My So-Called Social Media
Dodged a bullet being born in the 20th century.
I am so grateful I did not ‘come of age’ during the time of social media.
I was self-conscious enough as it was, and not in a good way. I had some horrifically bad portraits taken during my formative years and I can only imagine how much more horrific those days - when I couldn’t get my hair to do what I wanted it to, when my face looked like I’d taken an icepick to it, when my sartorial splendor was all in my mind - would have been with online video.
I am certain my younger sister and I would have fought much more consistently over bathroom time.
I am trying to imagine having my awkward white guy dance moves recorded - overbite, swinging arms and all. Trying to imagine a permanent record of all of my tasteless, poorly coordinated clothes. Trying to imagine what kind of inane things I might have spoken into a camera.
I am the progeny of a lower middle class family. Probably one of the lowest rungs of the middle class. So I even escaped being recorded in any fashion other than a very cheap camera. To my knowledge, there is no archival footage anywhere of my life before 1980 and that suits me fine. It is much easier to live in a make-believe past, or a past you can pick and choose how you want to remember it. Assuming, of course, you can remember it.
I simply can’t fathom the teen age years with around the clock video recordings.
Anything “around the clock” is bad for you - Las Vegas, donut shops, grocery stores that sell liquor. . .
I thought about this because I awoke this morning thinking about what a laugh I got last night after reading that the guy who was caught on film laying on a hotel bed with his hands down his pants in the presence of what he thought was an underage young woman and the guy who held a nation wide press conference in a parking lot across from a crematorium and next to a dildo shop has been appointed by the guy who just got shellacked in a national referendum to head up the legal team to try and overturn the resounding loss in court. Folks on social media are saying he may take it all the way to the Supreme Courtyard Marriott.
No, I am just joking. That was not what made me think of it. But the paragraph above is not fake, or Andy Borowitz satire.
Sadly.
I thought about how glad I was not to have grown up with social media as I lay in bed trying to remember aspects of my teen years. Specifically, I was trying to recall highlights from my junior and senior high school “love life.” “Love life” is in quotes because it only consisted of dates, kissing and, perhaps, some heavy petting, or some heavy denim friction.
Also, because it was high school.
The only parts I know for sure were that my “love life” kicked off in sixth grade when I kissed Jill Jeanes playing spin the bottle and then I exited high school dating the very same young woman who had gone on to become the Homecoming Queen, head cheerleader and one of the kindest people to ever have walked the earth. Jill and I ‘went steady’ in sixth grade and then didn’t recommence our relationship until our senior year in high school. (And, in the event, Donna Gray is reading this, I also very clearly remember our time together. You were in 10th grade and I was in 9th. You were a sophomore at RHS and I was still at West Junior High. I remember the two of us passing a thousand handwritten notes - the campuses of the two schools were not separated by much - and I remember you allowing me to drive your car on occasion despite my being underage and not having a license. And, because there is no social media record, I can say I was oblivious to the social status you must have lended me. I mean, it could not have been common for someone from junior high to be dating someone in high school and, not to mention, someone as cute as you were.)
Everything in between - Donna as I came in to high school and Jill as I left for college - is a blur. I’m embarrassed I can’t recollect more but the time together must have been so fleeting. And still, I am thankful there was no social media to have recorded it in all of its heuristic glory.
I kind of like ‘not knowing’. I kind of like scouring those hidden compartments in my mind. Rummaging through the memories. Recalling a name, trying to place it in some recognizable chronological or social order. Struggling to make all these musty memory fragments sensical. Typically failing to link it all together, mind you.
I am curious as to how I might have compensated for social media being the rebel I always thought of myself as. I probably would have embraced it and then regretted all of the stupid from me that would have undoubtably been caught on video. Hounding, haunting and harassing me the remainder of my life.
Rudy Giuliani probably knows a thing or two about that.
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Thank goodness they didn’t invent the internet until I was in my 40s! Anyway, today’s thought made me think of this song from The Chainsmokers. I’m a big fan of The Chainsmokers and all of the voices they pair with - Halsey, Daya, Charlee or whoever.
Also, since I don’t want to go a day without making more than one remark about politics, here is Robert Reich tearing down all the Stop the Steal bullshit and other nonsense surrounding the election. By the way, Benedict Donald’s lawyers track records so far is like 0 for 16.
Thanks again for reading, sharing and passing around. - JLM