It is
said by some that if one happens to lose inspiration to write, one
should simply write whatever. Explain the concepts to oneself,
basically, while frantically writing without thinking. In fact, this
proposition was given to me specifically yesterday, on Twitter. I
know: best place to get advise, isn't it? But you may be surprised by
the sheer amount of great individuals that have found their way to
this service. Sometimes, their advise may just be exactly what you
need, so here I am sitting. Writing, without thinking. Without
looking at what I wrote, no plan, no way in or out, no direction. It
doesn't really matter, some say. You just have to write something.
Anything. So this is what I am doing. The thing I'd like to write
about, really, should be about eighty pages long in the end. It's not
that I do not know what to write, it's that on some days, my
inspiration's just not what it should be. What helps, in fact, and bizarrely so
sometimes, is to read something entirely different from what you're
supposed to write. A different style, or thought, whatever.
However, I will tell you something about what I'd like to write about, just for the fun of it... Social media, more specifically all those sites we gather around day after day, communicating with the strangest, most lovely individuals. And yet, despite all of their efforts to save the world with kind words, the world is pretty much the same as it was before. With one big difference: everybody now has the ability to randomly share the most senseless thoughts on the most important topics. Senseless, not because they are necessarily wrong, but because they are being hyper-idealistic about what kind of effect these words may produce. Think about Iran. Have you heard of the magnificent Twitter Revolution? Have you got any idea why they've connected this term with a country in which most people don't even own a Twitter account? Because, as events were unfolding, tons and tons of kind westerners with hearts bigger than heads, were sharing opinions, pictures, all kinds of other material about the situation. To “raise awareness”.
I'm saying this, because in the end, that is where the story always ends. “But, nothing has changed, Ahmadinejad was still there, the protesters lost in a way, so what did you achieve, besides momentarily making the entire Internet collapse with all of your amplified noise and the great mind-boggling idea to attack the main news outlet?” “We raised awareness!” “About what?” “About what was happening in Iran!” “But did this awareness change anything?” “No, but still … people need to know what is going on”. Can't argue with that, now can you? They should in fact know what is going on. But thanks to the marvelous invention of the media (including televisions, computers, smartphones and about anything else that keeps us trapped in this schizo-like state of swirling messages without content), we always sort of kind of somewhat know “what is going on”. The question really is: who cares? If I raise awareness and people are outraged for about fifteen felt minutes out of their entire lives, how on earth does this help anyone?
Literally, trapped. Circulating images, everywhere. Tibet, Iran, Syria, Japan, China, USA, Spain, Greece, anything. We know exactly what is going on, we simply do not care. And even if we do care, even if we take out the time of our super busy lives to quickly post a critical comment somewhere along the lines of “have you heard about this or that terrible incident that I can barely get my head around because it is just so shocking, I can barely breathe, and neither should you because if you are not scared out of your mind about all the shit that is happening you are a heartless cold beast walking this earth with no regard for anything or anyone but yourself, in your happy 46 m2 apartment”, then what have we truly done except for judging everybody around us without even knowing what they care about? Maybe they live in a 20m2 apartment, or maybe they've just lost their jobs, or maybe they got one of those quarter-life depressions people are now talking about. Maybe they are exactly who you think they are and they really should care. But they simply can't, because it is way too hard for them to produce any kind of emotional reaction to what they see on tv.
And why should they, after all? It's all just a manipulated version of whatever is actually happening. It leaves out most of the causes, most of the history. It simply tells you: THIS IS HORRIBLE. And you look at it and think “it probably is, why else would everybody be so shocked”? And so you go along, you post a status and for about twenty-five minutes feel absolutely certain that you've just done good. You've raised awareness, after which you can comfortably go back to your mental slumber and play a few video games before you leave the house to do groceries. To buy some labor, as Marx would say. But he said so many things, after all, some of which were completely nonsensical speculations. Pretty to read, though. To say the least. Baudrillard would probably be rather shocked to know just how easily the warmth of your living room is penetrated by seemingly cold exterior events. But you cannot feel it, can you? Disgust? Some part of you does of course. Not the part that buys lunch at McDonald's or drinks NestlĂ© coco, but the part of you that turns away from homeless people so as to not feel the stabbing excess of consumed reality penetrating your tiny tiny hearts. The part of you that may just sit down next to one of these homeless guys, just to feel as if you've done something good today, not ignoring the suffering of the world. All this suffering … maybe, the concentration of violence on this continent was a lot higher in the past. Imagine all these little burnt villages and raped women in the middle ages. Now imagine them owning a tv, only to see that the world sucks at pretty much the same rate everywhere else. Fun, huh?
Now, finally, the pain is somewhere else. We can start all kinds of great organizations that play by the same bureaucratic rules as everybody else, we can click on a cause on Facebook or follow society-hating mutants on Twitter. Finally, evil is somewhere else and we can act. We must above all else share Kony2012, regardless of whether or not Kony was actually in Uganda at the time. Because we seriously couldn't care less whether the information is true or manipulated, whether our awareness-raising actions lead to anything at all (as long as we can say we did, all is fine and well). And it's not because we're evil, it's because we can't care about every single dying child in the world. We can't care about every crime the government commits. We can't simply throw all our stuff out on the streets, move to one of these crisis regions to actually participate in making their lives better. We cannot risk our lives. So we participate comfortably from our own home, just one little button away from world peace. If only the world would ever listen! Maybe it should, just like me, ramble on for a few pages. Or eighty pages. Maybe it is just about that time of the day … the time where you think: oh it's so senseless after all, I'll care about it all tomorrow. For now, I think there's something pretty good on tv about baby lions in India. So damn cute!
However, I will tell you something about what I'd like to write about, just for the fun of it... Social media, more specifically all those sites we gather around day after day, communicating with the strangest, most lovely individuals. And yet, despite all of their efforts to save the world with kind words, the world is pretty much the same as it was before. With one big difference: everybody now has the ability to randomly share the most senseless thoughts on the most important topics. Senseless, not because they are necessarily wrong, but because they are being hyper-idealistic about what kind of effect these words may produce. Think about Iran. Have you heard of the magnificent Twitter Revolution? Have you got any idea why they've connected this term with a country in which most people don't even own a Twitter account? Because, as events were unfolding, tons and tons of kind westerners with hearts bigger than heads, were sharing opinions, pictures, all kinds of other material about the situation. To “raise awareness”.
I'm saying this, because in the end, that is where the story always ends. “But, nothing has changed, Ahmadinejad was still there, the protesters lost in a way, so what did you achieve, besides momentarily making the entire Internet collapse with all of your amplified noise and the great mind-boggling idea to attack the main news outlet?” “We raised awareness!” “About what?” “About what was happening in Iran!” “But did this awareness change anything?” “No, but still … people need to know what is going on”. Can't argue with that, now can you? They should in fact know what is going on. But thanks to the marvelous invention of the media (including televisions, computers, smartphones and about anything else that keeps us trapped in this schizo-like state of swirling messages without content), we always sort of kind of somewhat know “what is going on”. The question really is: who cares? If I raise awareness and people are outraged for about fifteen felt minutes out of their entire lives, how on earth does this help anyone?
Literally, trapped. Circulating images, everywhere. Tibet, Iran, Syria, Japan, China, USA, Spain, Greece, anything. We know exactly what is going on, we simply do not care. And even if we do care, even if we take out the time of our super busy lives to quickly post a critical comment somewhere along the lines of “have you heard about this or that terrible incident that I can barely get my head around because it is just so shocking, I can barely breathe, and neither should you because if you are not scared out of your mind about all the shit that is happening you are a heartless cold beast walking this earth with no regard for anything or anyone but yourself, in your happy 46 m2 apartment”, then what have we truly done except for judging everybody around us without even knowing what they care about? Maybe they live in a 20m2 apartment, or maybe they've just lost their jobs, or maybe they got one of those quarter-life depressions people are now talking about. Maybe they are exactly who you think they are and they really should care. But they simply can't, because it is way too hard for them to produce any kind of emotional reaction to what they see on tv.
And why should they, after all? It's all just a manipulated version of whatever is actually happening. It leaves out most of the causes, most of the history. It simply tells you: THIS IS HORRIBLE. And you look at it and think “it probably is, why else would everybody be so shocked”? And so you go along, you post a status and for about twenty-five minutes feel absolutely certain that you've just done good. You've raised awareness, after which you can comfortably go back to your mental slumber and play a few video games before you leave the house to do groceries. To buy some labor, as Marx would say. But he said so many things, after all, some of which were completely nonsensical speculations. Pretty to read, though. To say the least. Baudrillard would probably be rather shocked to know just how easily the warmth of your living room is penetrated by seemingly cold exterior events. But you cannot feel it, can you? Disgust? Some part of you does of course. Not the part that buys lunch at McDonald's or drinks NestlĂ© coco, but the part of you that turns away from homeless people so as to not feel the stabbing excess of consumed reality penetrating your tiny tiny hearts. The part of you that may just sit down next to one of these homeless guys, just to feel as if you've done something good today, not ignoring the suffering of the world. All this suffering … maybe, the concentration of violence on this continent was a lot higher in the past. Imagine all these little burnt villages and raped women in the middle ages. Now imagine them owning a tv, only to see that the world sucks at pretty much the same rate everywhere else. Fun, huh?
Now, finally, the pain is somewhere else. We can start all kinds of great organizations that play by the same bureaucratic rules as everybody else, we can click on a cause on Facebook or follow society-hating mutants on Twitter. Finally, evil is somewhere else and we can act. We must above all else share Kony2012, regardless of whether or not Kony was actually in Uganda at the time. Because we seriously couldn't care less whether the information is true or manipulated, whether our awareness-raising actions lead to anything at all (as long as we can say we did, all is fine and well). And it's not because we're evil, it's because we can't care about every single dying child in the world. We can't care about every crime the government commits. We can't simply throw all our stuff out on the streets, move to one of these crisis regions to actually participate in making their lives better. We cannot risk our lives. So we participate comfortably from our own home, just one little button away from world peace. If only the world would ever listen! Maybe it should, just like me, ramble on for a few pages. Or eighty pages. Maybe it is just about that time of the day … the time where you think: oh it's so senseless after all, I'll care about it all tomorrow. For now, I think there's something pretty good on tv about baby lions in India. So damn cute!
