Winnipeg singer-songwriter and Exclaim! New Faves alum Cassidy Mann returns today with her first release of 2024: a thoughtful new single about comparing yourself to people on social media called "Disappointing the Internet."
"When I wrote this I was spending a lot of time online but I didn't feel like I had much to offer in that space. I wasn't posting anything but was constantly comparing myself to people who were, in every aspect of my life," the artist explained in a press release. "I started to wonder how I'd feel if I stopped going on the internet at all and of course, that's exactly what I needed at that time. This song is about the dichotomy of not existing in the digital world in order to exist more fully in your real life."
Mann gives voice to a struggle many of us know all too well, opening the track by wondering if she should be at a party on a Friday night and feeling the familiar sense of guilt about not meeting certain social expectations rise in her stomach — "I don't necessarily make 'em / But they still get to me nonetheless," she admits on the refrain. Co-produced by Roman Clarke and Kris Ulrich, "Disappointing the Internet" hums along with fuzzy edges like a screen's near-persistent glow, looping to the rhythm of Mann's introspective internal monologue.
Give it a listen below via Donovan Woods's End Times Music.