Instagram, or social media more generally, is one of the last places you'd expect to find a hero.
But that's exactly where I discovered Amanda Petrusich's writings on grief. If you recognize the name, that's likely because you've come across Amanda's music criticism at the New Yorker, which, in my opinion, is some of the best music journalism out there. But as I write in our annual Heroes & Monsters series, it's on Instagram where her private reflections on grief after her husband suddenly died in 2022 flow with grace:
The result has been, to my mind, a rare meditation on grief that avoids the typical trappings of the genre: frustrating platitudes, the insistence that it’s All! Going! To! Be! Okay! That such refreshing authenticity takes place on a platform otherwise teeming with performance makes it all the more extraordinary, each caption seemingly inviting followers to join her on the strange path of bearing it all.
I reached out to Amanda about all of this. And like the genuine hero she is, she replied with abundance. I dare you not to cry after reading.
Thank you to a real one.
—Inae Oh
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