Like Gatsby’s green light, it is the promise of happiness.
From a classic (2011) n+1 essay on "how we chat now":
And who do we Gchat with, when it counts? Friends, past boyfriends, future boyfriends, other people’s boyfriends... Gchat is for friendship, and affairs. It’s for allowing into the home everyone who isn’t supposed to be there, who’s supposed to be at home in their own bedroom... Might this be a model of commitment: truly felt on both sides, mutually desired, without exclusivity? These conversations don’t occur at the exact same time-if we wanted threesomes, we’d be in Group Chat-but the long view is the one to be taken here, and the beginning of one chat does not mean the end of another.
And who do we Gchat with, when it counts? Friends, past boyfriends, future boyfriends, other people’s boyfriends... Gchat is for friendship, and affairs. It’s for allowing into the home everyone who isn’t supposed to be there, who’s supposed to be at home in their own bedroom... Might this be a model of commitment: truly felt on both sides, mutually desired, without exclusivity? These conversations don’t occur at the exact same time-if we wanted threesomes, we’d be in Group Chat-but the long view is the one to be taken here, and the beginning of one chat does not mean the end of another.