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2016-12-02 · letter vlog · Rosianna Halse Rojas · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube · mode: Personal essay · tags: guest or collab, community lore

Guest host Rosianna Halse Rojas, filling in during Hank's paternity leave, describes logging off the social internet and argues that the internet is not intrinsically good or bad but unfinished infrastructure made of people that we keep building; she wonders whether platforms like Twitter were a shortcut that skipped the long hard work, and admits she doesn't know.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Rosianna introduces herself; she hit her limit of the social internet, logged off and felt better

  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna introduces herself as John's producing partner, John and Hank's secret sister, a YouTuber and an avid user of the internet. — 00:00:02 · Rosianna Halse Rojas, John Green, Hank Green, secret sibling, YouTube
  • ★★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says she recently hit her limit of the social internet: she scrambled her passwords, deleted apps and backed away, then read more books in a week than in the previous two months. — 00:00:11 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says that offline she was less anxious and less angry and communicated far better with friends about how she was actually doing. — 00:00:19 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says she is not claiming the internet is bad: she lives thousands of kilometres from most of her friends and loves seeing their updates. — 00:00:24 · Rosianna Halse Rojas

00:00:26 — The internet is not bad or intrinsically anything: a tool made of people; she defined herself through it; AOL days and a friend's theory; we're still building it

  • ★★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says the internet is not intrinsically anything: it is a tool and a system we use. (hedged) — 00:00:33 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Summing up a piece in Offscreen Magazine, Rosianna says the internet is not inherently one way but constantly changed by us, so we can change it for the better instead of adapting ourselves to its toxic parts. — 00:00:41 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says the internet seems made of code and clouds but is really made of people; like so much, it comes back to community. — 00:00:51 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says she was reluctant to step back because she had defined herself through the internet and defended the joy of meeting strangers and making things with people you will never meet. — 00:00:58 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna relays a friend's suggestion that the internet's murkiness comes from it not being designed to hold so many people; in her early AOL days fewer were online and they built it together, rather than entering a ready-made internet like IKEA furniture. (hedged) — 00:01:13 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says she struggles to believe that theory: we are still building the internet, there are voices we aren't hearing and still work to do. (hedged) — 00:01:39 · Rosianna Halse Rojas

00:01:46 — The West Wing's unfinished pyramid: the internet is unfinished infrastructure we will change

  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna recalls a West Wing scene in which Jeff has Josh look at the incomplete pyramid on a dollar bill: the seal is unfinished because the country is meant to be unfinished and keep doing better. — 00:01:46 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says, idealistically but sincerely, that the internet is not a buried bunker but infrastructure: as humans learn what helps people, the internet will change and we will change it. — 00:01:57 · Rosianna Halse Rojas

00:02:15 — Against easy answers; start by not knowing; logging off as an intentional choice instead of the automatic 'nothing state'

  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says many people now claim to know the right answer about the internet, but breaking humanity down into bullet-point lists or alphas and betas contradicts everything humans have shown. (hedged) — 00:02:15 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna suggests we start by not knowing; what helped her was realizing how long it had been since she logged off, an intentional decision about her online behaviour rather than a passive one. (hedged) — 00:02:28 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says that opening her computer she is often on automatic (Twitter feed, inbox, calendar), in a 'nothing state' where she is plasticine, and asks who she is handing it to. (hedged) — 00:02:42 · Twitter, Rosianna Halse Rojas

00:02:53 — Zadie Smith on social platforms; Invisibilia's Rwanda episode; was Twitter a shortcut that didn't quite work; she doesn't know; sign-off

  • ★★ Zadie Smith (quoted): Rosianna quotes Zadie Smith in Lenny Letter: feelings need vertical depth, and many social platforms provoke feelings she doesn't enjoy, from being falsely puffed up to being hurt or infuriated. — 00:02:55 · Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna relays an Invisibilia episode, recommended by John: Rwanda passed legislation requiring equal representation in government, but it did not necessarily improve gender inequality across the country. — 00:03:12 · John Green, Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna wonders whether Twitter was a shortcut that didn't quite work, and whether we need more long hard work to get its benefits, like hearing more voices and community organizing, instead of seeing the pyramid as complete. (speculative) — 00:03:28 · Twitter, Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★ Rosianna Halse Rojas: Rosianna says the truth is she doesn't know, and she is curious to hear John's thoughts. (unsure) — 00:03:53 · John Green, Rosianna Halse Rojas

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says Rosianna fills in for Hank during his paternity leave to talk about logging off and the internet as a work in progress. — video description · Rosianna Halse Rojas, Hank Green
  • ★ The description lists further reading: Invisibilia's 'Outside In', Zadie Smith in Lenny Letter, and Offscreen. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Internet · Rosianna Halse Rojas

Also: People: Zadie Smith

Works: Invisibilia · The West Wing

Organizations: AOL · IKEA · Lenny Letter · Offscreen Magazine · Twitter · YouTube

Terms: secret sibling

Concepts: gender inequality · Intellectual humility

Places: Rwanda

Also centred on Internet: Watermelon Internet Trolls · WE WON! Net Neutrality and Re-Thinking Cynicism · 19 Ways to Not Suck on the Internet · Is YouTube Good for Humanity? · History Is Happening · LEAVE IT IN 2017

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