I feel like it's not talked about enough how it is being a teenager in this new post pandemic era.

I stopped being a child and became a teenager during Covid-19 and I can guarantee you it was one of the most awful times to start experiencing this whole new thing in such a way.

Of course it's always been horrible being a teen, but I think that this whole new technological era and how our mental health was altered by the pandemic influences a lot on how people my age see the world and the whole teen experience itself now.

This whole generation is now way more conscious about everything that's constantly happening in the world every day. Nietzsche once said that knowledge can be man's worst nightmare, because the more self conscious we become the more depressed we start to feel every new day that comes by.

We saw technology develop and "grow up" at the same time as we did, right in front of our eyes and at our fingertips, and I think that's gen-z's biggest curse.

Growing up I've always had this idea that there was this non-existent audience right there.

Even now I can always catch myself talking to no one as if I was in a YouTube video, and I think it is one of the most uncanny things that we collectively do as a generation.

We have this false idea that we're constantly being watched and judged, but at the same time we have this constant need to be heard and seen, and it becomes an unhealthy loop.

As Bo Burnham said, the economy of being young is attention. Talking for myself, I am in fact not bullied as much as I am ignored, and to not be seen is such a hell to be through in 2023. In Burnham's words: We feel like if our lives aren't viewed, we're not real, and if we're not seen we just don't exist.

Of course we prefer to be on our phones all the time, the world we live in is pretty shit.

And then we have this whole digital space where we can have our own personal experiences, with everything we enjoy constantly being right there all the time.

The real world becomes a stage for this digital performance, we adopt some sort of characters or personas. Online, I have the friends I was never able to make in the real world. I have the confidence to talk about everything I want to at any time I feel like it.

We have to choose every night between Infinity or Oblivion, as Burnham said, and I honestly couldn't put it into better words to describe it.

I cannot believe how many books I managed to read in the month of July. I read a lot of shorter things, but, also, do you see the many chunky novels? So many pages read this month. I read 19 books which totaled out to 6,159 pages.

1. Witchshadow by Susan Dennard (New Release)-- 4 stars

2. Holiday Ever After by Jill Shalvis (NetGalley)-- 2.83 stars (averaged)

3. A Winter’s Dream by Sophie Claire (Kindle)-- 3 stars

4. Snowed in at Snowflake B&B by Kellie Hailes (Kindle)-- 2.25 stars

5. A Sugar Creek Christmas by Jenny B. Jones (Kindle)-- 3.5 stars

6. Faking Under the Mistletoe by Ashley Shepherd (Kindle)-- 4.25 stars

7. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy-- 4 stars

8. A Magical New York Christmas by Anita Hughes (NetGalley)-- 3.75 stars

9. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch-- 5 stars

10. High School is Hell by Jordie Bellaire-- 2.5 stars

11. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery-- 3 stars

12. Renegades by Marissa Meyer-- 5 stars

13. Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel-- 4 stars

14. Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo-- 3.75 stars

15. Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard (New Release)-- 3.25 stars

16. Loved You Once by Claudia Y. Burgoa (Kindle)-- 3.25 stars

17. Teen Titans: Beast Boy by Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo-- 3.5 stars

18. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets-- 5 stars

19. Blood Red Road by Moira Young (Read It or Leave It 2021)-- 3 stars. A review for this one will be up later today.