The internet’s last great myth is finally dead

The 2010s are defined by our total absorption into the digital. Engaging online quickly became a necessary part of being a person. “As more people began to register their existence digitally, a past time turned into an imperative: you have to register digitally to exist,” journalist Jia Tolentino writes. With that, she said, came the commodification of self, which keeps us endlessly tethered to the web, either as a means of self-promotion or as a way of feeding the human compulsion to connect. As we’ve remained here, our internet selves have grown more robust. They are more than just usernames and passwords and web addresses and credit card numbers. They are our opinions, a #mood, a list of likes and muted channels. They are our phone numbers and where our packages are delivered and what time we go to sleep at night. We have sent these perfect little representatives into the cloud to prove our existence and in the process made ourselves infinitely knowable to friends, fans, haters, and massive global corporations.