The final days of December have arrived, signaling the commencement of my meticulous goal-setting and digital decluttering spree. Cue the reflective journal entries, vision boards, Notion reconfiguration, and browser cleanup. The last of these is tedious—if you’re anything like me, it means finally tackling all of those open tabs and reading the articles you’ve been saving for “when I have more time.”
I read 18 books this year, surpassing last year’s number of titles, but have no way of accounting for the myriad of online essays I digested. I did, however, log my favorites. The list expanded after this week’s binge and I’ve surfaced with ten top picks. These works are the jewels of Internet literature and represent a tier of writing that transcends that of mainstream content. Evocative, artful, and thought-provoking, I promise they are worth your while.
“On the Grid: How Surveillance Became a Love Language” by Zoë Hitzig
Technology companies have so thoroughly conditioned us to believe we are powerless when it comes to digital privacy that our attitudes toward privacy more broadly have also been warped. Just as in the era of the PATRIOT Act the national security state insisted that it was virtuous, even patriotic, to give in to the intelligence machine, tech culture now ascribes its own virtues to the forfeiture of privacy: realness and connection. Where we once guarded our control over personal information, we now give up control not just freely but even tenderly…
“How Empathy Makes Us Cruel and Irrational” by Gurwinder Bhogal
On 20th August 1989, 21 year-old Lyle Menendez and his 18 year-old brother Erik burst into their parents’ Beverly Hills mansion, and shot them dead…Next month, the brothers will attend a hearing that could finally see them freed.
The problem is, the brothers are not actually victims. They’re liars and murderers. And the only reason they now have widespread support is that culture and technology have turned empathy into an emotionally transmitted disease that debilitates thought…
“From Goldman Sachs Trader to Parking Lot Striper” by Isaiah Baker
90 days ago I was a vice president in Goldman Sachs’ Equity Division in NYC. Running a derivatives trading book of over $20bn dollars in notional value that had made Goldman hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Yesterday, I installed 90 parking stalls and 7 directional arrows in an industrial lot for a roofing company in South Florida…
“The Invisible Man: Homelessness in America” by Patrick Fealey
This is part of your rejection, this fear that it could be you. You deny that reality because it is too horrific to contemplate, therefore you must deny us. And the moneyed reject us because they know they create us, that we are a consequence of their impulse to accumulate more than they need, rooted in a fear of life and the death that comes with it…
“Is There a Crisis of Seriousness?” by Ted Gioia
Fake is our leading candidate for word of the century. It captures almost everything relevant now in a single syllable. You have to give Susan Sontag some credit, the inflection point in accelerating fakeness happened almost exactly when she complained about the collapse in seriousness in the mid-1990s. Here’s the scariest part of the story: Most of this is by design…
“Five medical breakthroughs in 2024” by Saloni Dattani
Omalizumab (originally for asthma) and xanomeline (originally tested for Alzheimer’s) were successfully repurposed for new uses, highlighting that breakthroughs don’t always require brand-new molecules — sometimes just a new application. Researchers know this, of course, and occasionally, the process of screening existing drugs leads to new repurposing…
“the end of our extremely online era” by Tommy Dixon
I hope we look at social media one day as we look at cigarettes now: "You still scroll? Really?? Like… don't you know how bad it is for you?"
And smartphones return to their proper proportion: as tools to enhance our lives, not these pocket-sized touch screen pacifiers.
“Why modern life feels meaningless” by Omar Najjarine
In America, much of our discourse centers on rights—our right to free speech, our right to privacy, our right to property, and so on. These rights are often seen as inherent, needing no justification beyond one’s existence. For a Confucian, however, the idea of rights is closely tied to one’s role and contributions within the community. Rights must be earned, not merely claimed. To lay claim to certain rights, one must first prove themselves a worthy member of the social order…
“your fave is selling a pedophilic fantasy: sabrina carpenter doesn't mind being your ‘sexy baby’” by Jade Hurley
Seeing a small woman, in a childhood bedroom, decked out in full lingerie brings up all sorts of cultural touch points: American Beauty, Cruel Intentions, The Virgin Suicides, and yes, Lolita. The Skims and Sabrina Carpenter machines are selling our own obsession with youth sexuality back to us, and telling us it’s empowering…
“The machine in the garden.” by Emily Sundberg
Many of the Substacks I follow use these big, figurative words that don’t really make sense in an attempt to go viral, which on this platform means getting subscribers and notes and comments. It’s like there’s this internet language that “works” for engagement (literal language, but also sense of style, and a range of trending topics to touch upon) but it all coagulates together and creates a whitewashed, boring internet. A friend pointed out that even these peoples’ bad days look the same — it’s never “I thought about killing my boss,” or “My group dinner the other night made me super anxious but I posted it on Instagram anyway,” it's always like, “wallowing, languishing, reading by the lake, journaling, feeling blue by the window.”
Thank you for being here to encourage my own writing. I’m looking forward to exploring more ideas together in the new year.
Talk soon!
With love,
Emma