In 2019, Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino was published. Amid the rise of “Girl-bossing” feminism and an relatively online populaiton due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, Trick Mirror was as timely as ever. The book, a collection of essays, explores self-delusion whether that pertains to the internet, self-optimization, and internet culture.
In one essay, “The I in Internet,” Tolentino writes about how social media has turned us into self obsessed creatures that care more about our image than communication. The result: toxic virtue signaling.
While the principle can be a sentence or two, Tolentino presents our recent cultural history and extends potential implications with great skill. She is able to pull various strands of information to form a cohesive argument from right-left politics, Gamergate to “how the internet is built to distend our sense of identity; second, how it encourages us to overvalue our opinions; third, how it maximizes our sense of opposition; fourth, how it cheapens our understanding of solidarity; and, finally, how it destroys our sense of scale.”
In another essay, a popular favorite, called “Ecstacy” Tolentino uses her experiences to flesh out her perspective which is arguably one of the best parts. Her life is interesting, so rather than just an anthology of our collective history, readers see a friend that they can connect with.
In “Ecstasy”, Tolentino goes through her de-Christianization and institutionalized religion through finding ecstasy. She doesn’t promote the drug–we might hope. She simply poses questions on faith and God and whether or not there are manifestations of each in the things we do.
Do we do what we do to ultimately strive for the spiritual experience?
Despite its recency, the book has already had an effect.
Lorde, famous for her album Pure Heroine, stated that Tolentino’s essay “Always be Optimizing” was inspiration for her absence on social media and some of the music on her new album, Solar Power.
While Trick Mirror has become a best-seller, some say it’s just a puddle of grievances with modern society and offers no solutions delivering opinions we all know–an ode to those who just have not thought about the topics. Others say there is simply too much information, especially if you already “get it.” And of course, some essays are better than others. Perhaps a more philosophical and historical text: The Culture of Narcissim.
If you want to dip your toes into sociology, the politics of feminism, and Freud’s “ego.” Tolentino serves as a great FOIL. With her colloquial style and references that Gen-Z can understand, I think it is safe to say that Tolentino is a writer of our generation.