Marilyn Monroe on OnlyFans

Sitting down to write this, a dozen other compulsions compete for attention. I adjust my Spotify playlist, blaming the music for throttling my writing mood. I mindlessly refresh my email on my phone. Instagram sings her familiar siren song with the promise of infinite art, hiking, and cat content. 

With easy access to “anything and everything all of the time” (as Bo Burnham put it), my Paleolithic brain struggles to focus. It’s a relatively slow organic machine that predates our modern information, technology, and entertainment landscape. Our tools are quickly outshining our endemic capabilities—and with AI’s imminent takeover of our attention and economy, this will only get worse for us mere mortals.

I’m not blind to the benefits of our current world: I’m still blown away that I have a pocket-sized device serving as my telephone, music player, library of books and magazines, multilingual dictionary, note-taker, ride-hailer, personalized atlas, camera, and so much more.

But it often feels like a Faustian bargain: we reap the benefits of having so many capabilities in one small machine, but we’re forced to ward off the intrusion of time- and dollar-seeking companies who purport to offer their services for “free.” They collect and profit off of observing our behavior. They sell our information to other companies, who use it to power their marketing algorithms or nascent AI technologies. And on social media, influencers do whatever it takes to capture our most precious asset: our attention.

How would our world’s greatest minds have responded to having a smartphone? Would they have been empowered, intoxicated, addicted, or stultified? Is it easier or harder for a genius to emerge in today’s frenetic media landscape? 

I can imagine the favorite apps of some historical figures:

• Ernest Hemingway – X – Rising star in the manosphere and passionate about keeping trans women out of sports
• James Baldwin – Reddit – A top contributor known for destroying racist and homophobic trolls 
• Oscar Wilde – Grindr – Gets busted in Texas under a rarely enforced anti-sodomy law
• Marilyn Monroe – OnlyFans – Makes more money than Elon Musk
• Buffalo Bill Cody and Calamity Jane – TikTok – Their cowboy-core videos promote “The Wild West Show,” which routinely sells out in the country’s largest stadiums
• Abraham Lincoln – Bluesky – Still believes he can create a more perfect union through reasoned discourse
• Julia Child – YouTube – Shows you how to “make that soufflé your bitch” 
• Mark Twain – Facebook – Just trying to keep up with his children and grandchildren between writing sessions
• Eleanor Roosevelt – Instagram – Cats and sapphic art abound while she slips into your wife’s DMs
• JFK – Ashley Madison, Raya, Tinder – DTF wherever and whenever

To harness the power of all of our modern tools, impulse control and self-discipline are paramount. It’s much easier to spiral down an algorithmic rabbit hole—an addictive short video feed tailored to our specific interests—than it is to use apps intentionally for higher purposes. 

Building community, organizing politically, and producing creative work (rather than derivative AI slop) should be the goals. There’s room to zone out and let the social media feed take the wheel, but too much time ceding control to the machines and our brains get flabby. At least that’s how I feel after an Instagram bender. 

Be conscientious about the time you spend online and “go touch grass,” as the kids say: it will feel much better between your fingers than your phone ever will.