Posted by Marie Le Conte

https://youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/what-we-owe-to-each-other-also-some

Hi!

Hello! I'm writing this to you from Budapest (!) where I am working on a piece for this very newsletter (!). As paying subscribers will already know, I'm changing things up a bit around here, and am now aiming to publish a monthly feature from…somewhere in Europe about…something happening there. Wahoo!

The whole pitch is purposefully being kept pretty loose, partially because I don't really know what I'm doing yet and I don't want to overpromise, but mostly because surely, "editorial freedom" is the whole point of having a Substack. In fact, I still can't tell you much about what I'll be sending you next week, as I'm not done with my jaunt yet. I'm really excited about it though!

I've spent a lot of the past few years mostly accidentally reading a lot of non-fiction books written by people mixing fun travel writing with actual foreign reporting, and that made me realise that 1) I love reading that stuff 2) not enough people are writing stuff like it at the moment.

I'm not pretending I'm going to become the next Ryszard Kapuściński but I do think - hope? - there's some space there for writing that's both serious and whimsical, and tells you a bit about a place you may not know a whole lot about, without pretending to be a true expert in all of it. I also want it to focus on Europe, both as a political unit and a continent, for the quite obvious reason that America has gone mad and Putin is at the door, and it may be nice to look at that one bit of the world that's trying to figure out what to do next.

Anyway! I think this is very exciting. I hope you're excited too. I'll see you next week with my first dispatch, but in the meantime you can have a regular essay, as a treat. Viszlát!

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A column

It's not that it's some impossible paradox; it's just an annoying question. Would you like to make your life worse in order for the world to get better? Can't the answer be "ugh, again"?

It popped up as a discussion on Bluesky the other day, as social media platforms love nothing more than talking about themselves. If you missed it, the gist was: Twitter is limping but it isn't dead yet, and the people who have chosen to remain on there are having their brains fried by Elon Musk, the algorithms, and the various freaks currently thriving there.

What we would need, ideally, is for them to join us in the other place instead, where you only see what you choose to see, and where hatred and outrage don't get monetised. Over time, one hopes, they would begin to see just how depraved their internet diet had become. The only problem is that, well, we're the ones currently living in the oasis. Do we really want our cosy little hamlet to be invaded by everyone-but-the-fascists?

"Everyone-but-the-fascists" is a pretty wide group after all. Bluesky is currently pleasant because it is mostly lacking in oddly combative centrists and "edgy" shock jocks. Sure, some of them would probably become less irksome once accustomed to a platform that doesn't reward their worst instincts, but it would take time, and it wouldn't be a given.

Do we really have to be the bigger people and try to convince them to come join us, then treat them nicely and politely so they make a home there in our neighbourhood? That's what we discussed for a few days. Different people had different views; for the most part, everyone talked past everyone else, because that's how these things usually work.

I personally struggled to pick a side. I left Twitter entirely after the US election last year, and very rarely venture there to lurk. When I do, though, I usually notice that a lot of people I follow, and indeed some people I know, now follow outright racists and fascists. They're not, say, Conservative party activists who may occasionally make you wince, but proper, full-fat extremists.

I've not brought it up with any of those people, but suspect they would argue that it's "good" and "healthy" to be surrounded by views from across the political spectrum. What I worry they don't realise is that, not too long ago, some random bloke posting about deporting millions of non-white people away from Britain would not have been considered part of any political spectrum worth engaging with.

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https://youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/what-we-owe-to-each-other-also-some

Posted by Marie Le Conte

https://youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/how-the-devil-stole-my-eyes

Hello!

Hi! I hear there's no Doctor in Doctor Who anymore. That feels like an issue. I'd put myself forward but I'm not sure I can be bothered, so instead I've compiled a list of people I think should be the new Doctor. There’s no logic to the list whatsoever, the names are in no particular order, and the only thing connecting those ten suggestions is "I thought of them". You're welcome.

Kieran Culkin

Alright, alright, I know what you're thinking. I know you're thinking that I've just found a new way in which to shoehorn Kieran Culkin, an actor I am moderately obsessed with, into something that would otherwise be unrelated. I see you. I would also like to fight back, and argue that he'd be brilliant at it.

You need your Doctor to be someone who's obviously wildly intense and struggling to keep all their thoughts and feelings and memories into one human-sized body. I reckon Kieran Culkin would be good at that.

I also believe quite strongly that the Doctor is only truly good when handsome but in a slightly unusual way. David Tennant was the answer to the question "what if you stuck a suit on a Pez dispenser", and Matt Smith looked like a sexy foot. Culkin has the physicality of a mischievous little imp. It would work.

Florence Pugh

"Oh wow Marie", I can hear you say, "you're just going for whoever you happen to be attracted to, huh?", and I mean sure, if being attracted to Florence Pugh is a crime then shackle me and send me straight to the gaol, because I am guilty as charged.

I do sincerely believe she'd be a great Doctor, though. She's a brilliant, brilliant actress and, while Culkin has all that manic energy blatantly fizzing just under the surface, Pugh would be tremendous at portraying all the emotional upheaval that comes from being a quasi-immortal being who's seen so, so much. She'd still be able to bring in that lightness and kookiness, though, and I reckon she'd get the Doctor mix right.

Harry Maguire

Hahahahahahaha can you imagine? My large headed boy, sulking through time and space, sulking in the Tardis and sulking out of it also. Headbutting Cybermen. Rolling his eyes at his companions. Every episode a tale of The Dour Northern Man Who Can't Fucking Believe We Have To Do This Again. Occasionally we'd get one of his sly little smiles though, and that'd be nice.

Meghan Markle

I say fuck it: the BBC and Disney should jump genitals first into the culture wars and get Meghan as the new Doctor. She would be very bad at it, because she is not very good at acting. I should know, I've watched Suits. Twice. Why have I watched it twice? Mind your own business.

Anyway - yeah, I think maybe Doctor Who needs to take one for the team here and keep the tabloids busy for the foreseeable future, so the government can actually get to work without having to deal with them yelling about anything and everything.

Harry Styles

We've had a serious Doctor, a playful Doctor, a whimsical Doctor, an angry Doctor, and so on and so forth, but now I must ask: have we ever had a truly whoreish Doctor? I reckon Harry Styles would fix that. He'd get it on with all manners of aliens. He'd smooch half the galaxy. It'd be great fun.

Xi Jinping

Listen, it's the Chinese century. I say we get in early, abandon all our principles and offer him the gig. Would it be a fun watch? Not at all. Not in the slightest. I truly have no interest in watching Xi Jinping travelling around in the Tardis. I'm just saying it's an option we should be keeping in mind.

Hard to figure out who to bring in as a companion though. Maybe Sabrina Carpenter. Mix it up a bit.

Adam Driver

As discussed elsewhere, my favourite Star Wars movie is The Last Jedi, basically because it isn't really a Star Wars movie. One of the reasons it feels so different from the others, I think, is that Adam Driver is simply too good at acting. TLJ's Kylo Ren is simply too emotionally complex a character for the franchise.

This is why I'd love to see his Doctor. I reckon it'd break the format a bit as well, but also maybe it wouldn't. Matt Smith was good at playing around with the light and shadows of being the Doctor, and Driver would, in my opinion, be even better. We could be getting Arthouse Who. I'd be up for that. Also we know he can do the pew pew pew really well. He'd look the right amount of silly yet credible waving the sonic around.

Rachel Reeves

Absolutely rancid vibes to this casting choice but I couldn't ignore it, largely because it popped into my head and made me burst out laughing. Can you imagine the sheer joylessness of the show if Reeves was the Doctor? Going from planet to planet, explaining that actually not much more can be done, sorry, using all the charisma and emotional intensity of a half-cooked tagliatelle. Awful. Horrid.

Jason Statham

We Gave This Timelord A Gun And You'll Never Guess What Happened Next

Bernard-Henri Lévy

Ah I'm so upset about this. I know it's my own list and I truly only have myself to blame but I hate this so much. I do not want my fellow countryman to be in the Tardis. I do not want that hair and that open shirt to be roaming through space and time. Maybe that's what space and time deserve though. They've been misbehaving for too long. “The French” is what they deserve.

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A column

There's this deal with the devil I made a while back, and I'm still not sure if I want out. Like all good deals with the devil, its true nature wasn't obvious at first. As far as I was concerned, I'd merely been a lonely kid who'd been given the means to feel less alone. It was pretty great.

Thanks to the internet, I was able to make friends with people I wouldn't have met organically, and I could then stay in touch with all those people and talk to them as much as I wanted. As a teenager, I would spend hours and days in my bedroom, typing on my keyboard like a crazed pianist, talking about everything and nothing on MSN Messenger and elsewhere.

In my twenties, my friends leapt out of that large screen and poured themselves into a smaller one. Suddenly I had a smartphone and, no matter where I went, I knew I would always have those people in my pocket. I would, in the words of my countrymen Justice, never feel alone again. How swell!

The catch took a while to identify itself. I think I vaguely became aware a few years ago, but I just couldn't put it into words yet. There was just that vague, ominous, uncomfortable feeling which I kept trying to ignore. In the end, it hit me more or less at random, at some point a few months ago.

I was walking around, going heaven knows where, and suddenly I thought: oh, my eyes aren't my own anymore. That's a bummer. What I meant by that was that I kept looking around, at the dogs waiting outside shops for their owners, the way the light hit this or that building, the charming shop windows and the silly graffiti, but I was doing so as a camera, not as a person.

Had my eyes been mine and mine only, I would have either failed to notice these things altogether, or vaguely spotted them without giving them another thought. Because of my curse, however, all I could think about was "will the sun's reflection on this piece of glass make it impossible to take a decent picture on my phone"; "can this cat stop moving for long enough for me to get a snap of him without it being blurry"; "would this funny street sign fit into a square format, or would it only work as a less stylised story".

As it turned out my brain had, over time, tethered itself to Instagram entirely, turning itself into little more than a lens. In this slightly grotesque scenario, my phone had become the centre of all action, and my body a mere tool with which to achieve what needed to be done.

"I never signed up for that!", I thought, but of course that's what I'd done. There was no point lying to myself. I enjoyed posting on the app and, later, looking back at my own timeline, and immersing myself in various, minor memories of fancy galleries, lovely jaunts abroad and countless bathroom selfies.

I enjoyed the version of myself it showed to the world, and I enjoyed that I got to share my life with that world as well. My friendless days have now been behind me for a few decades, but formative years are called that for a reason. If your childhood was spent steeped in crushing, constant solitude, you'll spend the rest of your life truly cherishing human connection, and refusing to take it for granted.

That's what I tried to write about a few months ago here, but I don't think I quite managed to get there. It happens sometimes, with essays: the game is to identify that thing floating around your head and do your best to nail it down, using your words, and when you're lucky it works but occasionally it doesn't, and there's nothing you can do about it.

I still think it was a good piece; I'm not entirely displeased with it. Still, I could tell even then that it didn't hit the spot, and so here I am again. That's one of the good things about having your own newsletter: it'd be tough to go to your commissioning editor and ask for a do-over, but I can do it here. That's nice.

In this second attempt, then, what I would like to ask is: who's getting the better deal here, between me and the devil? Last time, I argued that artifice isn't inherently a bad thing. It isn't a crime to want your life to look thrilling and good, just as birds shouldn't be judged for preening in front of potential mates.

If anything, being driven by this desire to be interesting online has, all things considered, almost certainly turned me into a more interesting person. I go on more walks; go to more galleries and museums; make more of an effort to pay attention to my surroundings. These are all developments to be welcomed.

Obviously, in an ideal world, I would have done all those things for their own sake, but I'm only human. Sometimes the "why" doesn't matter as much as the fact that you've done the thing. The "why" isn't even that nefarious: it's quite pleasant that I have all these friends in my phone, and that I want to share my adventures with them.

Still, despite all this, I feel queasy. Shouldn't my eyes be mine and mine only? What happens to a person when the boundary between their brain and the rest of the world gets this porous? We know that people who became famous when they were young tend to be quite emotionally, socially and intellectually maladjusted, as a person just isn't meant to exist with so little private space to call their own.

What happens to us when we turn ourselves into one of those Mickey Mouse Club children? If I outsource my sight to social media then I don't know that I can truly call my tastes my own. If I look at a series of pictures I posted on Instagram, I cannot reliably say that they represented all the best parts of that day, because I know that what they were, instead, merely the most photogenic shards of whatever I'd got up to.

The problem there, though, is that human memory is fallible, and I'm more likely to remember something if I take a picture of it, post it, then know I can and will return to it semi-frequently. I lent my gaze to the devil because I didn't want to be alone in my own head anymore but, as a result, I can no longer trust what I see.

Back in 2020, I wrote in a piece that "I post pictures knowing that I will look at them again in a few months, and suddenly I am no longer stuck in the tedium of our current lives. I’ve established a link to my future self, who will presumably want to remember what happened in the year of the plague."

Chronicling your life on social media means letting go of the linearity of time, and linking past, present and future versions of yourself in the process. I spend my life not in the moment but constantly reminded of what happened, recently or years ago, or posting future memories and treating the person I will soon become as my audience.

Crucially, because the entire exercise is undertaken publicly, I cheapen that relationship with myself by making it as polished as possible. Is that healthy? No, really, I'm asking because I can't make up my mind - is it?

Or maybe that's the wrong way to think about it. This state of affairs isn't better or worse than what came before it, but merely different. The world changes and so we change with it. My only worry, I suppose, is that we sleepwalked into all this, and mostly failed to stop and think about what those shifts have done to us.

It took me years and years of daily Instagram use to notice that the devil had taken my eyes; what else has he stolen without me noticing? What has he given me in return, in order for me not to spot that something was missing? Oh, and don't believe for one moment that I'm not aware of the great, honking irony at the heart of all this.

Here I am, agonising about technology having given me human connection but taken away my ability to truly tend to my interior life, and doing so while standing up there on stage, like an actor delivering a soliloquy.

Everything I said about pictures can apply to words too: I know I'm better at figuring things down by writing them, and I know I'm considerably more likely to write those things down if I can then shove them in a space where they will be read by others. Does this mean that I have, over the years, become a more astute thinker, as a result of trying to pin down all these thoughts which would have otherwise languished at the back of my skull? Absolutely!

Does it also mean that I have entirely stopped writing for myself - something I used to do - and that I am, consequently, only really able to process themes or topics which are palatable enough to be thrown into the public eye? You can bet your bottom dollar on that, baby doll. The devil is here and whatever he's selling, I'm buying.

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https://youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/how-the-devil-stole-my-eyes