Watch out for Wikipedians
In this week's edition: forensic astrologers, spiritual consultants, protest video aesthetics and yogi real-estate rackets
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Like most good feminists, I entered marriage with a certain set of preconditions. The most important of these involved names: My future husband and I would both change them. My last name is Dewey. His is Rainwater. Together we’d be the Dewey Rainwaters, like some sort of downmarket hotel shampoo. It was very clever and very progressive and — in short order! — very regrettable.
First, and I might have predicted this, no one applied the dual surname to Jason. If they did, they acted like they were doing me personally a big favor, indulging in this youthful caprice we would suuuuurely roll back when we had children.
Second — and again, predictable — people often interpreted *my* dual surname as a needless honorific to abbreviate at will. Rarely to Ms. Dewey, of course. God forbid!!
But the one thing I could not have predicted was the Wikipedia Incident. In December 2018, a user named Milowent — “on hiatus as I pursue my career as a Soundcloud rapper” — began writing through my very brief and unnecessary online biography to change all its references to … Rainwater. “Rainwater writes for the Buffalo News,” it now says. “Rainwater was the food policy writer.” And this is Wikipedia, so of course that all filters out into Google Knowledge box and who-knows-what-other internet corners.
(You may be asking: Why does this random person even have a page? She is not very notable! And reader, you are entirely correct. One suspects they’ve run out of material.)
Anyway, notability aside, I think about the Incident more often than I should. I could fix it, probably, though editing one’s own Wikipedia page is apparently a breach of etiquette on par with leaving porn or shopping or job-search sites up during a shared-screen Zoom. I so love and appreciate the symbolism of it, though: the dumb uphill fight to shield, from busybody imposition or intervention, this one very fundamental fact about my ~married~ self. I recommend marriage, really! It’s nice. But watch out for Wikipedians…
P.S.: While we’re on the subject of names, you may also notice a change to this one. It was (jokingly! and temporarily) called “Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Quarantined” … I have since changed it back to the OG “Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends.” Onward!
If you read anything this weekend
This mind-boggling tale of debt, greed, yoga and a Brooklyn real estate racket. Come for the viral internet shitshow; stay for the surprisingly incisive explainer of our truly upside-down housing market. I love when New York mag returns to the scenes of these big viral messes everyone else promptly forgot; this, with its deeply hate-able subjects and endless human drama, is truly a classic of the genre. [New York magazine]
This essay on the ethics and aesthetics of protest videos, which often have no “characters” or narrative structure. That makes them more honest, in a sense, but also more open to manipulation. [The Verge]
This meditation on grief, loss and hope by the author Jesmyn Ward. Everyone you know has already tweeted this link, because it really is that beautiful. (Among other things, I learned a new word from reading this: respair, the “return of hope after a period of despair,” which I hope to have occasion to use more often…) [Vanity Fair]
This eye-rolly profile of the “spiritual consultants” consecrating capitalism. Truly nothing speaks to the psychic emptiness of modern life/work like the former divinity students hawking “funerals” for cancelled projects and “rituals” for Zoom. [New York Times]
And now for something completely different
Postscripts
What political databases know about you. Why political books all look the same. I know this is quite the superlative, but: This is the *actual* dumbest meme. We’re all socially awkward now. What happened to bubblegum pop music. Networking sucked enough IRL, thanks — don’t think we need an online version!
The “forensic astrologers” helping (?) to solve crimes. The fascinating truth behind the “pied piper.” 72 years of Ikea catalogs and 22 years of “digital gardens.” Last but not least, in this week’s ever-uplifting edition of things-that-may-never-recover-after-the-pandemic: the “hidden” $3-trillion office economy, and the unwitting work-from-home generation.
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— Caitlin