In the dog days of summer, a deep melancholy blooms.
It’s immensely difficult to enjoy nature and be out and about in 100+ degree heat, and even when the sun goes down, the humidity envelopes and chokes. In the interest of avoiding migraine and heatstroke, the pragmatic thing to do is stay inside. But you know, the ghosts come out when you spend too much time at home….
I’ve done many different things, and have been many different people– the unifying thread connecting them is the experience of having nothing better to do in the summer than look at the internet in abject misery. I’ve been doing this for decades now, and God willing, I will be able to do so for many, many more decades to come. But ideally, it would be without the aspect where I feel neither part of the world around me nor part of the world inside the computer.
Generally my socialization online mirrors real life. If I’m not really talking to people IRL, I don’t feel comfortable talking to people online, and vice versa.
Currently, I feel a deep disillusionment with the internet.
There’s a deep, vivid memory I have of being six or seven years old, mucking about on random RPG forums during the summer. People weren’t keen on babysitting, but they humored me, and it was just so fun to read what these people had to say. These people were so much smarter than the ones I knew in real life, and they liked the same things as me! Wow!! A beautiful dream world of intelligence and self-expression. How could real life ever compare?
And thus, I was initiated into the mysteries of Online. While I don’t think it’s particularly good I was exposed to such psychedelic information streams so early in life, to know that there was whole wide world out there beyond my restrictive reality was a lifeline. And if I hadn’t spent my youth posting my innermost thoughts, feelings, and fandom for everyone and their mom to see, I’d have lost a lot of those memories. For better or for worse, the disconnected bits of self I have stashed away on random websites is my most accessible archive at this time.
When the pandemic hit, it felt like the real world and the internet completely converged. It still feels that way to this day. I still spend as much time as anybody glued to my phone, but I don’t see a point in posting on social media much anymore. I don’t have anything to promote, and I understand less and less of what people are getting worked up over as each day goes by. Life is so precious, and yet people are wasting it on….on this.
Ironically, as real life has become a public health nightmare, I’ve grown to enjoy face-to-face communication more. The richness of information, the effectiveness and immediacy, the fleeting kindness of strangers…how could the internet ever compare?
Anyway, I recently finished the book Snow Crash. It was fun! A lot of Neal Stephenson’s insights and predictions still feel prescient thirty-some years later, and I deeply related to the chaos and confusion Hiro Protagonist wreaks in the world just by existing. It can get a little cringy at times, but the action and energy feels like a slick 80’s OVA. It’s a compelling work.
More than anything though, it clicked a lot of things in place — I finally know why online Gen Xers are Like That now! From the average everyday poster to the richest tech bro, from the most virulent atheist to the kookiest chaos magician… Snow Crash makes sense of them all. I haven’t felt this level of understanding since I watched the original Star Wars trilogy for the first time, having gone out of my way to buy the DVD set at age 19. And similarly to then, I get the feeling of, “Really?? Everything is from this???”
But that’s the power of art, right? It has the ability to shape people’s imaginations and minds. And before the internet, popular movies and printed media did a lot of heavy lifting. It’s just difficult to comprehend how singular works can affect people so deeply and widely, defining the thoughts and expression of entire generations.
How does it feel for everyone around you to look like you, to think like you? To be hewn from the same stone, to be on the same level you’re at? I’d imagine there’s a sense of comfort, of safety, of belonging. I’d imagine that on some level, it feels nice.
When I was a kid, I thought people on the internet were better than me. They knew more, had more talent, had more everything. I carried this essential truth deep in my heart and soul.
When I was a teen, I had it all figured out. I was clearly unfit for functioning in society, so I was going to figure out to make a living on the internet, where all the other sensitive people were. My living body was but a husk — my true self lived and frolicked in cyberspace.
Naturally, my twenties were gravely difficult. Whenever I got the comforting feeling of being online in a real life situation, it would be followed by something deeply unpleasant at best, and actively traumatizing experiences at worst.
Now I am the age of the people I placed above me all those years ago, and I’ve come to realize…a lot of them were weirdos, no? I probably wouldn’t want to make eye contact with a lot of them if I saw them walking down the street, let alone talk about things I love so deeply and passionately.
Still, that doesn’t diminish the beauty I saw then and continue to see — personal websites, fanart, the performance of posting and emanating digital vibes…I still think this is peak expression and artistry. Maybe that fossilizes me inside a certain place and time, but that’s ok. Everything comes back eventually.
Now, in the current age, I feel like one shouldn’t put too much stock in what someone has to say if they don’t have something you’d like. But how would you know you’d like something if you’ve never had it? It’s a difficult balance.
Ultimately, everybody on the internet is someone just trying to live their life. We don’t know the context of what people say and make, and usually we never will. The immediacy and solipsism of the medium means there’s an ever present danger of us projecting our own issues on people simply existing and expressing things where we can see it.
When we see someone embody misfortune that missed us by chance, our hierarchical society encourages us to express the misplaced fear and revulsion that bubbles up in our belly through violence against them.
It doesn’t have to be that way though.
It’s hard enough to simply exist — so why not just live and let live?