An informal review of the contents of colleagues’ Notes apps revealed that multiple people had saved drafts of texts and emails to friends and family. I have a list of forgotten passwords and a list of essential travel items. One person says he uses Notes to pre-create social media posts. Some people keep a list of houses with mansard roofs or a searchable list of the zodiac signs of their friends and family. Several people wrote their wedding vows on notes and saved them there.
Everyone please take notes
Of course, we ordinary people aren’t the only Notes believers. Celebrities have been using Notes screenshots to offer heartfelt apologies for years. Instead of sending angry texts or making vitriolic social media posts, many users on TikTok remind each other to vent their anger on the Notes app. “What’s inside the Notes app” is the new “what’s inside your bag.” Everyone has a notes app. And we all pour our soul’s darkest (and brightest!) moments into it.
Claire Mazur and Erika Cerullo, the duo behind the popular podcast one or twoperformed an episode on how to use the Notes app and was shocked by the intensity of the listeners’ reactions. Many of those who wrote shared their personal uses for the notebook, such as listing their favorite baby names or keeping a “shame log” as a reminder to treat themselves a little more kindly. I was eager to do so. “Instead of acting out what someone else wants you to see, you’re being your most authentic self,” Mazur said in a Zoom interview.
Cerulo says the Notes app puts you in direct touch with your most intimate self. “This is similar to what one of the commenters’ girlfriends said: ‘Forget my search history.’ When I die, my best friend should delete my Notes app.”
Unlike photo apps that specialize in digital memories, My Notes has never sparked the so-called “miscarriage problem,” the internet trend of painful, random reminders of traumatic events in your life. . When you look at your notes or when you ask to see someone else’s notes, what you see doesn’t make you sad. Notes are not polished memories, but fixed ones. They are hurried, messy, and generally free-spirited. It can also be lyrical. As my colleague Lauren Good puts it: (laughs) poets(Just to be sure, I have never thought of it that way.)
Especially if you’re a writer like me, it’s tempting to create your own life story and follow it faithfully. This is where you started, this is where you made mistakes, this is where you won, and this is where you made decisions you can never take back. In contrast to the oppressive and perhaps harmful apps installed on your phone, the Notes app serves as a playful reminder that we’re all just a work in progress. .
This is what we would want to be remembered for 50,000 years from now. It’s messy and whole, rather than the perhaps artificial calm façade we display at work or on holiday cards. Here we were loving ridiculous baby names and singing the worst songs out loud in public. Here we tried to remember what was important to the people we love, what socks they wanted and what their favorite pizzeria order was. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good, so I write it all down.