Extremely Online and Wildly Out of Control

Patricia Lockwood’s debut novel explores the mind, and heart, of an internet-addled protagonist.

- By Jordan Kisner

On an Instagram account that I like, an illustrator publishes little four-panel drawings of smooth-headed aliens doing normal human things. Two aliens with bodies like slim light bulbs encounter each other against a bubblegum-pink background. One is sitting in a chair, reading a book; the other is just poking its head in, as if to say hello: “What are you doing?” The reading alien looks up from its book. “Forming emotional bonds,” it replies.

“If I am successful I will be despondent upon completion.”

“Well I hope you are devastated,” the friend says, warmly.

“Thank you—lowering my defenses,” the reading alien says with a jaunty hand gesture.

In another drawing, an alien gives an earbud to a friend. “Put this in your head,” it says. “I want you to hear vibrations that affect my emotions.” “So that mine are also affected?” the alien’s friend asks. “If all goes as planned,” the first replies.

What I like about this particular cartoon series, called Strange Planet, drawn by the artist Nathan W. Pyle, is that it presents the most mundane human actions—reading a novel, wanting a friend to hear and appreciate your sad music— out of context and in unfamiliar language. We’re so weird, I find myself saying, while snort-laughing, looking at my own behaviors in this frame. Why are we like this?