Leigh Stein on the bygone days of girl-boss social media

This month, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States finally brought a long-awaited antitrust court case against Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC is arguing that Meta has a monopoly on the social networking space, which has squandered competition in the market. Critics point out that this might have been the case a decade ago, before TikTok entered the scene, but is simply no longer true. That Facebook no longer has a monopoly on digital friend networks is not the only erstwhile stereotype about social media. In the bygone era before "President Trump" was a real thing, social media was a land of promise and opportunity, filled with "girl boss" memes and alleged commitments to social capitalism. But in the years since, much of that naive whimsy has flown out the window, and nobody believes the tech giants are anything but capitalist overlords. A similar awakening strikes the main character of Self Care, a satirical novel by Leigh Stein that came out in 2020, which focuses on the virtue signalling of a fictional tech company. With Meta in the spotlight again, and with The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, having recently read Sarah Wynn-Williams's Careless People (which is, in essence, the real-life memoir version of Stein's novel), we wanted to bring Stein on to discuss the slow evolution of social media between the two Trump administrations and what we can learn about the ways in which social media manipulates our beliefs and emotions in an effort to keep us endlessly scrolling on. Related Links Learn about Leigh Stein's forthcoming novel, If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You Read Phoebe's column on Careless People in The CJN Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer & editor) Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to The Jewish Angle