Senior writer Anna Rawhiti-Connell subs in for Madeleine Chapman and reflects on memory and the role it plays in writing.

The other day I spent 10 minutes searching random words to try and remember the name of a book and a writer that were utterly crucial to how I thought about writing and internet culture in 2021. All I could remember was “Twitter, writer, London Review of Books.” Thankfully, that surfaced the canonical text I was thinking about, Patricia Lockwood’s No One is Talking About This, but it is still bugging me that I could not pluck that recollection from my own brain and instead had to rely on something I already feel too reliant on. 

My memory is often quite terrible, and it genuinely feels as if it has gotten worse over the last few years. I don’t know if it’s my age and stage, two years of doing fast-turnaround news curation, or a particular blanking of the lockdown years. 

As a writer, it’s quite unhelpful to have a mind that feels like it has a few more holes in it than it used to, but it’s also made me think a lot about how we remember things, how we write about the past and how the internet and social media function as fallible extensions of our individual and collective memories. 

I instantly drew a line between my writing this week about how utterly damned Facebook now feels and Lyric Waiwiri-Smith’s story, Remembering Suzanne Paul’s ‘cursed’ Māori Village.

Coincidentally, both took us back to 2004 when Facebook and Paul’s extremely weird venture were launched. Lyric, who joined us as a staff writer two weeks ago, was a toddler when Paul’s “tiki-tacky” cultural village, Rawaka, opened (and closed). She has essentially pieced together a view of it using the internet and the journalism of time as collective cultural memory. I talk to her about that more in this week’s episode of Behind the Story. 

The comments from readers on my own story served as a good reminder of what Facebook used to be and the perils of relying on big tech platforms as a proxy for social connection and a repository for our memories. 

Others’ ability to draw on memory and paint fresh pictures of the past has been a dominant feature of writing on The Spinoff this week and is again this weekend. 

Duncan Greive’s defence of shoebox apartments in the wake of the government’s announcement about overriding minimum dwelling size standards encouraged some healthy debate in the comments section (good, we like this). It’s also quite a moving recollection of Greive as a young Dad, trying to create a sense of home and place and finding it in a tiny, inner-city apartment.

This weekend, we have two essays for you that also draw heavily on memory. One revisits the writer’s hometown, while the other, our political history and a beloved and complex political figure. Both are on the site now, and I commend them to you as great weekend reads.

This week’s episode of Behind the Story

Lyric Waiwiri-Smith started at The Spinoff as a staff writer two weeks ago and has three stories under her belt already. Lyric joined me on Behind the Story this week to discuss her Suzanne Paul story, whether the internet truly never forgets, celebrity profile writing, her love of pop culture, and live blogging while trying to buy tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras concert in Melbourne.

So what have readers spent the most time reading this week?

• Duncan Greive‘s recollection of his time living in a shoebox apartment and why he’s glad they’re coming back 
• Shanti Mathias‘s deeply researched and colourful feature about whether Sandringham’s South Asian flavour can survive gentrification
• My story on the decline of Facebook as a useful social media network and the platform’s problem with fake news and AI art “slop”
• Shanti Mathias investigates why so many nurses move to New Zealand – but don’t plan to stick around
• Alex Casey has some handy advice on how to protect your family against the ‘pornographic’ threat of g-strings 

Comments of the week

• On Which one of you told Lorde she walked like a bitch

“It wasn’t me but in c. 1999 as a child I told Taine Randell (when he was All Blacks captain) that he sucked.  So this Lorde heckler must similarly experience late night flashes of regret and shame for the casual bullying”

• On I lived in a shoebox apartment. I’m glad they’re coming back

“The quote about cars and emergency motels being smaller than ‘shoebox apartments’ is a spurious argument. Neither of these is designed or intended to be a home where people can settle and become part of a community. Yes, it is true that people are often in such places of shelter for far longer than the intended, temporary accommodation. Let’s not get caught up in this, “at least it’s better than…” Let’s hear Chris Bishop say what safeguards will be in place to make these healthy – as others here have described.”

• On this week’s advice from Hera on how you raise your kid to be a reader

“Hera is right – model reading, stack your shelves with books, let them read anything for pleasure and don’t buy into the latest nonsense from educational experts. Our kid’s books are now being enjoyed by the next generation and their grandparents. There’s nothing more satisfying than bellowing out EEEEOWWFITTTZZZ when Scarface Claw scares the shit out of all the dogs (and the odd child)  in Lynley Dodd’s “Hairy Maclary.”

Pick up where this leaves off

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