My Internet: Kathryn Jezer-Morton
My Internet: Kathryn Jezer-Morton
The Cut's parenting columnist listens to the radio every day, like a Boomer.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Most weeks, we quiz a “very online” person for their essential guide to what’s good on the internet.
Today we welcome Kathryn Jezer-Morton, who writes The Cut’s subscriber-only parenting newsletter-slash-column Brooding. She is also at work on a book for Viking about how social media has changed the way we tell the stories of our lives. Kathryn plays Spelling Bee and Connections every morning with her 13 year old, buys the second-cheapest versions of household goods to save the mental energy of having to comparison-shop, and looks at Threads once a month for 30 seconds. —Nick
EMBEDDED: What’s a recent meme or post that made you laugh?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON:
EMBEDDED: What shows up on your TikTok For You page?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I only use TikTok for research so it’s just the stuff I was most recently researching. So right now it’s gentle parenting advice and people making fun of gentle parents.
EMBEDDED: Do you make TikToks? What format works best for you?
I’ve never made one.
EMBEDDED: Do you still tweet? Why?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: For 15 years and counting, and I have no plans to stop. I love living outside the media bubble, but it’s essential for me to be able to tap in and visit, and Twitter is still where that happens. I test out ideas, and I still discover interesting work there. Many fun people have left, and it’s very obviously in decline, but nevertheless I persist. I’m not proud of it, but listen: I must make do with the flawed tools at my disposal.
EMBEDDED: Have you found any good alternatives to Twitter? Do you have an opinion on Threads?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: At my advanced age I can’t see myself adapting to a new environment. My Threads feed is very boring. I look at it like once a month for 30 seconds.
EMBEDDED: What do you use Instagram for?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: It’s my main social account. DMing with friends, finding out when writers I follow have new work out, memes, trends. I use it too much. I delete the app from my phone pretty regularly to help me focus on my own work, but after a few days I feel out of touch.
EMBEDDED: What types of videos do you watch on YouTube?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I learned about this Hutterite vlogger (below) from the writer
EMBEDDED: Where do you tend to get your news?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I listen to the radio every day, like a Boomer. I have NPR on in the morning while I’m making my kids’ lunches and drinking my coffee, and CBC news in the evening before dinner. I use the radio to create a cozy ambiance, like how some people use scented candles. But unlike candles the radio keeps me somewhat informed. Sometimes I’ll do a bit of Ici-Radio Canada, which is the French-language public broadcaster that has better local news than the English-language CBC in Quebec.
I look at The New York Times every day, and sometimes The Guardian. I subscribe to The Rover, which is a local news source here in Montreal. We subscribe to print editions of The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and New York. Lol. But the mail is slow so we get them all like a week late. “News.”
EMBEDDED: How do you keep up with the online discourse? How important is it to you to do this?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I like to briefly immerse myself in the discourse and then ignore it for long periods of time. I don’t really read the internet on the weekends—it’s not so much a “digital Sabbath” or whatever, it’s that I hate reading articles on my phone, and on the weekends I tend not to be on my laptop. So I’ll see the headlines on Instagram and Twitter, and catch up with everything when I’m sitting at my laptop on Monday.
For Brooding, I have to know what’s going on the mom-internet, which is a deep and complex zone with many niches. I need to know about policy changes related to childcare and whatever debates are ongoing about the care economy in general. My Instagram feed is where I keep up on this stuff.
I’m not a huge TV person so discourse about shows typically goes over my head, but I love any big dust-up over a personal essay or an op-ed. I will go to The Paris Review and The Drift to get a dose of self-serious grad-school-level analysis. I like The Nation, too.
EMBEDDED: What’s the last strong opinion you had about a story, topic, or controversy online?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I have an ongoing strong opinion about the genocide in Gaza. I’m proud of the student protesters.
EMBEDDED: Where do you usually discover or learn about online trends?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: Instagram mostly. I’m grateful to people like Aminatou Sow and Taylor Lorenz who will post TikToks to Instagram for the benefit of those of us who refuse to consume our TikToks at the source.
EMBEDDED: How do you find recommendations for what to watch, read, and listen to?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: For TV, I’ll take recommendations from friends although I mostly watch ’90s action movies with my husband. I rely on academic Twitter to keep me up on new theory books and I have a handful of writer friends on Instagram who know what novels are good. But I don’t usually go looking for recommendations. I like to come upon things a little more by happenstance, maybe so as to uphold a sense (or illusion?) that interesting things inevitably drop into your life, if you stay alert.
Also, I have a neighbor in Montreal, Sean Michaels, who has had a music blog, Said the Gramophone, for a very long time. When he tweets about new music I usually check it out, because he’s got good taste.
EMBEDDED: What’s something that you have observed about the online behavior of Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and/or Boomers?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: It feels like being too serious online skips a generation.
Boomers: Not funny online (at least not intentionally)
Gen X: Funny or at the very least not too serious
Millennials: Sanctimonious, virtue-obsessed, much too serious
Gen Z: Funny
EMBEDDED: What are your favorite Substack or other independent newsletters?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: For style and trends and ideas, I like
EMBEDDED: Do you have any favorite media company newsletters?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: The Dinner Party newsletter from NYMag has always been great and ever since Choire Sicha took it over it feels like a tiny bit of the Awl is back, which I love. Choire’s voice in writing is like grandma’s home cooking.
EMBEDDED: What’s one positive media trend? What’s one negative trend?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: Positive: Return of the personal essay thanks to The Cut and Delia Cai’s Hate Read.
Negative: Layoffs, no local news.
EMBEDDED: Are you into any podcasts right now? How and when do you usually listen?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I usually have one podcast that I faithfully listen to while I’m doing errands or eating lunch. For years it was Who Weekly, but I stopped and it’s hard to get back into it because there’s such thick lore that you need to know about. Then I listened to the Bodega Boys until it ended. Now I listen to How Long Gone, pretty much every episode unless the guest annoys me. Chris and Jason are precious to me.
When Elamin Abdelmahmoud is discussing something I want to learn more about, I listen to his podcast Commotion, and same for Ezra Klein.
EMBEDDED: Have you had posts go viral? What is that experience like?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: A few months ago one of my columns went viral in the conservative media. It sucked. Ross Douthat and John Podhoretz tweeted about it, and unleashed an unholy swarm of losers into my mentions. I got a ton of emails and DMs from people who had done some deep Googling and learned about my background. It’s a risk you run if you ever write about your life, and I’m basically able to accept that, but this time it just lasted too long—over a week. It was a good chance for me to practice my phone-a-friend skills—whenever you feel the urge to engage with someone trolling you, phone a friend instead.
EMBEDDED: Who’s the coolest person who follows you?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I can’t imagine that any uncool people follow me, and ranking them all by coolness would be impossible.
EMBEDDED: Who’s someone more people should follow?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: Memes are a very good way to learn about another country. Follow canada.gov.ca on Instagram to get on the level with Canadians and for a taste of the nation of Quebec, @memesfruiter is probably my fave—they create their own highly specific memes and deliberately push them to the limit which is a funny process to watch. Understanding French isn’t really necessary. Memes are a universal language :)
EMBEDDED: When was the last time you browsed Pinterest? What for?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I have never used it in my life. It is anathema to my whole deal.
EMBEDDED: Do you have a take on Tumblr?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: It seems to have been very important and cool, but I never used it. I was a new mom when it was peaking and at the time I didn’t think it was for me. I was probably wrong.
EMBEDDED: Are you in any groups on Reddit, Discord, Slack, or Facebook? What’s the most useful or entertaining one?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I have been in a million Facebook mom groups over the years for research. They’re all pretty wild, I can’t pick a favorite. In general, rural Facebook is more dramatic than urban Facebook. I love Reddit but I only drop in when I’m doing research. I am a freelancer and therefore do not get to participate in the New York mag Slack, which is a tiny bit sad for me but probably good in the long run in terms of my ability to focus.
EMBEDDED: How has using LinkedIn benefitted you, if at all?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: It has not. I have worked a lot over the last decade in higher-education comms, and I guess it could be useful if I were looking for a job in that field, but it never has been.
EMBEDDED: What most excites you about AI chatbots and text and art generators? What most concerns you?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: The idea of being excited by any creative application of AI is bewildering to me.
EMBEDDED: Are you currently playing any console, computer, or phone games?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I play the New York Times Spelling Bee and Connections every morning with my 13 year old. We try to get Genius every day, that’s our grindset. I can’t do Wordle though, it’s too hard for me.
EMBEDDED: What’s your go-to emoji, and what does it mean to you?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: 🤡, used self-referentially usually
I use this one 😎 a lot with my older son to indicate that I am asking where he is/when he will be home, but that I’m not mad (yet).
EMBEDDED: Do you text people voice notes? If not, how do you feel about getting them?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I love sending and receiving them. I only do this with close friends—it feels very intimate, like whispering with someone in the corner at a party.
EMBEDDED: What’s a playlist, song, album, or style of music you’ve listened to a lot lately?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I listen to the first seven albums that JJ Cale released as one continuous album. It has been the muzak of my life for several years now. I also listen to a lot of Grateful Dead shows.
EMBEDDED: Do you pay for a music streaming service, and if so, which one? When was the last time you bought a music download or vinyl record, CD, or tape?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I pay for Spotify premium so my family can listen simultaneously to different stuff, but Spotify really is the most degrading, low-vibed experience. Not just because it ruined musicians’ livelihoods, but because of its algorithms, which make stupid, basic recommendations, and its interface, which is trash. Not to mention the fact that if you’re listening to semi-ambient music, which I do while I work, it starts serving you AI-generated music after a while. So dark.
My friend Amy recently got me into NTS Radio, which I am loving and might ultimately supplant Spotify for me. The app is nice to use and the DJs are so good. I like Flo Dill’s morning show. You can see the tracklists in the free version of the app which is good enough for me, for discovering new music.
I suspect that if I keep using Spotify at all in the coming years, it will just be for listening to albums and Dead shows.
EMBEDDED: If you could only keep one streaming service for TV and/or movies, which would it be, and why? In general, do you prefer to get ads or pay more for ad-free tiers?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: Probably Crave, which is a Canadian one that has Max shows and a lot of the best Canadian TV. Considering I watch like three series a year, there’s a high likelihood that they’ll be on Crave. I don’t mind ads. I pay way too much for streaming and would love to pay less and watch more ads.
EMBEDDED: What’s your favorite non-social media app?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: The app that tells me which electric car charger in my neighborhood is available. It’s fun and rare when the one closest to my house is free. They need to build more charging stations, and when they do the app will be less exciting.
EMBEDDED: What’s the most basic internet thing that you love?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I love cleaning and restocking videos. I consider myself a scholar of the genre, and am interested to see how it continues to evolve.
EMBEDDED: Do you regularly use eBay, Depop, or other shopping platforms? What’s a recent thing you’ve bought or sold?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I don’t sell anything but I love eBay. My last purchase was a vintage Cirque du Soleil t-shirt.
EMBEDDED: Is there a site you like for product recommendations? How do you decide, for example, which air filter to buy?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I am extremely allergic to product-recommendation culture, which is too bad for me since it seems to be what most people want to read. NYMag asked me to put my “5 things” at the bottom of every newsletter and I was like, guys… no one cares about my 5 stupid things. But then people are always like, “the best part of your newsletter is your 5 things,” which, incidentally, is insulting as hell! I think the magazine needs me to do it to have click-through metrics on which to set an ad rate, right? Anyway, whatever. People love it.
When I need something specific, I might text a friend who I think would be helpful, or I see what’s making the rounds on Facebook Marketplace. Buying the second-cheapest version of something is a method I rely on for things like household goods, which I’m sure is not a good method, but it does save me the mental energy of having to comparison-shop. I mean, most of what is manufactured today is trash, right? Unless you’re rich and can afford the top stuff, which I cannot.
EMBEDDED: Have you recently read an article, book, or social media post about the internet that you’ve found particularly insightful?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: I recently read two books back to back that are generally about the internet, and they were both amazing: Immediacy by Emily Kornbluh, and The Crisis of Narrative by Byung-Chul Han.
EMBEDDED: What’s the last thing that brought you joy online?
KATHRYN JEZER-MORTON: My friends had a baby and I got to see a picture of her :)
Thanks Kathryn! Sign up for her newsletter.
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