Chapter 1: What controversial online posts do we regret?
This is probably my most controversial take, and I will probably regret posting this online.
I thought I could just post that stuff, get famous, and then, you know, move on. Nobody ever lets me forget it.
The odds are you've said something you probably don't want to see the light of day. The internet is this archive of all these different versions of ourselves. There's the teenage fan. I was really into the Twilight books.
So there is a lot of stuff about how much I love Twilight that is still on the internet if you Google me.
The pundit.
Years ago when Black Lives Matter first started up, I posted something about all lives matter. And I feel really stupid about it. I've definitely come a long way.
Or if you're me, there's the reporter for your college TV station. Virginia, it's not just for lovers anymore.
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Chapter 2: How does the internet archive our past selves?
Now it's also for presidential candidates. I was absolutely dressing for the job I wanted. I've got a power suit, pearls, poorly applied makeup, add in the shaky camera work, and wow. Old Dominion State, along with New Hampshire, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada make up the nine battleground states that may decide this election. I know you know this feeling.
And if you're Gen Z or a millennial, you've got it bad. We've preserved basically every stage of our lives online. Every crush, every night out, every ill-informed opinion. Now, I'm not talking about offensive stuff that'll get you canceled. I'm talking about all the other old stuff. Those mementos of past you that make present you cringe. For Spotlight Network, I'm Jonquilin Hill.
And this week on Explain It to Me from Vox, online regret and what to do about it.
Hi, my name is EJ Dixon, and I am a senior writer for The Cut at New York Magazine.
EJ recently wrote an article called The Most Embarrassing Thing I've Ever Written. It's about something she published back in 2016.
So the article that I wrote about for that piece was an essay I wrote called, it's embarrassing to even say the headline, Why I Want Donald and Melania's Marriage.
What did you mean by that when you said, oh, this is the marriage I want?
Well, OK, so some context. I had just gotten engaged at the time. So something I was thinking a lot about was compatibility and the way that two people can sort of craft an ideal partnership for themselves. And there was a lot of talk at the time because Trump had either just won the nomination or was about to win the nomination.
about Trump and Melania and there was a lot of scrutiny on their marriage and a lot of questions as there are questions today about their marriage and how they make it work because she is never around and sort of like recedes in the background and people were very confused about that.
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Chapter 3: What embarrassing things have we shared online?
Where was Melania? Everyone's asking, where's Melania?
We don't see you that often. You're not on the campaign trail. How do you feel about campaigning?
Well, it's my choice not to be there. I support my husband 100%.
And I guess the argument I was trying to make was that this is a dynamic that works for them, even if we don't necessarily understand it on the surface, like that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't work for them. But I think that the way it was framed was probably the most reductionist way, an embarrassing way possible. And obviously, I mean, it aged like milk.
So I'm talking about like how much I hate the Trumps and how gross I find their marriage and how like I don't want my marriage to be anything like that. But then I have this caveat.
And yet I can't help but admire how the Trumps have settled on a clearly defined division of labor in their marriage, how both partners have negotiated their terms to carve out their own spaces for each other and for themselves. To me, the Trumps represent not the 21st century ideal of an equal-footed feminist relationship, but a more complicated and, frankly, interesting conception of marriage.
That two people can enter a partnership carving out specific roles and maintain a harmonious domestic balance accordingly. They are not two halves of the same whole, so much as they are two complementary pieces in a 1,200-piece jigsaw puzzle reproduction of an abstract expressionist painting. That last sentence is, like, that's a very cringe sentence to write about the fucking Trumps.
But, like, I agree with that, you know? Because they're still, how long have they been married?
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Chapter 4: How do our past opinions affect us today?
Yeah, I mean, they're still together. They're making it work. And marriage, at the end of the day, is about, like, making it work however the fuck you can. Yeah. So I still stand by that. And I think I'm actually surprised in retrospect by how nuanced and sophisticated that insight was, considering how stupid I was.
Yeah. What about the piece is embarrassing? Is it just about the Trump of it all or is it anything more?
It is about the Trump of it all. But I think beyond the Trump of it all, it's reflective of a certain era of the Internet. It was a product of an era of the internet that was very click-baity, I think, where every headline was kind of demanding as much attention as possible. It was the era of the Facebook algorithm.
where all of the headlines were like, the one reason why you should care about Chrissy Teigen's postpartum depression or something like that. And I feel like why I want Donald and Melania's marriage was very much in that tradition. So it's a little cringe and embarrassing in that respect, that I was sort of playing the game. But it was also an era of the internet that was very earnest.
And I write something in the piece that I wrote for The Cut that cringe is sort of – there's a formula for cringe, which is, like, earnestness plus vulnerability plus underlying insecurity equals cringe. And at the time, like, I considered myself a very staunch feminist and a very staunch leftist.
And I was a little insecure about the fact that, like, I was about to get married and, like, enter this –
You were about to do the patriarchy.
Exactly. Yeah. And I was and I was insecure about that. And I was sort of like I could see myself like on the page trying to like justify it to myself because it was something that I was like insecure about. And rereading it like that was very cringe to me, like seeing my insecurities about my identity.
impending marriage and whether or not it was quote-unquote feminist, like, refracted in Donald and Melania Trump of all people. Like, it's just really stomach-turning and, like, embarrassing to read in retrospect. Like, why did I think this was anybody's business?
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Chapter 5: What did EJ Dixon learn from her cringe-worthy article?
And, you know, I didn't center myself in my work anymore. And I think that really benefited me both as a writer and, like, as a person. Yeah. The thing that happens to everybody when they move from their 20s to their 30s, like in their personal life, happened to me as a writer as well. Like I just became, you know, professionally and personally, like I just shifted away from that.
Which I think was very beneficial. I think that there is something about that era of the Internet that I am nostalgic for and really miss. And, like, when we talk about it, we usually make fun of it. But I think there are things about it that we should appreciate. Everything I see about the way people talk about themselves on the Internet today is so...
intricately curated and branded, and there's so much thought put into it. It's not like you can just go on LiveJournal and like, you know, blog about your period anymore and just hit post. There's just so much more work put into it. You can't just go on main and be messy. I can't even remember the last time I've seen a genuine crash out on TikTok or Instagram.
And if there is, everybody just makes fun of that person. And I, yeah, I just wish that there was more space on the internet for like genuine earnestness and vulnerability. Like even if it is cringe, even if it is messy, like we should be making room for that. We should be celebrating that.
Do you ever wish you could delete that past self from the internet though? Of course.
You're like, yes, absolutely. Of course I do. I mean, I know that's not like the right answer. I know that's not like what I should say, but I know I should say like, no, I would like to preserve it in amber and like, cause it's, it's imperfect, but it's beautiful. But no, there are like a million things I wish I could delete.
So you've got something embarrassing out there online. You could delete it, but should you? That's next. Support for Today Explained comes from Grow Therapy. Grow Therapy wants to help. They say they can help you get a therapist who gets you, and they can find one way easier and faster than traditional methods.
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