Can Substack Save Our Attention Span?
On becoming local and known in our online spaces instead of the abyss of virtual anomie
When I was 11, there was a bookmarked page on the browser I checked every day. At one point, this had been Webkinz and Club Penguin, but as I suffered through the hell that is the preteen experience of 7th grade, another website became my joy—The Girls in The Beauty Department, a blog of Glamour Magazine.
We can discuss some other time why this blog and the idea of beauty in junior high might matter so much to a pimply, anxious girl like myself, but that is not the point of today’s article. The point is the experience of content on the internet, and what it was like to read online when the expanse was not an endless treadmill of content, but just a couple places one frequents.
It is not an unusual thing for people to romanticize the experience of small town life, here in the physical world. The idea of knowing who lives around these parts, who owns the downtown diner, and the best person to ask about a good mechanic are the fodder of romantic Hallmark movies at this time of year. I’m not the first, nor the best, to talk about the positive parts of being local, being a regular. We long to be known, in our cities or towns, at work, in community. I think, on the internet, I feel that same longing some times.