![]() We live in an age of unprecedented competition for our attention, from social networks, from incendiary cable news, from online advertisements that follow us around the world. They’re living rent-free in your head!) Someone or something that lives rent-free in your head is causing you agita without paying for it. We obsess about sports, but our teams can win it all. We obsess about romantic partners, but we can love and be loved. So, we obsess about our jobs, but we can get promoted. But beyond that, it implies that the people and things we obsess over should reward us - or at least present us with the possibility. Landers’ maxim, “don’t let someone live rent-free in your head,” is about letting go of things beyond your control. Like any great turn of phrase, it pithily gets at something quite deep-seated: our anxiety over the way the indignant and polarized national mood intersects with the hyper-competitive, fully monetized attention economy that defines American culture and politics in 2018. And in its new, antagonistic usage, the phrase has gained new resonance. (It also stars in a late-career Wang Chung single) But in recent months, “living rent-free in your head” has come into its own, and is offered now not as advice but as a taunt. The phrase is usually attributed to Landers, and has floated around self-help blogs for years. Living rent free for 2 years in the media’s heads.” “Only problem is they forgot about his best deal ever. ![]() “Hearing all the ‘jokes’ about as a business man from last night’s #WHCorrespondentsDinner,” Donald Trump Jr. And then there’s the greatest attention freeloader of all, President Trump - a landlord, no less! ![]() To pick just a few examples from a recent Twitter search for the phrase, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is living rent-free in Fox News’ head, Pro-gun Parkland survivor Kyle Kashuv is living rent-free in the heads of gun control advocates, Michael Avenatti is “ thoroughly enjoying living rent-free” in Donald Trump’s head, alt-righters are living rent-free in the heads of “haters,” and Steve Bannon is living in H.R. Rent-free: Suddenly, everywhere, there are brain squatters, hogging mental resources and coughing up nothing in return. And as Ann Landers might have predicted, we have officially entered the great age of living in each others’ heads rent-free. “Hanging onto resentment,” Landers wrote, “is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.” There was also a fortune cookie–worthy aphorism about keeping grudges. They picked out nuggets of heartland wisdom about loneliness, integrity, romance, meatloaf, and warts. Near the end of her life, in 1999, the legendary advice columnist Ann Landers asked readers to select the best chestnuts of her 47-year career.
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