This Labor Day Weekend, I’m reading Trick Mirror! I’m absolutely loving this one, which I knew I would. ๐Ÿ“š๐Ÿ’›๐Ÿ’๐Ÿงก #whatimreading #beachday #nyc #trickmirror #jiatolentino

We always needed at least eleven likes on our Instagram posts, because that was when they would display as a number instead of a list of usernames. You hoped for more, but you deleted the post if there were less.

A few months ago, Instagram introduced a trial feature preventing users from seeing the number of likes on other userโ€™s posts. Even bypassing my inability to believe that tech companies would act out of anything other than self-interest, the experience of using Instagram has seemed no different to me. I never noticed how many likes anybody elseโ€™s posts had, I only cared about my own.

It is a truism to say that, growing up in a world where the internet has always existed, my generation, on the cusp of Millennial and Gen Z, have a crushing and constant awareness of themselves as some form of public figure, of each act as something that might be transmitted. โ€“ Adalya Nash Hussein