FRIENDS ON THE INTERNET: SEASON TWO

Well, well, well...

In the immortal words of Madison Montgomery: Surprise, bitch! 

Honestly, I thought I had wrapped up this project. I only ever meant to write about season one of Catfish, and I never even got around to covering the season one reunion episode because things just felt finished, you know? (Also I forgot.)

Not to mention, this was my pandemic hobby, and now that I am vaxxed and waxed and ready to party (ew, sorry) I no longer want to be associated with my pandemic self. That person was sad, and she ate way too much hummus. 

But it turns out I am not done. (S)hot girl summer looms, and I am anxious.

The reason I started this Substack was because I was interested in writing about loneliness - its reach, its symptoms, its incomprehensibility to those who do not experience it - and because it felt like people were finally talking about loneliness. It felt like, at least for me, we had all been given permission to tell people we were lonely, and! That we had a reasonable expectation that the other person would understand. Such was the nature of quarantine. I was also fascinated by the people who felt serious illness and even death was a small price to pay not to be lonely, who considered lockdown to be more hazardous to their health than COVID, and how we all felt about that (*cough* Naomi Wolf *cough*).

I kept thinking: are we ever going to acknowledge how lonely our lives were before all of this?

And then I thought: Catfish.

Inevitably our lives have been bisected into before the pandemic and after the pandemic, and as we approach the after (or, as some people prefer to put it, “return to normal life,” as if such a thing were possible or desirable) I am curious about and fearful of what happens when a bunch of us find ourselves in rooms together again. Hurt people hurt people, as the saying goes. Will we? Why? 

People respond to adverse circumstances in bizarre ways. Sometimes they become liars, grifters, or brutes. Sometimes they become saintlike, empathetic, wise creatures when it would have been much easier to become a liar or a grifter or brute. 

I, of course, believe that the best way to learn about the different ways that people respond to challenging times is through reality television. So: to prepare myself for the chaos ahead, I have decided to return once more to Max and Nev and their hopefuls. 

Thank you to all my friends who have read these newsletters so far, and I would love it if you tagged along for season two! 

XOXO,

Hannah