Social Media Generation Infertility
So you're an "incel" ??
That doesn't even make sense.
You don't hate women.
You're a nice guy!
Why don't you just go to a bar ??
Why don't you get on Tinder ??
Why don't you just "get out there" ??
Why don't you just offer yourself ??
Why can't you just talk to people ??
Why can't you just give 'em what they want ??
Why can't you just tell 'em what they want to hear ??
Don't you know how many fish in the sea are out there just like you ??
Why don't you just go get laid ??
What's wrong with you
Social Media Generation Infidelity
17:25 @BasementDwellerCheetoDust449 wrote:
@SuccessfulProAthlete you best get me 8 catches and 2 TDs of points tomorrow or I'mma pull up
18:02 @SuccessfulProAthlete wrote:
@BasementDwellerCheetoDust449 ?? This clown really gonna PUBLICLY THREATEN me cuz of his damn fantasy team? smh son you need to stfu I don't play that
18:16 @BasementDwellerCheetoDust449 wrote:
@SuccessfulProAthlete boi you got me fucked up out here I got 1k on this league and you got me out the top 5 for 3 weeks now I'm bout to load up the chopper come see me
18:55 @SuccessfulProAthlete wrote:
@BasementDwellerCheetoDust449 you dumb enough to gamble your own money and you expect me to be fucked up about a stat line? In a team sport??? Bruh I'm tryna be a GOAT out here how you think I would give a FUCK bout what a sheep thinks. Take it off bruh #fakegangster #internetthug
(an appropriate emoji was then inserted)
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"Live in the moment" they said. What perspective. We've become lost to the moment. So much collective attention consumed by fashion, trend, controversy, instant gratification. Remember when talk used to just be talk? Ephemeral words spoken in bars and break rooms and parking lots everywhere, hollow ideas carried off on the wind. Perhaps remembered and perhaps even influential. But ultimately just noise to be immediately dissipated. Now in an era where opinions are written in blurbs and captions published immediately to an international audience, talk is permanent. Nothing is off the record. Information, misinformation, influence, micro-influence... Words spread like wildfire on platforms where the content producers' narcissism is fueled, where the content consumers' eagerness to react is fueled, and where everyone's insecurities are exploited. A culture of instance has been fostered knowingly, and people are using it as a means to the same end which they always have - to talk too much, and to praise those who say things we like to hear. The current standard units of measurement in the court of public opinion are likes and handclap emojis. Any measure of insensitivity or offensiveness or ignorance is now not normally met with discourse and debate and education but with discredibility condescension and ostracism (this might be "changing" in a technical sense in some places but culture can't really be regulated, not even by the platforms which are curating culture). We have collectively taken the relatively small percentages in which we differ from one another as human beings and fixated our perspective on it. People are living thriving and suffocating within the disparity, the finger-pointing, the conflict which we have so actively sought.
Is it really so different now than what it was? Maybe not intrinsically. Humans have always gravitated towards conflict and set themselves at odds with each other in constant power struggles for whatever reasons we convince ourselves. The dissonance is more interesting than the harmony. But has it ever been so perpetual? Have we ever been so constantly enveloped in the noise on a global scale coming in from every direction, with a collective inability to log off? Did the time we spent in isolation ultimately help in forcibly illuminating so many of these problems that have been swept under the rug or has it made addictions that much more accessible on a societal level? Maybe even to the point of dependence? Did we become so desperate to connect and to stay connected that we've corrupted our entire consciousness? Or is it a desperation to be right and for someone else to be wrong which has corrupted us?
I haven't said anything that hasn't already been said. I have no pretensions of prophecy nor ascension, or that my preachiness even carries any inherent value. But I feel better having screamed it. I can't un-see and it doesn't seem worth it to stay silent. We've outgrown ourselves.
Compatibility Settings
"I said, 'identity crisis? Don't you mean life?' But she didn't get it."
Jardin des Champs-Élysées. Paris seems to have nothing to offer in late autumn. Gray. More gray. Being tolerated by the working class locals. An energy persisting through the crowds of long-standing connections. Not just lovers, but brothers and sisters and parents and children and co-workers and friends. Everyone walking in pairs between the leaves and the sips of coffee. Between the birds and the faint smell of urine emanating from every other street. Between the traffic and the timeless. Everything alive that seemed to be tethered to something else alive.
"So you think she's dumb."
I do have a friend. She's sure to make time for me when she can. I think it exhausts her to care for me. She loves me enough to hate me for my unchanging ways. I do wonder why she cares but I'm not stupid enough to ask. I might miss a lot, but I don't miss that.
"I don't know. She didn't talk about anything except clothes. And her kids. And she wasn't just nervous-talking."
We sat on stone benches facing cherished buildings. I gazed out towards them as we talked. I can give her eye contact and sometimes I do. But she doesn't expect it anymore. She knows I'm paying attention.
"Hmm. Well, ok. But just promise me you'll try again, ok? And KEEP trying. It can take some time."
I've never been to England. But I feel like the buildings in Leeds must feel like this. And Brighton, and Birmingham, and Cardiff which isn't England but you get the point. So withered by the wind. Mossy-coppered tones of the metalwork almost shine in the gloom of the clouds. If there could ever be such a thing.
"How do you know that she didn't get it?" "She told me. She said 'What? I don't get it.' She'd never heard of Bob Dylan." "Really?" "Yeah. Not like 'I never listened to him' or 'not my cup of tea' but she literally wasn't aware of him." "...Huh..."
It had been another day full of walking. The cold comfort of street food. Glancing into store windows and lives of strangers. Tucked under my earphones as always. Long sad sentimental playlists as usual. Thinking of women, not of this random date I was discussing but of the women who have truly effected me. All in the past. Out of sight. If my friend knew just how much shit I was holding onto and how much it was holding me back she would probably focus on it. I don't want her to know.
"But yeah you live and learn I guess. I will try again. Promise."
I hugged my friend. I heard the sun will be back out by Saturday morning. Just in time for me to head to Frankfurt. Moving east, driving back into the clouds in all likelihood.
Social Media Generation Identity
You know when something becomes,
"high school all over again" ??
that's human nature
the differences in behavior
between child, adolescent, adult, senior
are marginal, incidental
proportional
you have the capacity inside you
for all the greatest goods
and all the worst evils
that were ever done
no decision ever made was unnatural
you may judge a person's character
based on their choices
but the only real differences between us are circumstances
so don't ever fool yourself into believing
that you would never
it's all
"one big high school" because
it's all one big
humans being
human beings
July and November, 2022