on or before social media
streaming consciousness
(Super inspired by this piece by . Happy to show my brushstrokes. Is this prose or a poem? A proem?)
L i f e b e f o r e P C
my skin smells of milk and talc. Rabbit ears on the TV. I am me.
L i f e b e f o r e w w w
elastic boredom, notebook paper with lines. Books books books. Repetitive words in my hot mind. Ink under my nails. My ideas swim contained, I catch them like carp. Puffy clouds, birds high, pool water lapping as I laze by the side. Chlorine in the air. Head clear. Easy to tune the noise out.
the millennium dawns iridescent like our CDs. Our audio lives in record stores, in wrapped boxes. Our pictures live in choppy magazine collages. Our videos live on TV, at cinemas. Everything in its place. Can’t wait to be somebody someday.
L i f e b e f o r e G o o g l e
patient experts explain what double-you double-you double-you means on the six o clock news. You still have to know where you’re going. You still have to know what you’re looking for. You still have to be able to spell. Waiting for someone to turn me into somebody.
L i f e b e f o r e F a c e b o o k
the landline screeches when I’m on the computer, and so do I: Mum, you can Google now. Mum, you can Google that. My phone is portable, but I still have a camera. Sharing photos few will ever see. Finding hidden gems, finding hidden homes on writing sites. Mailing my homemade zines to the USA. You’re Tumblring. You’re talented, girl. Making myself somebody.
L i f e b e f o r e I n s t a g r a m
my worlds are contained but wait, you’re not on Facebook? My phone is so smart now. Oversharing. Extra talking. Can’t remember. Got a dozen chats on the go. People I don’t notice at gigs look me up and down. Later, they look me up online. Public lives, not invisible anymore. Gotta promote. Gotta write. My words washed away by a tide of content, though. Thousands of friends. Maybe if I push I’ll reach ends. Perfectionism. Nothing gets finished.
everyone is way ahead of me. Connectivity. I am stretched thin but we are so Linked In. We are arm in arm marching to our future duper utopia. Pixels are so retro. Streaming, streams of consciousness. Everything at my fingertips. Look it up, no excuses. Gotta decide. Don’t know which somebody to be.
L i f e b e f o r e T i k T o k
my worlds are shaking. People have access to truth but choose the lie. La pièce de moindre résistance. People seem to be getting dumber. My phone is a genius though and it calls to me with videos I’ve not yet seen. Articles I’ve not yet read. Instagram has me by the head. Bubble lips, bubble butts. Toil to keep up and trouble to stop. There is no art anymore, only content. I am not content. Time feels invisible and I might be purposefully getting lost but I don’t know how to stop? Battling the algorithm but it beats me. Seeing the same face. Seeing the same face. Seeing the same face. Ads are fads now. No. I don’t want to disappear for a month and come back a femme fatale. Sick of trying to be somebody.
L i f e b e f o r e S u b s t a c k
my worlds are leaking and I’m too tired for TikTok. Too fast, too shallow, every surface so polished I can’t tell what its material is. No time, no room for my ideas to swim like carp. How did I get here. Everyone’s captions have typos. Everyone is dancing. Everyone’s a brand, grandstanding. On quiet nights I’m glad my trite teenage dancing wasn’t online. Words that aren’t words, newspeak. Behind all the time, behind the times. What am I seeking. Where is my network, where are my peers. My peers are revered. I’m not. Giving up on being somebody.
L i f e n o w
frantic and rushed. Crashing, crushed. Adulthood, extra garbage on top. Garbage I hoard because I can’t stop smelling it. Fact checking’s dead, bullshit flying on read. My eyes are dry and sore all the time; I don’t notice. Anxiously attached to my portal of a rectangle. Even in my bathroom, everyone is better than me. Fervent neurodivergence. Hard to keep a thought unless I caught it right away, unless I record it. I am nobody.
but there are multiple mes now: all but one without a body, living outside of time. I’m active on so many sites. I have half a mind. I am half alive. Goddamnit, I will get offline. I will resign, I’m finally dying to. Log out of my own demise.
time to dust off that lined notebook. Time to dust off offline.
I just wrote a post on my Substack about social media's impact on my (everyone's) life and I think It is in such good dialogue with this post. Social media really is a double-edged sword.