I Can’t Stop

I hate your Instagram Stories. Not because they’re terrible, or because you’re terrible. Sometimes, I wish you were terrible. But you’re not. You’re fun, and beautiful, and present, and not pretentious. No. I’m wrong. I have to be. You’re not any of those things. This is all an act, isn’t it? Or it’s just all in my head. It has to be. You’re too perfect to be real.

I hate your makeup tutorials. You start out “fresh”, but there’s no way you just woke up. No way. Your pre-makeup face looks like you’re ready for a fashion shoot. I guess you are, but not for a magazine, just for a Live feed using your 11 Pro and a ring light. Even your tousled, messy up-do you just did on camera looks better than 90% of influencers pushing for me to buy their sponsored moisturizer that they’re “obsessed with” in their Stories. I mean, you do the same, and it’s incredibly annoying, but I can take it, because of that hair. So. Fuckin’. Cute. Your hair is incredible. Wait…are you pushing Monat? Please say you’re not pushing Monat.

Your “dress down” days in quarantine, with you slumming it in your Ramones t-shirt, pairing it with a pleated, flow-y skirt. Pointing your phone to the floor, you walk barefoot with perfect manicured toes (in Zoya “Raven”) from the kitchen to the living room, which seems like enough steps to reach the default Apple Watch fitness goal. You narrate as you go, your voice echoing in this cavernous mansion, reflecting off the off-white walls and off-white flooring. You’re going stir crazy, you explain. I don’t know if I could go stir crazy in a house that has areas named “South Wing” or “Mezzanine” or “Guest House”, but that’s me. I’ve been spending my quarantine time in a 10 ft x 10 ft room, on a hand-me-down couch that has such compressed foam in its cushions, I’m literally sitting on a brown microfiber-covered wooden frame. Sometimes, in between the deflated cushions, I’ll find a crumb of something I have never eaten. I don’t even like Honey Bunches of Oats. Yes, I’ve vacuumed this thing. Multiple times. Multiple times in a day. You’d never have mystery Honey Bunches of Oats in your couch cushions. You said last week you only eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

I hate when you show your daughter. Your daughter is very cute, and acts like a normal kid. And by “normal kid”, I mean someone who is ready to give a TED Talk on being ‘present’ during this time of quarantine. Her ideas and tips are sound…which makes me think a five year old didn’t write them. Maybe she’s six. You tiptoe past her her room with your front-facing camera, finger in front of your lips, as you caption in your story how your daughter is quietly playing by herself, and you want to sneak past her bedroom without disturbing her playtime. But I want you to disturb her. I want to see her laugh or scream or cry or throw a tantrum. Because she’s 6. That’s what they do. They don’t give seminars on the benefits of self-care during a pandemic.

I love your cooking tutorials. I love them. Because, finally, I can see your flaws. I can see that you’re human. I can see that you have no fuckin’ idea what you’re doing in the kitchen. You seem a bit confused, and unsure, as you follow the recipe directions, reading them from an off-camera iPad. And you capture all this with your phone, for everyone to see, while trying so hard to pretend that you’re not capturing it at all. You’re so used to being on camera, that anyone who pays attention can see your little glances directly into the phone’s camera lens, followed by you forcing yourself not to flash that perfect smile, tongue pressing behind your front teeth. I genuinely LOL (it’s more of a guffaw) whenever I watch these cooking Stories, because, holy shit, I can cook better than you. You are shitty. I am good. Yes, I’m petty, but come on. Give me something. I’m not beautiful, or blonde, or young, or white. I don’t have half a million followers; I don’t live in a mansion, nor do I run a successful lifestyle blog/women’s accessories business/strategic partner for fashion and lifestyle brands aimed specifically at young white women of privilege. Who else is buying a denim jumpsuit for $149? But I know how to make cookies without following a recipe. And I know that if you’re mixing one cup of heavy cream, one cup of milk, eight egg yolks, and two cups of sugar for an ice cream base, you can’t fit that all in the bowl you eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch out of. One cup is eight ounces. That Crate & Barrel cereal bowl holds eighteen ounces. I’m not beautiful, or blonde, or young, or white, but I can do arithmetic in my head. But there you are, looking as cute as ever, in that Ramones shirt, spilling ice cream base all over the granite countertop. Do you even like the Ramones? You don’t have to, you know. It doesn’t make you cool. Is this like how Urban Outfitters was selling Joy Division Unknown Pleasures shirts, so every person who’s never heard of Joy Division can proclaim that they love Joy Division? “Joy Division is one of my favorite artists. I love their graphic design work.” THEY DIDN’T DO IT. IT’S PETER SAVILLE. IT WAS ALL SAVILLE. Just get a bigger bowl already. You’re going to end up with only a half a cup of base going into the ice cream maker, at this rate.

I ironically love and sincerely hate that it took the death of a black man at the hands of a policeman, and subsequent protests where violent police officers brutalized hundreds of innocent people, and a million white people (including you) on Instagram posting a black square in support, for you to realize that you’re a privileged white woman who built up a company that didn’t even consider that BIPOC, that people other than people who look exactly like you, would visit your website. It took weeks of rioting to bring attention to police brutality on Black people for you to even admit that you’ve never carried or even considered carrying products created by Black-owned businesses, and that you’ve never hired any Black employees, ever. But now you’ve changed, at least that’s what the Instagram posts say. You finally understand your privilege, and your ignorance about racism, and you’re going to do something about it, outlined in bulleted points in a blog post. Is it wrong for me to be skeptical? Am I jaded? Of course I am. I’ve just heard so many of these words from white people, how they’re going to change, and how “it’s not going to be like that anymore”, and how “things will be different”. Too many times, I’ve seen those words morph into declarations of “there’s no racism anymore”, “I haven’t seen anyone be racist like that in so long”; and these statements only show themselves after years have passed, where nothing happened, where nothing changed. White people are so quick to acknowledge that something they’ve never experienced has disappeared.

I love your Sunday Stories. I love your dumb mommy blogger-esque “Sunday Funday”, where you make pizza and watch a kid-friendly movie, just you and your family. I hate to break it to you, but pretty much everyday could be Sunday Funday for you; your job is posting to Instagram daily. Make pizza every night! You have all the time in the world to terribly knead that pizza dough. Also, it’s so cute and white and refreshingly not “foodie” that you just discovered a great topping for pizza: goat cheese. I do have something to tell you, though: Grease is not a kid-friendly movie. I just had this discussion with my sister, as we thought about how our parents let us watch that in the theater when it came out. I also have fond memories of being 4 years old, sinking into a fold-down movie theater seat, drinking a little can of Mott’s apple juice that my mom snuck in for me, as my family watched Saturday Night Fever, which contains a rape scene, as well as a suicide. But man, that John Travolta could really move, you know? What four year old wouldn’t enjoy that?

Tell me, though. What do I do? I can’t stop. I see that damn red-orange gradient ring around your face, and I have to touch it. I have to see these Stories. You don’t even know that I look at them. Do people who have thousands of people viewing their Stories even look to see who is viewing their Stories? Or is that a thing that only sad sacks like me, who get less than fifty views, do? And do people who get thousands of views on their Stories even bother looking at other people’s Stories? Maybe you are so focused on your own content, you just don’t have time to look at anyone else’s. I’ve never seen your name in my list of Stories viewers; that’s fine. Or maybe it’s not? I don’t know…a part of me feels that if I’m viewing your Stories, you should at least look at mine. It’s a common courtesy gesture. But that doesn’t even happen with people I know IRL, with actual friends. I once posted a meme in Stories that said “How are you supposed to fall in love with me if you don’t even look at my Stories??” But it’s true, right?? How are you supposed to understand my child-like wonder and appreciation of the world when you can’t even be bothered to look at the screenshot I took of a Three’s Company episode I watched last night? I look at all your goddamn stuff! Oh, a pic of your morning latte. Do you think that actually interests me? I DON’T EVEN DRINK COFFEE. I sit there for five seconds, watching a still of a coffee cup because it’s your coffee cup. This is what people do. If you’re interested in someone, you support what they do, and you view what they post. It’s a peek into their life, and it makes you, me, all of us, really, feel like we’re closer to them, like we relate to them. I know. I don’t relate to you at all. I’m an expert in making up stories in my head of how, if we would ever meet, we would have some witty conversation, something that could be penned by Amy Sherman-Palladino. I would rib you about the “vintage” carpet runner bought for your hallway, and how it looks like something a college kid left in a dumpster in the alley. And you would ask me if I remember that one episode where the Ropers met Mr. Furley. I would start to explain the episode…and then realize from the grin on your face that you literally have no idea what I’m talking about, and you just asked me that to reveal the sitcom nerd in me. I would take a sip from a cup of coffee that I don’t drink, as you talk about your latest foray into baking: biscuits. Oh! But I know why the biscuits didn’t rise. It’s because you used a drinking glass to cut them out. I saw you do it in your Stories. You need a sharp, thin cutting edge so you don’t compress and pinch the biscuit dough layers. It’s okay, just make them again, and post the video in your Stories. You know I’ll always view your Stories.