Jennette McCurdy opens up about her new relationship with NBA star Andre Drummond in a thoughtful, candid op-ed for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog.
In her essay, the former “iCarly” star details how her romance with the Detroit Pistons player progressed from Twitter, to texting, to eventually meeting in person, and also muses on our culture’s obsessive need to “share” everything in one’s life on social media nowadays.
McCurdy reveals she was anxious about hanging out with Drummond for the first time after their Twitter and texting correspondence, sharing, “A few weeks after we started talking, Andre told me he was going to come visit California. I was excited. Then, as his visit crept closer, I began to feel a little unnerved. What if my fears of the overhype of cyberspace played out in my life?”
She continues, “What if the person I had built up in my head was different than the person I’d soon be sitting across from? What if technology aided and enhanced our conversations to the point where we felt crippled without it? What if two screens cannot properly replicate two humans after all?”
“Turns out, they can’t,” writes McCurdy, adding, “Overall, the Andre Drummond I got to know in person is the same person he projects online, but it’s important to remember that the image displayed through a screen is in fact just that – a display.”
Fortunately with Drummond, McCurdy says the real person she came to know was only more interesting than his social media “display.”
So, then why share anything about their relationship on social media?
McCurdy reasons, “Well, because it’s fun! It’s like when you get a piece of good news and just have to pick up the phone and call a friend. There are some things that just feel right to share.”
The “Sam & Cat” star adds that social media “can be like a little scrapbook for your personal life,” but that it often gets confused for more than that in our present culture.
McCurdy writes, “We log into a social network and we’re provided with a prompt. Twitter’s prompt is ‘what’s happening,’ while Facebook is a somewhat bossier ‘write something.’ BE CUTE, social media tells us. BE CLEVER. BE A STAR. LIVE YOUR LIFE IN A WAY THAT MAKES YOU SEEM LIKE EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE IS INTERESTING. The fact that an app cares so sincerely about us causes us to assume that our every action is a mini milestone surely worthy of blasting out to people we somehow believe care half as much about ourselves as we do.”
What do you think about McCurdy’s essay?
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