What will we have left?

We used to fight for a seat at the table. Now we fight to be seen at all. But in the age of virality, is our humanity quietly getting edited out of us?

taken by me in Santa Cruz, Ca

The fights we think we’re winning, because women now have platforms, because more voices are being heard, because we understand the value in creating more seats at the table, are actually masking something deeper. Something more invisible. But maybe we’re missing the new boxes they are trying to fit us inside. The ones built around virality and marketability and being the most palatable version of ourselves online. And we’re walking into them with open arms, handing the packing peanuts and tape over with disassociated smiles on our faces because this time, they’re disguised as freedom and progress.

We used to be conditioned to believe that women had to fight for the one seat at the table. That that’s just how it was. Because men ran the boardrooms, it made sense that we needed to take what we could get. So many of us believed it. That belief is how we ended up with “catty woman culture.” That belief is what led to entire movements about women supporting women and trying to figure out what that support really looks like. What it means. What it doesn’t.

And we’ve done the same thing with love. We (as in the collective we) thought, okay, relationships are ultimately about procreation. So love, deep, lasting, recognized love, was meant for a man and a woman. And most of the world nodded and said, “Yeah, that makes sense.” But we never stopped to consider that maybe it doesn’t. That love was never about procreation in the first place. That having children can happen in many ways. That love doesn’t require a specific set of parts. That gender isn’t about parts. That identity is expression. And expression is yours. Entirely your own.

So we fought. We still fight. Because those outdated ideas aren’t just old—they’re harmful. Violent, even. People are dying because of them. So we fight.

But what I want to introduce, what I want to name, is that I think something very similar is happening again, right now, right in front of us, and we don’t see the harm (overtly) because this new way of being makes sense in the world we’ve built. It makes sense given the landscape of the internet and how it’s evolved.

What I mean is this: shrinking to be relevant, morphing into online personalities, becoming brandable, thinking in content formats, ingesting and ingesting, more and more curated online experiences, it’s changing us, how could it not?

They say the best way to learn a new language fluently is to immerse yourself in where it’s spoken, i.e. the country/landscape of origin. I think we need to consider that this is exactly what’s happening with the language of the internet since social media took form. It’s changing how we relate to each other. It’s changing what we say, how we say it, what we prioritize, and what we even think is worth sharing. It’s changing how we date, what we talk about on dates, and how we feel safe (or not) in those spaces. We’re editing our sentences so they don’t have too many commas or em dashes because we don’t want people to think we’re AI. We’re over-correcting our speech patterns and our syntax because god forbid something gets misread. On Substack, the sweet spot is apparently three to four minutes of reading. And I’ve never written anything worth reading—true for me, in less than six.

So I start to wonder if I don’t fit. And if I don’t fit, do I need to shrink, to shift? Do I need to edit more? Because I want to be seen. I want to be accepted. I want to belong. But what if the thing I’m cutting out to belong is the exact thing that makes me human? What if our humanity is being edited right out of us and we’re smiling through it because atleast “I get to make a living from it and be my own boss”, right? It’s freedom wearing a new coat, but make sure it’s on brand not just that you like it.