The topic of this poem is social media, and more specifically some of the negative influences
and effects of social media on society and how they manifest themselves on social media.
COLLECTIVE COMPULSION
Feeding us to survive while eating us alive, Like a sick serpent ingesting its tail, encircling the most unsocial of medias.
This reptilian masochism is Pavlovian in nature;
We’re all bound by the seduction of the bite,
and intoxicated by the potency of the venom…dependency is inevitable.
*Click Bait* Think Wait…
Wanna learn ten weird tricks and one pro tip for the pro pre-teens?
Know this: These premeditated platforms discourage more than unwanted belly growth;
Personal, professional and spiritual progression in fact/are set back/then sent back for further development and more enabling behavioral and emotional deformities.
Forming misshapen and deluded perceptions of self, others and reality.
Highly perishable veritable virtual worlds inhabited by walking talking human highlight reels.
Fabricated celebrity and unaccredited experts educate the ignorant while devoid of any integrity. Performing with false confidence for phony circumstance; masked long before Covid and since been deeply desensitized.
Log in, sign on, join live /
follow, watch, like, comment and subscribe.
These are our choices;
These are options that option our existence.
The selections that represent our personal interest and individual voices.
Our brains have been thoroughly washed, conditioned, rinsed, wind-blown and sun dried.
Replacing good nature with materialism, while carbon copies of the originals are multiplied for mass consumption world wide.
This premiere thought…this first consideration… is now second nature and three times as habitual.
The Final thought to self…the last inner monologue reads:” this sheep-ish cloned habit feels so organically natural.”
Doesn’t matter whether you swipe right or left to the bereft;
As long as you’re constantly and continually consuming for fuel/
The universal lap-fit, palm-sized view of a view / for you to judge what in turn now judges you.
It took us until 2021 to come out and identify as a catch 22…but who knew? “They “surely did.
And now we’re in need of real help, not yelp help but genuine guidance, To see ourselves and the world for what it really is.
These seemingly infinite I-galaxies
that we tote’n carry in our
YSL skinny jean pockets and Louis Vuitton purses;
Shackles us to our desires and deficiencies
Like our hearts, eyes and ears
to the ideas at the heart
of these heartfelt passions, visions and verses.”
With every new post potential for our insecurities to swell, swells.
Perusing the musings of new news of others comeuppances add fuel and flames to the fires in our existing self-made hells.
With every unreal reel uploaded and tailored story—
Comparisons of cropped, filtered and zoomed in tales of glory—
Are pirated then downloaded torrential torrents three fold to our soul.
Prolonging the propulsion, the endless field and volley that is our collective compulsion
Here’s the rest of the story
The Masochist Activist in you returns as you proudly pin your own Fenty covered third eye open
Freely subjecting your waking self to the self-reflection of the sustainable source of your own pain…
It’s unstoppable.
Braggadocios and boastful, counterfeit boss bitch attitudes on ten,
Influencers, foodies, Guru’s, skin care routines, challenges and trends.
Live streams and memes/ Scrolling/ trolling, reacting, check, re-check then check again,
Phantom notification/ random justifications…This addiction, this system, this language, this virus …born forlorn from the mighty and powerful internet continues to spread.
And in the meantime compassion’s been monetized.
Countless acts of kindness by the Kindest count less… if not documented and marketed right,
Then right-clicked or pinch-zoomed, posted, promoted and publicized by a privatized publicist.
Shy but not shy online…
just pop the lock or slide the bitcoin by design into their DM’s,
Because we can be whoever we want for a time… but until then…We may need a little help.
What’s really real? Not I says the fly.
On or offline/ home or front line/ we don’t really exist to exist anywhere or anyway besides appearing accidentally perfect.
Just by happenstance we happen pass the upgraded status of novice to flawless,
“waking up like this” full face make-up /no bags
revealing the oh so unappealing “not so humble”- humble brag.
Peering through like venetian blinds the cross hatched lines that precede the conceit and declaration wrapped in air quotes: “no filter”
To see that this is no psychological anomaly, this is common place because of this place/ a clinical case / but on the face / officially undiagnosed example of insecurity has filled her.
We definitely need a lot of help.
Invasion of privacy? Or concentration on convenience? Just ask me.
Include it in the terms and conditions and you can have all my info as long as you know it’s only for the anonymous masses to see/ not to be warehoused in the database of commercial retail companies…
I only let the unknown validate me.
Lost in the chaos of the compulsion are the sincere gestures, the genuine messages, the selfless intentions behind the helpful posts, timely quotes, motivational captions and informative instructional videos.
Sifting thru the indiscernible minutia in your chicken feed to figure out what’s destructive or constructive to you/
May not be worth the time or energy when your compulsion may be satisfied in just a fraction of the time/ by a quick tik tok /not on the clique’s clock, but a mini minute-snippet of a trending routine or meaningless challenge.
A challenge that makes us feel connected…
like we’re a part of something.
That we fit in…our lives do measure up;
Is the short-lived rush of dopamine and oxytocin worth the online harassment?
Is the surplus of emotionless “emoji’s and likes” worth the depression, anxiety and attachment?
Of course not but…
This weighted measure was rigged and tipped in favor of the unfavorable
This Institution–Mass Prostitution, known by many names to many and too many of those names to name and remain unnamable.
Spiritual commerce, the business of buying and selling souls; the price: “consideration,”
The universal currency: “likes, shares… engagement.”
But Buyers beware because you’ll get lost in the three card monty algorithmic shuffle of countless accounts if your content lacks engagement…but that’s not what being engaging meant.
And now we’re all “sponsored by” and inclusively including ads and paid promotions
Our identities scantily clad on the cyber strip everyday primping our look for the gram and the book, just to get pimped by our emotions.
Influencers influencing who? Few too many fellow followers following to support…
Others biding their time hiding behind bogus profiles with animosity to troll, compare, and hate.
And it’s all produced, generated… all of it, easy to fabricate.
Mistruths and manipulations/ an abused and misused tool, unregulated.
At its inception we thought it would advance and improve…our species collectively.
Were we naïve to believe? Cause now it seems we’re more divided, divisive and ill minded.
The new generations given the tall task of saving us
But born in a world where their best tool is also what’s been enslaving us.
Though the diagnosis of all the aforementioned negativity uncovered here may seem grim…we still trust all is not lost. / This compulsion is collective in every way so too recovery must be a shared cost.
Our compulsion has already taken our blood, sweat and many tears.
So we now look inwards to eagerly spread compassion outwards until our visions, hearts and minds are all clear.
Remaining equanimeous, we choose not to get carried away by what we carry each day.
What started as so lighthearted and harmless has evolved not weathered but darkened.
There’s much work to be done to carefully undo the harm from the inter-webs that’s been spun.
To shine a light on and deliver (along with entertainment) hope, community and humanity once again; Illuminating the paths that connect us, whether traditionally face to face or between screens at the corners of earths opposite ends.
By Kareem Quow
