We’re at a point in time where our youngest adults have grown up with easy internet access. Thankfully, my memory of the internet from childhood is a blur of low resolution barbie makeup games and grainy facebook cat memes. However, the internet has changed entirely since I managed to sneakily download facebook onto my Nintendo DSi. The digital landscape is now a hotbed for knowledge, entertainment, and commercialism. As someone who has clocked in a shameful amount of hours on the internet, it’s hard to acknowledge how much this has affected me moving into adulthood. And as a creative, it is unprecedented how much my internet usage has affected my process. I anxiously sit here feeling like the product of a culture that turns experience into monetisation, personality traits into niche, and personal politics into simulation. If you want, and you are spending enough time online, you can contribute to the right discourse, obsess over strangers, argue with others, and quite comfortably live out a parody of your own life without moving an inch. You could even make a career out of it. Whilst we’re all aware of the dangers of the internet, and I certainly don’t need to list them here, I have a lot of unanswered questions I felt the need to jot down- as a creative whose attention span, world view, politics, cultural references, etc, have all been directly influenced by ‘growing up’ on the internet. To put it candidly, here are the ramblings of someone with worn out dopamine synapses and a wavering sense of self.
Question One: Are my views my own? Am I still capable of independent thought? Or am I just an amalgamation of every piece of online discourse I’ve ever consumed?
I remember being properly introduced to feminism through a tumblr blog on Bell Hooks when I was in Year 7. This quickly led me down a rabbit hole where I was hungrily looking for new terms to learn, more references, and I wanted to know everything. This made me feel mature and prepared for the world. It gave me an understanding of power dynamics and relationships that I could have as a reference whilst I was growing, and it was all there, spelled out for me- by people older, wiser, and more experienced than myself.
Whilst this information, open and honest as it was, could arguably be useful for the social development of a child, as an adult I wonder: what would I have done without this information? I don’t think my beliefs would be any different, however as a creative trying to explore subjects that affect me autobiographically- of womanhood, queerness, deafness, I sometimes feel that I’m reciting someone else's opinions. I’m thinking about these subjects opaquely as if I’d grazed over them whilst I was revising and now I’m blanking in the exam. I have things to say, but is that because I was set up with the correct information at a young age? Would I view these aspects of identity differently, had I not lived my life so far expecting certain situations and topics to crop up? Do my views come from a place of experience or understanding? How do you overcome imposter syndrome when your knowledge impersonates someone else's?
Question two: How to overcome internalised voyeurism?
Admittedly, it's only recently occurred to me how much information I am taking in every time I log on. Even though I’ve muted a whopping 382 twitter accounts in an attempt to quiet the noise, I’ve started to feel bombarded by the amount of information I’m taking in on a daily basis, in a way that never occurred to me as a child. The positive and exciting thing about social media is that everyone can be empowered with the ability to narrate, and whilst I think this has been massively beneficial for society, as humans we aren’t built to hear everyone's opinion about everything all the time. Some poor stranger will innocently upload a video of their dog and the comment section will be flush with unsolicited veterinary and medical advice from seemingly everyone with an internet connection. If everything is watched and judged all the time, how can existing in this state affect your thoughts? Sitting alone in your room is a solitary activity, but being on the internet during this time is opening your presence and attention up to communication with everyone. If you’re constantly absorbing everyone's viewpoint, even when you’re alone, you might as well be sitting in front of an auditorium of people.
And it’s not just peoples opinions online- we’re now living in a culture where you can monetise anything. You can make a living by filming yourself drinking coffee. You have people trying to sell you the next product that will help you achieve the next niche aesthetic only inherited by the people who like the same things as you like. There is now a culture of micro-labelling which transforms every part of our identity into a commodity. (see: coquette, cottagecore, kidcore, clean girl aesthetic, balletcore). We’ve turned people and their lived experience into media products. Are we meant to place importance and self esteem over how consumable we are as people?
If we’ve blended the lines between solitary and social time, and between a sense of self and commercialism, it can start to feel like there’s an audience of critics watching you through the peephole of your brain. If you’re consistently switching between the roles of spectator and subject, you’re no longer just a person- you’re a person watching an audience watching you. This is a grotesque sense of voyeurism that the bluetack covering my webcam couldn’t have protected me from. How can I start to create when it feels like Big Brother is watching me? Can honest work be made by a person who’s performing for a subconscious audience? Does authenticity even matter?
Question three: How do I rewire?
The simple solution is to log off more. It’s the quickest and easiest route. As kids we were warned to not watch too much TV, or spend too much time on the computer. We were all told we’d get “square eyes” (AKA, staring at cyborgs all day might be bad for the development of your prefrontal cortex) but if you’re any age between 5-16, and you’re bored, or you live in an isolated area, or you have trouble making friends, it becomes really easy to overdose on internet consumption. Many of the websites and apps we use are literally designed to be addictive and fire off dopamine with every click. It’s immediate gratification without any work. It’s the children's equivalent of a slot machine. Whilst I could throw my electronics off a bridge today, it’s going to take a lot of time to rewire my brain as someone who created a facebook account at 8 years old. Without sounding catastrophic, I don’t know if I can undo the effects it's had on my attention span. This poses a problem as a creative: how do I engage in a process that is the opposite of what I know? A process that requires focus, and has a slow reward process? And how do I get over the embarrassment of being in this position in the first place?
Ironically, I can't put these questions through google. Whilst I’ve tried to fight off these thoughts and feelings, because I know they’re ridiculously self absorbed, it unfortunately doesn’t stop them from being there. So, through the being on the Wicked Women course, I’ve come up with some solutions:
Create out of the need to create; not everything needs to be perfect (or even good!) There is something cathartic about just doing. Not for performance, or career progression, or for the mission of improving the world politically. It really is okay to have opinions and feelings about things and expressing them through your art form. Not everything needs to be magical and life changing, tackle imposter syndrome head on!
Focus more on the process, rather than its perception: For example, writing this blog proved difficult for me because I couldn’t shake the voices telling me that this is the biggest first world problem, I’m being self absorbed and I just need to log off and go outside. People can (rightfully so) think these things, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong for thinking it. Accepting the possibility of sounding ridiculous or embarrassing can be a part of the creative healing process.
Talk to other creatives, in person. The very thing you’ve been winding yourself up about is most likely bothering other people. It’s been a massive relief to openly and honestly talk about creative blocks with people who understand. (Thank you Tmesis!)
All this brings me to my final solution, which is of course logging off and taking a walk. I’m going to go do that now.
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