TOW #6 - "All My Exes Live in Texts"

This essay was published in the New York Magazine in 2013. It is now found on their website (nymag.com).

In "All My Exes Live in Texts," O'Connor compares what it is like to have an ex-whatever in this generation versus before social media was invented. She describes an ex as anyone that could be in your past, like a boyfriend, friend, or someone that you met and embarrassed yourself in front of. When I first read it, I thought it would just be about how you can't get away from past relationships anymore, but when O'Connor used repetitive diction to describe all of the different people she could be talking about, it made the essay so much more interesting. She says, "The ex you follow so you know how to avoid her in person. The ex you watched deteriorate after the breakup.The ex whose musical taste you heed on Spotify. The ex whose new girlfriend sent a friend request" (O'Connor 14). The author writes about so many different exes that I would have never thought of it, and it helps to establish her purpose. She's trying to say that since it is so easy to find people and keep tabs on them after you've left them behind, you need to chose wisely about who you want to spend time with. Every person that you have had issues with in the past can come back into your life so quickly, which is so unlike what it was like for the generations before us. This leads to another device that O'Connor uses which is juxtaposition. Throughout the essay, she explains the differences between modern communication and what it was like twenty years ago. It helps to emphasize how important it is to be careful on social media and to reevaluate our dependence on it. She definitely achieved her purpose because she was able to make a personal connection about it and educate at the same time.