pop” the movie does, and consider red:




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There’s something to be said about the cliché, “Don’t fix what isn’t broken.” We’ll keep on trying the same thing and expect new results, because as humans who crave familiarity, it’s what we do. But when you switch the narrative, it changes your perspective. When you view the same story through a different lens — even if the outfit barely changed — it somehow makes you feel a little less insane.

Happy Birthday, Superhuman Werbowy!

Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?

No, no, that’s not right.

Are you from Tenness–

That’s not it either.

Is that a mirror in your…

Recall. Retract. Never mind.

Happy birthday, Daria Werbowy! While at Man Repeller, we understand that the rules of a birthday tend to consist of the act of gift-giving to whomever was born, on this very special life-anniversary, we’re hoping the spirit of life will incline you to gift us with some of your pretty. Who else, after all, can make a mullet look so damn cool?

Have your cake, eat it too.

Love, us.

Style Jacking: If You’re Thinking About Black Tie, Think About This

I might throw myself a birthday party this year at a dingy karaoke bar on the Lower East Side and if I do, there is a 0% chance that I will not inflict upon all those invited an unflinchingly mandatory dress code requirement: black tie.

Why? Well, the juxtaposition of a dive bar vis-à-vis evening wear satisfies me in the same way almond butter smeared over a slice of grilled chicken does. It might seem unlikely upon first suggestion, but comes together quite charmingly in action.

Also, though, since I sat down with Mr. Valentino last month to talk about the elaborate tablecloths with which he decorates his various tables and the herd of porcelain swans he holds as dear as I do the smoothie bar on the corner of Prince Street, the salient lack of glamour present is the Cosmos of today has felt palpable.

Really, it’s so pungent that I can touch it — when I’m putting on sneakers, not shoes, to festoon my feet before a day of work, while I’m taking out the trash and can detect every smell emanating from the garbage bag: last night’s dinner, yesterday’s lunch, the fork used to eat my eggs this morning, during what I consider to be a particularly self-indulgent back rub at a dilapidated garage that’s been converted to a parlor, if one can even go so far as to call it that. What’s more? I miss it.

Sure, I recognize that I never actually knew the glamour of Valentino’s world but nostalgia has this fantastic way of romanticizing each nuance it touches. I’m also not above a robust imagination and certainly not either a local mandate that could, if it really needed to, affect humanity globally so I’m sticking with my guns on this — if I throw myself a birthday party this year, it will be black tie dirty.

Incidentally, said birthday is right around the corner and you are invited. So here’s a dressing tip for the upcoming festivity from the ineffable Jenna Lyons, who attended Solange Knowles’ wedding this weekend in a J. Crew collection feather skirt (these ones rule too) paired with a white Celine button up (J. Crew has you covered) and glasses, which when paired with a red lip, really bring the point home.

The point, of course, being that if you’re willing to receive it, glamour is everywhere.

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In Defense Of The Weather Lament

A common misconception about the nuances of good conversation is that when the topic of weather is presented and subsequently exploited, you are essentially immersed in what is exactly the opposite of good conversation.

You have probably heard this many times.

You may have heard it this morning when you ran into your friend Sandra. You spent ten minutes discussing the state of your frozen finger tips only to interrupt each other simultaneously to apologize for falling victim to the conversational equivalent of a class on the history of a very particular genus of tuberculosis that has heretofore affected no one. But why feel bad? Or better yet, guilty? In a city like New York, where the climatic circumstances are as irrational as the human wildlife forced to endure it, how should one should be expected to discuss much else?

It was, after all, 56 degrees on Monday. Yesterday it was 28. That’s 28 degrees fahrenheit, not celsius. And if I didn’t have a television, or an app that provided minute-to-minute weather updates, I would not have known this. Unlike Monday, when it didn’t just rain, but downpoured torrentially from the hours of 8am to 8pm — no breaks to recuperate, no interruptions for Drybar hair aficianados, nothing — yesterday, it was sunny. And that all-orbiting star, my friends, can be hugely deceiving.

Today is not much better and the state of my finger tips still seems to be the centerpiece of several exchanges. I don’t regret it.

One should not feel culpable for maintaining poor conversational skills if she is to comment on the aberrant behavior of her city’s weather habits. Never mind the unilateral frustration that comes with this particular bout of bad-weather luck (though incidentally, Buffalo has received 60+ inches of snow, making the need for sixteen layers a sort of brisk stroll in the park), but on a more interpersonal level, how better are we expected to connect with each other?

Maybe this morning you shared in the collective struggle that is the definitive end of iced coffee season with a deli veteran you have come to regard as a close friend. Or maybe while you were picking up your dry cleaning, you scoffed at the white linen shirt that you’d had cleaned and looked over at Jack, the man who has become indelibly responsible for your spotless hygiene as it pertains to clothing, “Guess I won’t be needing this now!” You joked. And then you both laughed, wished each other good luck and separated.

The problem with any other breed of small talk, you see, is that you are liable to offend or be offended. One woman’s child plight could be another’s marital bliss on line at a grocery store. A different man’s financial woes could be the best-day-ever for a similarly suited sir on a trading desk, in an office building, on the coast of New Jersey. But something we can mutually agree upon, regardless of our personal policies and the conditions that inform them is a sense of rancid hatred for the worst two words to have ever come together and make headline news: Polar Vortex. So, really, what’s so bad about a conversation about the weather anyway?

Can a Pink Fur Coat Be an Investment?

Unpopular opinion: I’m not against “fast fashion,” but like every girl who can’t indulge her every whim each time she sees a particularly inspiring editorial or street style shot, I also buy to keep so-called “investment pieces.” You hear that term and are probably picturing a camel coat, right? Maybe a leather jacket, a pair of heels that you’d swear to own forever or a quilted Chanel purse — somewhere on the spectrum between Audrey Hepburn and Emmanuelle Alt.

Recently, I bought an investment piece. It’s a coat, and I don’t think Emmanuelle Alt, even after 6 glasses of champagne, would be caught dead in it.

When I sent my boyfriend a photo of the coat, he assumed I was kidding. “LOLOLOL,” he responded. Ah, the bliss of the ignorant and the laugh of the person who can’t spell “hahaha.”

“It’s coming home with me,” I wrote back, as if I had purchased a puppy rather than outerwear. “It’s an investment piece,” I added, because he knows nothing.

The coat that could leave me single and homeless certainly isn’t camel. It’s bubble gum pink, faux fur and with navy stripes. When I’m wearing it I feel like a rated TV MA Jigglypuff or if you’d prefer another visual, Big Foot at the Gay Pride Parade. I also feel awesome — like this was a smart financial decision. Let me break it down.

Here’s what I won’t spend money on:

Button downs

The aforementioned camel coat

Crewneck sweaters

Jeans — actually, make that anything denim

Striped t-shirts

Sneakers

Essentially, everything Leandra will.

Investment pieces are usually billed as things that will never go out of style, such as a classic [insert business attire here]. But what if your style is more Queen of Tompkins Square Park than Duchess of Cambridge? Let me now propose an alternate definition for investment pieces: items you might not wear every day, but will be excited to have and inspired by in years. Of course, Jigglypuff the Abominable Gay Snowman is not appropriate for all occasions, but I can guarantee you that I will smile whenever I put that persona on — even if that’s 20 times per year for the next 5 years. I cannot say the same about the camel coat I do have (from Topshop), which I love wearing for now because it makes me feel like someone that should have a clipped British accent and perfect cuticles.

There are practical reasons, too: “wardrobe staples,” the things you wear every day, get ruined pretty quickly. People pee on the subway, dogs do weird things on sidewalks, sometimes you drink too much wine at dinner and your sweater ends up on the floor or in the wine, so I don’t see a need to spend money on things this city is liable to trash. High street brands spend a lot of effort making cheaper, classic items look good. It’s hard for me to see a difference so blaring between a Madewell button down and a Céline button down that I’m inclined to purchase the latter. The same cannot be said of colored fur or elaborate beading. Not for now, at least.

Where do you fall on this spectrum?

Dear Diary, It’s Me, Mindy

Let’s just call this episode like it is: a great excuse for Mindy Kaling to show off her sweet new bangs. They were the perfect combination of styled yet slightly tousled, thrown a little bit to the side like Françoise Hardy and accessorized bravely with a sparkly eyepatch. My grandfather had an eyepatch, and while I respect his choice in simplicity I have to hand it to Dr. Lahiri for knowing when a bedazzler is or isn’t appropriate. (It is always appropriate.)

Equally important to note was her on-point, bubble gum pink outfit that was both a nod to mod and the teacher with OCD from Glee.

For those who don’t watch — Mindy was wearing an eyepatch because she and Danny were attempting to sleep Share-House-Style, which is like the G-rated equivalent of a 69 formation. Mindy tickled Danny’s foot and he kicked her in the eye.

She faked an injury in order to win guilt points that would finally convince Danny to sleep at her place for once. She wins, he comes over, and then because of work*, Mindy has to suddenly leave.

Danny is left to his own devices. He finds himself confused by bath beads, says hello to a cat, finds himself overwhelmed by pillows and then, because this wouldn’t be a true sitcom without the following line: he finds her diary.

Obviously he reads it.

Mindy’s diary is a tribute to her fictional crushes and the actress’s love for a narration, and while nothing’s shocking, Danny keeps reading, because when you have a diary in front of you, Human Law proves you will read it.

Human Law also proves you will either get caught or come so close to getting caught that you spill red wine all over it, as he did, which naturally meant that Dr. Hugh Grant had to offer up his calligraphy services in order to create an exact replica of Mindy’s words followed by the discovery that Mindy is looking for that ring by spring.

Dear Danny isn’t ready — they’ve only been dating for 7 months — so he goes into a mild panic and sweats a lot.

(Long story short: Mindy doesn’t notice the diary has been re-written by a 30-something year old British man, and Danny, while clearly unsettled by the discovery, ends the episode by sleeping at Mindy’s apartment, so for now, they’re fine.)

Meanwhile, at the hospital…

*Here’s where the asterisk comes in. Mindy had Tamra covering for her teaching shift that’s she’s technically required to uphold considering Shulman & Associates is affiliated with a teaching hospital. Dr. Cop catches Mindy, calls her out, hence why Mindy had to leave.

More importantly, we learn that Peter Prentice is an EAR TALKER.

This is major news because up until this point I think we the viewers have been falling in love with Peter, but EAR TALKING (must be written in all caps!!!) is the ultimate deal breaker. Nothing is worse than someone who inserts his or her lips into the caves of your ears to distill your wax with his/her breath, the whole while being completely unresponsive to the fact that your head is practically crashing into your shoulder to escape the terrible, horrifyingly confusing feeling of being simultaneously tickled and accidentally turned on. If I were Mindy I would have kicked Peter in the eye with my toe as Danny did to her.

SAFETY PSA: Tickling is a most dangerous weapon.

Two more important things happened: Mindy accidentally mentored TJ, the “Doogie Howser but at a normal age” who we kind of hated at first (RIGHT TEAM?) but then knighted as our new man crush. He gained sympathy points when Mindy drank his Gatorade. Votes on him becoming regular?

Votes on Quiet Candice becoming a regular as well?

And now, the moment you all were waiting for, an excerpt from Dr. Tamra Webb’s inspirational intern poetry:

“I am honored, elated — nay, overjoyed — to man the helm of this exquisite ship of your education.”

Go forth and prosper, Mindy watches and non-watchers alike. Just do it in the comments section first.

MR Round Table: Technology Woe or Wow?

Andrew O’Hagan wrote a story for the most recent issue of T Magazine and in it, the seasoned writer who has endured the birth of web rose to the defense of technology, a corner of the earth that few young writers — the digital natives — have cared to publicly penetrate before. He recalls the “days of yore,” when one couldn’t hear a song unless he traveled three miles to the shop that sold the musician’s record, with sweet nostalgia but never with a sense of remorseful longing because as he sees it, technology has made our lives more convenient. Furthermore, it seems, to refute this point is futile. As tends to be the case when a Goliath-type machine is defended, a generous chunk of the comment feed under the post went up in arms against the author’s thesis to recall the very same days of yore from a point of view that is not “culturally bankrupt.”

Here, Team Man Repeller, a group of young women, discuss the infiltration of technology in our lives.

Leandra Medine: The reason I wanted to round-table this article is because I feel like the conversation around technology and what it’s doing to us and our social lives is really meaty. I don’t necessarily believe that the reason we have a harder time articulating ourselves in 2014 is because of our mobile devices so much as it is that we have become word-substitutors. We take terms and turn them into the world’s biggest umbrellas and then we forget how to assess human emotion. Bitch no longer means bitch, slut doesn’t mean slut, etc, etc.

Amelia Diamond: I want to know how old his daughter is, because she said “as if” and I need to know if that’s coming back with the younger generation.

Charlotte Fassler: It is.

LM: This was the first article I’ve seen defending the proliferation of technology, which I really appreciated. I think that it was placed in context for me when he provided that short anecdote about women not missing the days when they had to keep their milk on the ledges for it to stay fresh. I just thought, Oh what a good point. I don’t think anyone regrets the invention of refrigerators.

CF: When you sent this email with an article link, I fully thought that you were sending us that article from — was it New York Magazine? — about how we all speak emoji now. I thought that’s what you were going to have us discuss. When I opened this, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t that. It’s a completely different, more streamlined and obvious way to talk about technology and communication now.

LM: Maybe something that’s interesting is that the people who seem to be writing the shame on you, Internet stories are the same people who are deeply immersed in the Internet, right? They’re these young writers who are publishing these stories about the good old days, whereas this one comes from a pretty seasoned vet who probably used a typewriter.

Kayla Tanenbaum: That makes sense in that it’s really easy to idealize something if you weren’t there or if you were four when it happened, but something to point out about his article is that there’s a difference between refrigeration and Twitter. I liked his article and I liked that it wasn’t whiny and “back in my day,” but I don’t think he should have lumped in all the things he did. Some things are immensely useful, like refrigeration.

AD: So is Twitter — if you want to be super metaphorical, you can follow crap on Twitter the same way you can put crap in your fridge.

KT: I just think refrigeration doesn’t have a downside, and maybe this is just me, but Twitter and social media make me anxious sometimes because I feel like I’m doing too much or I’m not doing enough.

LM: If it were not for refrigerators, murderers would have one less place to store dead bodies!

AD: I think there are definitely downsides to technology. I feel it all the time. I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten kind of curmudgeonly and I have been longing for the days when you could cancel dinner plans because you “had a cold” and go to another friend’s house instead and not get in trouble for it. We’re expected now to be very transparent, and I miss the time before that. That said, I can’t imagine a world without it. It’s so useful and important. But anything in this world that’s good can be abused.

One thing that was interesting about the writer were interesting comments on time and culture in his anecdotes. And I think his mention of the refrigerator wasn’t so much a comparison to its necessity as far as twitter, but rather a sign of the time. When he said that reference, I thought, People didn’t have refrigerators? That was more the thing for me, and I think there will be a time when people will be like “There was no Twitter?”

Esther Levy: I liked when he was speaking about his Smith’s CD — he had to walk, and take two busses, and whatever he had to do to get this record, that sentimentality maybe has been lost because I never walked two miles out of my way to get a record. Now they’re so easy to get.

KB: But that sentimentally factors in somewhere else in life. There will be a different area that will still have that sense of nostalgia, like putting together a playlist for your friend — it’ll just be something that’s no longer available that allows you to be falsely nostalgic for it, but it doesn’t take anything away from the experience of the music you’re listening to or the way you get to interact with people. No one is gonna say, “I’m not gonna take part in this technical advancement that helps humanity,” but you still have the opportunity to choose to what extent you participate in it. I think the author’s basis is that there’s nostalgia, but for anyone saying it was better, it’s not actually better and here are my anecdotes.

LM: That also presents the question of why nostalgia always has to turn into really grand laments. Why can’t you just be nostalgic for the sake of reminiscing, why does it turn into things were better back then, how can we change the now?

KB: Because it’s easier

AD: The author remembers the past in such a fond way. When our Internet dies it’s a panic. I don’t like that it’s a panic. He mentions what happens when you get lost in the street, I don’t know what I would do if I got lost without my phone.

LM: Necessity is the mother of invention. You’d figure it out

KT: The thing I don’t like about social media is that you can never be alone. When he said the positive side is that you can’t be lonely, I actually disagree with that, but even if you’re alone on a beach, you could get out your phone and Instagram the beach or text your friends. I’m sure there are people out there who don’t feel the need to do that, but the thought that you’re always in reach of someone makes me a little uneasy. I never had those days where you could disappear for 5 hours in a real way.

CF: But when you are doing something that is all consuming of your time, you don’t even think about your phone. Even just this weekend, I was working all day. I was doing a lot of things that involved me using my hands and not sitting in front of a screen ,and I just put my phone in a corner and 6 hours had gone by and I hadn’t looked at Instagram.

I really happy that occurred, but at the same time, a lot of these articles about the “days of yore” and how technology is invading our lives in a more negative capacity are by younger people with a sense of what was, but they don’t really know what was. The time that has spanned between what is happening and what you are feeling nostalgic for, isn’t that much time. It’s not because everything is advancing so quickly. We’re nostalgic for flip phones, but that was a couple of years ago, that wasn’t the days of yore. And I think that ability creates a stronger sense of nostalgia even if what you’re longing for isn’t something you actually miss.

LM: Here’s the thing about every cultural phenomenon that infiltrates our lives and stays: it can either be treated as a fortress or a prison. Every single one of them. Refrigerators, cars, Instagram, whatever it is. Recently, when I was in Australia, I was thinking about how I haven’t been using Instagram at all lately, and when I do, I feel like it’s to experience something with someone else. I really appreciated seeing, say, a filtered Ditch Plains Beach in Montauk over the summer when I wasn’t there because I couldn’t be there. So I was thinking Instagram doesn’t have to be a prison. I don’t have to feel shitty because someone else is in Montauk and I’m not. I can experience it or feel like I’m experiencing it through the visual as opposed to feeling like I’m missing out because of the visual.

KT: He said you might be alone but you’ll never be lonely on the Internet… I disagree with that. “Physical loneliness can still exist, of course, but you’re never alone online”. I guess for me, I’m speaking from my own experience, growing up with Facebook really exacerbated my loneliness because I would see what other people were doing. I remember being in 8th grade and not being invited to some pre-game and seeing pictures of it on Facebook and thinking that if I didn’t have a Facebook, I wouldn’t know what I was missing and I wouldn’t feel left out. I didn’t have to check, obviously that’s on me, but the positive is that you can experience things without being there and you can share and you can connect with people. And the negative is that everybody is sharing the best parts of their lives.

LM: Don’t you feel like that experience builds your social immunity?

KT: Yeah, I definitely have less FOMO than people I know because I wasn’t popular in 8th grade, and I very much appreciate that. But I do find myself comparing my life to the Instagram versions of people’s lives. My Instagram life is very different from my real life, and I think people overestimate everyone’s happiness and underestimate their own and I think there’s something about this new technology that makes people very competitive.

EL: But you also have to make the distinction between social media and the Internet. I think with the writer, when you feel FOMO, you can find a chat room or a message board with people who share your interests and are in the same place as you are and you can find a friend (and that’s the fortress).

CF: And I think what he’s speaking about is not necessarily the way we communicate and relate to one another vis-à-vis the Internet but rather the way all of these new inventions have made life easier. When I think of my parents in college, typing out their essays on typewriters and having to correct them and retype the entire essays, that’s time. Time is valuable. You would have to do a mundane thing like wait in line to go to the DMV to get a paper to fill something out and then leave, where you could do it online in 5 minutes now.

LM: The reason we might be undergoing a fitness renaissance or a birth — a naissance — is because people have become so used to doing everything from their computers or phones. It’s a really easy way to engage with people or engage with yourself and to do something for yourself that makes you feel good, and if it is FOMO that’s eliciting this birth, then whatever — if Instagram is forcing people to get in shape, that doesn’t seem horrific. And separately, I think another important thing to keep in mind is that Joan Didion was obviously very right when she said that we tell ourselves stories in order to live, and so all of the backlash stories to social media might very well be writers scrambling for ideas, addressing social conditions and then putting them on paper for readers to accept as fact.

KT: Or writers who just use their social experiments as material like “I didn’t use Facebook for a week!”

LM: We’ve run a version of that story!

CF: Bringing up that people accept these stories as fact is interesting because now the Internet is inundated with so much content. To some degree, we should be more wary of what we’re reading and not as quick to accept it as fact. Content is coming out so quickly, but for some reason I feel like we consume things in a way where we believe everything we’re reading.

KT: Can you believe there was a time when you could get in a really stupid fight with a friend or family member and just not know?

LM: I kind of like that you can know now, I just wish there was a little more conversation around getting there. That’s what I miss — is the stuff, the effort it took to get to the crux of the “I don’t know.” Now we don’t need to argue. I’ve got my flat screen TV.

AD: It’s true that the Internet eliminates discovery, but it also brings much more of the world to everyone else.

KB: It also means that anyone right now could be a modern day astronaut or explorer because many people have access to the Internet and can teach themselves how to code and build something and create something

AD: Anyone can learn how to play piano now; anyone can learn how to speak a different language. You just have to have YouTube access.

CF: One of the things I don’t like about smartphones — and this goes back to what Amelia was saying in the beginning — I don’t like always being reachable. I like the convenience of always being able to reach other people, but I don’t like that I’m always expected to be reachable because I have a smartphone.

EL: My husband’s phone is on airplane mode 12 hours a day. Literally on airplane mode. He’s not reachable.

LM: I had to do that when I was writing my book.

Cristina Couri: When I was in China, Facebook was blocked. That was hard.

AD: With our jobs, it’s almost like we’re always on call. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but we can always be on an e-mail, we can always fix a problem.

LM: I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

AD: But it also makes you work 24/7.

LM: I probably burn out more than the average business owner would ten years ago. That’s it. Then I pick myself out of the burnouts, typically by signing off. I’m also really lucky that I’m an observant Jew so my Friday nights pull me off the grid. If I didn’t have that, it’d be really hard.

KB: I don’t know what I’d do if there was no Internet. Would I work at a marketing agency?

LM: I’d probably be an assistant at New York Magazine. I would have just graduated from my fact checking job.

AD: I think I would be exactly who I am just without the tools to make me less lazy. I don’t leave my neighborhood and I wouldn’t leave it without the Internet either, I just wouldn’t be able to get delivery. I would never go anywhere. I’d be like, “I don’t know how to get on that subway. I use the Internet for that.” I don’t know if I would go in search of things if it were harder to.

LM: One of the first rules of social psychology is that you always think things will be harder than they actually are when the issue is presented to you.

AD: Is that what you meant about me getting lost with the maps?

LM: Yeah, you’d be fine. I studied abroad in Paris and when I think about that now, I’m like “I could never do that. I don’t know how I did that.” But I did. And I lost my phone in the middle of the semester and my dad was like, “You’re not getting a new one.”

CF: The way we consume film and television is also so different now.

KT: It’s weird how independent it makes us; we’re not tethered to the TV network schedule. If you want to watch Homeland you can watch it when it airs or you can…

CC: If you avoid Facebook and Twitter.

LM: Here’s my question. How do you feel like technology has changed your personal narrative?

KT: I think it’s hard to know because we’ve never experienced the opposite. It’s hard to say what you would be like without things that have been true forever for most of us, for the majority of our lives.

AD: I think everything would be smaller. My worldview would be smaller. I would have lost a lot of relationships. Or, I don’t know — maybe they would be stronger. I think of all my friends back in San Francisco. I don’t know if I’m less inclined to stay in touch with them now because I’m able to see them technically every day through social media, or if I’d be better about it because I wouldn’t have that. I don’t know. I just — I guess I like the idea of being able to know that if I wanted to, I could know what’s going on anywhere in the world right now. It explorative.

CF: I would say that I more or less agree with everything the author brings about the Internet changing things for the better in terms of convenience. Even in the way I consume news through Twitter, I feel like I’m a much better informed person than I was when Twitter wasn’t prominent. The only thing I don’t like about technology — or the prominence of smart phones — is that it’s hard for me to feel extremely present in a situation when I’m interacting with another person. Your phone is on the table; people are checking their phones. From an etiquette point of view, and I’m completely guilty of this, it’s rude. My friend will get up to go to the bathroom at a restaurant and I will check my phone five times when they’re gone. I think that need to be constantly in communication when you are in a situation where you are already socially interacting is hard for me to wrap my head around.

LM: That’s probably a function of our attention spans having gotten much smaller but also this new brand of social vulnerability we’re able to quell.

CF: This is a whole other conversation, but its affect the way relationships function. You expect someone to text you back and when they haven’t, you think, “Oh they must hate me now.” And then you get a text, “Hey, so sorry lost my phone last night.”

LM: I’m not really good on text.

AC: Yeah, you’re a weird texter. You texted me “Hi” the other day and I go “Hi!” Nothing.

LM: Because I was thinking about you. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you.

CF: You totally dropped the mic with that look-alike gif you sent us the other day. How did you find a Frozen musical Internet meme…?

LM: This is my point! The Internet is a beautiful place!

CF: A very beautiful place. But you definitely dropped the ball on that one.

LM: Cristina, you were awfully quiet. Is that because you still use the Apple tab to copy and paste?

AD: It’s because she has too many tabs open.

CC: No, I have two tabs open!

LM: Any last words, anyone?

KB: I feel like I come at it from a different place because I feel this sense of wonder and possibility of building something within this space as opposed to just using it. For me, it’s a version of religion, it’s this possibility without which I wouldn’t have an outlet for creativity and thought and strategy.

CC: So for you it’s a framework for living, essentially.

KB: A little bit.

LM: I think it’s kind of a framework for living for all of us, specifically in this room; it’s the framework of our livelihoods at this point in time, which is worthy of note. But I also think this conversation got a little bit far from the original point which, I think, was that the prevalence and growth of technology in our lives is a good thing and can be treated as such. It doesn’t have to be a dirty concept.