The Internet Saved My Life
Gaby Dunn, thoughtcatalog.comI was a teenager hiding a burgeoning queer identity while living in a small religious community. I desperately needed to know there were people out there, living in the world, who thought like I did, who appreciated the same…
The Internet saved my life.
*Link in Title*
So I think the title of this article is a little misleading. It says it talks about hipster racism but I think it really just talks about racism in general. Especially the more insidious kind. The racism that is hard to detect and even harder to combat because it comes in forms of thoughts, and jokes, and modes of thinking instead of actions and hate speech.
Actions and hate speech are easy to identify and therefore pretty easy to call out and say, “Hey! Stop being racist.” It is a little harder to call out yourself on your own racist thoughts, or call out that subtle joke your coworker made that was borderline racist but you are not sure where to draw the line.
In short, read this complete guide to hipster racism but realize that really it is just a guide to racism in general.
Click on the title to link to a moving collection of short letters James Clementi wrote to his younger brother Tyler Clementi after his suicide in 2010. Tyler committed suicide after his college freshman roommate video taped him having relations with another man. Few people know that Tyler’s older brother James was also gay.
Here is a quote taken from the Editor’s Letter from the March 2012 issue of Out Magazine. It was written by the Editor in Chief, Aaron Hicklin, referring to James Clementi and the article “Letters to My Brother”:
The first is James Clementi, whose younger brother, Tyler, committed suicide in September 2010, ostensibly because of the shame and pain of a now-notorious episode of cyber-bullying. Last December, I met James after exchanging messages on Facebook. We talked for several hours- at least James talked, while I threw in the odd question. He was articulate, eloquent, and thoughtful. Listening to the story of his brother’s death, I was struck by the paradox of so much public grief and compassion for someone whose short life had been abbreviated to a headline. The news is necessarily reductive and simplistic, but as James talked, I was able to form a better portrait of Tyler’s life, of his family, and of the way in which he and his brother dealt with their sexuality. Alongside others, I’d joined a candlelit vigil in Tyler’s name in New York’s Washington Square Park on a damp fall night shortly after his death. As moving as the speakers were, I couldn’t help but feel we were going through a familiar ritual that was missing a critical dimension. That dimension was any understanding of Tyler, beyond the wretched circumstances of his death. Like everyone else in the media, it had never occurred to me that he might have a gay brother. Once I was aware, it was immediately apparent that the real story belonged to James, who, after all, had to deal with the aftermath. Listening to him tell his story that day, it was clear that here was a double tragedy - the life lost, but also the life that goes on, vitiated and diminished by the one that is no more.
If I were me… who would I be?
I think about that question a lot. I mean after all, it is the name of my blog.
It is an interesting question. A thought experiment so to speak. If I were 100% me 100% of the time, what would I be like?
I guess that question inherently asks another question: What is me? or Who is me?
Am I a product of my thoughts, my wants, my actions, or my desires?
First, allow me to explain these four terms in this context.
My thoughts is pretty self-explanatory: What I think in a given situation.
My wants: What I want to do in a given situation.
My actions: How I act in a given situation.
My desires: How I want to think, want, and act in a given situation. Or more precisely, how I feel I should think, want, and act in a given situation.
For me, often times my thoughts, wants, actions, and desires are radically different. So who am I? What defines me?
Here are some hypothetical examples to illustrate how they can be different.
________________________
Example 1:
I am exhausted and need to take a shower.
My thoughts: I know water scarcity (or as my friend pronounces - “scar-city”) is a growing problem in the world and taking a long relaxing hot shower not only wastes water but wastes energy used in the heating up of the water. Therefore I probably should not take a long shower, and preferably a cold or lukewarm shower.
My wants: I want to take a 30 minute long hot shower… just relaxing… feeling the water rush over and clean my body.
My actions: I take a 5 minute lukewarm shower. Trying to conserve water and energy.
My desires: I want to want to take shorter colder showers yet I also do not want to feel guilty about occasionally taking a longer hot shower.
Example 2:
I am walking alone down the street and I see two black men walking towards me from the opposite direction.
My thoughts: In my head I picture the two men robbing me. So I become more aware of my surroundings and my pulse quickens. I also realize this is a racist thought brought about racial preconceptions and misconceptions that have been ingrained in me by society, culture, other people, and probably myself.
My wants: I want to cross to the other side of the street where I would feel safer.
My actions: I continue walking on the same side of the street and as I pass them I pretend like I had no such thoughts in my head, I puff out my chest a little and I try to seem like I am not the kind of person you mess with.
My desires: I want to not have those thoughts. I want to challenge myself to see two black men walking towards me from the opposite direction in the same way I see two white men walking towards me from the opposite direction. I want to not think twice about this issue but as long as I continue to have such thoughts I must constantly ask myself why and try to change them.
Example 3:
I am walking down the street with my partner (I need to get one first) and he wants to hold hands.
My thoughts: Holding hands for homosexuals is a statement. It can be dangerous. You need to be aware of your surroundings. It defies cultural norms and helps spread visibility of gay people. Yet it makes me nervous doing so in a setting I am not comfortable in or where I do not know what the reaction could be.
My wants: I want to hold his hand.
My actions: I hold his hand yet am uber-conscious of my surroundings as if in a state of alert.
My desires: I want to hold his hand and not have to be conscious of my surroundings or worried that some gay-basher will come and bash us (Is bash a thing?). I also want to want to hold his hand not only for affection but also to make a political statement of “I’m here, I’m queer, get used to it already”. Standing up for who I am and what I believe in.
Example 4:
My boss says a derogatory comment about women.
My thoughts: That is unacceptable. I should not tolerate that. I should stand up for women, against misogyny, and against marginalization of any kind. However, he is also my boss and I am not sure what the ramifications to standing up to his comment will be.
My wants: I want to stand up for what I believe him and challenge his comment.
My actions: I decide to let it slide this time since it was the first time I had heard him say something of the sort and I am not sure how he would react to me challenging his comment.
My desires: I want to combat marginalization in all its diverse forms every time I encounter it. I want to not worry about the personal repercussions and be a voice for the voiceless.
____________________________
There are millions of other examples but I think you get the point. Sometimes our thoughts, wants, actions, and desires do not line up.
Integrity is when your thoughts, wants, actions, and desires do match up. Or at least that is integrity in its extreme form.
I think we can only figure out what it really means to be us by trying to be integral human beings.
By challenging our thoughts when they do not match up with our desires. By recognizing when our wants are not what we want to want or what we should want. By making sure that our actions coincide with our desires, which hopefully can reflect our thoughts and in time become similar to our wants. By living with purpose. By trying to act with integrity in everything we do. It is impossible to always think, want, act, and desire with integrity 100% of the time. But I believe we can try. We can acknowledge our incongruities and our failures.
By striving for integrity in our lives maybe we can come a little bit closer to figuring out what it really means to be us. What it really means to be me.
So, If I were me… Who would I be?
Feel My Name: Angst
Warning: Not a song to listen to before bed.
This song is a remix of Justice’s Stress by Nero. Nero is an electronic duo from the UK who is known for producing drum and bass, dubstep, and house.
This song is incredibly intense. The title is perfect. You can feel the pressure build and build up inside of you. For me, few songs produce such a physical reaction. Every time I listen I catch myself gritting my teeth by the end hanging on to the final drop that vanishes off into nothingness.
Nero creates beauty out of sound. It sounds futuristic. Sometimes Intense. Sometimes Beautiful. Sometimes Just Plain Dirty.
Turn the speakers up loud:
That’s all folks.
Splitscreen: a Love Story
This past weekend I went on a retreat for LGBTQ persons to talk about identity, specifically sexual identity. During one of our discussions, one person remarked how he never really liked the anonymity of the Internet, specifically referring to chat rooms.
Well let me tell you something… I thrived on it.
I guess my first experience with creating an online identity was probably through Neopets.
Then, during the awkward stages of my pre-teen years when I was trying to understand the meaning of this thing called life I turned to religion. And since at that age I was too awkward to talk to people in real life about religion I turned to Christian chat rooms. Yup. Every night I would lock myself in my room and log onto a Christian teen chat room. Yes… They do in fact exist. I made online relationships with other like minded Christian teens. I remember I had a best online friend who I would talk to almost every night. Eventually we even exchanged numbers. Sitting on my swing set in the backyard we would spend hours talking on the phone. Her name was ZOEgirl101 after the Christian Teen Pop Girl Band: ZOEgirl.
No. That was not her real name you numnuts. It was her screen name.
Anyways, She was a girl my age from California who was a practicing Wiccan…. Why my twelve-year-old self so strongly identified with a Christian Californian Wiccan girl I will never know.
For my more argumentative side I would patrol the forums looking for political, philosophical, and religious debates on Neoseeker. That was also my source of information for video games, movies, and news. All conversations hidden behind screen names, avatars, and tailored signatures.
When I started realizing that I might be gay, gay teen chat rooms were my salvation. They made me realize that I was not alone. And that there were hundreds, even thousands, of other young teenagers trolling the Internet behind closed doors. All alone and scared yet connected to a community and protected by the anonymity of the Internet.
The anonymity of the Internet can be a powerful tool. It allows people to connect to one another without the fear of being discovered. It allows people to express their ideas without fear of retaliation.
However, anonymity also has a darker side.
If ever you decide you want to lose faith in humanity’s inherent goodness, look no further than the YouTube comments section. You will learn just how much people can suck.
I do not think I need to provide any examples because if you look at any YouTube video you will undoubtedly find somebody being a jerk.
What is it about anonymity that allows us to be an *sshole?
Why do we think it is OK to say “you’re a whale, go die” on YouTube when you would never say that in person?
Not that anyone would ever spell ‘you’re’ correctly on a YouTube comment, but you get my point.
Neoseeker and the christian and gay chat rooms I frequented relied on the use of moderators who voluntarily gave up their time to kick out the jerks. I think some of them may have eventually started receiving money for their work but it certainly wasn’t enough to put the kids through beauty school. Anyways, that’s besides the point.
YouTube does have people who monitor content and I am sure they try to monitor comments as well. But the Internet has just become too big. There are too many websites, too many videos, and too many blogs to have moderators for everything.
So what can we do? How we can change Internet’s anonymity problem into a challenge for us to solve together?
The world has recently discovered the tragic consequences of cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying is not confined to the Internet. It hurts real people. It incites self-violence and violence towards others.
I think we need to start talking to the children. Start talking to the parents. Start talking to the educators.
I do not believe in censoring free speech. If a person wants to be a jerk they should be able to be a jerk. What I do believe in is teaching our children and our peers that jerks are jerks. Being a jerk on the Internet is the same as being a jerk in real life. I do believe in attributing more ethical, moral, and social value to our actions on the Internet.
The Internet may be a place where you can express yourself however you like. But it is not a place devoid of social meaning. Of moral relevance. What you do on the Internet affects your character.
Ideally, we teach our children how to behave in public, how to be nice and share with others, how if you do not have anything nice to say don’t say it, so why don’t we teach them what is acceptable on the Internet. We can’t police the Internet. But we can police our values. We constantly recreate our social and cultural norms all the time. We create our world.
Just because no one is watching you use the Internet does not mean no one is reading what you are saying. If you are a bad person on the Internet, you are a bad person. So be nice YouTubers.