Trick Mirror

by Jia Tolentino

You don’t need to step in shit to understand what stepping in shit feels like. You don’t need to have directly suffered at the hands of some injustice in order to be invested in bringing that injustice to an end.

today we mostly consume news that corresponds with our ideological alignment, which has been fine-tuned to make us feel self-righteous and also mad.

In other words, it is essential that social media is mostly unsatisfying. That is what keeps us scrolling, scrolling, pressing our lever over and over in the hopes of getting some fleeting sensation—some momentary rush of recognition, flattery, or rage.

It feels comforting to wear high-quality spandex—I imagine it’s what a dog feels like in a ThunderShirt—but this sense of reassurance is paired with an undercurrent of demand.

To look any particular way and to actually be that way are two separate concepts, and striving to look carefree and happy can interfere with your ability to feel so.

My relationship to female protagonists changed sharply in adolescence: childhood heroines had shown me who I wanted to be, but teenage heroines showed me who I was afraid of becoming—a girl whose life revolved around her desirability, who was interesting to the degree that her life spun out of control.

Christianity formed my deepest instincts. It gave me a leftist worldview: a desire to follow leaders who feel themselves inseparable from the hungry, the imprisoned, and the sick.

The best-case scenario for a rape victim in terms of adjudication is the worst-case scenario in terms of experience: for people to believe you deserve justice, you have to be destroyed.

“By what means, but by screaming, knocking, and rioting, did men themselves ever gain what they were pleased to call their rights?”