NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR LIVING ONLINE

Yes! It's almost here. January. The month where we reassess, reset, and briefly convince ourselves that this is the year we remember to take the overpriced magnesium and download the meditation app.

Or not.

Because while we're busy "optimizing," the internet continues its slow, aesthetic crawl toward complete insanity. So for 2026, I'm switching it up. I'm skipping personal resolutions. I have resolutions for the internet—because left alone, it has clearly lost the plot.

Birthday Reposting Is a Cry for Help

If it's your birthday—happy birthday! Mazel tov! Truly. But I do not need to see every reposted story saying "HBD QUEEN" over a photo of you in a 2009 bandage dress, drunk in a basement, with hair that required both courage and product.

The reposting is aggressive. It's needy. It's the digital version of walking around a party collecting compliments, then circling back to make sure everyone heard them. Again.

We believe you are loved. We believe you have friends. You do not need to present evidence. Eat your cake. Feel joy. Then log off and let the rest of us live.

"Get Ready With Me" Is Not a Personality

I'm not exactly sure when this happened, but at some point the internet decided the best time to share a thought, any thought, was while applying foundation in lighting that makes everyone look legally unwell.

Now I'm subjected to endless close-ups of bare-faced internet darlings, inches from the camera, lecturing us about "boundaries" or "toxic relationships" while blending concealer like it's a competitive sport.

Wasn't the entire point of makeup so people didn't have to see you like this?!

I know this sounds old-fashioned but go put on your face. Then talk. Multitasking isn't always a flex.

Stop Soft-Launching Your Life

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't "soft launch" originally a restaurant term? When did it become the preferred way for influencers—and other grown women—to reveal a new haircut or a boyfriend?

Now we're getting carefully cropped forearms, sneakers, and second wine glasses, like this is a Marvel teaser and your relationship is entering Phase Three.

And I have to ask—respectfully, but also not that respectfully—why do you think we're this invested? Are you Taylor Swift? Is there a subreddit decoding your throw pillows for clues?

If not, this is just you being coy for the thrill of your DMs. "I have news," followed by refusing to tell anyone, while refreshing your story views every four minutes.

Hard launch it. Keep it private. But please stop acting like your boyfriend is an iPhone drop and we're all camping outside the Apple Store.

"Day in My Life" Needs Adult Supervision

Look, we all make questionable choices. Sometimes I regret staying up bingeing bad TV the night before a full day bake sale at school. But few things fuel existential dread quite like a 3 a.m. deep dive into the "Day in the Life" of someone who does… ummm…nothing.

Someone needs to digitally police this trend. These people have no discernible job, yet an exhausting amount of "work."

You wake up. Coffee. You make the bed. You "work out" (in a matching set, obviously). You "fuel." You chop something. You throw laundry into a basket. You leave. You come home.

This is not a day in your life. This is adulthood—but just vibes.

If someone wants to post the day they hopped on the Peloton in their pajamas or attempted to do their hair with a contraption bought from the feed but ended up in the ER, I'll watch. But let's stop pretending basic existence is content.

Charity Is Not a Content Category

If you've devoted years to a cause and someone honors you—share it. That's earned.

But if you volunteered once and posted fourteen stories like you personally discovered the Red Cross, please sit down. If your kindness regularly needs a photo op, you must be in the Royal Family.  Do the good deed. Then do it again—quietly.

Can We Talk About the Children?!!

This one is less funny and more what fresh hell is this?

Teenage girls—alone in bathrooms, lips pursed, crop tops, full blowouts—practicing sexy faces for a phone that will never love them back. Who approved this? Which adult blinked first?

The only thing worse than watching my own daughters unable to leave the house without a "fit check" is watching them sit mesmerized by the endless scroll of baby-faced coquette tragedy—tiny humans performing a version of womanhood they don't understand yet, for an algorithm that understands it far too well.

I didn't grow up rehearsing seduction in front of a mirror. I grew up trying on frosted blue eyeshadow from Claire's and immediately regretting it, in private, where regret belongs.

Childhood deserves privacy. Adolescence deserves awkwardness without an audience. Mirrors should not be auditions.

So for 2026—for us, and for our kids—let’s do less for content. Let’s choose presence over production. Let’s be resolute.

Yes, the world has gone viral and everyone’s doing it. But we know better.

We know it’s okay to let some moments, maybe even the best ones, stay off-camera.

May your year be quiet, sweet, and entirely yours.

Happy New Year.