…or does it live in us?🤔 2am toilet thoughts inspired by Jia Tolentino (Writer at The New Yorker. For a challenging but interesting read, I recommend her book Trick Mirror.)
At the tender age of 22, I, now a BloggerTM, write to you having morphed into a dinosaur! Haw haw haw. (This is a joke about how blogging, once at the very forefront of the social media frontier, has become an outdated, irrelevant pastime.) Fully aware of this reality – and of the fact that I could only hope to reach an audience of maybe 5 close friends – I decided to supplement my social media presence with (very belatedly) an Instagram account earlier this year.
Instagram is very easy to use, and I was able to get amongst it pretty quickly. “God, Nameless Over-sharer, no one cares,” I thought to myself one day, skipping the 15 stories of one particularly enthusiastic individual. Then it hit me, like a bag of rocks. What if…no one cared…about my stories? What if …what if I was Nameless Over-sharer to someone else? Alas, I had found myself becoming exactly the type of irritating, overly present wanker I’d vowed never to become, subjecting my small but doubtlessly weary audience of followers to an almost daily assortment of inane and unsolicited Instagram stories.
This revelation triggered a very unwelcome incursion into the recesses of my mind. (Ah careful, it’s very dusty in there. Mind your head, there’s overhanging wires!! This noggin is in the midst of a reno.) I wanted to re-examine the way in which I, and many others, navigate an online world. Â
Our friends provide, aside from the obvious companionship, a reflection to the self.  They are our mirrors – through discourse with them, we can better understand ourselves. They are tools through which we can understand our own narratives, prisms through which we recognise our own patterns of behaviour. In short, our friends enable us to regard ourselves in relation to others. This, in turn, allows us to assign value to ourselves socially, allows us to gauge how likeable, funny, or desirable we are. Without my friends, how would I become cognisant that my booty is in fact “poppin” or that my waist, similarly, is “snatched”? (For evidence of said booty and waist, chuck me a follow at @juiceinta.)
In a world where we have discovered and perfected ways to exploit and profit from every last mineral or oil reserve in the admirable name of capitalism, we turn to one final untapped resource. We monetize the self. Our relationships with others can be used not only to understand ourselves, but to gain social capital. (Jacinta has wares if you have coin.)
To wit, not only is the construction of the self inextricable from the influence of those around us, but we depend on it. Indeed, we do not exist in a vacuum – beginning in infancy, we draw on those around us and in turn exert our influence on them. It is within a constantly shifting and complex world that our self-perception is forged. The self is not, and cannot be, constant. Rather, it emerges in parallel with an act we put on for the benefit of others, one that is ever evolving.
The sociologist Erving Goffman wrote in 1959 that a person must necessarily put on a performance when interacting with others. His dramaturgical approach to social interaction holds that our sense of self is a dramatic effect emerging from the scene being presented. That is, our sense of self changes in relation to each different situation. In order to fulfil our many roles – as student, sister, mentor, friend, lover, colleague – which are often conflicting and irreconcilable, we reach into our dress up box and don the version of ourselves most befitting the context or interaction.
It should stand to reason that in the absence of an audience, we stop performing and therefore become our most authentic selves. This would be true if it were not for the presence of the Internet, which brings the audience into our homes and wipes out all semblance of solitude. We now feel compelled to broadcast to a legion of followers or friends whom we (rather presumptuously) assume are thirsting after updates regarding our every movement.
In these strange apocalyptic times, the lingering presence of the Internet makes itself known more than ever. While stuck at home the other day, I decided to bake cookies. They were incredibly deformed because I hadn’t chilled the dough in the fridge. (But still very tasty – see Bon Appetit’s Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-best-chocolate-chip-cookies. I wasn’t paid to say this……or was I? (No, I wasn’t. I don’t reach a wide enough readership for this to be a profitable sponsorship.))
In any case, I thought: what the heck. I’ll post these misshapen discs to my Instagram story anyway. Not having had face-to-face interaction with a living soul outside of my family for a week, I desperately needed to be seen, and to remain relevant. I was a Dickensian waif, and it was validation that would warm my feet at night. “Prithee, kind sirs and madams, please may I have a crumb of attention?” was my unspoken plea to my friends.
Allow me to familiarise you with the concept of a panopticon. A panopticon is a theoretical concept devised by the 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, wherein a central watchtower is encircled by prison cells. From this tower, a single guard may observe each inmate, but each inmate doesn’t know whether they are being watched or not. When this threat is unknown, they begin to behave as if surveillance is constant, and self-regulation begins to take hold. In this way, the behaviour of each prisoner can be altered with minimal input from the manager or staff.
And so it is with the omnipresence of the Internet. Perversely, many of us crave this constant scrutiny, even as it drives us to anxiety. Even as we believe ourselves alone at home, we knowingly invite – nay, impose ourselves on – an audience, and perform constantly, so that our showmanship becomes inextricable from our reality. The more attention we invest in our painfully constant self-consciousness, the less capacity we have for productive work. Could this be…the work of the FBI? The heavy and oppressive boot of a supreme overlord, so as to keep the masses downtrodden??? The thot plickens The plot thickens…
And now, a flashback to last week: “Might this be… the biggest and splashiest cargo I’ve unloaded yet?” I mused from atop my toilet seat, fancying myself a freight ship. “Best to tell my 5 only friends about it, just to be safe,” I concluded upon my porcelain throne. Press send.
(DISCLAIMER: I love the internet – it has brought me cute animal videos, memes, and online shopping. Please don’t take it away from me)
Come Get Y'all Juice-inta 