Literally, just yesterday, I searched Twitter for the username max_read and found that particular account had wisely disappeared. So, I was delighted to see Max Read’s excellent Book Forum essay psychoanalyzing the effects of social media via Richard Seymour’s The Twittering Machine. Somewhat ironically, perhaps, this emerged from the flotsam of Twitter itself and felt as coincidental as it did a bit spooky.

Read’s piece (which, again, you should read) covers a lot of territory familiar to anyone who’s angsted over the effects of the platforms on our lives the past few years and especially now. Oddly, I found myself gravitating back to Twitter during lockdown, around the same time Read talks about being miserable, getting fed up, and finally deleting his account. Despite my own choice to dig deeper into the hellsite, I found myself nodding along and pining for my own days of wandering the wilderness without social media.

All of which has left me with a nagging question, one that I’ve been bothered by for a while: where do we go. The state of the world forces us to re-evaluate this periodically — is it the city, where there are opportunities (if you’re well educated) but prohibitively expensive? The suburbs are comfortable but bland and there’s that nagging dread that you’re only contributing more to the global problems that define our age.

The pandemic throws all of this into every sharper relief, and might provide some new opportunities (work from anywhere!) but really only forces us into another round of re-evaluation with an even more compressed timeline. For all the talk of everyone fleeing major cities, it’s not as if they’ve suddenly become affordable, especially for middle-class families. Towns and suburbs certainly feel more attractive in the current climate, especially for those middle-class families, but there’s such a rush to stake a claim and it already feels a bit late. The pandemic-as-accelerant continues and the defining characteristic of this age — the hollowing out of the middle — speeds up.

I’m hardly the first to observe that the platforms, which seemed so interesting even a decade ago, have already settled into a suburban middle age malaise. A lot of us saw that coming a while ago and the 2016 election certainly extinguished any ideas of revolution as tech has finally taken over as the modern manifestation of finance, with all the problems and power only multiplied. All of which leads me back to my original question: where do we go.

By way of example, I wouldn’t have found Read’s piece except by chance, on Twitter. I still very much appreciate the seredipity that was so bound up in the promise of the internet from its earliest days. As painful and problematic and destructive as today’s tech titans prove themselves to be, the ease with which we are able to make those 1:1 connections between each other remains something to remember and marvel at. And, yes, I met my wife sigh on Twitter.

I’m trying to come up with an answer to that question, which is why I’ve spent a few nights attempting to reassemble my own space. It’s nothing novel, a bit of a return to form, a place to stretch out, think without the contraints of character limits or all the yelling. I doubt I’ll answer the question definitively, just like I’ll never be sure if leaving or staying in the city is the right move. I’m probably just wired to always wonder, never be certain (and of course never be quite satisfied) about some of those questions.

Ok, here’s how this Apple mask thing works.

First of all, it’s made of some space age material we’ve never heard of. There will be talk of Gore-Tex-like membranes, you can breathe through it but it blocks all particles the size of a COVID molecule. There are replaceable filters and no weird air vent. They’ve come up with a design that is decidedly not just the KN95-style triangle everyone else has been fine with — there will be a references to origami and symmetry and how this design maximizes your ability to breathe. It’s just a damn mask like we’ve all gotten accustomed to wearing this year, but it’s distinctly Apple-y and you instantly want one for some reason. They bring back Jonny to talk it up, you never see him wearing one.

The reason Apple is making a mask, though, is because it unlocks your phone. An algorithmic “generative design” is printed on the outside of each mask, “one t r i l l i o n completely unique patterns,” Tim promises. These aren’t QR codes but an entire design system to make each mask uniquely identifiable in combination with your face. Most masks have unique swirls and patterns, some of the designs can only be seen via the infrared camera built into the front-facing “TrueDepth” camera.

You scan a tag on the inside of the mask (it’s not a QR code dammit!) and your phone instantly includes the data for the mask’s pattern in the secure enclave. You can scan as many as you like. When you put the mask on and unlock your phone, it just works.

The masks come in packs of 3 for $40. Replacement filters are sold in packs of 10 for $10. Apple donates all the profits from the masks to Project Red.

Update: Turns out, Apple did design a very Apple-y mask, for their retail employees. See it action.