TL;DR: I’m old & bitter & don’t understand this newfangled BS, laterz~!
Hey y’all, I know it’s kind of cliche/annoyingly cryptic move to be all, “I’m Taking a Break from the Internet,” but — I have to Take a Break from the Internet.
Also, I’ve un-followed and/or “hidden” a lot of people from my blogs & Facebook, so please don’t take this as a personal affront. Despite my previous mocking entry, the “constant bombardment of content” “in today’s postmodern society” is actually causing me a lot of nervous/existential distress (everything is the same, nothing is beautiful because everything is beautiful, but everything is terrible, why is anything anything waaahhhh blah blah)… and I have a ridiculous compulsion (or lack of self-control) wherein I have to scroll through everything that everyone’s posted to be sure I don’t miss anything Important (which is debatable), so I’m passively consuming Internet way too much and not actually participating in any kind of community, let alone any kind of creative acts of my own.
If you are a local friend, I would rather be spending time with you in person instead of reading your blog (& I will try to make a better effort at this in a few months when I’m all done with the schooling). If you are a far-away friend, I would rather be exchanging physical letters & photographs or at least longer emails and having more intimate interactions instead of proving my friendship with a “like” or reblog. Send me a message somewhere if you’d like to share contact information.
I also feel that my personal “creative” or serious writing has suffered a lot due to the weirdness (pressure?) of instant publication/feedback, which doesn’t allow me to spend as much time on my writing and revising and perfecting as I’d like, due to the “lightning-fast speeds” of blogging and trending. And I Strongly Dislike the inaccessible academic-speak + references I don’t always understand + Let Me Google That For You set alongside sarcastic LOLing that seems particular to the online atmosphere. It’s just not my thing. I have a hard time taking it in as a body of work and I feel like a moron when I try to match that style. Plus, no matter what I write on the Internet, I think it sounds arrogant when I’m being serious and inauthentic if I try to water it down with sarcasm and jokes.
& I’m totally burnt out on ~theory~. If that’s your thing, NBD dude, but I’m not into it so much anymore. I don’t care. I’m tired of wandering around feeling stupid and guilty all the time, and I’m totally exhausted from analyzing why and how everything forever is totally problematic and terrible all the time. This goes for aesthetics & feminism & technology & consumption & all of the things. Plus I don’t care about pop culture phenomena or really, most subculture phenomena for that matter. I miss enjoying things, enjoying things while also being aware of some of their criticisms, appreciating beauty without deconstructing every aspect of it, making an art without having to be constantly on the defensive…
& for the sake of Not Wanting to Accidentally Offend Anyone on the Internet: I don’t believe whatever I’m doing is better than whatever you’re doing; it’s just better for me right now. I want to strengthen my personal relationships and take care of my own shit and occasionally be “creatively self-expressive” and try to do positive and supportive direct actions locally instead of being angry on the Internet potentially-globally. I was up way too late last night reading a debate about whether a diabetic taking insulin shots is more or less privileged than a non-diabetic with a needle-phobia and I. Just. Cannot. I’m sorry not sorry, as it were. I need to be doing Other Things before my brain completely melts.
I’m not really into the lack of public/private boundary online all the time, and for me, there’s certain value in distance, time, revision, privacy, secrets, and not always having mutual access to every detail about everyone’s life all the time (hellooo ex-BFs on FB). So I’m going to go back to using my blog as a reserve of quotes from whatever I’m reading, updates on my zines & photography, and posts from other artists and writers I like. I don’t want to broadcast a ton of confessional/personal things & Deep Thoughts from my life here anymore. It’s become a little identity crisis-y for me to be constantly in a limbo of performing my “self” on an intensely public forum.
So long, IT’S BEEN REAL……….(?)
