Psychologists, digital wellness experts, and my smart friends all advise against reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, claiming that the barrage of notifications and to-dos, dings and pings all vying for your immediate attention, rushes the natural waking process and turns the tap full-blast on the dopamine spout, messing up your internal rhythm before the drums have even had a chance to kick in.
I, however, have a year-plus streak on the New York Times crossword app to maintain, so any doctor worth their Hippocratic Oath would give me a doctor’s note stating I’m an exception to this proven science in a heartbeat, I’m sure.
In recent days, though, I’m starting to think that maybe science has a point about the negative effects of skimming my inbox before my first (or second, or, let’s be real, third) cup of coffee.
One day last week, my first scroll of the day reaped the following subject lines, all received within hours of one another while I slept: “The timing is not great at all.” “No time to waste.” “Kase, is there anything—ANYTHING—we can say?” “You deserve an explanation, Kase…”
Those aren’t from a dirtbag ex, but from Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign and other groups directly supporting her. They want two minutes of my time, they want anywhere from three to $47, they want to explain, they have some bad news to share. An especially bleak recent subject line simply read, “Pummeled.”
They want a lot of things, but I want, I don’t know, a neck rub to recover from the whiplash of the optimism and can-do attitude I’m seeing during Harris’s rallies, compared to the downright rancid vibe invading my inbox a dozen or so times a day. If a human being was sending me these messages, I’d ask them if they were OK, gently remind them that even though we broke up, I still care about them and wants what’s best for them, and that I’m happy to lead them to the help they need.
One week before Election Day, I can’t help but look at my morning dose of emailed devastation and think, “This is not the joyful warrior I fell in love with over the summer.” Remember how it felt to watch the DNC this summer? Remember how things felt kind of…fun? My inbox certainly doesn’t.
Listen, I’m not new here. I know how important a constant drip-drip-drip of donations is to keep the wheels on the campaign bus going round and round for another week, and campaign vets tell me that, yes, the volume and alarmist tone of campaign emails is an algorithmically tested and optimized dark art, and that the communications teams who are BCCing me into devastation are typically cordoned off from the campaign’s main comms team. The Kamala Harris who spoke in front of a Philadelphia church congregation on Sunday and said that she sees voters standing together in the fight to defend freedom, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us,” that’s not the same Kamala Harris who, the night before, landed in my inbox with the absolute soul-crusher of a subject line “Outspent. Tied. Falling short.” It’s attention-grabbing, you gotta give it that, at least.
And, hey, the other team is surviving on a steady diet of spam, albeit less “your sad ex-boyfriend who won’t stop calling,” and more like, well, actual spam emails. Donald Trump’s campaign returns again and again to subjects simply reading “Congratulations!” and “Please!” Another notable repeat is just the recipient’s name, three times: “Kase Kase Kase” Another: “I love you! I love you! I love you!” This Nigerian prince would very much like for you to buy a MAGA hat. Another notable missive is simply titled “Fork!” The bombastic free-association quality of the Trump campaign’s emails matches his in-person persona more closely (though call me when you catch this man saying “please”), but the frequency and drama, at least, is within standard deviation for both campaigns.
Election Day is in one week, and our inboxes will surely breathe a sigh of relief knowing that soon we will have chosen between “I was just indicted again!” and “Deeply concerning.” at last.
