welcome to Back matter issue 07

PICTURE THIS. the year is 2010. After a long day of gaming with anonymous online peers, you realize the sun is going down. Your mom calls you for dinner. You have chores to do. You have homework to finish. It’s time to return to reality, which means stepping away from the screen. So, you put a rock on your space bar, and you’re officially away from keyboard. Your real life can begin.

Fifteen years later, a lot has changed. Instead of worrying about losing your loot in Minecraft, you now have a mouse jiggler for your hybrid job so you always remain active on Microsoft Teams. A little black speaker named Alexa is your best friend. Your G-Shock has been replaced by an Apple Watch that tracks your every move. Tumblr “shipping” and “OTPs” have been replaced by Substack “Hate Reads.” People are shooting CEOs and attempting to overthrow the Capitol. Leaving the “Away” status on your AIM profile is no longer enough to escape the constant flow of information technology provides. Yet some things, like remaining present during eras of uncertainty, are still crucial.

As students in the Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program at the New School for Social Research grappled with issues we wanted to tackle for Back Matter’s seventh edition, we felt a collective urge to look up from our technology and experience the present. When we put down our phones, we looked around, and we had a lot of questions. 

How are we living right now? Are we escaping anything at the moment? Are we confronting anything? Why do we feel alone? Why do we feel like hamsters on a wheel? What is happening in our community? What do we notice on our walks to work? What is our family talking about when we call home? What happens when our conversations are not dictated by Twitter?

We sought to find answers through the themes of community and connection to the world around us. As we saw forests burning before our eyes (literally—the Pacific Palisades were on fire as our semester began), we realized how important it is to participate in daily life without escaping into our technology. On our local New York City doorstep, community gardens are bringing neighborhoods together. At the end of our blocks, some restaurants feel like neighborhood cornerstones. Just across the Hudson River, a small town in New Jersey houses a resilient Palestinian community. We looked further out: Throughout the country, corporations are dismantling their DEI policies despite having implemented them five years prior. More young men and women voted for Trump in the 2024 election than in his past two presidential campaigns. As for the rest of the globe, our Gen-Z peers in Argentina and Bangladesh have birthed revolutions. The climate crisis is affecting communities in Pakistan not so differently from the pollution we see in California. These are the stories of our neighbors in New York City and our comrades from near and far. It’s time to dive in.

In our pursuit of life grounded in the present, we noticed all of the critical information that is available to us when we actively seek it. Stories are transpiring all around us, we just have to shut our laptops and observe. We hope this issue motivates you to partake in the world around you beyond the screen. We’re happy you’re here.

Natalia Gevera and Ellie Lawton – Editors in Chief 

Back Matter is a project of The New School’s Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism MA program.