The young girl posted a pensive #GPOY and rolled deeply into her duvet. Only yesterday she’d been reblogging unicorns, but on this day she felt an overwhelming ennui that would come to engulf her until she’d be awakened by the scent of chicken nuggets crisping in the oven.

Further down the dashboard, an aspiring poet posted a few spare lines about the futility of attempting to share love unless one loved oneself. She had paged through many wooded landscapes on Flickr before she glimpsed the snowcapped peak and stately firs that would form the background for her macro. Weary after the long wait for Photoshop to load on her MacBook, she decided not to attend yoga on this particular day. Rather, she placed a Lean Pocket in the microwave and padded softly down the hallway in search of her long-awaited freelance check.

The mainstream publications, as usual, had been busily posting charts and images, hoping desperately to draw viewers back to the publications’ home sites. The advertisers had been sounding the drums of discontent, and copies of the print editions were languishing on the shelves of the newsstands and convenience stores. The 30-something web editor untied the kerchief from around his neck and used it non-ironically to wipe the desperate droplets of sweat off the back of his neck.

Below the one-line comics trying to win fans in an arena less competitive than Twitter, below the music bloggers’ interminable rants, below the vintage interiors and the captioned GIFs and the teeth-gnashing responses to anonymous ask box harassment and Angelina Jolie’s leg…there I found myself, drinking sangria and waiting for Topherchris to emerge from the shadows.

– Jay Gabler