Hi! Welcome to the sixth issue of The Good Side of the Internet. Super glad to have you here. For a brief run-down on what all the hullabaloo is about, please visit the About page for this publication.
As a reminder, this newsletter has been split into three sections. The first is external links that I truly adored, with my own endorsements and a little explanation about why I enjoyed them. The second is similar, but within Substack. The third (sadly not making an appearance this month) is a compilation of all the recommended readings on
over the last month.The ones with the little asterisk next to them come Highly Recommended (by me). Please do heed the trigger warnings if they’re present. For access to paywalled essays, feel free to reach out to me. I’m always open to discuss/debate/listen to your opinions about any of these links. In fact, if that happened, I would ENTHUSIASTICALLY participate, and ascend to a higher plane of joy. Happy reading!
TGSotI Reviewed
Momo’s Deadline* | Longreads
Linda Button on her toughest writing assignment yet: her business partner’s epitaph.
TGSotI Review: August’s reads started strong and honest with this piece from Longreads. Dealing with the loss of a dear friend is one thing, but being tasked with writing their epitaph is daunting. This has been written with grace, vulnerability, frankness, and so much fondness, and I loved every bit of it. Highly Recommend!
Should the Awfulness of ‘The Idol’ Change How We Look Back at ‘Euphoria’? | The Swaddle
A project mired in controversy weeks before its release, The Idol was HBO’s attempt at leveraging Levinson’s supposed genius, with a heavy dose of established bad boy/sad boy Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye thrown in for muted, neon colour. It was, ostensibly, a show exploring fame, celebrity culture, and the cost of stardom, but one which missed the mark in more ways than one.
TGSotI Review: Full disclosure - I have watched neither Euphoria nor The Idol, and I don’t think I’d enjoy either of the shows based on what I’ve heard of them. Last month, coming across clips from The Idol and news about behind-the-scenes issues was unavoidable. This piece puts the reports and criticisms in a nice, cohesive package with a healthy dose of Sam Levinson bashing to boot. As always when it comes to The Swaddle, well-written and informative.
There I Almost Am* | The Yale Review (tw: eating disorder)
“I ALWAYS WANTED A TWIN,” some singletons say, and I believe them. To be a twin is glorious. We get lots of attention. Sometimes it’s an insulting kind—a man on a boat once said, “Don’t even bother telling me which is which; I won’t remember”—but attention is attention, and it feels good. Plus, we have each other, which is no small thing to have.
TGSotI Review: This one was so incredibly written and engrossing throughout. I’ve never given much thought to twinship apart from a regular and dull fascination, but this one made me think about the ups and downs it can entail. The oneness, the comparison, the support. So many facets are explored and related here, and it feels like a privilege to be given so much of another person’s life and experience to read. Highly recommend!
The Balkans’ alternative postal system: an ad-hoc courier’s tale | The Guardian
Across this fractured region, informal networks rule. So if you need to send something, ask someone who’s already going that way
TGSotI Review: I am fascinated by the way people find ways to stay connected, and use connectedness to do that. To create a system like this without even realising it, to be of help and assistance simply because you can, it’s lovely. An excerpt would probably be a better way to explain what you’ll be getting into -
It’s not things that travel, it’s people. And only when people can’t, do they send things. But even then, in actuality, it’s not things that travel – but people’s feelings.
What My Musical Instruments Have Taught Me | The New Yorker
I’ve spent my life working on virtual reality—but my instruments have revealed the real world.
TGSotI Review: You’ll find mention and explanation of the piano, the Chinese guqin, the oud, the khaen, and what feels like a million other instruments from around the world that I’ve never heard of before. There’s such a reverence to the way the writer speaks about his interactions with each instruments, making this piece equal parts fascinating and spiritual.
Something About the Present* | Longreads
Devin Kelly confronts frailty and its limits.
TGSotI Review: A beautifully heavy read, grim but lovely, and so incredibly written, full of metaphors and wordplay. An excerpt (my favourite part of the essay, I think) will do a better job of explaining. Highly Recommend!
You can use the word heart in a myriad of ways. You can speak of the heart and its four chambers. You can speak of the heart as a muscle. You can say the heart is the size of a fist. You can talk about the fairyfly, only .2 millimeters long, and you can say you need a microscope to see its heart. You can say he doesn’t have any heart, which doesn’t literally mean that the person doesn’t have a heart, only that whoever you are speaking of lacks some sort of courage or resilience. You can be heartened. You can be disheartened. You can cross your heart. You can have a change of heart. You can have a heart of gold. You can believe in someone, and even love someone. You can do this with your whole heart. You can do something for that someone in a heartbeat. You can — always, and sadly — break their heart. Your heart has a bottom. You can speak from this place, the same way that you can bare your soul. Your heart has strings, too. They can be pulled. They can be tugged. I don’t know if they can be tied. I imagine they can. It sounds lighthearted, I know, but you can also have a heavy heart. I think of this often. How heavy is your heart? Do you wear your heart on your sleeve? Would you like help carrying it? I know you carry it every day.
Who Walks Always Beside You | Harper’s Magazine
Twenty-two years ago, a six-year-old girl—my cousin—got lost in the Arkansas Ozarks, prompting what was at the time the largest search and rescue mission in the state’s history. Her disappearance would eventually connect my family to another story, a dark and bizarre one involving kidnapping, brainwashing, murder, and a cult that believed in the imminent end of the world, laced with the kind of eerie coincidences or near-coincidences that cause perfectly rational people to question what they think they know about reality.
TGSotI Review: Don’t read this at night. But definitely read it. Gripping and tense, and sometimes downright creepy, this is nail-bitingly thorough investigative journalism and reads like fiction.
They lost their kids to Fortnite | Maclean’s
A group of Canadian parents say their kids are so addicted to the video game Fortnite that they’ve stopped eating, sleeping and showering. Now these parents want to hold its tech-giant creator accountable.
TGSotI Review: Every article I read about kids these days is more concerning than the previous. If anybody has anything nice to recommend about the topic, please share it with me. This one broadly talks about the impact of lockdowns on children, and specifically about what happens when hours of gaming stops becoming a fun activity and starts becoming a mental health issue instead. Who is responsible? Do companies have a role to play in the ethical consumption of their video games?
In-house Links
This section contains links to pieces from different Substack newsletters. The reason I’ve demarcated it is because there’s more room for interaction with the authors here. (Also because the formatting is very cute, I love that box.) The ones with the little asterisk are from some of my favourite publications, which are, in my opinion, well worth subscribing to.
Living In Dirt from
*The Sounds of Home from
Moments of lightness from
*
That’s a wrap for August ‘23! Feel free to make me the happiest person alive by reaching out to discuss any of it. If you want the tinier, but week-lier, version of super fun links (along with poetry, book, and song recommendations, plus a sometimes-nonsensical-sometimes-profound-sometimes-toopersonal writeup), we’d be happy to have you over at
.If you’d like, please share this with your friends. Or your mother. Or on your Instagram story that you share a Spotify link on once in six months. Or anybody who you think would enjoy it. This is a fresh-out-of-the-oven publication, and I am deeply passionate about telling people what to read.
Thanks for reading, and see you next month!
Thank you so much for the mention, Jahnavi! I'm so glad you enjoyed "The Sounds of Home," and I'm excited to check out all the great reading inspiration here 🙏✨