This is how we Make America Read Again

Social media traps and the economy of attention are draining our last chance to find each other, and at the worst possible time

photo courtesy of Ali Vesey (heyalivesey dot com)

Recently, after holding our breath as we watched a single deranged and bitter person sign away a decade of trans progress in the United States, my husband and I decided to sell off our material lives completely and travel the country in an Airstream. The story is much longer than that, of course (which is why I wrote a whole article about it), but that’s the short version.

Immediately, the DMs started to roll in. Most were messages of support or solidarity, but there was another kind too, often from people we knew personally.

“I saw your post! Didn’t read the article. What does it say? Can you tell me the end?”

There’s a kind of allyship that is hard to answer, and this is it. Because when someone means well, you want to meet them where they’re at. No one who sent me a message like this was trying to drain the life from my body, and yet, all I wanted to do was yell back:

“If the end was the point, I would have started there! Just read it!”

It’s like how, as a trans person, the slew of “how are you” messages is becoming increasingly unbearable. It’s an ask that might come from a place of genuine concern, but many people don’t have the capacity to handle the real answer right now. All of us are treading water. And for people who aren’t living daily lives in a threatened identity, the anger and unsettled anxiety they’re carrying around often doesn’t feel earned, adding “guilt” to the list of emotions with which they’re reckoning.

And so a contradiction brews deep within: we want to help each other, but we’re trying to reach out with 30 more arms than we have.

And this is the fault of our current reality, yeah, but we felt this way in December too. And in November. And October…

And this is because there will always be something missing when the deepest connection and analysis in which we’re willing to invest caps out at 90 seconds. What we want from each other (and what we really need) can’t be captured in pastel carousels anymore. There is a pull inside of us to longer, in-depth, more connected “content.”

We have been microdosing information and parasocial connection for years. Now that we know what’s coming for us, it’s time to graduate to a (both collective and metaphorical) three day forest ayahuasca trip instead.

But finding room in our lives for long form publications will mean training our attention spans again. If we’re going to not just survive this but GROW through it, we have to change our strategy.

And that’s a problem, because many of us have “app fatigue.”

After the TikTok ban kerfuffle and Meta’s swift and guiltless shift to executive ring-kissing, there are almost too many suggestions for where we should all gather next:

“Are you on Bluesky? Rednote? WhatsApp? SmackTalk? Signal? Mastodon?”

I made one of those up.

I did my own platform soul searching recently, and there’s a reason I’m investing a handful of my chips in Substack.

Overcoming Demand Avoidance

If you’re reading this on Instagram, I have chopped it all up and glued it into a carousel. Each segment is divorced from the last. It’s bite-sized. Shareable. It’s a system designed not for digesting, but for displaying. I might be getting too pretentious here (writers, ammirite?), but I’ve been feeling like a chef working at a play kitchen for a long time. I’m not trying to trick you, I’m trying to connect with you. And I know how.

Long doesn’t mean inaccessible, either. Platforms like Substack have excellent digital voice readers for those of us who need or want to use them, and good writers will chunk larger works up with subheadings and images.

And listen, I know you’re busy.

I know, as it stands, you’re running from headline to headline desperate to put out one emotional wildfire after another. But when you chop your psyche into bits, you’re essentially armed with a turkey baster. Your body can’t take it forever.

People call this “doom scrolling,” but it’s worse than that. You are walking down an endless Sizzlers buffet of human misery. You are trapped at the bottom of an oubliette, and you are still digging.

PIVOT!

On Substack, I call this publication “The PIVOT Club” because, as lifelong public school teachers, my husband and I have a shared worldview that we distilled into a cute acronym, and we return to it whenever we’re feeling disconnected, dysregulated, and (frankly) shitty.

I won’t get into the whole multi-step process (we have a workshop about it if your curiosity is overwhelming), but the first stop is always P for PAUSE.

So slow the fuck down.

Hopping between a thousand rotten lily pads doesn’t help anyone, especially yourself. Take a second, slow your roll, and instead of letting a long article intimidate you, take it in pieces. Sit in some imagery. Close your eyes for a moment and put yourself there. Learn some context. Pay attention to how your perspective changes as you go. Find the kid in you who got excited at the book fair, who didn’t notice the sun had gone down until it was impossible to make the words out anymore.

There is anxiety in slowing down. Sometimes speed protects us.

I know we want to absorb everything. But when we try, we process nothing.

So how will I be using this platform moving forward?

I have been a writer for my entire life. Even before I wrote my book and published articles through traditional digital platforms, I spent a decade teaching writing as a craft to high schoolers. Before that, I wrote for my college paper. Before that, I tantalized fellow young adults with fanfiction scribbled in a shared notebook between classes. Finding a consistent way to have it in my life again isn’t just energizing, it’s life-giving.

And while I see so much potential in monetizing this chance, I’m also not a war profiteer.

There’s nothing more infuriating to me than seeing an article that could have an impact on my life, like

TRANS PEOPLE, THIS ONE STRATEGY COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE IF YOU GET PULLED OVER

Or

SUPREME COURT MAKES HISTORIC DECISION RE: GAY MARRIAGE

And reading just the first few sentences before a pop up interrupts at an integral moment:

You’ve reached your limit of free articles this month, please enter credit card info to continue…

Like price-hiking an AirBnB during the LA fires, I’m not about to screw over the people who trust me to not be evil. Enough of that is happening already.

I am going to offer paid subscriptions to some of my work, but nothing that you could ever describe as a “resource” is going to sit in a digital safe.

So I hope you join me. I think it’s worth it.

Here’s a sample of what you have to look forward to if you do:

• WTF do we do now: a step-by-step guide for assessing your queer DEFCON level right now

• Where are all the trans therapists?: how a 50 year-old system is putting our mental health in the wrong hands

• Gay enemies on the edge of the apocalypse: how small town politics turned some of us into bucket crabs

• Biting the hand that feeds me: why some nonprofits are evil, actually, and it’s never the ones you think

• How mushrooms unf*cked my gender: a story about psychedelics, inner knowings, and a very important tootsie pop

Xilo and I have put together a GoFundMe if you’d like to donate to our Airstream and the next step in our story

You can also pre-order my book, buy something we’ve made, or become a paid subscriber here on Substack.