Interview: Jia Tolentino On The Internet, Optimization And Other Late Capitalist Woes

It's Been a Minute

NPR

Society & Culture, News, News Commentary, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2019

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Writer Jia Tolentino has a keen eye for processing bits of internet absurdity and telling readers what they say about us. The 'New Yorker' staff writer's new book, 'Trick Mirror,' examines several different systems that impact our lives through a series of nine deeply researched essays. Tolentino and Sam Sanders discuss growing up in church, putting your life on the internet and what happens when your life becomes a quest for optimization.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It seems like every week, one or two or three things happen on the internet that make
0:11.3	absolutely no sense to me.
0:13.8	The youths asking celebrities to step on their necks.
0:16.8	Yes, that is a thing.
0:18.4	The great fast food fried chicken war of 2019, all the feral hogs, I could go on.
0:25.0	My guest today has a really amazing skill.
0:27.3	You can take those bits of internet absurdity and tell us what all that craziness says about
0:32.1	us.
0:33.1	Her name is Gia Tolentino.
0:35.0	My name is Sam Sanders.
0:36.5	Today on It's Been a Minute from NPR, we talk about her new book.
0:42.2	So Gia, she is a staff writer at the New Yorker, former deputy editor at Jezebel, and
0:47.6	her new book, it's called Trick Mirror Reflections on Self-Dilusion.
0:52.4	It came out a few weeks ago and it's already sitting pretty high on the New York Times bestseller
0:56.7	list.
0:57.7	Trick Mirror is a book of nine deeply reported essays that attempt to make sense of our current
1:02.8	moment of internet insanity.
1:04.9	It is full of equal parts, questions and answers.
1:08.5	It makes sense with the capital S, more than a lot of other stuff I've read this year.
1:13.9	G and I talked about two weeks ago while she was on book tour, she was in DC, I was in
1:18.2	LA.
1:19.2	We bonded over our shared Texas roots and then we got down the business.
	...

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