Jenna Wortham

“The American understanding of China is filtered through years of politics; we rarely see the culture on its own terms.”

“It wasn't always easy - getting dumped by my female friends for their newfound boyfriends, husbands, girlfriends stung; I felt like a jilted lover, heartbroken and wondering what I'd done wrong. But it was also easier to forgive them, to accept what time and energy they were willing to offer, even if it was less than what I wanted.”

“Perhaps all of us have come to rely too deeply on machinery and software to be our allies without wondering about the cost: the way technology doesn't fix problems without creating new ones.”

“We are being conditioned, as a population, to never wait, to never delay our gratification, to accept thoughtless, constant consumption as the new norm. But how we think about consumption and willpower carry enormous implications for the environment and the culture of society as a whole.”

“It's becoming much more common to see yoga studios offer classes aimed exclusively at people of color who are searching for ways to cope with racism and fears around police brutality.”

“Spotify, Tidal, and even YouTube, to a degree, are vast and rich troves of music, but they primarily function as search engines organized by algorithms. You typically have to know what you're looking for in order to find it.”

“The web's earliest architects and pioneers fought for their vision of freedom on the Internet at a time when it was still small forums for conversation and text-based gaming. They thought the web could be adequately governed by its users without their needing to empower anyone to police it.”

“A governing ethos of the Internet has been that whatever flows through it - information, ideas - is up for grabs.”

“The Internet is especially adept at compressing humanity and making it easy to forget there are people behind tweets, posts, and memes.”

“The radical power of 'queer' always came from its inclusivity. But that inclusivity offers a false promise of equality that does not translate to the lived reality of most queer people.”

“For many years, taking care of myself consisted of showering and showing up to work on time. Sleeping and eating were inconveniences at best.”

“Best-friend tattoos require so much prep work, which adds to their legitimacy. First, a friendship must be deep enough to warrant the rite; then the perfect symbol must be found to forge the bond.”

“The more films and TV shows I spoil for myself, the more I am convinced that truly interesting stories can't be ruined - the plot thickens with the viewing like a rich sauce.”

“The fact that I live in New York, a city that thrives on accessibility, might explain why I was slow to grasp the appeal of Alexa. Here we have bodegas on every corner, most open 24 hours, in case you need to pick up a roll of toilet paper or a bottle of hot sauce in the middle of the night.”

“The speed with which modern society has adapted to accommodate the world's vast spectrum of gender and sexual identities may be the most important cultural metamorphosis of our time.”

“SoundCloud took a community-first approach to building its business, prioritizing finding artists to post on its service over making deals with music labels to license their music, the approach taken by Spotify.”

“I live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan, two of the most liberal places in the country.”

“As Twitter allows you to curate who shows up in your stream - you only see the people you follow or seek out, and those they interact with - users can create whatever world of people they want to be a part of.”

“I'm not ashamed to admit that for many years, most of my fitness information came from a VHS series by MTV called ''The Grind Workout.''”

“The Internet has become the go-to place to toss out ideas in the hope that they could lead to a job, but it has also become the place where people go to find the best ideas, creating a lopsided dynamic that tends to benefit people in power.”