There was some overlap in coverage—a shooting in Sacramento, a suicide bomber in Israel, the previous afternoon’s slate of NFL games—but nothing close to a unifying fixation everyone was discussing at the same time. No stories were viral. No celebrity was trending. The world was still big. The country was still vast. You could just be a little person, with your own little life and your own little thoughts. You didn’t have to have an opinion, and nobody cared if you did or did not. You could be alone on purpose, even in a crowd.
