The Girls rewatch, 20s nostalgia, and the 2010s internet

I don't miss my 20s but I do miss the internet of the 2010s

Last week, while on a very long flight returning from a friend’s wedding in Japan, I read a series of several articles about why so many people are suddenly re-watching HBO’s Girls, a series that first debuted in 2012. (I read this one by Margit Detweiler in Gloria, this one in the New York Times, and this one in The Daily Beast.)

The basic gist as to why is because millennials, now in their 30s and early 40s, are looking back and re-assessing their 20s with a clearer perspective. The show that people wrote a million hot takes about now seems really prescient — turns out it got a lot right about the experience of being in your 20s today. And some of it is just good old-fashioned nostalgia about our 20s, now that they’ve passed us by.

For me, reading these pieces brought up a different type of nostalgia: not so much for my 20s, but for the internet of the early 2010s. Some of these pieces rehashed some of the online controversy surrounding the show when it came out, and just the fact that we spent so much of our time online in 2012 arguing about a TV show now feels so quaint and innocent. It was the Obama years, and we had no idea what was in store for us just a few years in the future, and TV shows were still the most consequential thing we had to argue about on the internet.

It made me reflect on how the internet felt so much better back then, like a place where you could actually still have fun. Twitter was a much more lighthearted place where jokes and memes and funny things happened, debates over “cancel culture” hadn’t taken over, The Awl and The Hairpin and The Toast and Gawker and Deadspin all still existed. (The Hairpin’s comment section was a lovely, genuinely wonderful place to be on the internet.) People did silly things like change their Twitter avatar for the Mad Men finale. Instagram was still brand new, and the only social media sites at the time were Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (and Facebook was still relevant; nearly everyone seemed to use it at the time). People still had blogs. Online interactions carried far less weight than they do now.

I was 24 in 2012, and while I don’t really miss that time in my life — I hated my job and my boyfriend (now husband) had just moved across the country to LA — I do really, deeply miss the internet of that time. It was a time when being online was simply a lot more fun, and a lot less stressful, than it is now. Being online today mostly just makes me want to get offline.

Good things to read

The unexpected grief of a hysterectomy, The New Yorker.

Tiktok is changing what it means to be “old,” Wired.

“I’ll walk away from anything”: Kara Swisher calls the shots, Vanity Fair.

Are new dads ok? The Cut.

This isn’t what millennial middle age was supposed to look like, New York Times.

I went on a package trip for millennials who travel alone. Help me, New York Times Magazine.

Is “Girls” relatable now? Gloria.

My marriage was never the same after that, The Cut.

The “you’re doing it wrong”-ification of Tiktok, Vox.

Is empowering corporate women enough? New York Times.

You’d be happier living closer to friends. Why don’t you? Culture Study.

Trans people deserve better journalism, Vox.

Will the Ozempic era change how we think about being fat and being thin? The New Yorker.

Good things to cook

Sheet pan bibimbap. Broiled salmon and broccolini. Sheet pan harissa chicken with potatoes, leek, and yogurt sauce.