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Today, Explained
Surviving online cringe
00:29:59
The internet is forever. So how do we handle posts from our past selves?
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- [00:00]
E.J. Dixon
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- [00:46]
Alexandra Samuel
This is probably my most controversial take.
- [00:50]
Jonquin Hill
And I will probably regret posting this online.
- [00:53]
Amelia Knott
I thought I could just post that.
- [00:55]
Jonquin Hill
Stuff, get famous and then, you know, move on. Nobody ever lets me forget it. The odds are you've said something you probably don't want to see the light of day. The Internet is this archive of all these different versions of ourselves. There's the teenage fan.
- [01:12]
Amelia Knott
I was really into the Twilight books, so there is a lot of stuff.
- [01:16]
Alexandra Samuel
About how much I love Twilight that.
- [01:18]
Amelia Knott
Is still on the Internet.
- [01:20]
Jonquin Hill
If you Google me, the pundit Years.
- [01:22]
E.J. Dixon
Ago, when Black Lives Matter first started up, like I posted something about All Lives Matter and I feel really stupid about it.
- [01:32]
Jonquin Hill
I've definitely come a long way. Or if you're me, there's the reporter for your college TV station, Virginia. It's not just for lovers anymore. Now it's also for presidential candidates. I was absolutely dressing for the job I wanted. I've got a power suit, pearls, poorly applied makeup, add in the shaky camera work and wow. The Old Dominion State, along with New Hampshire, North Carolina, Florida, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada make up the nine battleground states that may decide this election. I know you know this feeling. And if you're Gen Z or a millennial, you've got it bad. We've preserved basically every stage of our lives online. Every crush, every night out, every ill informed opinion. Now, I'm not talking about offensive stuff that'll get you canceled. I'm talking about all the other old stuff. Those mementos of you that make present you cringe. For Spotlight Network, I'm John Pullen Hill and this week on Explain it to Me from Vox Online, regret and what to do about it.
- [02:46]
E.J. Dixon
Hi, My name is E.J. dixon and I am a senior writer for the Cut at New York Magazine.
- [02:53]
Jonquin Hill
EJ recently wrote an article called the Most Embarrassing Thing I've Ever Written. It's about something she published back in 2016.
- [03:01]
E.J. Dixon
So the article that I wrote about for that piece was an essay I wrote called it's embarrassing to even say the headline, why I want Donald and Melania's marriage.
- [03:16]
Jonquin Hill
What did you mean when, by that? When you said, oh, this is the marriage I want.
- [03:20]
E.J. Dixon
Well, okay, so some context. I had just gotten engaged at the time, so something I was thinking a lot about was compatibility and the way that two people can sort of craft an ideal partnership for themselves. And there was a lot of talk at the time because Trump had either just won the nomination or was about to win the nomination about Trump and Melania. And there was a lot of scrutiny on their marriage and a lot of questions, as there are questions today about their marriage and how they make it work because she is never around and sort of like recedes in the background. And people were very confused about that.
- [04:04]
Jonquin Hill
Where was Melania?
- [04:06]
E.J. Dixon
Everyone's asking, where's Melania?
- [04:09]
Alexandra Samuel
We don't see you that often.
- [04:10]
E.J. Dixon
You're not on the campaign trail. How do you feel about campaigning?
- [04:14]
Alexandra Samuel
Well, it's my choice not to be there. I support my husband 100%.
- [04:20]
E.J. Dixon
And I guess the argument I was trying to make was that this is a dynamic that works for them, even if we don't necessarily understand it on the surface. Like, that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't work for them. But I think that the way it was framed was probably the most reductionist way, an embarrassing way possible. And obviously, I mean, it aged like milk. So I'm talking about, like, how much I hate the Trumps and how gross I find their marriage and how, like, I don't want my marriage to be anything like that. But then I have this caveat. And yet I can't help but admire how the Trumps have settled on a clearly defined division of labor in their marriage. How both partners have negotiated their terms to carve out their own spaces for each other and for themselves. To me, the Trumps represent not the 21st century ideal of an equal footed feminist relationship, but a more complicated and frankly interesting conception of marriage. That two people can enter a partnership carving out specific roles and maintain a harmonious domestic balance accordingly. They are not two halves of the same whole so much as they are two complementary pieces in a 1200 piece jigsaw puzzle reproduction of an abstract expressionist painting. That last sentence is like, that's a very cringe sentence to write about the fucking Trumps. But like, I agree with that. You know, there's still. Because they're still. How long have they been married?
- [05:58]
Jonquin Hill
Yeah, they're, I mean, they're still Together.
- [05:59]
E.J. Dixon
They'Re making it work. And marriage, at the end of the day, is about, like, making it work however the fuck you can. So I still stand by that. And I think I'm actually surprised, in retrospect, by how nuanced and sophisticated that insight was, considering how stupid I was.
- [06:20]
Jonquin Hill
Yeah. What about the piece is embarrassing? Is it just about the Trump of it all, or is it anything more?
- [06:26]
E.J. Dixon
It is about the Trump of it all, but I think beyond the Trump of it all, it's reflective of a certain era of the Internet. It was a product of an era of the Internet that was very clickbaity, I think, where every headline was kind of demanding as much attention as possible. Like, it was the era of, like, the Facebook algorithm, where all of the headlines were, like, the one reason why you should care about, like, Chrissy Teigen's postpartum depression or something like that. And I feel like why I want Donald and Melania's marriage was very much in that tradition. So it's a little cringe and embarrassing, like, in that respect. Like, that I was sort of playing the game. Um, but it was also an era of the Internet that was very, like, earnest. And I write something in the piece that I wrote for the cut that cringe is sort of. There's a formula for cringe, which is like, earnestness plus vulnerability plus underlying insecurity equals cringe. And at the time, like, I considered myself a very staunch feminist and a very staunch leftist, and I was a little insecure about the fact that, like, I was about to get married and, like, enter this institution.
- [07:42]
Jonquin Hill
Ooh, you were about to do the patriarchy.
- [07:44]
E.J. Dixon
Exactly. Yeah. And I was. And I was insecure about that. And I was sort of like. I could see myself, like, on the page trying to, like, justify it to myself, because it was something that I was, like, insecure about. And rereading it, like, that was very cringe to me, like, seeing my insecurities about my impending marriage and whether or not it was, quote, unquote feminist, like, refracted in Donald and Melania Trump, of all people. Like, it's just really stomach turning and, like, embarrassing to read in retrospect. Like, why did I think this was anybody's business?
- [08:18]
Jonquin Hill
Yeah. You know, I think it's interesting you talked about, like, that. I call it the personal essay industrial complex. I mean, the whole Internet was one big live journal.
- [08:28]
Amelia Knott
Yeah.
- [08:28]
Jonquin Hill
Can you talk a little bit more about how that factored into your, like, choice in writing different stuff back then?
- [08:34]
E.J. Dixon
It was a time when vulnerability was really Encouraged. And for, like, a very, very small amount of money, young women were encouraged to really just, like, expose the most vulnerable parts of themselves. And honestly, like, in the grand scheme of things, I wrote things that were way more embarrassing than that. I talk about in the cut piece about this piece that I wrote about, like, post semen spillage, like, after sex, and, like, how me and my fiance at the time, like, dealt with it. Do you shake it off like a cat coming out of the bath or a Taylor Swift backup dancer, because you had to reference Taylor Swift in 2016.
- [09:14]
Jonquin Hill
Shake it off.
- [09:15]
E.J. Dixon
Or do you stand up and force it to seep out by jiggling around like a preschooler at Gymboree? Do you wipe it down? And if so, who retrieves the towel? Do you do it in a house? Do you do it with a mouse?
- [09:32]
Jonquin Hill
I see. The thing is, I see you cringing in real time where you're just like, no.
- [09:37]
E.J. Dixon
Yeah. I mean, I look back at that stuff, and I'm just like. It's so emblematic of the era. And it's also just like, why, like, why would I do that to myself?
- [09:46]
Jonquin Hill
Like, it's like, oh, that's a lot of information.
- [09:50]
E.J. Dixon
What was I thinking? Like, why did I think. Why would that. Why did I think this would age well, like, in the slightest?
- [09:56]
Jonquin Hill
So what's changed for you since then? What's different now?
- [10:00]
E.J. Dixon
Well, I think the industry has changed, obviously. I obviously have changed. I've, you know, grown up, matured, had kids. That's obviously been a big factor. Like, I don't want my kids to read the Siemens spillage piece. You know, that's a big reason why I don't write about that kind of thing anymore. But, I mean, I'm also a different kind of writer. Like, shortly after I wrote that piece, Trump was elected, and I started transitioning to covering online extremism, and I started working for Rolling Stone and started becoming an investigative journalist. And I didn't center myself in my work anymore. And I think that really benefited me, both as a writer and as a person. That happens to everybody when they move from their 20s to their 30s, like, in their personal life. Happened to me as a writer as well. Like, I just became, you know, professionally and personally. Like, I just shifted away from that, which I think was very beneficial. I think that there is something about that era of the Internet that I am nostalgic for and really miss. And, like, when we talk about it, we usually make fun of it, but I think there are things about it that we should appreciate Everything I see about the way people talk about themselves on the Internet today is so intricately curated and branded and there's so much thought put into it. It's not like you can just go on livejournal and blog about your period anymore and just hit post. There's just so much more work put into it. You can't just go on main and be messy. Like I can't even remember the last time I've seen like a genuine crash out on TikTok or Instagram. And if there is, like, everybody just makes fun of that person.
- [11:58]
Jonquin Hill
Yeah.
- [11:58]
E.J. Dixon
And I. Yeah, I just wish that there was more space on the Internet for like genuine earnestness and vulnerability. Like, even if it is cringe, even if it is messy, like we should be making room for that. We should be celebrating that.
- [12:11]
Jonquin Hill
Do you ever wish you could delete that past self from the Internet though?
- [12:14]
E.J. Dixon
Of course.
- [12:14]
Jonquin Hill
Or you're like, yes, absolutely.
- [12:18]
E.J. Dixon
Of course I do. I mean, I know that's not like the right answer. I know that's not like what I should say, but I know I should say like, no, I would like to preserve it in amber and like, because it's, it's imperfect, but it's beautiful. But no, there are like a million things I wish I could delete.
- [12:37]
Jonquin Hill
So you've got something embarrassing out there online. You could delete it, but should you? That's next.
- [12:54]
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- [13:54]
E.J. Dixon
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- [14:25]
Jonquin Hill
I'm jq. This is Explain it to me. And the running joke online is never post. But let's say you ignored that wisdom. What do you do now?
- [14:35]
Alexandra Samuel
I'm Alexandra Samuel and I'm a tech journalist. I write for the Wall Street Journal, and I'm the host of the podcast Me and Viv.
- [14:43]
Jonquin Hill
Okay, Alex, what are your thoughts on deleting your online presence? Is that a good thing, a bad thing? Is it sometimes necessary?
- [14:50]
Alexandra Samuel
I think that you need to think about deleting things you've posted as curation and not deletion. Deletion. You really never know what is archived. You know, the Internet Archive keeps snapshots of all kinds of things on the Internet. So you, you know, you need to be aware that when you delete something, it might be deleted for you. That doesn't mean it's deleted from the Internet. And actually, I think when you delete things, it's always a good idea to back them up before you delete them. Because, like, think about. Imagine a scenario where you've posted something on Insta or wherever, you realize afterwards that you were kind of an idiot and you wish you hadn't said what you said. And maybe you even had, like on Insta, a back and forth in the comment thread where the person pointed out why what you said was insensitive and you showed some capacity for movement and learning. Well, maybe you want to delete that because you don't really want that to be something people stumble across. But if you delete it without archiving it, then if it ever comes back to haunt you, you don't have that evidence of you learning in public. It's much better to make sure, like, take the screenshots, archive the thread and back up all that context so that if it does still come back to haunt you, or even if you just want to reflect on, oh, do you remember that stupid thing I did in, like, you know, 2014? Well, yes, I do remember that stupid thing I did. Because here's the screenshot.
- [16:23]
Jonquin Hill
It almost sounds like, I don't know. I don't know if you've ever gone back and read old journals. Every time I do, I'm just like, oh, why did I read this? This is none of my business. What old me thought, you know, it's.
- [16:34]
Alexandra Samuel
Funny you said that. I've literally had that exact experience of rereading old journals, my college journals. It was a quite put a. Put a very different spin on my first love affair when I read it with the wisdom of hindsight. And I do wish I hadn't reread it. So I think we just all need to realize that like by, by definition anything that is a snapshot is a two dimensional image of something that we experience, you know, as humans in at least three dimensions. And whether you're looking at your own history of something that you did or if even more if you're looking at something you come across where someone else said something that seems to you ill advised, like, I just wish we could have a little more tenderness and empathy and focus on what people learn and how we grow rather than judging everyone by their most awful moment.
- [17:29]
Jonquin Hill
Do you have any advice for best practices when it comes to having a social media presence you won't be ashamed of in like five or 10 or I don't know, 20 years?
- [17:38]
Alexandra Samuel
What I would say over now, more than 20 years of working with people in organizations is that trying to have a social media presence where you never regret anything is a recipe for having a completely meaningless and stupid social media presence.
- [17:57]
E.J. Dixon
Now.
- [17:57]
Alexandra Samuel
Conversely, I think it's important to resist the lure of the hot take. Here are my insanely hot takes. Here are some hot takes that might get me canceled.
- [18:07]
Jonquin Hill
You guys ask, I listen. So here is part two, rapid fire of things that I think are hot takes, but secretly think a lot of you will agree with.
- [18:15]
Alexandra Samuel
But I think like, what you need to do is try and chart that middle ground where you got to not court controversy for its own sake. Because I think when you're deliberately like pushing people's buttons, that's where you, you end up saying things that don't reflect what you truly believe. But your goal is to have a social media presence where you never regret anything, then truly don't be online. Like, and that's, I actually think, a really, really good option now. And if I were not, like you, a journalist for whom part of the job is showing up online, I do not know if I would use social media anymore.
- [18:54]
Jonquin Hill
That's real.
- [18:55]
Alexandra Samuel
Yeah, because it's just so. There's just so much garbage and so much fakeness and who needs it?
- [19:06]
Jonquin Hill
So it sounds like if you're gonna share anything online, that feeling of regret may be inevitable. How do you survive it?
- [19:16]
Alexandra Samuel
A few different tactics. The first thing to do is take yourself out of It. Depersonalize it. And think, if this were happening to a friend and just see, like, okay, if it wasn't me who was being raked over the coals, what would I think here? Would I think this is super unfair? Would I think, God, that was a really ins. Sensitive thing this person said, and they should probably admit it.
- [19:37]
E.J. Dixon
And.
- [19:38]
Alexandra Samuel
And really just try to be as kind to yourself as you would be if it was your best friend who was in this situation. Like, picture this happening to your best friend. Don't hesitate to admit if you think you were wrong, but don't rush to respond either. Like, you really, really, really need to close the computer, put the phone down, walk away. If you're like me, like, I'm not some Zen practitioner. I can't just put things out of my head. This is why television exists. I, like, go and, you know, watch some super engrossing TV show to make myself not think about it. Talk to somebody else. Like, somebody with good judgment, you know, somebody you respect. Talk to one or two people and get them to look and say, what do you think? Should I respond? And then, you know, like, yeah, the Internet moves quickly, but unless you are a celebrity and you're getting, like, a hundred thousand responses an hour, there's actually no reason that, like, the three crappy comments can't wait to be addressed the next day. And then, you know, you. You absolutely can say you're wrong. And I actually think one of the most powerful things that we can do as humans, as professionals, and as Internet users is to show that, like, you can be wrong and you can even be wrong on the Internet, and it doesn't kill you. It doesn't destroy your value as a human. And you know what? If you admit you're wrong, some people are still gonna keep coming for you. But that's a bad look for them. It's not a bad look for you. And I think the more that we all accept the process of being wrong in public and, like, live with it, the less heated and terrifying it becomes and the more genuine we can be.
- [21:30]
Jonquin Hill
So the Internet stirs up all these complicated feelings. Could that be a good thing? That's next. This episode is brought to you by. Meundies. Flowers die in three days. Matching underwear from me Undies. That's a gift that lasts. Meundies creates matching prints for couples and friends. Same adorable designs and different cuts for each of you, all made from their signature ultramodal fabric that feels impossibly soft. With 30 million pairs sold and 90,000 five star reviews, MeUndies matching prints are the perfect gift this Valentines get exclusive deals up to 50% off@meundies.com Spotify code Spotify.
- [22:14]
E.J. Dixon
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- [22:43]
Jonquin Hill
I'm jq. It's explain it to me. And I called up Amelia Knott. She's a registered psychotherapist who specializes in what it means to be well online.
- [22:54]
Amelia Knott
I think what makes it especially cringy is, you know, a lot of us use the Internet as a place to individuate, as a place to try on new identities or new perspectives or new ways of communicating. You know, maybe it was different from our families or the place we grew up. I think digital spaces for many of us, and this can be a good thing, become potentially safe or, you know, the accessible places we have to experiment with new identity. So I think that's developmentally appropriate given when we may have joined social media. But it does leave us with this massive archive of maybe daily images or daily evidence of what we were experimenting with.
- [23:39]
Jonquin Hill
I wonder how you see that impacting our self esteem.
- [23:44]
Amelia Knott
Mm. I mean, I think it's really challenging. It's hard at the best of times to be confronted with who we've been in the past. It's hard to watch ourselves grappling with new ideas or trying something on. Like, it's vulnerable to be seen trying. Maybe that's the important thing. It's vulnerable to be seen trying something new. And to do that in such an exposed way is so vulnerable.
- [24:14]
Jonquin Hill
So let's say you see a post or a photo that you put up a long time ago that makes you feel uncomfortable. You know, shame and regret, those are awful feelings to have. What's a healthy way to deal with that?
- [24:28]
Amelia Knott
Well, I know it's kind of annoying for therapists to say, you know, try to have some empathy for yourself, try to offer yourself grace. But I think one way to do that is getting curious. Like, if it's really bothering you, it might be useful to, like, have a conversation or journal questions like, what was going on in 2011? Like, what was happening in my life? What was happening in the world? What was I trying to tell People about myself or what need was I trying to get met. Right. Like, if I look at my travel blog through that lens, I might be able to be a bit more gentle with myself. Maybe I was trying to have a different identity from the person I was when I was young and trying to be known for something different. And I think online especially, we forget that because social media collapses context. We forget that there's a whole person on the other side of a screen, even when it's ourselves on the other side of that screen. Right. So asking those questions about our intentions, I think is an invitation back in to remember our humanity. Right. That we're all looking for validation, approval, that it's not a crime to seek attention. It's actually just really, really human. And I think shame flourishes in isolation. So sitting alone, looking at that post, just, like, cringing and spiraling out isn't great. But one way I think of mitigating that is maybe sharing it with someone who knew you at that point in your life or someone who knows you really well now, who sees the wholeness of you and understands what was going on for you in that moment, and that it wasn't just the stupid hat you chose to wear or the brooding playlist or whatever cringy thing it was. Right. So bringing somebody else in to witness it with you, I think, also goes a long way.
- [26:18]
Grow Therapy Announcer
Yeah.
- [26:18]
Jonquin Hill
Is this just a fact of life now? Like, I don't know, are we all gonna have stuff we're embarrassed about online and we just have to live with it? Like, is that just. It's like. Well, them's the breaks, you know, I. I think so.
- [26:34]
Amelia Knott
Right. The advice to try and do an audit of. Of your digital footprint isn't actually all that. That useful. Right. The. The record of us online is pretty hard to scrub completely. So I think it's kind of like being a person with just, like, a lot of tattoos. You're probably not gonna love the one you got when you were 18, right?
- [26:54]
Jonquin Hill
Yeah.
- [26:55]
Amelia Knott
And instead of thinking of it as, oh, my gosh, I'm in this, like, prison of my own body with all these dumb. These dumb images, thinking about it instead. Like, I have this record of a time and a place and what I thought was cool, what my aesthetic sensibilities, you know, looked like, what was important to me at that time, and it's. It's like a scrapbook. But if we hold everything we've ever said and everything we've ever posted online to the standard of our values in the present, the sociopolitical context we exist in, we're gonna find things to cringe at every time.
- [27:34]
Jonquin Hill
Is there a way to harness that bad feeling and use it for good?
- [27:39]
Amelia Knott
Hmm. I think there's a different kind of carefulness as we become more literate in just the power and vulnerability of showing up online. So that feels like a positive. But when it comes to like actually feeling ashamed, that core feeling of like I am bad, I think that's a place where we can get curious and, and try to bring in some more self compassion. I don't know if, if shame is ever really useful, but regret, I think can be, can be motivating to do better, to learn more, to research deeper when we're up against moments where we've been ignorant or have kind of spoken out of context.
- [28:27]
Jonquin Hill
That's it for this week. We're working on an episode about the winter blues. Do you get them? If you do, what are your tricks to make them go away? Give us a call at 1-800-618-8545 or email us@askvox.com if you like. This and other Vox podcasts, you can help us keep making them by becoming a Vox member. You'll get perks like Q&As with Vox reporters on our Patreon. Go to Vox.com members to learn more. This episode was produced by Dustin Desoto and Hadi Mwakdi. It was edited by Ginny Lawton and fact checked by Sarah Schweppe. Engineering was by Bridger Dunnigan. And our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy. I'm your host, Jonquin Hill. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you soon.
- [29:15]
E.J. Dixon
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