Dispatches from the Empire


Your phone is why you don't feel sexy

...it’s safe to say, now that we’re more than thirty years into the great internet experiment, that our devices didn’t bring us closer together. They drove us further apart, deeper and deeper into our algorithmic hell holes. The proliferation of devices surrounding us at all times may help us “get in touch” with other people, sure, but they impede our ability to get in touch with ourselves. A “touch” screen would indeed seem to promise something tactile and real, but they leave us cold, tepid, and listless. Something is deeply wrong when we sext the same way we order a sandwich.

The purpose of the iPhone, as it was originally conceived, was to make our lives easier. And it undoubtedly has. What we didn't—and couldn’t—know at the time was the cost. In the beginning, being able to call a cab from your phone, having access to every song ever made, and ordering any product known to man while walking down the street felt amazing. Until it didn’t.

Today, everyone and everything is always available, and there’s nothing less sexy than that. There’s no chase. Our phones don’t allow us time to dwell, and they don’t allow us time to yearn. Why force yourself to daydream about the guy you’re seeing when you can easily look at dozens of photographs of him online? Why walk into a store in Soho and see what’s on offer when you can stay home and scroll the entire inventory from the comfort of your couch? Why go to the library to find books about a topic that interests you when you can look it up on Wikipedia in two minutes and move on with your day?

Instantaneous access to everything obviously comes at a cost. The cost being that we all behave like demented Roman emperors, at once bored and deranged, summoning whatever we want at any time.

Demented Roman emperors. That's exactly how I would describe Grindr.

To feel sexy, we need risk and spontaneity. Our phones kill both.

Preach, sister.