the death of reciprocity in the pleasure of your hands
The way you watch, the way you behave. When you participate and don’t negotiate. When you indulge in the pleasure of your unrequited love. When you don't hold up your end of our bargain.
Look in the mirror — wink! Say to yourself, "hey there sexy, you're an internet voyeur!"
And I’m not here to kink shame, quite frankly, but to name the obvious. It can be a tricky game, the one you are in, when you admit to the way you act online. Luckily or unluckily, you are not alone. Welcome to our post-mortem time where we will examine and investigate: the death of reciprocity.
One could say that social media itself is a direct extension of all things late-stage capitalism, all things death. I would not be one to disagree. However, it was at a very young age that many of us agreed to those pesky terms and conditions detailed in the negotiation of sharing online. And while our side of that deal was upheld for awhile, many have forgotten how to have a mutually beneficial exchange. But I mean, how could we have known that we were signing up for anything other than to engage and be engaged: to live in perfect communal harmony with those closest as an extension of what had been previously tangible. Welcome to the internet!
Have you noticed the way you stopped posting? Started scrolling? And kept scrolling? Maybe you're scrolling right now... Ha, I got you!
With the death of the post has come a power vacuum of knowledge. You, the reader, know so much about me. My engagement with you is, in itself, an agreement to share in the ways that I wish. I prefer (beyond this very vulnerable public forum) to maintain a curated intimacy online. It is my hope that those who engage with my sharing will, in exchange, provide information for me too. But right now, you peek in my windows and I only know that you've been there because of the cooling breath you've left on the glass. At least wipe it off!
But I am worried about "the post" itself. While you consume my life and access the totally authentic and not hyper-critical world of mine that I filter to you, I remain in the dark of my viewer. It’s nighttime: you can see in, but I can’t see out.
Who are you? Why do you no longer share with me? What is in it for you? What pleasure do you get?
With social media shifting from the person and to the sale, it seems we have been swept up and lost our commitment to one another. We no longer have anything to share, or worth sharing. Still, we must examine the cause of death for our internet habits (it may just be that this world has made you greedy, or perhaps we are living in the time of the peeping tom).
I pose a scenario — how would you respond to a dinner invitation?
Would you go to a dinner party, dine and enjoy, but show up empty-handed (one must never show up empty handed)? Without even a salad, bottle of wine, or dessert? Not even a joke to tell? Mortifying!
The host never does the aforementioned with an expectation, of course! This generosity lives without attachment (unless you were to show up to what you think is a casual dinner, greatly underdressed, only to be met with pressed shirts, a four-course meal, and later an ask to donate), but at least you could bring flowers. Pick them on the way for all I care!
Are you so busy being that you couldn’t stop to reciprocate?
Or imagine this, what if a world existed where you could go to your friends house, and flip through their photo albums on the coffee table? Crazy, I know. It is a very outlandish idea. But stay with me here (if you can imagine such a thing).
I want to welcome you into my home. Greet you and ask how you are. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? Have you eaten yet today?
What if there was a ritualistic embrace for each individual in the steps of the welcoming procedure? Step one, complete. Step two, fulfilled. Step three, have all your needs been met? I see this as better than a tap on the glass.
It is only at step three that we could entertain ideas of playing. Shall we explore moments of the past or live in this one? We could tell stories about that horrible haircut from 2014 or maybe describe the first painting we ever loved. I could show you the time when we dressed up as pirates in the French brewery, when we baked rhubarb pies with my grandmothers recipe, when we scaled the walls of a slippery waterfall, when we remembered the moment — IN the moment! What is our digital welcome parade? Would you even ring the doorbell?
I want to pose a daring question: What is new with you? What is old with you?
Oh, me? I could tell you in about 200,000 photos. Do you have time?
So, how do we rectify? How in agreeing to a follow request can I get you to promise to me that you will keep my knowledge, my thoughts, my camera roll — safe? Can you exchange something in return?
Can you come into my home and see that it's me who lives here and you who visits with hands emptied before the door?
You may all have the answers to the cause of death: the one that has left us with only a cellphone in hand. But now, I trust that you will fulfill your side of our little arrangement. I am pulling closed those black-out blinds and wiping away the smudge of your nose.
Turn away from the mirror and renounce your voyeuristic habits!
xoxo, anna