It's been almost 2 years of posting content every day (my anniversary is in may) and I can't overstate how debased the normalization of scrolling is.

I am convinced of two things:

1) there will be scroll rehabs soon (and we will describe scrolling as an addiction/sickness)

2) there will be a new DSM entry that describes whatever tf happens to your brain when you get into the influencer racket

^^you will never be a worse partner than when you are caring about how many views your new brain rot is getting

It's hard to say what was worse for my mental health

becoming a content creator or working with my ex-publisher (which collapsed 1 month after my book came out). I'm not exaggerating when I say, this past summer, I could physically feel my mental health deteriorating.

(A weird side effect of 2 years of posting is that it made me certain I'm not having kids. I don't understand how one could parent with this addictive drug that is totally accepted and mainstream and pushed on kids.)

I haven't opened a social media app since Sunday march 1st. I scheduled my IG content (and this post) and removed the apps from my main phone (I got a "content" phone this summer because storage was an issue). This stealth hiatus is what I mean by quiet quitting -- maintaining my social presence w minimum effort.

I'll see how I feel at the end of my 2 week break (maybe I'll miss posting?) but my rough plan is to pivot to writing more long form essays and treating this (SadRichGirls.com) as a Substack with weekly/biweekly posts.

Making content is the fastest way to become pathologically self-conscious

Before posting each Reel/TikTok, I would visualize and imagine the answers to: "What is the most unhinged hateful toxic reaction that someone could have to this?" Then I'd marinate in that space for a while. Mmmm.

It is a sort of "skill" to anticipate what precisely internet psychos will hurl at you (lotssss of bean soup) and I desperately want to unlearn it. Obviously. I don't want to waste a moment imagining what the dumbest, incel-y-est person thinks about me.

I thought about turning off comments (some people were like, nooo dont do that your engagement will drop! literally. friends of mine said this and i had to be like, ya but my mental health??) but then people DM you. I don't want that either.

For me, not reading comments isn't only about being too smart to engage with 99% of commenters-- it's also because I don't want to self-censor. when you read criticism ("you're pretentious", "you're condescending,") you keep checking yourself for that quality. I found myself being hyper self-critical and these voices of internet randoms-- people whose opinions I would never listen to irl-- were deafening in my head. (I'm condescending on purpose!)

So you dilute yourself to try to avoid any criticism and this means you make boring ass NormalBob content. do i want to make crazy gonzo content? not exactly. I just want to get rid of all the voices.

i hate living in a self-created panopticon

I'm sort of mad at myself for getting here. I took a faustian deal that, I would argue, I had to accept for my author career--but you never have to take it. I could've let my book die. I could've looked on as it was decapitated and just let it happen - but instead i went down the social media warpath route willingly. It was a choice.

I might be falling for the 'one for them, one for me' fallacy: I want to have a career as an author, if it means i have to participate in the attention economy so be it -- here's 2 min of me talking about how I'm annoyed my friend was late again. I don't know if you can make short-form content without self-harming* to some degree. But I'm gonna try-- this is my new thing. I'm planning to queue up my posts twice a month in batches and only check the stats, say, once a week. (Should it be less?)

I'm not gonna pick up my phone almost 100x a day (this stat is embarrassing- since my mini-hiatus started I've cut this in half). I'm not gonna try to ride topical waves (but when there's a wild article in the cut, will i be able to resist?). If one of my videos is going viral, I'm not gonna make one that piggybacks off it (Part II!!).

It's just going to be scheduled programming. consistent. agnostic of what is going on in the world. I think (hope) this will be enough distance so I don't feel like social media is my main (unpaid) job.

*I've come to believe that posting publicly, exposing yourself to scrutiny/hate on the internet, is self-harm. Every influencer gets to the point where they either make a video replying to hate comments (guilty) or a crying video where they say, "i'm a real person with feelings".

i've earned the right to protect myself... right?

I read how to do nothing by jenny odell a few years ago and it really stuck with (aka haunted) me- yet I have been more online than ever in the past 2 years.

I don't think i need to justify my new plan of pretending to be online-- because that's what I'm basically planning to do. I'll continue to "post every day" but I'm only simulating that I am actually there.

As much as social media has been proven to be deleterious to mental health, I wonder if I might be jumping the gun in quitting slash biting the hand that feeds me. Maybe I need to pay my dues a few more years. Because It's impossible to deny that my brain rot on IG is correlated with the sale of my 2nd book (both my new agent and new editor found me on socials). And as someone brought up in an Asian household, I cannot stress to you how much "paying your dues" is beaten into you.

The 'keep your head down' mentality has never been how I've played it though (it's never rewarded- bamboo ceiling!) so even though I'd bet anything that if I asked my family for their advice (don't worry, I will jump off a bridge before I do this) they would say KEEP DOING SOCIAL MEDIA AT A BREAKNECK PACE THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MENTAL HEALTH!!!

But I'd continue to ignore their advice. In fact, imagining what they would advise gives me more confidence that ratcheting down is the smart decision 🤔

I hate getting unsolicited feedback from people I don't respect

Goodreads. Amazon reviews. The comments section. But the understanding is creators invite criticism through the act of posting (idk if I totally agree with this, but it's accepted). I feel like my phone is inhabited with demons all the time.

Part of what inspired this invisible hiatus (does it count less since I scheduled content? I really can't decide) is a newer friend (I met her at my Salon in November and we've gotten close) who told me she deleted IG a while ago. She's in her late 20s and we have great conversations about culture and she is not at all "out of the loop" for being a non-scroller.

Until recently, I genuinely believed that in order to be zeitgeist-y and have my finger on the pulse I "needed" to be somewhat online. I still believe this but I care less about being THAT zeitgeist-y. I can settle for being moderately zeitgeist-y (tiktok format that would do well: how zeitgesit-y are you??)

If, moving forward, my finger-on-the-pulse-ness is simply me reading contemporary fiction, 2 years behind the Big Trends (couldn't care less about cultural microtrends), I am good with that---

because i never wanted to be here in the first place.

("here" being IG/TikTok) My hand to god, when i had the very 1st meeting with my ex-publisher i told them not to waste their breath advising me to do social media. I would never ever do it no matter how important they thought it was. They were fine with my refusal.

And then i got to know them.

They (the folks i worked with at my ex-publisher) had to be the quickest most lethal version of Weaponized Incompetence I've ever met. I went from saying "no social media" to making an account (1 year before my release, mind you) and posting every. single. day. That's how effectively their withhhhering incompetence made me tremble.

It was like swearing I'd never gamble-- and then learning to count cards when I saw what a desperate situation I was in.

I post out of fear

and inertia. I feel I owe it to To Have & Have More, my orphan child. And it suffers from being self-published. I can't provide it with the marketing and publicity it deserves-- the closest I can give it is a viral post every now and again. This is like my baby who deserves to be outfitted in bonpoint but, devastatingly, I have her wearing oshkosh b'gosh. Sure thats fine for most kids but MY baby deserves more.

*Damn $235 swim trunks for baby boys! (i love it)

(you would think I'm crazy if you knew how many photoshoots of this book I've done/how many glamour pics I have in my camera roll)

Vegetable metaphor

In my very first posts, I ended with a disclaimer where I would say, "these ideas have been flattened and reduced for social media," (people still bean-soup-ed over every video so I stopped bothering.) I have to remind myself of this disclaimer when I see an offensively reductive video: other creators are also flattening their ideas to cater to the algorithm.

The thing is, maybe the original un-flattened, un-reduced idea behind their/my post was good and smart and worth listening to. But the act of flattening it takes out all the nutrition. You're left with just the husk. This is why I don't eat canned vegetables.

If the original thing is nutritious, but you eliminate all of the nutrients, what is the point of eating the dregs that remain? The only reason is because you can say, "I ate a vegetable." You can still technically refer to it as a vegetable. And to yourself, you justify consuming this empty, non-nutritious (usually harmful) barely-a-vegetable-anymore entity by saying that it was at one point nutritious.

I've tried to reduce my social media time before (just to be clear, my vice isn't scrolling/consuming content, it's checking my stats and making new content instead of writing books) and failed. I've done invisible hiatuses before but I haven't been able to change my habits in a significant or lasting way. Part of posting this is to shame myself into getting offline for real.

I failed before because my reduction was too half-hearted. I didn't remove the apps from my phone, I was relying on being "more disciplined" to break a habit that is really an addiction. In Ria Chopra's essay (which is an excerpt from her book Never Logged Out) she calls out the trend of IG posts that appear to be scroll-shaming (10 Things to read/watch instead of doomscrolling) and how substituting podcasts/substacks/etc (just more content) for scrolling wasn't addressing the actual problem.

I'll report back after 2 weeks and tell you if I actually got so much writing done by giving myself this time back or, what I'm afraid of discovering, if the problem goes even deeper.

Gosh, wouldn't it be so great to delete my accounts and never post another short-form video ever again? A girl can dream!

It is enormously flattering when someone asks me to do a Sad Rich Girl Salon online or to do it in [their city], but this will not be happening any time soon. I'm very sorry if you're not near NYC but taking srgSalon on the road or online would diminish the quality and I hate low-quality anything.

I wish online was not such a paltry version of real life. If you've been on a zoom date or done a zoom class or zoom cocktail party-- you know I'm right. It doesn't compare.

Teaching on zoom is hell. There's no real time feedback. You don't know if people are silent because they're doing something else, totally distracted, on their computer or because they hate you and think your class is trash. And that's the people with their cameras on. The majority of people have their cameras off. Imagine if a stand-up comedian did a show (I know they did this during covid) and had to perform an entire set without any reactions. Madness.

If you still think an online Salon might be "better than nothing", let me give you the live music example. For a musician I'm a huge fan of, yes I will tune into a livestream of their concert. But recognizing how big the gap is between the online experience and the concert in-person experience --and now extrapolating this massive, massive chasm to the Salon and considering that OnlineSalon vs IRLSalon would have a proportionate gap - I can't do it. It would be unacceptable to release something so subpar just because it's easy enough to set up a stream.

I shut down the discord

precisely because of my hatred for low-quality. I didn't have time to manage it well and I definitely needed to be active and present (it never reached flow state/autopilot) for it to feel alive. I don't want something that is very much mine to have a lackadaisical presence.

Scaling anything these days feels like a gross thing

It's the Private Equity of it all. Making things bigger because they are trendy/liked/promising ruins them. I can't tell you how much i despise blank street coffee (and 787). A blank st opened a block away from me and seeing this irl symbol move-fast-break-things makes me cringe.

I'm not a blackpink head but private-equity-style expansion is what happened to that group. They're popular so their team works them to death-- makes them tour so much that they get sick (I could've sworn I saw a headline that said one of them passed out on stage while performing- but I can't find it) and they're falling apart but still being pushed BECAUSE they have a shelf life.

In a way, being forced to stay visible in this high-octane way shows a lack of faith from backers. Why can't the band rest and push the tour out a year? why can't blank street grow slowly and deliberately? because they (financiers) don't think it has any staying power. the $ people are thinking of it as a trend and expect the trend to die out imminently. They don't believe in the product, they're manically trying to eke out as much profit for themselves as they can- not realizing (or actually i think they do) that they're destroying it in the process.

I believe in my salon.

Not necessarily that it has the ability to expand into a giant empire but that it's the right format the way it is now. It's a high-effort high-quality thing (a luxe good!) and to pervert that in any way would mean it's no longer the thing i want it to be. Mass produced SRG salon is just crappy discussion group.

I don't believe in my content-

not in the same way as my salon. The salon has legs, it could go somewhere. It could evolve. Content (by which I mean short-form content, 2 min videos etc) is so limited. I've been making worse and worse content (lower effort, less time, less thoughtfulness) because 1) it doesn't change my views/stats and 2) I get to spend more time working on fiction. In fact (and I hope the significance of the following really makes you consider the habit of scrolling) making "worse" content has made my account grow faster. My content since mid February has been sloppier. I'm less concerned about anticipating rebuttals and countering them. I'm essentially letting myself be stupid-er and the algorithm is rewarding me.

Isn't that heinous?

Gene Pressman of Barneys (rip) said:

"Never give the customer what they want because they don't know what they want." This is what I feel about online SRG salon. It sounds like it'd be a good alternative- why not? just livestream it. But people aren't grasping that what the salon promises (and, i think, has delivered so far) is good conversation with interesting people. This would never translate online. You could watch the first 30 min talk of me+friend but the part that I think is the most valuable is the small discussion groups. The fact that so many people linger and continue chatting with each other long after the official event is over is what makes me consider it a success.

It's not just about "cheapening" my brand

That's part of why I don't want to do an online salon, certainly. I don't want to be associated with something that isn't up to my standard. But it's the idea of treating the salon as a "product" that feels ick. We're so accustomed to thinking in terms of brand building and how this salon is "leverage" that can make me look good in the eyes of the industry (maybe a magazine will do a profile on the salon! maybe i will be invited to a podcast!)

Like it's this "asset" that I have that i am not "capitalizing" on enough.

But the salon isn't an asset. It's not something I ever want to think of as a service i am providing. Honestly, I think what makes it good and interesting and valuable is rooted in a certain selfishness. I started a discussion group (unemployed girls club🤪) last summer because I wanted to talk to people who were interested in the same things I'm interested in. People who have the same cultural touch points so i dont have to explain what "west village girl" is (shots fired at my husband, sorry) -- and i found them. and it was a great convo. and I enjoyed it tremendously and so I continue to do the salon for my own enjoyment.

Just because people express a desire for something that you could potentially provide (and let's say they're even willing to pay for it) doesn't mean you should offer it. I think of Ratatouille and how when Gusteau dies, his name is immediately slapped on a bunch of frozen food that he would never have approved. People are clamoring to buy Gusteau frozen meals- but they'll probably be disappointed.

It's like all the Target collabs! I remember being SO excited for the Victoria Beckham one. And then being horrified by how bad the quality was-- but also. what did i expect? of course it's a polyester monstrosity- it was $30.

I swear to god ^^ this must have been a custom version of the target look that her team made special for her in better fabrics (and obv tailored to her tiny size). I bought this entire outfit and it was a disaster.

My salon will probably die before it gets big -- and that's how i prefer it. I'm way more likely to be like those directors who disavow their movies because they feel the studio or whoever is interfering with their vision.

If you are available on March 30th- come to the next salon and see for yourself if it's as magical as I'm claiming it is💖

It was like telling everyone “I’m engaged!” and adding bride 2026💍 to my bio

& then getting dumped by my fiancé

On my ToHave&HaveMore tour last year I was instructed by the publisher to tease my 2nd book (Does This Make Me Look Rich?) and within a month of that directive, they collapsed in a heap of shame/disgrace/incompetence. And I felt like a moron for telling everyone about book2 and then having to backtrack (what a loser!) and clarify that I did not, in fact, have a second book coming out. Uh, no. That fell through. I just have the one ... self-published book. My hand to god [Christopher Moltisanti voice] I wouldn't even have a book1 if Tal didn't become an entire publisher unto himself and jaws-of-life th&hm from the raging inferno of how tf did this happen. (Long live srg press.)

So back to losing face.

All of my shame-based asian upbringing kicked in full force bc disappointment (I want to say 'devastation' but that sounds melodramatic and then I have to check my privilege and be like, "well I'm very lucky that this is the worst thing happening in my life" blah blah blah) was compounded by embarrassment ------ even though all of this wreckage was out of my control!!! (I'm still paying for their fuck-ups in this new deal but I have to save that story for later.)

My second book is official (again)

As of 2/12 I have a new deal for Does This Make Me Look Rich? -- and status symbol of status symbols, it's with a Big 5 press. If that doesn't mean anything to you let me put it this way: it's an ivy league publisher. No more no-name, tEcH-aDjAcEnT, move-fast-and-self-implode BS for this bestselling author (never forget that I'm a bestselling author). I'm chockfull of hubris today- watch this 2nd deal self-destruct also🥰

This big5 deal is the pure uncut external validation that I was jonesing for. I can't afford a designer bag so the next best thing to sate my status-seeking is a book deal with a namebrand publisher.

I'm eking every drop of vanity out of this milestone because it's an impersonal pat on the back from the institutions that be but I know--I'm wiser now--that this does not in any way indicate career progress. Big5 books get released every day to crickets. Pretty much every book flops and every author is dismayed.

My koan of the day: Career progress only comes from TikTok followers and reels going viral (I'm like 30% joking).

Here's what I learned from my first rodeo- trust no publisher. Not bc they're malicious but bc they're deeply&truly indifferent even if they claim to love LoVe yOuR bOoK. Authors aren't cogs in a machine - because cogs are considered important and valued for their function. We are more like cattle--expendable and replaceable and if they could find a way to do it without us (AI will make this possible), they would in a heartbeat. Unless you're compensated generously for your art, don't believe that they care about it. Money is the only love language in publishing and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is scheming to exploit you.

If it sounds like I'm not exactly thrilled- excellent reading comprehension. I had to fight tooth&nail to just get back to where I was two years ago: with a second book lined up. Let's revisit the dumped-by-fiancé metaphor: he dumped me but now he's saying, actually, he does want to get married. Thank you? The amount of time and energy I've spent to stay in one place -- I could be a doctor 3 times over by now (and rich to boot). Instead, I'm writing this post to announce "a book that was supposed to be a done deal is now shunted to a second publisher" with the intention of short-form-content-ifying this post into a carousel for IG because the only way I can have a career that resembles author is if I assiduously content-create.

My new agent and my new editor found me on socials. Book2 is a lovechild of TikTok and my mini mic.

You can bet I am worshipping at the altar of my on-camera persona every night. I am making HUGE donations to Meta daily in the valuable, valuable currency of hours of my one-wild-and-precious life. The only reason book2 survived is thanks to my brainrot output so the only logical response is to keep making it🤪 [I looked up 'deranged emoji' but apparently this expression is 'goofy'.]