I can’t imagine what it must be like to grow up on social media, especially as someone who says things in public—to try to figure out who you are as an adult while living under the panoptic gaze of TikTok and Instagram, or to have one’s intellectual identity shaped by the performative shoutysphere of Twitter. I’m old enough to have missed all that, but Rayne Fisher-Quann, a 21-year-old Canadian writer who has built a large presence on social media and a cult-favorite Substack called Internet Princess, has forged her life and career in the attention economy. How has she dealt with it? With a soul-saving dose of self-awareness. 

“I think almost everybody who posts to some degree on the internet is addicted to attention,” she says. “I mean, most of these apps literally try to make you addicted to the attention, actively.” And she’s acutely attuned to the dark sides, noting that the things that win the most attention on social media are those she considers ethically wrong. If she has her way, she’ll be living on a farm by the age of 35, largely disconnected from the internet. For now, however, she remains very online and very interesting. 

Rayne communicates on social media and Substack with intelligence and wit to a devoted audience mostly made up of teenagers and young women. Her followers devour her takes on the shaming of public-facing women, the real motivations behind the takedowns of “West Elm Caleb,” and the attacks on Amber Heard. They laugh at her jokes on TikTok, thrill to her (sometimes private) tweets, and go deep with her in Substack Chats.

In this conversation, which we recorded live in front of an audience at Substack HQ, we talk about the hostility of TikTok, where people are constantly seeking to misunderstand each other; how she cultivates an online persona that’s close to, but not quite, her real self; and treading the fine line between an open discussion of mental illness and the commodifying of it through social media. “It’s tough,” she says, “because the fan base that I have, and the way that I can present myself, almost anything that I do can become an object of envy or an object of romanticization, which is really strange.”

https://internetprincess.substack.com/

Publishing note: The Active Voice will be on break for a few weeks over the holidays. See you in January, 2023!

Rayne’s recommended reads:

https://franmagazine.substack.com/

https://kieranmclean.substack.com/

https://evilfemale.substack.com/

Show notes

* Subscribe to Internet Princess on Substack

* Find Rayne on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok

* Rookie Mag by Tavi Gevinson 

* [4:53] Becoming famous on TikTok

* [6:31] Being misunderstood online

* [10:54] Insulating against the backlash

* [13:00] The performance of women writers

* [14:40] Creating an internet persona

* [16:34] Growing up with blogs

* [17:56] Writing in lowercase

* [20:40] Mental health communities 

* [23:25] Being made into a Spotify playlist

* [27:01] Pitching to Vice

* [27: 53] Rayne’s writing process

* [30:17] Roots in activism

* [33:37] Being chemically addicted to attention

* [40:07] Big tech 

* [40:59] Dreams for Rayne’s future

* [42:14] Role models

* [46:17] Making a living as a young writer

* [49:27] Dropping out of university

* [51:21] Getting a job

* [54:17] Recommended writers

The Active Voice is a podcast hosted by Hamish McKenzie, featuring weekly conversations with writers about how the internet is affecting the way they live and write. It is produced by Hanne Winarsky, with audio engineering by Seven Morris, content production by Hannah Ray, and production support from Bailey Richardson. All artwork is by Joro Chen, and music is by Phelps & Munro.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit read.substack.com