Brett Cooper

We had been raised online.

I mean, every study that is done on the internet that is done on social media says that it is a bad thing, especially for developing mothers.

And yet that is where we landed.

And hand in hand with COVID, that helped drive a digital replacement for socializing.

But something else that we do not often touch on is how our culture has become obsessed with isolation.

Glamorizing isolation.

You know, focusing on self-care and ourselves versus building community.

We meme daily about canceling plans and not wanting to hang out with people.

Staying in, doom scrolling, sending your friends 1,600 Instagram reels before 9 p.m.

at night, watching Netflix, whatever it is.

In a great Reason Magazine article, author Emma Camp touched on all of this.

She wrote, For years, popular culture has been permeated with a deeply anti-party sentiment, an attitude that framed those eager to socialize as obnoxious and valorized staying home alone.

During my 2010s teenhood, BuzzFeed listicles and viral Tumblr posts reminded readers that introverts are tortured by small talk and portrayed extroverts as essentially mindless troglodytes.

Online, reams of memes revel in canceling plans and spending a Saturday night in one's pajamas and glued to Netflix.

COVID-19 only made things worse.

Lockdowns got millions of people out of the habit of regular in-person social interaction, and the ultra introverts suddenly had a moral justification for their unwillingness to socialize.

And guys, I want you to know I will be the first to say that I am guilty of all of that.

Like, you know, I make all these jokes about laying down.

I love being horizontal.

I love being in my pajama.