People Like Her

by Ellery Lloyd

Perhaps there comes a time in every marriage when you start fact-checking each other’s anecdotes in public.

Inasmuch as it is based on a complete rejection of the significance of the truth and the moral duty we owe to it, Harry G. Frankfurt suggests that bullshit is actually more corrosive, a more destructive social force, than good old-fashioned lying. Harry G. Frankfurt has considerably fewer followers on Instagram than my wife does.

Prime posting time is after the kids go to bed, when my million followers have poured their first glass of wine and dived headfirst into a scroll hole instead of summoning the energy to talk to their husbands.

That rogue strand has been featuring heavily on my Instastories this week (‘Argh! I can’t do a thing with it! Anyone else have one stubborn piece of hair with a mind of its own?!’). I now have a spare room full of lotions and potions to help plaster it down – as well as ten thousand pounds from Pantene, whose new product will prove to be the solution to my hair woes. When you make such a big deal out of only ever flogging products you actually use, you have to create ever more elaborate scenarios in which they’re necessary.

Sorry, the Sisterhood, but when it comes to online life, mothers just don’t respond well to other mothers’ success

if comparison is the thief of joy, Instagram is the cat burglar of contentment.

‘I like to know if my influencers are narcissists or sociopaths,’ Irene once joked when I asked her why. ‘I won’t sign them otherwise.’ At least, I presume it was a joke.

she’s always had the human warmth of a Calippo;

The indisputable fact that when a man does even the very basics of childcare, however awkwardly, ineptly or begrudgingly, he gets applauded for it. Whereas when a woman walks down the street with a baby the only time anyone even notices is if they think she is doing something wrong.