Funny Women
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A few weeks ago, I went to my college reunion in Massachusetts. While waiting for a bus at the airport, I did a double-take when I spotted a stranger whose face that I recognized. I ran up to her and tapped her shoulder. “Perdoname, pero eres la madre en cuarentena?” She gave me a wide smile and replied emphatically, “¡Si!” Indeed, here she was in the flesh, someone whose videos I have been enjoying on Instagram for several years: @madres.en.cuarentena. (And as it turns out, she was also headed to her college reunion! Unfortunately we attended different colleges… damn, that would have been fun to party with her!)
I want to address something that you may be wondering about. I—the writer of the Scroll Sanity newsletter—has a favorite Instagram content producer?? The ethos I espouse in this newsletter is digital health and digital minimalism, and it’s something I struggle with and work on every day. And yet, I am someone who enjoys watching Instagram videos from time to time, and over the years, I have found a few beloved accounts of hilarious women who make me laugh.
We live in a digital world, and it’s not a reality that is going away. (Quite the contrary; it’s only getting more intense.) I want to reiterate that this newsletter and my ideas are about remaining in control of our relationships with technology and the digital world, not eschewing it altogether. [I had to roll my eyes at a BBQ recently when I was telling someone about this newsletter and she asked me if I printed it on paper, since apparently I didn’t believe in digital technology.]
Finding health and balance around the internet, social media and devices looks different for everyone.
at has been off social media for several years. has struggled with their relationship to social media, finally deciding that quitting was the best way for them to stay sane. from Under the Influence podcast uses her social media presence as an important tool to sell her books and spread her message.I have written about the way that my relationship to social media changed radically after I took a yearlong sabbatical in 2017, which I have written about in Orion & SELF. While my husband decided not to return to social media after our experiment, I made the decision to reactivate my accounts. And yet, the result of the sabbatical was that the toxic hold that social media had on my psyche had been severed. My need to post continuously and essentially LARP my life for my “friends” and followers was gone.
Instead, I have used social media as a tool, instead of letting social media use me. Facebook groups have been a lifeline for creating community in a new city, connecting with writers (and finding an amazing writing group), and learning from families who are raising kids on sailboats.
While Facebook is my address book for connecting with old (and new) friends, Instagram plays quite a different role in my online life. For some people, Instagram is where they get their news and engage politically. For me, it’s pure entertainment. Sometimes I’ll watch a few stories published by friends, but most of the time when I log into Instagram (from a desktop usually every few days), I check my direct messages. That’s where the gold is. Whenever my friends or my sister see a video or meme that they think would make me laugh, they send it to me. And those videos collect in my DMs until I log on and watch them in rapid succession, laughing my ass off. As a result, my Instagram feed is full of hilarious women, many of them mothers, whose videos make me laugh and bring me joy.
I remember watching a video by KC Davis in which she likened Instagram and TikTok content creators to court jesters, whose sole purpose was to entertain the king. The world is burning and we are living in a time of war and genocide. Those things are all true. And yet, laughter is still allowed. Joy is still encouraged – in whatever way you can find it.
Joy for me these days is watching the birds flit around our birdfeeder. I find joy in tending my gardens and going for evening walks around the neighborhood with my children. Phone calls with friends, contradances on the last Friday of the month, a homemade matcha latte, and reading Substack newsletters before bed – these things bring me joy. Funny women on Instagram – joy.
Sometimes I consider myself a funny woman. Before I had kids, I used to frequent open mic nights where I’d work on my stand-up routine. Thinking about funny women on Instagram has made me wonder—should I join them?
There’s part of me who’s a limelight-loving ham, who loves being on stage and making people laugh. Part of me is an entertainer. Wouldn’t it be fun to re-awaken this hidden part of me?
Yes, but after further reflection, I have concluded that Instagram is not the right venue for me. I want to make people laugh – not for the likes, but for the way it makes me feel: alive. It’s that instant feedback—laughter from friends, my kids, my husband, an audience—that I love.
I have no delusions about having a Netflix special one day, but I am trying to find ways to have more fun. In her new book, “The Power of Fun,” Catherine Price writes about doing things for the sake of doing them, not to achieve any end goal beyond the happiness and joy that it brings. In our productivity and achievement obsessed culture, it’s a reminder that there is value in simply doing something for fun, for the way it makes us feel. In finding what genuinely brings us joy, we deepen our connection to ourselves, and to the world around us.
I recently finished reading Oliver Burkeman’s book “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.” I think I’m a bit late to the show, but whoa. So, so good. I think I underlined and copied half of the sentences in that book. Here are a few of Burkeman’s thoughts about hobbies:
It’s surely no coincidence that hobbies have acquired this embarrassing reputation in an era so committed to using time instrumentally. In an age of instrumentalization, the hobbyist is subversive: he insists that some things are worth doing for themselves alone, despite offering no payoffs in terms of productivity or profit. […] And so in order to be a source of true fulfillment, a good hobby probably should feel a little embarrassing; that’s a sign you’re doing it for its own sake, rather than for some socially sanctioned outcome.
To pursue an activity in which you have no hope of becoming exceptional is to put aside, for a while, the anxious need to “use time well.”