Uncanny Valley

by Anna Wiener

The only way to have a successful and sustainable career in the publishing industry, it seemed, was to inherit money, marry rich, or wait for peers to defect or die.

As a sociology major with a background in literary fiction and three months of experience in snack procurement, I assumed I was not in a position to be picky.

Good interface design was like magic, or religion: it cultivated the mass suspension of disbelief.

The first time I looked at a block of code and understood what was happening, I felt like nothing less than a genius.

This concentration of public pain was new to me, unsettling. I had never seen such a shameful juxtaposition of blatant suffering and affluent idealism. It was a well-publicized disparity, but one I had underestimated. As a New Yorker, I had thought I was prepared. I thought I’d seen it all. I felt humbled and naïve—and guilty, all the time.

Is this just how things are now? I asked. It was bizarre to me that two different groups would have the same rhetorical and tactical strategies. My coworker was a connoisseur of online forums and bulletin boards. He looked at me askance. “Oh, my sweet summer child,” he said. “They are absolutely the same people.”