Rob Walker — a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and co-founder of the Significant Objects project — recently penned a blog post over at The Design Observer on his love for the Screenshots of Despair tumblr, which collects “online messages that evoke feelings of despair.” Here’s Walker discussing why he finds this project so fascinating:

The project, even in the handful of images…collected, almost instantly changes the way the reader/viewer thinks about these default communiqués of the networked world, the little stand-in placeholders that prod us all to, you know, interact. Get some friends, declare some favorites, do something to earn some “compliments,” get some new friends.  

These are stand-in messages, and they are designed very specifically to be done away with as soon as possible. Which is exactly why it’s worth stopping and considering them instead.

So come on, Internet. Let’s interact with this idea. Let’s get the crowd involved in documenting these weird, almost accidental moments, when the default algorithms that undergird the realm of the connected remind us, quietly but somewhat naggingly, that we’re all alone.

screenshotsofdespair:

Nothing is being shared.

(Adobe Connect)