Vanessa

“That it’s “just a show” is exactly the problem, I howled. How can a TV show have taken on such outsized significance in my life? Because there’s nothing else to compete with it, that’s why! What had my life become? I wailed. There was nothing that was my own. All I had was Benedict Cumberbatch!”
― Tabitha Carvan, This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something--Anything--Like Your Life Depends On It

“Hasty headlines had been quick to proclaim the coup a 'failed attempt,' but I was not so sure. It was never really about votes, it was about views. The true site of power was not within the Senate walls: it was online, in the audience, in the engagement, in the algorithms. The coup was pure performativity, an event without a centre, familiar enough to any influencer accustomed to staging life via an iPhone.”
― Olivia Yallop, Break the Internet: in pursuit of influence

“And is immortality necessarily good?" Roisin asked mildly. "What will happen when everyone you love is gone? When you're alone, and nothing matters any longer because you don't have the prospect of your own mortality to give it weight?"

"Listen, I understand you've got an argument to make, but never in my life have I thought, 'You know what really makes this lemon cake delicious? Knowing that one day I will die.”
― Samara Breger, A Long Time Dead

“Junklord videos are pure consumerist pornography: a fantasy of endless 'stuff' in a world that's rapidly running out of resources.”
― Olivia Yallop, Break the Internet: in pursuit of influence