iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

This characterisation is exhausting! I know many people who've recently published books (who, like me, are writing one currently) and not a single one has used AI. Maybe it's different for hyper-commercial stuff, like celeb memoirs/self-help, but it is simply not the case for anything with integrity

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Wrote about this a few years ago and Stephen is absolutely right – but another impact that came up for me was that, by suggesting the harms are an issue of age, it's much easier for Big Tech to avoid regulation/put the onus on users to navigate unsafe content by denying it's unsafe for *everyone*

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

I need people to know that Gen Z are reinventing #UsePens

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Enjoyed this very fun NYer review of Arthur Brooks’ latest, but especially loved this aspect which I talk about in my own book: the Serious Scientific Life Formula gag from self help gurus trying to shore up false authority. I mean, ranking the Pope over your kids! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Wrote a Substack about everyone trying to make a bunch of money on Substack – and what that means for writing and journalism (mostly bad things!) sarahmanavis.substack.com/p/you-could-...

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

I feel bad for people trying nonmonogamy in 2026. I'd bet in ~20 years a lot of the below, among other similar details in this piece and ones like it, will be less prevalent as it's normalised – but currently every story I hear about it in the media/personally sounds like a little polycule of hell

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Wrote about the flaws, fallacies and flimsy evidence underpinning the Mel Robbins NYT estrangement article, which fundamentally misunderstands modern relationships - and a little bit about my book (on Substack) sarahmanavis.substack.com/p/life-too-s...

sarahmanavis.substack.com

Life is too short to listen to Mel Robbins

Your children want to cut ties? Why not… let them?

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Sharing this five days late but after being galled by Jia Tolentino's sponcon I started a Substack and wrote about it, which you can find (free) here! If you like this/my work generally please subscribe for what will soon be more regular stuff sarahmanavis.substack.com/p/playing-du...

sarahmanavis.substack.com

Playing dumb: on the price of our integrity

We should be sceptical – if not wary – of "anti-capitalist" figures who bend to a corporate paycheck

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Simon Alvey @salvey1.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Good news! @sarahmanavis.bsky.social has joined Substack, better but much less surprising news, her first piece is excellent open.substack.com/pub/sarahman...

open.substack.com

Playing dumb: on the price of our integrity

We should be sceptical – if not wary – of "anti-capitalist" figures who bend to a corporate paycheck

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

I have long been sceptical of her politics even though I often like her writing, but Jia Tolentino breaking her "RIGID personal sponcon ban" to do a collab with Airbnb – one of the main targets on the BDS list; when her last post was about fasting for Gaza – does feel a little on the nose

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

I wrote about what we want from our relationships – in dating, monogamy, even friendship – and the growing number of people not actually seeking real connections, but instead someone to playact a fantasy they learned online: observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

There’s a real problem of low-hanging fruit in criticism atm where people keep doing “spicy” “takedowns” of art/people with no real power or relevance - or that no one even considers good. Critique should tell you something new or different, not go: “That bad thing? Well… it sucks!!!”

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Some thrilling news from me: my debut book TELL ME ABOUT MYSELF, about the rise and impact of psychotherapy on how we see ourselves and each other, as well as my own experience in therapy over the last 20 years, will be published by HarperCollins in 2027 www.thebookseller.com/rights/harpe...

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Some exciting, slightly belated news from me: as of this week I’ve joined the Observer where I’ll be writing across opinion, the magazine and on the new website - alongside some of my favourite editors and journalists. More soon but catch me there from this weekend!

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Hello: I'm going to be on 5 Live this morning with Adrian Chiles from 11-12 – talking about Donald Trump, Jeffrey Goldberg, the spring statement and scatter cushions. Tune in! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Something about the Atlantic editor getting added to the war planning group chat thing feels very British

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

I really want to like this site, but every time I log on I feel like I've entered a simulation of the worst parts of UK politics Twitter in 2016

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Muting this bc the some of the replies are more insane than the ones I've gotten on Twitter, but I want to emphasise this desire to avoid calling misogyny misogyny atm – which I think is partially an overcorrection on the left in response to the last decade of pop culture, but also is... misogyny!

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

People keep sharing this Sam Fender quote from the Sunday Times and while I think there is something in this – it feels bizarre that, in the midst of what is fundamentally a backlash against feminism + LGBT rights, everyone is so eager to dance around the obvious answer, which is primarily misogyny

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Next week! I’m excited to be interviewing Shon Faye for Topping Books Edinburgh about her very brilliant new book Love In Exile. February 13 @ 7pm! Tickets available here: toppingbooks.co.uk/events/edinb...

toppingbooks.co.uk

The Transgender Issue's Shon Faye for Love in Exile at St Cuthbert's Church

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

I wrote about the philosophy of James Watt, the entrepreneur and former BrewDog CEO, and how thin his (self-conceived) reputation as a wellbeing champion has always been – and how long he has advocated for prioritising selfishness and self-preservation www.newstatesman.com/business/202...

newstatesman.com

The empty philosophy of BrewDog’s James Watts

“Be a selfish bastard” counts among the entrepreneur’s maxims.

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

newstatesman.com

The empty philosophy of BrewDog’s James Watts

“Be a selfish bastard” counts among the entrepreneur’s maxims.

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

Not the most important part here but the "DOGE" aspect does also affirm we're entering an era where the worst people you know will constantly be dropping the cry laughing emoji about the least funny shit you ever seen

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Wrote for the New Statesman about why the hyper-examined life is not worth living – and the booming industry convincing perfectly healthy adults to anxiously obsess over made-up problems they don’t actually have www.newstatesman.com/politics/hea...

newstatesman.com

Our unhealthy obsession with habit tracking

In 2025, its trendy to monitor everything from your microbiome to your macronutrients. Is this really healthy?

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

For the Observer, I wrote about why the smear campaign against Blake Lively managed to work so well, the obviousness of what happened and the terrible place we’ve reached in feminism—where it’s become trendy to preach but not (when push comes to shove) to practice www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Why did so many people jump to criticise Blake Lively? The answer isn’t complicated

A man can do anything but if a woman does an inch of wrong, people want to watch her burn

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Benjamin Clark @benjamin-clark.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

2. Prospect’s most-read pieces of 2024: message.prospect-magazine.co.uk/q/1f7AB7MWhL... My fav of those was @sarahmanavis.bsky.social’s essay on trad wives and other female influencers leading a backlash against feminism.

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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Lately i've been thinking about how many of the processes traditional media has used to build trust (an editorial bureaucracy, lots of editing, making work more concise, and hiding a lot of that work & presenting a polished finished product) now read to audiences as inauthentic & less trustworthy

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Lot of very bad aspects to this, but I have to say a big silver lining to fewer young people on text-based apps is it lowers the chance of having an infuriating argument with someone only to click on their account and see "gaylor | 14"

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Hettie O’Brien @hettieobrien.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

over the moon to have been awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant for my forthcoming book - alongside such a brilliant group of writers. You can read more about it here: www.whiting.org/writers/crea...

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

There's something quintessentially British about someone walking around in loud, tacky, novelty Christmas apparel while looking absolutely furious

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Edward Ongweso Jr @edwardongwesojr.com · 08/12/2024

I wrote about Casey Newton's essay on AI skepticism, the uselessness of a "AI is real and dangerous" v. "AI is fake and sucks" dichotomy, and the limits of AI boosterism. thetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-phony-...

thetechbubble.substack.com

The phony comforts of useful idiots

On Casey Newton and the shallowness of anti-skepticism.

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

*long sigh* I wrote about following Gregg Wallace on Instagram over the last five years – and how his indignant response to these allegations is emblematic of the completely unfiltered persona we rarely see on Masterchef, but which has always thrived online www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024...

newstatesman.com

The unfiltered world of Gregg Wallace’s Instagram

His response to allegations of making sexually inappropriate comments is in keeping with his unrestrained posting on social media.

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Since it's officially A Christmas Carol season, I wanted to reshare my piece for the Observer Magazine from earlier this year – about my partner and I reading aloud together and the emotional benefits of adults reading to each other (and why you should do it too): www.theguardian.com/books/articl...

theguardian.com

Read me a story: why reading out loud is a joy for adults as well as kids

Sarah Manavis and her partner have a guilty secret. What they love to do most of all in private is… read out loud to each other. And, as she’s discovered, it has many surprising benefits

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Said this before however, imo, this is a well-intentioned but half-baked policy. It lets platforms off the hook for the harm they cause (and frankly is a way for politicians to pat themselves on the back for "doing something" while missing the target). Solves nothing while obscuring the real problem

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Whatever you think of Taylor Swift, this is repulsive and you have to think was a deliberate choice from Billboard. Her victim complex is extreme, but you can understand why on some level when even the people literally giving her an award will try to humiliate her in the process

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Jonathan Liew @jonathanliew.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

now the brands are running. now the murals are being painted over. but conor mcgregor has been showing us who he was for years. this week's column www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/n...

theguardian.com

Why was Conor McGregor’s sinister cult of content lauded and rewarded for so long? | Jonathan Liew

It took defeat in civil case against a woman who accused him of rape for brands and fans to disown UFC fighter

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

I find this the weirdest evergreen complaint. You get a free recipe and all you have to do is spend three seconds scrolling past a story - meanwhile, the people who want the story also get the story. Why does this inspire a viral post every six months?

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

(gratuitously) re-sharing my piece from last year on the aggressive ubiquity of these kinds of beige influencers, which makes it sort of amazing to imagine trying to sue someone for "copying" the most dominant lifestyle aesthetic among young women today www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Beware the ‘beige-fluencers’, cheerleaders for a life of no surprises | Sarah Manavis

Light a candle, wear matching pyjamas, go to bed early. Why has tedium become an aspiration for so many young people, asks culture writer Sarah Manavis

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

This has a good bit on the new AI publishing start-up that aims to publish 8,000 books a year – and I'd love to ask people in publishing (increasingly populated by readers fuelled by a parasocial relationship with authors, who care about story) who they seriously believe is the audience for this

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Nesrine Malik @nesrinemalik.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

'The readiness to repudiate identity politics & group them under “bad woke” is less about policy and more about the fact that social justice never really found a home amongst liberals, who were happy to capture its energy but not its demands.' The week's column www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

‘Woke’ didn’t lose the US election: the patrician class who hijacked identity politics did | Nesrine Malik

Why is this simple explanation being so widely embraced? Because it does not require a commitment to real, structural change, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

I think Twitter had already begun to move away from this even pre-Musk, but it's easy forget how many people still used Twitter to find stories that took them to other parts of the internet – and, the more Twitter did that successfully, the more people returned to Twitter for that unique service

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Woke up with a sore throat so I'm having a sick day in bed – what movies should I watch? No trash and no classics (my partner and I are doing a Hitchcock/pre-1980 project so can't leave him out). Hoping this site can function like old Twitter in this moment

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

I think not having drafts is a healthy way to force everyone to recalibrate how valuable a "tweetable" thought is

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FKA Thirstie @thirstieallsopp.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

When are we getting the pile-ons going. At what time specifically

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

In awe of how many Twitter guys are popping up on here already: "wife in bio" guys, 5-figure following and follower guys, reposting other people's viral videos for clout guys, quote tweeting the tweet with the same exact post just slightly reworded guys

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

I will say – while bordering on a bit dull – I do think this site is triumphing over the other one in terms of logging on and not immediately wanting to jump out a window

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Sarah Manavis @sarahmanavis.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I unfortunately think this site’s main vibe at the moment is very “you win the internet today, sir”

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