You're the robot

Do you guys remember Smarterchild? That thing was MAGIC circa 2006. And this Vice history of AIM's best chatbot made me feel a bit nostalgic for it. So, in search of an adequate replacement, I clicked over to Cleverbot for a quick chat. I think the bots are getting sentient, tho? And I'm not really into that.

1. What it's like to be a hot girl online (... when you're actually a nerdy dude). A 23-year-old programmer recently tried it out and concluded life was pretty good. It's an experiment that speaks to the weird, stubborn importance of *physical* appearance in the virtual world.

2. How faking happiness on Facebook can actually make you happy. Holly Elmore struggled with depression, but she posted as if her life were great. Through that process, she realized the Facebook version was the real one -- and her mental version fake.

3. I track, therefore I am. On the big psychological and philosophical questions surrounding the "self-quantification" trend.

IMPORTANT addendum/update to yesterday's letter:
that GIF was not fake, and the full video's even better.
(link)

Pocketable: A very frightening and bizarre account of the Internet's most aggressive troll. (4605 words/18 minutes)

Postscripts: Trumpsults. Horse tweeds. Shamrock shakes, explained. The Internet's most important people and its king of niche e-dates. Go home, already. Get this girl a puppy. I guess I want my avatar to have better clothes. Behold: This is the real reason social network feeds need filters. How the Celebgate hacker got those stolen nudes. How to find out who's ignoring your Facebook requests. Questions for the 1st Amendment in the age of the Internet. YouTube was first planned as a dating site, which ... lol. As if it didn't ALREADY have the comments section from hell.

See ya tomorrow!
@caitlindewey

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