because we regulate each other, we define what is sayable and what is not, we monitor each other, we really like each other, we congratulate each other, we say what we mean, we mean what we say, we rarely are able to leave the realm of the cliché, we keep in touch with people we otherwise would never keep in touch with, we send our thoughts and photos to the other side of the globe, we attempt to define ourselves and our identities, we stake out positions, we define the boundaries of the conversation, we avoid conversation, we check out peoples’ photos, we watch videos, we fill our browsers with links to get to some other time, we bathe in the opinions and the tiniest details of the day, we posture, we prim, we stand up for what is right, we erase posts that seem unseemly, we fret about what we have said or what we have neglected to say, we feel the pressure to ride the wave of public opprobium, we believe what we are clicking is making a difference, we feel clicking is not enough of a difference to make, we hate all this damn clicking, we wonder how we ever met all of these people, we try to remember what it was like to meet someone and then to never see them again, we check in on friends we haven’t seen in a while, we sift through their photos to try to figure out from the angle of their smiles if they are happy or not, we read the seventieth righteous post about the latest miscarriage of justice in the world, we see someone say something rude to someone else, we scroll past kittens and flowers and manatees, we track through an excess of comments as one friend and another person we dont know fight about whether or not the latest strike is justified or not, we ponder whether or not to say something about the latest miscarriage of justice, we worry that we are not thinking beyond the latest whatever the latest might be, we think whatever we might say is not really that meaningful, we worry it just isn’t enough to post, we do worry about what people might say, we know we shouldnt but we do, we remember all the times that someone in real life has commented on something we posted, we get upset about someone’s perceived gloating, we worry that posting about our latest travels or latest successes will seem like gloating, we worry about people who might be jealous of our latest travels or latest successes, we wonder about what a status update really is, we wonder if we have to update if we are to maintain our status, we worry about whether or not we are posting enough to maintain our status in our small corners of the world, we see other people who seem comfortable with posting seemingly all the time, we worry we are disappearing from view, we post and then run into someone in real life who assumes from our post that we are doing well that we are okay that we are happy or traveling or enjoying our latest successes, we cringe when they congratulate us on something in a recent post, we know we are not okay deep down, we know we are lying just by being there, we know we have to be there “for professional reasons,” we know we are the panopticon, we wonder why we care about this so much, we don’t want to give the wrong impression, we read posts from people who seem to post about everything that comes into their heads and whatever they are doing or thinking or feeling that day, we envy these people and the ease with which they interact inside of this new world, we needlessly obsess about every perceived slight and the slightest evidence of arrogance, we feel like we are at a party and no one is saying hello, we feel like we weren’t even invited to the party, we just showed up there somehow and now we have nothing to say, we worry about what people are thinking about us, we know that no one here is thinking about us, we are stuck in the corner listening to snippets of other people’s banter, we wonder how they manage to be so casual about it all, we wonder what’s wrong with us, we wonder why we didn’t just stay home like we had planned, we remember no one invited us here to this party, we sit down in a corner and leaf through the books on the bookshelf, we read poetry for a bit, we feel a bit better for a moment, we see two friends walk by, we see they are laughing they seem happy they are excited about their shared dislike for a recent film that we really did like, we feel bad we liked the film, we think we should not be worried so much, we wonder why we didnt just stay home for the evening, we look around the room, we are shocked to realize just how alone we can feel when we are surrounded by so many people, we want to run from the room, we can’t run from the room, we are stuck, we are not at a party though, we don’t even believe in metaphors anymore, we value directness too much, we decide not to post anymore, we close our accounts, we reopen our accounts, we are all accounts for the larger corporation gradually eating all of our “content,” we think we are crazy, we know this is just a new technology just like previous technologies and that it will be integrated into our beings, we are not afraid of books anymore we tell ourselves, we are not afraid of television anymore, we should not be such luddites, we wish we could just integrate ourselves into this new technology, we are happy we put up some resistence no matter how small, we wonder how we ever found ourselves in this kind of navel-gazing vortex, we worry about our own level of bourgeois interiority, we are drowning in a sea of words and photos and posts and status and updates, we can’t escape from them, we want to flee desperately, we want just one minute when we actually feel alone, we want everyone to be okay with that, we want approval, we want permission for our feelings, we want to be liked, we want to not be so petty, we want to make connections across borders, we want to be casual about things, we want to hope that one day we will all look back and we will say, we remember that time when all of us got swept away by that thing, we can remember that time and now it seems so far away
