Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino *** (of 4)

As much as it sounds like a contradiction in terms, Tolentino is a millennial intellectual. As an heir to the now deceased Christopher Hitchens, Tolentino possesses an unerring eye for the strengths and foibles, mostly the foibles, of her generation, and by extension anyone else alive in our era. 

Trick Mirror consists of nine essays written in the first two years of the Trump administration and yet in so many ways predicted the isolation of a post-Covid world and the depth to which Trumpism would drive a wedge between right and left America. Much of her distress lies in the rise of the internet and the degree to which social media - Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and now TikTok - have commodified our lives. Put simply, the internet has impelled us to sell ourselves with carefully curated photos and stories of our perfected lives, pushing upon others an image of ourselves that is just one step below reality TV. Have we all become Real Housewives? Compounding matters we are in fact selling ourselves to the social media companies who make their money in exchange for our endless scrolling through Facebook posts and Insta-feeds. And yet what makes Tolentino so insightful is her recognition that her very livelihood as a writer finally earning a decent salary is dependent on her personal twitter feed and participation in social media warfare. Repeatedly, she recognizes the contradictions within her beliefs.

Tolentino's entries cover new age feminism (her most tenuous essay), the misogynist history of marriage and its current iteration among her rapidly partnering friends, enduring rape culture on college campuses, and the trap of shooting for perfection, again, in the age of social media comparison envy.

Tolentino's essays are long, some are too long, and require concentration, but worth the investment.