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| What Does Modern Love Mean in a Pandemic? | What Does Modern Love Mean in a Pandemic? |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. | Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. |
| The essays that appear in Modern Love don’t typically reflect the current news cycle. As the journalists who manage the column, we view Modern Love (along with its 100-word version, Tiny Love Stories) as “counterprogramming” — the kind of story readers turn to when they need a break from the news. As the coronavirus bore down on the United States, we didn’t expect that to change much. We even talked about how providing a distraction from the news might be more important than ever. | The essays that appear in Modern Love don’t typically reflect the current news cycle. As the journalists who manage the column, we view Modern Love (along with its 100-word version, Tiny Love Stories) as “counterprogramming” — the kind of story readers turn to when they need a break from the news. As the coronavirus bore down on the United States, we didn’t expect that to change much. We even talked about how providing a distraction from the news might be more important than ever. |
| We were wrong. | We were wrong. |
| Like many, we didn’t grasp how long the coronavirus crisis would last and how dramatically it would demand the world’s attention. (We were more concerned with giving our office plants extra water, not realizing that we would be gone for months, not weeks.) An early clue of the coming coronavirus dominance was how quickly our submissions shifted from a trickle of stories about the virus in early March to a flood by month’s end, with 78 of them even sharing the same title: “Love in the Time of Coronavirus.” | Like many, we didn’t grasp how long the coronavirus crisis would last and how dramatically it would demand the world’s attention. (We were more concerned with giving our office plants extra water, not realizing that we would be gone for months, not weeks.) An early clue of the coming coronavirus dominance was how quickly our submissions shifted from a trickle of stories about the virus in early March to a flood by month’s end, with 78 of them even sharing the same title: “Love in the Time of Coronavirus.” |
| The inbox for Tiny Love Stories changed, too. We experienced a surge in submissions to both features that went way beyond our already strained capacity to read them all. Normally our process is first come first served, which means we’re reading essays that were submitted months earlier. But we began turning first to what had come in recently, because so much of what had come before the pandemic read like tales of yesteryear, a world where dating and romance involved strange behaviors like hugging, kissing and even sex. | The inbox for Tiny Love Stories changed, too. We experienced a surge in submissions to both features that went way beyond our already strained capacity to read them all. Normally our process is first come first served, which means we’re reading essays that were submitted months earlier. But we began turning first to what had come in recently, because so much of what had come before the pandemic read like tales of yesteryear, a world where dating and romance involved strange behaviors like hugging, kissing and even sex. |
| What was love in this new world? Care-taking? Confinement? Nudity on Zoom? We weren’t sure. Mike Baker, a Times reporter who covered the early outbreak in Seattle, sent along an essay from a doctor on the front lines of the pandemic, James Kuo, who had written movingly about being separated from his family as he risked his life to save others. Normally it takes weeks or even months for a submission to be discovered, edited, filed and published. James’s essay was in print five days later. | What was love in this new world? Care-taking? Confinement? Nudity on Zoom? We weren’t sure. Mike Baker, a Times reporter who covered the early outbreak in Seattle, sent along an essay from a doctor on the front lines of the pandemic, James Kuo, who had written movingly about being separated from his family as he risked his life to save others. Normally it takes weeks or even months for a submission to be discovered, edited, filed and published. James’s essay was in print five days later. |
| Our selection process for Tiny Love Stories similarly accelerated. We raced to find and publish submissions as soon as they arrived, including stories about college students’ anxiety about leaving campus and a grandmother whose Covid-19 death could not be memorialized in a funeral. As with Modern Love, these accounts illuminated disparate pieces of a collective, worldwide experience. | Our selection process for Tiny Love Stories similarly accelerated. We raced to find and publish submissions as soon as they arrived, including stories about college students’ anxiety about leaving campus and a grandmother whose Covid-19 death could not be memorialized in a funeral. As with Modern Love, these accounts illuminated disparate pieces of a collective, worldwide experience. |
| Our Modern Love podcast, which features actors reading essays from our archive, would have to be different. Actors were nervous about going to studios to record, and then studios began to close. Our partner, WBUR in Boston, also sent its staff home, meaning our producer and sound technician were suddenly without offices and equipment. | Our Modern Love podcast, which features actors reading essays from our archive, would have to be different. Actors were nervous about going to studios to record, and then studios began to close. Our partner, WBUR in Boston, also sent its staff home, meaning our producer and sound technician were suddenly without offices and equipment. |
| Updated August 12, 2020 | |
| Like so many, they learned to improvise, sending a mic to Daniel Radcliffe, who used it to tape a gorgeous reading in his closet. Laura Prepon did the same. Soon, our postscript commentary was also being recorded in closets, which make great sound studios. You probably have no idea how many top-tier podcasts are now being produced amid hanging shirts and dirty laundry. | Like so many, they learned to improvise, sending a mic to Daniel Radcliffe, who used it to tape a gorgeous reading in his closet. Laura Prepon did the same. Soon, our postscript commentary was also being recorded in closets, which make great sound studios. You probably have no idea how many top-tier podcasts are now being produced amid hanging shirts and dirty laundry. |
| These days we ask, as nearly everyone does: How long will this last? What’s next? Seven weeks since this pandemic overtook our work and lives, changing so much so rapidly, we are beginning to sense a shift in mood in the submissions, both a settling in for the long haul and an impatience about getting on with life. Those may seem to be opposite impulses, and they are, but they lead to a similar place: a slight weakening of the virus’s stranglehold on the kinds of stories we receive and publish. | These days we ask, as nearly everyone does: How long will this last? What’s next? Seven weeks since this pandemic overtook our work and lives, changing so much so rapidly, we are beginning to sense a shift in mood in the submissions, both a settling in for the long haul and an impatience about getting on with life. Those may seem to be opposite impulses, and they are, but they lead to a similar place: a slight weakening of the virus’s stranglehold on the kinds of stories we receive and publish. |
| Maybe we’re all going to remain six feet apart for months to come, but that doesn’t mean our love stories have to involve screens and face masks. Because love never really changes much; that’s the great thing about it. It will remain as glorious and confounding as always. We may be frozen in place for the time being, but soon enough we’ll again be breaking up face-to-face and ravishing each other in the flesh. And some of you — fewer than now, we hope — will still be writing about it. | Maybe we’re all going to remain six feet apart for months to come, but that doesn’t mean our love stories have to involve screens and face masks. Because love never really changes much; that’s the great thing about it. It will remain as glorious and confounding as always. We may be frozen in place for the time being, but soon enough we’ll again be breaking up face-to-face and ravishing each other in the flesh. And some of you — fewer than now, we hope — will still be writing about it. |
| Daniel Jones is the editor of Modern Love. Miya Lee is the Modern Love projects assistant. | Daniel Jones is the editor of Modern Love. Miya Lee is the Modern Love projects assistant. |
| Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work. | Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work. |