Sukhnidh Kaur, influencer, research fellow, marketing associate and now writer. Long before she was all of this, Kaur was a 12-year-old girl trying to become a ‘somebody’ with the help of the Internet. Her debut book, Your Perfect Dream Girl, highlights this stage of her life, in a meditation on how algorithms and desire shaped her girlhood.

The Internet is a fascinating place filled with contradictions for women. It is where the young urban woman is provided a platform and voice, and is simultaneously questioned, surveilled, and judged, particularly by the male gaze. Every DM, every selfie transforms them into objects of men, by men, for men.  “There is no safe way for a woman to be visible on the Internet,” says Kaur, now 27, “Not for a woman who’s being celebrated, and not for one who’s being chided. For hypervisible women, the issue is amplified, much like it is for invisibilised women.”