The Ban on Hot Takes

Don't hit send, join my movement.

Hey friends,

A couple of reasons you’re getting this today. I took the day off yesterday because well, the world. And the second reason I took the day off from writing an already pre-written newsletter that I tossed to write this one is that being online can be overwhelming. And we can no longer deny this.

I hate everyone’s hot takes, mine, yours, and the person we all follow but secretly hate.

I think it’s time we normalize shutting up.

C’mon, join me in hating everything, join my small movement of one and possibly Fran Lebowitz.

My cause you ask? Why do I want the ban on hot takes?

I’ll give you a scenario! Bam! Something just happened it’s all over the news, it’s in the Twitter world, and on your favorite influencers’ Instagram. You’re starting to feel this heavy pressure to join in on all the takes because you’ve told yourself that your take is somehow needed. So now I have to read your hot take along with the 42 I just read and I have to decide which one I like the most or which one I believe in and then subscribe to it so much that it becomes my own thought and now I’m saying your hot-take at dinner parties, I even called into NPR and gave this take and I don’t even know if I believe in it or if it's right, but no worries, because of you I didn’t have to think at all. I didn’t have to think of the current event on my own, I didn’t have my own understanding and feelings around it.

Do you want that to be my life? Do you? Think of the children! Can you imagine the hot takes in 2050? We created monsters and let me tell you where we went wrong.

It’s okay to not know what to say or not know what is going on or just to observe and listen. I’m not sure if there is an expectation we all feel, an obligation to say something about that thing, and we’re all scrambling to come up with the words to speak on this thing we aren’t really processing or thinking critically on, we just pull words together that will make us look involved and we hit send.

There’s intense pressure with sharing our thoughts on the internet. We have to let everyone know that we are completely engaged in current events in America and our world, that we are indeed woke and out of bed, and that we aren’t ignoring horror. And of course, we’re not ignoring it because we participate in it.

There is always high traffic on the internet, when something is boiling over, we want to know how everyone feels and we want everyone else to know we are watching. We need to be involved which is very human of us. It’s understandable. But I don’t think it’s always helpful. Involvement can be us listening. Us feeling what is happening.

So little are we expressing how hopeless we feel in these moments, how sad we are, and sometimes our honest emotions are enough, that can be more valuable than our hot takes.

We’re not always going to know what to do, what to say and I believe that, should be more acceptable. Get away from behind the wheel, and take more than a back seat, do one better, and get out of the car!

I was asked yesterday for my hot take, “ Christy what do you think about what happened in Brooklyn?” I think it’s sad, it’s really sad. And I hit send.

I began to feel pressure and had this feeling that I should head to the internet to scream my thoughts in Neue Helvetica font. But I instead just processed what was going on. And it felt more socially responsible to do that. It felt responsible, to be honest, and say that I didn’t know what to say and that I was just sad.

I think it’s okay to feel before hitting send. The digital pressure to keep up and if you aren’t saying anything then some way that means you don’t care, and this may work in some situations, but mostly I think a lot of us just want to say “ This is sad.”

And trust me, I thought and thought and I have a hot take today, I always will.

Social responsibility should be a rule to follow when using the internet I find it very important. Before I share I have to ask myself :

Why am I sharing this?

Do I truly believe what I’m saying?

Do I know enough of what I’m writing about?

And then I usually take myself off the gas stove and the pressure goes down and I no longer feel obligated to share. Which is a good thing! Because we have formed this silly idea that the influencer who does fashion hauls should be discussing every major event, no I want to know the next sale!

And this isn’t to say people aren’t multi-dimensional but the pressure that they have to show this to us and get out of their niche in the first place is where we’ve created the problem. We’re expecting everyone to show their concern and goodness and if it isn’t displayed then it doesn’t exist. Because our world is the internet. There is no other place of existence of thoughts.

If I don’t say anything It’s not that I don’t care, and I think we have managed to make people be seen that way, we have asked for a lot out of people who know only a little. And we’ve created hot-take monsters. Where there is a panic about not being the first to jump on the current event.

Share a book, a newsletter, a poem, when we don’t know, listen when we don’t have words. Express worry, fear… let’s allow each other the freedom to process before sending something on the world wide web. That is the best hot take we can pass on sometimes.

See you next week with a juicy hot take I will most definitely have. Because I wouldn't be me without being a walking contradiction.

-Christy