For The New Yorker, Hanif Abdurraqib looks at group chats and the place they hold in our lives as cherished spaces to connect over memes, share photos, and process difficult times. For him, though, the most important function of these online spaces is to help one another feel seen, regardless of what’s happening in our lives or in the world.
Over time, the group has become a family affair, as partners and spouses have joined. The conversation is sometimes absurd, and sometimes salacious, but I’ve come to cherish it as a sturdy and rich world that hangs on the edge of the wider collapsing one. I fall into it and remember that even if I fail in a great number of things, on any given day, I can love my friends well just by finding something they love and saying, “Look, I saw this and I thought of you.”
More writing by Hanif Abdurraqib
Our Longing for Inconvenience
“The modern world has made us ill-equipped for the nuisances of past technologies, even as it has fuelled nostalgia for things that might transport us back to calmer times.”
In Defense of Despair
“The feeling is most commonly framed as an end point, a level of despondency that cannot be overcome. But it doesn’t have to be.”
We’re More Ghosts Than People
“I believe in redemption in the same way that I believe in heaven: I feel required to.”
