You want to know what just absolutely terrifies me, keeps me up at night, and then when I finally fall asleep, fuels my nightmares.
Let me tell you about the permanence of the Internet.
This is a reality of life that I contemplate multiple times a day.
And not in like a sort of beautiful introspective way, no, I contemplate this reality of life multiple times a day in fear.
in panic, overcome with anxiety, okay.
I am tortured by the permanence of the Internet, tortured.
And it's kind of funny because I am as tortured by the permanence of the Internet as I am because of my own voluntary actions.
Okay. I made the decision to post the last seven years of my life on the internet.
I did that. I made that choice.
Now I'm sort of tortured by it and it's like, okay, but I did it to myself.
That's a reoccurring theme for me.
Okay, I often sort of get myself into the most uncomfortable predicaments in my life.
Usually I'm the one who did something wrong to get myself there.
Although I don't think I did anything wrong.
Because I actually have no regrets even though I am completely tortured by the permanence of the internet.
I I also am aware that it is something that I have to deal with in order to be on the internet.
Like, the internet is not the internet if it's not permanent.
That is a key detail.
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Now back to the episode.
I'm like, I have like a tight chest, okay.
Just talking about this topic.
But I also think I have a tight chest because I was around people this weekend who were vaping.
And I was like, I'm obviously gonna hit that.
So I have vaped a lot this weekend after a long time of not really vaping.
And so I think my chest is a little bit tight because of that as well.
I'm also feeling a little weird I think because I'm probably withdrawing a little bit from nicotine.
So if my vibe is like off, it's because I'm kind of dissociating from nicotine withdrawals.
And I feel weird. Like my brain and body equilibrium is very off.
Would I love to hit a vape right now?
But, no, I don't own vapes anymore.
I only hit other people's.
Anyways, I will say, I do think that I am more significantly affected by this reality of life, the permanence of the internet than the average person because my entire life and my entire career is on the internet.
However, I do think that this is a concern for people in the 21st century.
I think my feelings towards it are a bit more extreme, but I actually do think that this is a concern for everyone because it is just a current truth.
This is just something that, like the internet is permanent.
That can be good and that can be bad.
You know what I'm saying?
For everyone. More so for people who, you know, have a career on the internet, who have shared a lot of their life on the internet, but still so for people who have not.
It's sort of terrifying for everyone.
I think because I'm somebody who's shared majority of my life on the internet, I look at a time prior to the internet, where everyone could sort of just evolve and grow as a person in the real world.
And everyone was judged based on who they were within their close -knit community.
And obviously, there's always been celebrities and public figures who have you know, been judged on a larger scale.
But even those people couldn't like go on Instagram and read their comments.
Like there's something sort of beautiful about the fact that I don't know, like the past was the past, like people were just allowed to sort of move through phases so much more naturally.
Whereas now we have access to people's history, we can directly see and relive someone's past whenever we want, as long as it's on the internet.
And for a lot of us, it is on the internet.
Instead of it just being this distant memory or something that, you know, only our close friends and family knew about, or you know what I'm saying?
For a lot of us, our entire past is completely documented, it's completely cemented in history in a way, in a way that is so accurate because of the internet.
And there's something so much more, like, powerful about that, that really freaks me out.
Prior to the internet, there was no fear of your mistakes being broadcasted to the world stage.
Worst -case scenario, you know, your family and friends in community find out about a mistake you made.
But these are all people who know you.
They know your character, they like, they might at worst exile you in some sort of way.
But technically, you can leave that, you can get in your car and drive five hours and move to a city five hours away, and start over fresh.
And none of those people will know about your past. You know what I'm saying?
The idea that you could make a mistake and be confronted by your friends and family and community and then sort of move forward in the world as a person who has learned from that mistake to me is so romantic.
The idea that there isn't actually really evidence necessarily unless you did something so bad that it made it into the newspaper like prior to the internet there was no risk of your mistakes being permanent in history.
I think that there probably felt like a future where it could even be forgotten.
It was up to you to tell that story once everybody forgot.
If you wanted to bring it up again, if you wanted to tell that story again, you could.
Whereas now on the internet, if one of your mistakes gets broadcasted in some way, everyone knows about it forever.
One Google search away, they can find your mistake for the rest of your life.
You never get to move on from that.
That's not your story to tell anymore.
That is now this permanent story that is permanently on the internet that can be accessed at any given moment at any time through the phone, through the Google search. Mm okay.
This upsets me. I also think too, the idea that you know, you can have sort of cringe, embarrassing phases in your life, but then move jobs or towns and start over completely.
Like all of this is a beautiful sort of concept to me that I think still does exist, depending on your lifestyle, but What is a novelty now more than ever?
It didn't used to be a novelty.
This just used to be reality.
Whereas now, for a majority of people, this is a concern.
This is the new reality, is the fact that ...
Even for people who are not on the internet, even for people who don't have social media, there's still this fear of the permanence of the internet because let's say you're out at a party and you get blackout drunk and people take their phones out and start filming and then post it on the internet.
And you go viral because you did something sloppy or silly or stupid or dumb, or you said something horrible.
Like, even for those who are not on the internet, this is still a concern.
And I mean, I do think it's all relative because prior to the internet, the ridicule of perhaps your community was just as scary and terrifying.
But now it's on a worldly scale.
And I know it might sound sort of irrational, like again, for the average person.
For the most part, you can live anonymously.
You can sort of rewrite your history.
The past is not necessarily permanent but it can be.
For me, it's fully fucking permanent.
For me, I'm living the extreme.
It is fully permanent for me.
For most people, it's still not fully that extreme yet but it's still a concern.
It's something that deeply, deeply affects me personally.
It's something that for the last few years has f**ked with me psychologically in a number of ways.
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Number one, I've struggled with something that I think every public figure has struggled with, which is the fear of being canceled for something that I did when I was younger and dumber.
In the age of the internet, and growing up in the age of the internet, everything that I did as a middle schooler, in high schooler is documented.
Okay. In middle school and high school, we all had iPhones.
It was like when the iPhone first came out and we all finally got them and we were all filming and taking photos of absolutely everything.
And I would be lying if I said that I don't worry sometimes about like what the fuck I did.
I know I probably did some shit that I would absolutely regret now.
Was I ultimately 13 years old?
Yeah, I was 13 years old, but it doesn't matter because something that I did as a 13 year old, not knowing how things could be hurtful or mean or disrespectful or not knowing being so young and completely aloof.
We have no clue what the fuck is going on.
We have no clue what we're doing.
We have no clue what we're saying.
We have no clue the repercussions of anything.
We're rebellious. We don't care.
Like the fact that that phase of my life is, in some ways, permanent through fucking Snapchat memories and shit on my own phone and other people's phone.
This is something I don't like.
This is a reality that I don't like.
This is something that really, really bothers me.
And it bothers me because I've worked so hard to become the person I am today.
I've been scolded by my fucking parents for saying shit that's disrespectful, saying shit that's morally wrong, doing shit that's disrespectful, doing shit that's morally wrong.
I've gotten my ass handed to me already.
I've learned my lessons.
Who I am today, I'm very proud of?
You know, do I make mistakes still?
Do I do things still that could potentially, like, I don't know, like, tomorrow, you know, somebody could come out and say, one time Emma was rude to me, and I might think of me like, oh my god, that was a week ago and you know what, that's true, like, I don't fucking know.
We live half of our lives in autopilot.
So, like, is there still a risk today?
Yes, however, who I am today, I am in control of.
This is me today. I am the product of every single mistake I've ever made in my entire life.
And I'm better for it.
And I really am proud of my character today.
So I'm tortured, in a lot of ways, by this person who is almost not even me anymore, right, like me as a child with barely developed brain, like, in the age of the internet, that is not just a distant memory.
That is permanent, right.
And the idea of being judged for my past as though it's the present, it's a hard pill for me to swallow.
I think it's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow and I think that sort of leads me to this other complicated sort of terrifying element of the permanence of the internet.
The fact that a memory, a story told verbally, it's so much more gently received than than like a video, a photo, like solid proof, you know, that is responded to much more viscerally and understandably so because by watching a video by looking at a photo you're transported to that time because you can see it, you know what I'm saying, it just it brings you there.
It connects you to that story to that moment, whereas like hearing something, or we're calling a memory, it's just so much more gentle, right?
And so that's the other thing, it's like, the permanence of the internet is made even more complex, because not only is it now permanent, like set in stone in time, but also it's even if there's something about the way that we psychologically respond to it, that makes it also like more potent.
But that also leads me to what I briefly mentioned earlier, like, I also experience immense fear around messing up today, right?
Like, there is this sort of fear of being judged on what I did in the past, right, because it's sort of made permanent, or it can be made permanent through the internet.
But there's also a fear of making a mistake today.
And then, not only, You know, being judged based on that in a moment in a way that's very intense because of the sort of permanence of the internet and how things spread permanently on the internet.
But there's also the fear of like, am I damaging my future self?
Right? And I've actually spent the last few years absolutely tormented by this.
And it's caused me to develop a toxic level of perfectionism.
Like, I need to be perfect all the time, in every single way, because at all times, I'm at risk of making a mistake that could become permanent.
It could change my life forever, because on the internet, the past is permanent.
And it sort of caused a mental block in me.
I'm talking about the last few years, maybe the last four years, I've really, really struggled with this.
And it's made it really hard for me to show my personality online as much as I used to, because I was so afraid of doing saying the wrong thing.
I was constantly psyching myself out.
I had a mental block.
I had a mental block.
And there's other reasons why maybe my personality was less present on the internet.
I was less present on the internet.
You know, this sort of mental block is not the only reason, but it's definitely a significant reason.
sort of the realization of the permanence of the internet combined with the rise of cancel culture.
I mean, I'm not playing victim here, okay, at all.
This is not me, like, whining, being like, I'm a victim of this, and it's so sad for me, and scary.
I'm not saying that.
I'm literally just saying the truth of how it impacted me psychologically.
I became so afraid that I started overthinking everything, you know, in like, in obsessing over every single little thing I said and censoring myself beyond belief, because mistakes are received more harshly than ever now because of cancel culture.
But again, they're also like, they're never forgotten now.
So I don't know, I understandably became obsessive about every single thing that I put on the internet of myself.
And it became boring and bland and sort of vanilla even for a period of time because I was too scared to almost like fully just be myself and be normal because I couldn't stomach the fact that if I show myself and it's maybe not received well in one way or another, it's now permanent.
It just, I couldn't handle it.
I've also spent an equal amount of time fearing rumors.
fearing people telling stories that are false, for the sake of who knows, you know, like going viral or like who or just to like character assassinate me, because you know, for whatever reason, someone doesn't like me.
This is something that, in the age of the internet, because of the permanence of the internet can truly ruin your life.
Like I genuinely live in fear of a well crafted rumor because there I remember there was a story made by someone who actually did go to school with me.
That was true. This girl who went to school with me basically posted a TikTok telling a completely fabricated story about me and my interactions with her.
Completely fabricated.
Okay, in fact, me and this girl were always cool.
And I'm not just saying that like if I fucked up and I like was a complete bitch to this girl.
I would fully, fully sit here right now and say, you know, that was a dark moment in my, in my life.
I was, you know, 14, 15 years old, probably 15 at that time.
I, you know, was going through this.
I was going through that.
I was an asshole and I treated this girl like shit.
And now I have to live with that memory forever.
Like I would just say that and that would be the story that, but, and trust me, there are definitely some things I did in high school that I'm not proud of.
I don't necessarily remember all of them, but I bet, you know, people could remind me of those things and I would regret them and be apologetic of them.
I'm all about, you know, taking responsibility and shit.
Don't get me wrong.
However, if I didn't do something, I'm not going to take responsibility for it because I didn't fucking do it.
This is a great example of that.
This girl came up with this whole story about basically me being a total bitch to her and fabricated this entire story that I know for a fact was not true and anybody who knew me in high school would be like, Emma didn't do that.
Emma probably made some other mistakes but Emma definitely didn't do that.
Like, it was just completely out of character and like evil in a way that I've never been in my life, even at my darkest moments.
And that was really, really upsetting to me because I was reading the comments of people being like, Oh my God, I can't believe she would do that.
Like, I always knew she was a mean girl.
All this shit. And it's like, my entire character is being judged right now based on a complete lie, that is now going to be permanently on the internet.
Like I can sit here and deny, I didn't even address it or deny it or do anything because I was like, that will only bring more attention to this and this is not true, this is not true.
So I don't wanna talk about it and bring more attention to it because it's not real.
You know, like I don't even know how to handle, I'm just gonna ignore it I guess.
But it was really upsetting to me because I was like, This is now something that when people Google me, it might come up, this story that is completely false.
Now this is something that I am going to be tied to for the rest of my life.
Instead of the actual memories of me in high school that are true, who I really was, which I was definitely not a perfect person in high school, but I was not mean like that.
I'm sorry. I just wasn't.
Like I, I wasn't a, like, no, that is ridiculous.
and it's completely just a fabricated story for character assassination, that is the truth.
But again, there are people who saw that video back then and that story became permanent in their mind, you know?
In that way, the internet is permanent, but then also, it's permanent because that video's probably still up, and if somebody wanted to go find it, you know, they could, and in that way, it's permanent.
And that has also really bothered me.
You know, a lot of the controversies that I've been in in my career were actually based on false narratives, a decent portion of them.
You know, there have been things that I've said that I've gotten called out for that, like, I have genuinely said.
Fair enough. But there's also been, you know, so many false narratives as well, that people now forever will remember.
like people fully think that I did things that I did not do because these narratives become permanent through the internet.
And it fucks with me.
It really fucks with me.
And another thing that fucks with me is sort of, you know, how my past phases in life, though harmless, right, are permanent.
Yeah, they're harmless, right?
Like when I was a cringe sort of 16 year old or when I had really bad acne when I was like 18 or 19.
Every little phase in my life has been documented.
Now, I must also add voluntarily.
I posted all this to myself.
I'm not sitting here saying like, oh my god, it's all permanent and like I didn't even want that.
No, I posted it. You know what I'm saying?
This is something I did to myself, and I am fully aware of that.
But at the same time, even though I have no regrets, and I think it's absolutely worth it, I definitely struggle with constantly being reminded of past phases of my life.
I mean, in theory, could I delete my past?
I could, but that's sort of the dilemma.
I'm also like, I don't want to delete my past like it was my past. And also, there are people who still find entertainment or value in these past moments of my life, right?
So like I don't want to delete it.
Also, even if I did, there's everything I've ever done is reposted somewhere.
There's documentation of it beyond my own.
So like it's ... I'm in a unique situation there where like, you know, some people could like delete all their social media, start fresh, whatever, and you know, there's no sort of documentation of their of their past. Like once they delete it, it's gone.
So there is sort of a feeling of control there.
Is everything ever truly gone?
No. You know, and some things are posted by other people and those things are permanently posted.
And like you can't hack into their account and delete this, but I will say, I'm experiencing an extreme level of permanence on the internet.
You know, it's exhausting in a way because it's like, again, like I've worked so hard to build the person that I am today.
I don't necessarily want to be judged by who I was a year ago, three years ago, five years ago.
That's something I really struggle with, because there are moments when I was really annoyed.
There are moments when I did something embarrassing.
A great example would be my fucking Streamy's award speech, except in speech, when I won a Streamy award in like 2019 or something and the speech went viral because it was so cringe that was absolutely fucking horrible for me.
And it still gets brought up and people still show me the video.
And I still have to see it and it's absolutely horrible.
And I'm wearing a hideous outfit and I look hideous and the speech is fucking cringe.
The whole thing is a mess.
And I see that video like once a month probably it comes up somewhere I see it somewhere and like how beautiful it would be if that was just a memory that we all had, you know what I mean?
A memory that we all out of it.
It wouldn't be nearly as cringe if it was just a memory, you know what I'm saying?
But it's cringe because it's this video and it's permanent, and that is really a challenge.
But also like periods when I've looked bad, you know, and I know that this is like vain, and I am probably more vain than I think people would think I was, which is perhaps a whole episode of its own.
I seem like I don't care.
And many people are like, Emma just doesn't care.
She posts and she looks ugly and she doesn't care.
That's true. Listen, at any given moment I look the way I'm gonna look and like, I'm never gonna necessarily hide it.
I'm never gonna hide.
Right? Because it's the reality.
But that doesn't mean I'm not unhappy with the way that I look or something.
You know what I'm saying.
So like, now phases when I feel like I didn't look good like those are permanent as well.
Phase is when I've had really really severe acne or you know I've been unhealthy in one way or another and I look like shit as a result.
You know like these are moments of my life that are permanent.
I am reminded of those phases constantly because they're documented and seemingly sort of permanent.
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Now let's get back to the episode.
The phase that I'm struggling with the most right now is my most recent sort of phase that took place over the last few years.
Where I kinda had this, like, serious sort of artsy to some, maybe even pretentious, sort of philosophical, although some people would say that that is just, I can't even call myself philosophical, even though technically anyone can be philosophical.
So that's rude, but you know, now I have this phase, I think, for a number of reasons.
I actually, I really want to dig into this phase, honestly.
Like, I feel like I need to discuss it.
I feel like it'll be sort of cathartic for me because it directly relates to the topic of this episode, the permanence of the internet.
This phase of my life is permanent.
And right now it's really, really bothering me.
So let's just discuss it.
Okay. It was sort of this, this artsy sort of pretentious, sort of philosophical sort of phase.
Now it was not. I didn't mean for it to be cringe or pretentious.
Like my intention was never bad.
but I also wasn't necessarily like trying to, to be cool or something necessarily.
It wasn't even that.
I think it was a combination of a few things.
Number one, what I mentioned earlier, me being so afraid of showing my personality that I completely had a mental block when it came to like showing myself, or you know, I've always been a bit edgy with the shit that I talk about.
I've always taken risks with what I talk about and I've always received criticism for that to a certain extent.
It's not everyone's cup of tea understandably, so all good.
But when cancel culture sort of became more of a thing, I just became more and more afraid to the point where it was like, I don't even want to make a joke.
Like, I remember I used to like, I don't know, like fucking start writing an Instagram caption and it was like funny.
And then I was like, I can't, I'm too scared to be funny because I'm too scared that being remotely funny will somehow get me canceled.
So I just delete the caption and post the photo with no captions.
That was the vibe. Or I would be editing a YouTube video and I'd say one funny thing and I'd be like, I'm too scared.
Because being to be funny is to be edgy a bit a lot of times, right?
So I just completely couldn't show the side of myself anymore.
I was way too afraid.
So I was like, well, I need to show something.
So I showed myself sort of depressed and sort of in the middle of this mental block, having this sort of existential crisis, rethinking everything, thinking really philosophically about everything, because that's truly what was going on in my head.
So there was that. But then I also think too that I was experiencing a bit of a creative growth period if you will, where I was trying to figure out, like, all right, what's the next step in my career, right?
like I've been vlogging my life, I've been talking about my life very intimately and very vulnerably for a long time and I want to maintain a decent amount of that but I also can't really do this anymore because my career and my level of fame in a way, even though I'm not that famous, but like my level of fame even to the maybe smaller level that it's at compared to say like, fucking, I don't know, Jennifer Aniston?
Like, I don't know, but like, I'm not a fucking, I'm not super famous, but I'm famous enough that like, I have to do things differently now.
I was in a phase where I'm like, what do I do next?
And part of me was like, well, maybe I should make things feel a bit more meaningful.
Maybe I need to add a bit more depth to what I'm putting out there, right?
instead of just talking about like mundane shit, instead of showing mundane shit, maybe I share things that are a bit more potent, a bit more deep, a bit more whatever, like maybe share that side of myself.
And I think to an extent, that was good.
Like I actually think that there was some beauty to that.
And I think I enjoyed that a lot.
And I think it was exciting to show like a deeper side but at the same time I think it became like all I did.
And then I wasn't showing any of my humor or my light -hearted personality.
And that I don't think is good because I think honestly, my strong suit is a balance.
And I think it was almost like an overcorrection.
It was like I became too deep.
And look at how beautiful...
Everything became too deep.
to artsy, like it I was trying to infuse meaning into my internet output and also simultaneously you know protect a bit more of my privacy.
And in a lot of ways again you know there was a lot of positive there.
Like I did end up showing a different side of myself that was actually truly genuine to me.
But then through doing that, I like lost touch with my sense of humor and like my edgy knee.
I don't know. Like, I lost my edge a bit.
I mean, listen, I can't like, I don't know, everybody had a different opinion, and everyone does have a different opinion.
So, I can't speak for everybody.
And I also try not to read too much or see too much of what people think or else I have a meltdown.
But I do think that, you know, there are people who are like, where did you go, Emma?
Where are you? And understandably so, right?
Because even though I was still there, it I wasn't all there.
And I wasn't in the best place.
Things weren't working, they simply weren't working.
And it came off as pretentious.
It came off as like, why is Emma talking about philosophical topics?
She's an idiot podcaster.
Which by the way, I think is completely an unfair criticism.
Even if you thought that phase of my podcast or YouTube or whatever was cringe or pretentious or whatever or even if you think that I'm not smart enough to be talking about...
Everyone has the right to give their opinion on whatever they want or to discuss whatever they want.
I think if I did maybe go wrong, it was because I was accidentally maybe speaking from a place of like, let me teach you about this.
And that's a mistake.
Whenever I did that, if at any point I did that, that's a mistake.
But to simply talk about things that are philosophical, is to be human.
I don't think we can, we should not ever take that right away from anyone.
I'm not a fucking philosophy major, I'm discovering it, having my own sort of philosophical epiphanies on my own, and doing so in a way that's normal.
You know what I'm saying?
And I'm not claiming to be some sort of philosopher, I'm just like discussing what I've been thinking about, on my own timeline, as I'm discovering it.
And if it's later than you, It's later than you, you know, whatever.
But I definitely received a good amount of criticism during this sort of transitionary period of my career where, you know, I just couldn't quite get into rhythm with, with things and in the audience and you all felt that, uh, some of you maybe felt that, but were like, okay with it and, and didn't mind it or whatever.
Some of you fucking hated it and hated me and whatever.
It's one of those phases that I cringe at, but also you all cringe, a lot of you, not all of you, but a chunk of you also cringe that and I'm not going to go back and delete it.
I'm not going to go back and delete everything from that time because again, I don't want to erase history, I don't want to erase history.
I want to, I do, but I'm conflicted, I don't know.
Like I would love for it to disappear, right?
But I'd love if it just never happened, but it did.
And so, because of that, I have to just own it, and live with it, and be, like, this is permanent.
But it's challenging.
And to, sort of, wrap up that whole story, I recently, within the last, I don't know, year, slowly but surely, realized I had it all wrong.
Number one, I cannot live in fear of the permanence of the Internet.
I cannot live in fear.
because not only does it make me completely miserable but it also, it causes my career to suffer and my creativity to suffer.
It completely gets in the way of me living a fulfilling life.
It's completely detrimental for me.
But also my sort of desire to instill more meaning and depth into the content I put out on the internet.
That was also sort of irrational.
To continue to evolve my career and, you know, take things to the next level, I don't actually need to instill more depth into things.
That was a miscalculation.
That was a hypothesis that ended up not being true.
In fact, by doing that I think I ended up removing meaning from what I was doing, but it was something I had to try.
And it's something I have to accept, like that's a phase in my career that I have to accept.
And is it all bad? No. And is it even really that bad?
No. No, it's not. And there were some people out there who actually enjoyed this phase, that now I cringe at so, okay?
But now I realize through that phase that I'm cringing at now, that number one, I can't live in fear.
And number two, I don't need to instill meaning in things.
I just need to be entertaining and I just need to be honest and I just need to be myself and that it doesn't need to be deep.
It doesn't need to be artsy.
It doesn't need to be.
It doesn't. If it if I wanted to be philosophical because I'm having a philosophical moment in my life, sure.
It can be philosophical.
But like if I'm seeing beauty in a way and I want to share it with the world, I can share.
But like I don't need to do that in order for what I do on the internet to be meaningful, you know Like things can be more mundane they can be more surface level.
They can be more funny they can be more chill and they can still provide value to people like that was something I was having a hard time grasping it's like Can I provide value to people if things are surface level if things are?
silly if things are mundane, like, how do I level up, if not to infuse more depth into things, anyway, it was just a miscalculation, and now, you know, I'm in this sort of bittersweet position where on one hand, you know, I'm so grateful for this phase of experimentation and fear and difficulty because without that, I wouldn't be where I'm at today, which is at an incredible place where I now feel more inspired than I have in a really long time and I'm feeling more myself than I have in a really long time and I'm feeling like you know I have a plan for my career and an internet output that's sustainable
that's something that I could actually continue to do for for years to come where I'm not gonna hit burnout I'm not gonna psych myself to get yourself out or get or, you know, experience, you know, sort of a mental block.
Again, I'm stronger than ever.
I'm more inspired than ever.
I'm more myself than ever.
Things are great right now.
Unfortunately to get here, I had to go through that little rough patch that was a little cringe, that was a little pretentious, that was whatever.
I'm grateful for that time.
But at the same time, because it's permanent due to the internet, I'm also sort of tortured by it, and I'm mortified by it, I want to move on.
I'm excited that I'm in a better place now.
On a daily basis I'm reminded of that phase, and I could delete it.
I also feel like deleting it's even worse.
I don't want to erase my past, I don't want to erase these phases.
These phases also weren't necessarily hated by everyone.
There are actually people who enjoy this phase.
Right. It was a smaller group of people than the group of people who have enjoyed other phases of my career and life, right?
But there was a group of people that enjoyed that phase.
And it's like, do I want to take that away from those people?
Uh, but you know, I'm at a point where I'm like, all right, I'm really trying to sort of develop a healthy relationship with this reality, the reality of the permanence of the internet.
I'm really trying to get to a healthy place with it where I truly just accept this as a reality.
I find empowerment in the parts of it that I can control, the parts of the narrative that I can control trying to not live in fear of what I can't control.
I can't control if somebody starts a or I can't control if something of me from 10 years ago comes out of me being an asshole or me pooping on someone's front lawn, I never did that.
I did pee on someone's front lawn that once, but I never pooped, so anyways.
But if a video of me peeing on someone's fuckin' front lawn in high school after a party when I was drunk, if that video comes out, it's like, or worse, like who knows.
It's like, I have to accept the fact that that could happen and that's just sort of the name of the game, and that's just the reality of today.
And also, you know, use the permanence of the internet to inspire me to only be a better person, but not to the point where I'm obsessing over it.
And I'm a perfectionist, and I'm like, completely, you know, unforgiving of myself if I make a mistake, because I'm like, you have no room to make a mistake.
Everything is permanent on the internet.
I'm trying to find balance, and peace in it, but it's challenging.
It's challenging for me and I also think it's challenging for society, even though I have my own unique sort of relationship to it that has its own sort of unique set of difficulties, I really do believe that this is something that is impacting society as a whole, okay?
Like I don't think just public figures are impacted by this, right?
I will say these are all hypotheses.
I don't know for sure if the permanence of the internet has impacted society, but I mean, I'm pretty sure it has.
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I have some examples of how I think it's impacted society.
For one, I think partying and clubbing and going out and socializing has really, really deeply been impacted by the permanence of the internet.
I feel like people are really afraid of not everyone, okay, but I know of people who are afraid of really, like, letting loose because, nowadays, there's a chance you might be filmed and you might go viral on the internet if you let too loose.
Right? And there is something sort of beautiful about being able to, like, go to a bar and, like, go crazy and dance and live in the moment, and it not be documented.
Now, I'm not saying, like, partying's no fun anymore because it used to be like, morally wrong things could happen at the party and nobody would find out.
That's not what I'm fucking saying.
I'm even just saying like, going out and drinking and dancing and being in the moment like that is something that is actually very vulnerable.
And it's something that in the moment feels so magical.
But if you were to film it and take it outside of that moment, it is actually like, ooh, it's not supposed to be taken outside at the moment.
But now because of the internet, it oftentimes is.
And I really do think that it's negatively impacted the club party scene.
And I've seen quite a few articles pop up over the last few years about how, you know, Gen Z is not drinking, which I actually think is a great thing.
You don't need a drink to have fun, although it does help sometimes.
But I'm sober, and I've been sober since October of 2024.
for i haven't had one drink okay so i know a thing or two about sobriety yeah i mean i'm still hitting the vape but i here and there but the alcohol no uh but anyway uh gen z is not drinking as much um a lot of clubs are shutting down just my own experience in la like when i first moved here there were so many parties and there was like such an energy but maybe it was my perception but Like, I really do feel like, I don't know, like the party vibe, the club vibe, the bar vibe in LA has really lost its sparkle.
And I've talked to a lot of people who also live in LA and been like, has he kind of lost its sparkle?
And there's a lot of people who agree with me.
I don't know. I just, I think that, like, truly going out and socializing and enjoying the moment is is a bit harder now because there is a risk that somebody could film you or that you're in the back of somebody's video or like, I don't know, it's just like it ruins the feeling of complete freedom that I think going out used to give people.
It's like at the end of the week where, you know, you're being watched by your boss or being watched by your teacher or you have to turn things in on time, and there's all this, you know, all these rules.
There was something so beautiful about being able to go out and be social and be free.
Nobody's watching. nobody's paying attention you know you just get to kind of let loose and now it's like wait we don't get to let loose because we're constantly at risk of being filmed or being this or being that and it's like if you want to fucking take body shots off of somebody you can't just do that now it's like probably gonna be filmed you can't just like I don't know chain smoke ten cigarettes outside of the bar because somebody might take photos you're be like look at this fucking freak who just smoked 10 cigarettes in one sitting.
And it's like posted on TikTok, with that caption.
And then it gets 30 ,000 likes.
And then it's like, wait, I was just chain smoking my cigarettes because it's the fucking weekend.
Why are you, you know what I'm sayin'?
I don't know. It's just not the same.
Maybe I'm just feeling that way because I'm growing up.
And that could be truly the case.
It could be just my perception, but I've seen and heard too many things that corroborate this hypothesis, so I don't know.
I want a vape so bad.
I'm feeling for the vape a little bit because I was doing so good.
And then I really just hit it a lot this weekend.
I was just... Everybody around me seemed to have a vape and it was just like vape after vape after vape.
It was absolutely delicious, but I am really paying the price right now, because I'm really craving it.
And yeah, it sucks.
Okay, moving on. Sorry.
I also think too, that the permanence of the internet has sort of created a new societal weapon, a lethal one at that.
The permanence of the internet really, it has become a weapon to assassinate character.
You can turn the internet against an individual in a way that is truly like being fucking stoned in the town square.
It is like being crucified, and I know that that's extreme, but it genuinely is that extreme.
Like, if you're an average person and all of a sudden, you know, somebody posts something about you that's negative on the internet, and it goes viral because it's like a viral story.
The feelings that that will bring up in a person, it's dangerous, it's really dangerous.
it's, it's terrifying.
And there are absolutely people out there who get off on just destroying people's lives through the Internet.
And I think that this has ruined more people's lives than we even remember and that is not good for society.
That is not good for humanity, I don't think.
The fact that people's mistakes can be used against them as on the Internet.
I don't know, it just it's like, it's, to me, dangerous.
Which leads me to like my next sort of point.
I mean, I think young people are afraid these days of truly experimenting in making mistakes in life, which is crucial for growth.
The repercussions of experimenting in life are now unproportionately severe.
Because of the internet, like if the if these things make it on to the internet, the repercussions can now be worldly.
Are they always no, but there's a chance in the mere chance of it, I think really, I'm hypothesizing really severely psychologically impacts young people, especially, which I think, you know, is creating an anxious, isolated, depressed generation of young people, which is another thing that I've been seeing articles about for years now, how Gen Z is the most anxious how Gen Z is the most isolated, how there's friendship epidemic, like no one has friends, you know, Gen Z's depressed, Gen Z is, like, we've all seen these articles and I think the permanence of the internet, weirdly, is a part of that.
And last but not least, I think the permanence of the internet creates some unfavorable qualities in society as a whole.
Not every single individual, but creates like, an increase in in numbers of people who have certain unfavorable qualities such as perfectionism, such as vanity, narcissism.
In the physical world, your being feels much less significant.
I don't know how to explain this.
But like, think about yourself in the real world.
And then think about yourself on the internet, if If you're somebody who posts yourself on the internet, you're being, okay, you're being, like you as a human being in the real world feels much less significant because you're surrounded by other people.
You're surrounded by experience.
You're surrounded by so many things that are bigger than yourself.
There's something about the internet and how we perceive ourselves on the internet where we feel like the center of the universe.
It's almost like our profile is the center of the universe and everything else around it is just you know details in a way.
You know and like it's just it's a different way of perceiving oneself and yet we perceive ourselves in real life and we perceive ourselves online and I think now that our realities are so intertwined with the internet and a decent portion of us nowadays perceive ourselves mainly through the Internet, it's leading a large portion of us to develop perfectionism, develop narcissism, to be vain.
A lot of us who wouldn't normally be that way, like we aren't that by nature, there are some who are like that by nature, but I think the Internet and specifically the permanence of the Internet brings out these characteristics.
Because everybody's aware of how once something's on the internet, in some ways, it's sort of permanent.
But also, when people look at things on the internet, whether it's the past or the present, everything when being perceived on the internet sort of feels like the present in that moment.
You know what I mean, when you're looking at it?
I think it explains why people are so obsessed with looking perfect, right?
Facetuning things. Sometimes Facetiming to oblivion, to the point where, you know, it's like, where did their nose go?
They smoothed their face so much the nose disappeared?
This is kind of like, ridiculous, you know, getting arguably unnecessary procedures done to have sort of unnatural features almost, that, you know, look good on on social media, but actually don't even look good in real life but look good on social media, but it's like, in real life almost matters less because the internet's more permanent.
So as long as it looks good on the internet which is permanent then who really cares what what's happening in real life if your lips are so big you like can't talk properly it's like it doesn't really matter because it looks really good on Instagram and Instagram is permanent and so it's all about like looking perfect because that is what is permanent because of the internet I think people are also obsessed with sort of curating a perfect looking life on the internet because again having an actual perfect life who cares number one it doesn't exist because—but number two, it's like, who cares?
Because that's not as permanent.
The internet is permanent.
So, there's this pressure to sort of show everyone, you know, this perfect life.
And a lot of times that actually ends up just kind of actually destroying quality of life.
I don't think that that adds to quality of life at all.
I think it, a lot of times, is actually quite a negative thing.
And I really think that this just leads to narcissism.
I'm not saying that the Internet turns people into narcissists, but I'm saying it It causes people to develop narcissistic traits I think the permanence of the Internet feels so severe that I think it tricks people into thinking that They're more Important than they are they're the center of the universe because this Does that make sense?
I don't even know what I'm fucking saying anymore Okay.
Like, what did I even just talk about for the last however long I've been talking?
I don't even know what the fuck I just talked about.
I'm gonna wrap it up.
Okay. I'm gonna wrap it up.
I'm going to give a positive conclusion because I think, otherwise, this is a little bit too depressing.
Here's the deal. In conclusion, I think the internet though it has elements that are complex and arguably damaging to society, the internet also is an incredible thing.
And with all good there is bad and this is just part of the bad.
And I really hope that over time as a society, we're going to get better at managing this sort of challenging element of the internet.
Because I think we all know that the internet's not going anywhere.
And also we don't want it to go anywhere.
Like there's a lot about the internet that is incredible.
So I really do believe that that over time we're going to get better at, at managing the negative elements of the internet.
And, you know, I even feel like I'm getting better at it.
You know, as I mentioned earlier, I spent many years struggling with the permanence of the internet.
It really, really bothered me and it led me to sort of a cringe phase.
That ironically, it became permanent that I ironically ended up cringing more at later, but living in fear and letting it get in my way negatively impacted me to the point that I ended up coming out the other end fearless again, and I think, and I hope that other people will experience this as well.
And in, hopefully in an ideal world, the permanence of the internet will actually force us to accept ourselves for our mistakes.
For our shortcomings, and, well, hopefully one day, instead of just canceling each other immediately, unless, listen, if you do something bad enough, okay, I'm always like, I get it.
Okay, sometimes we have to cancel, I kind of get it.
But it's also like, a lot of times we're canceling, we shouldn't be.
I really do hope that one day, it will hold us accountable in a way that's genuinely beneficial to the person and to the world.
And I see a future where that happens.
I really do think that this could turn around and be a positive thing.
Anyway, that's all I have for today.
Thank you all for listening to this episode.
If watch video on Spotify and YouTube.
And you can listen anywhere you stream podcasts, find anything goes on social media at Anything Goes, find me on social media at Emma Chamberlain, and find my wonderful coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee at ChamberlainCoffee .com, or perhaps in a store in New Year, or perhaps at our cafe in Los Angeles.
That's all I have for today.
I'm really just feaning for a vape.
I just am absolutely having nicotine withdrawals right now and I'm completely spaced out and I feel weird. But actually talking to you all today really brought me back to Earth and made me forget.
Actually, I didn't forget, I did not forget about my nicotine withdrawals at all.
I brought them up multiple times.
Anyway, that's it. That's it.
That's all I have to talk about.
I love you all. I appreciate you all.
I enjoy the time that we spend together it is always always always a treat and a joy and I'll talk to you in a few days okay bye bye love you bye
