flâneur

I Don’t Want to Be an Internet Person

palladiummag.com · 4,239 words · saved by 9 readers

Charlie Fang is an internet person. The first time we met, Charlie was sitting at the bar at a sushi spot in Noho—he stuck out like a cartoon character against its muted gray walls, and his orthopedic sneakers couldn’t touch the floor from the barstool. He was wearing an oversized black suit and a bright blue baseball cap that he had purchased from the Grift Shop, a Twitter store that sells politically incorrect streetwear. Later, he would tell me that “suits are good for autists.” Charlie was visiting New York from Portugal. He had watery red eyes either from jet lag or too much time spent staring at a screen. Under his online alias Charlotte Fang, Charlie is cool on a certain corner of the internet. In person, he hunched at the bar and avoided eye contact with the crowd of business diners. He is real-life friends with other moderately successful internet people—schizo-philosophy Substack writer Angelicism01, digital health influencer Sol Brah and the boys of Seed Oil Capital. I never

Aleksandr Popov/Rave Charlie Fang is an internet person. The first time we met, Charlie was sitting at the bar at a sushi spot in Noho—he stuck out like a cartoon character against its muted gray walls, and his orthopedic sneakers couldn’t touch the floor from the barstool. He was wearing an oversized black suit and a bright blue baseball cap that he had purchased from the Grift Shop, a Twitter store that sells politically incorrect streetwear . Later, he would tell me that “suits are good for autists.” Charlie was visiting New York from Portugal. He had watery red eyes either from jet lag or

saved by

related reading