It's My Birthday!!!!!

Dear you, Reading this,

These past months have been eventful; however, I haven’t been motivated to write. I’ve been doing daily blog posts on Youtube. Most of the episodes get deleted after 2 months or so. This may seem foolish. I think it is much more condusive to the way we live our lives.

Memory in the human brain is not exact. Each time you remember something, the memory is changed. You aren’t so much reading a file in your brain so much as reinnacting a play. The lines may be the same, but they’re not said the same or the costumes are different or vise versa. In a way, this is how the brain does everything. your eyes don’t see nearly everything in your field of vision. Your ears can be primed to hear things that aren’t there. Your tongue is easily tricked by toothpaste in the morning. We are always making our best guess. Your memory is your brains best guess based on what neural pathways remain after an event. I submit that the internet works in a similar fashion.

Most of my internet life has been destroyed in one form or another. My favorite site as a kid was Sheezyart and that is defunct. Anything I would’ve posted on Myspace has been lost to a file clearing algorithm. Some of my favorite videos have been scrubbed from the internet so hard that my friends and I tell legends of them popping up again. People seem to have this idea that the internet never forgets and I’m here to tell you it does. Much like a goldfish, If something is left unattended on the internet, it will die. Is this a problem? No not really.

Let’s briefly talk about image board culture. It doesn’t particularly matter which one because while there are some tweaks in each algorithm, this concept I’m about to outline stays pretty much intact. This isn’t even new information, I just think we need to remember it.

NOTHING MATTERS EXCEPT FOR NOW… IF THERE WAS SUCH A THING AS “WINNING,” YOU WON’T…

Let me explain Image boards. Internet interaction is not that far removed from normal human interaction. There is an extra layer of protection, however, it is often more visible than a polite face to face. That happens with any technology though. Clothes can protect you from knives, they can also hide knives and signal status. There are probably still people out there who don’t trust people with sleeves. An Image board is like a mosh pit in a quiet room. Anyone casually observing would probably feel indifferent or entertained. Maybe they might try and interviene or join in. Anyone randomly swept up in it would probably hate it. The people moshing would probably be aware of the fact that the room is silent, but not really mind. Who is honestly going to try and stop a mosh pit in a quiet room? There is no band to stop playing. Image boards like facebook, imgur, reddit, tumblr, or instagram are the rooms and I garauntee somewhere in each of them, the mosh pit is raging. Whether it be some form of bigotry or brand loyalty, someone is there just to keep the mosh pit of ideas going. Get swept in and you may not lose, but your ego will get bruised and it’s probably not worth it. I love a good mosh pit. I go onto image boards primarily to have a nice conversation with a total stranger, but I am always ready to tweak someone’s brain. There are plenty of other people like me and honestly… nothing matters much anymore.

If you are the kind of person who seeks to duke it out with words on the internet, you’ve probably seen almost every angle of most debates. Sure you could talk about the news, but that normally filters down to the same arguments you’ve rehashed a million times. If you are on one of the sites that isn’t anonymous and people start to follow you, you have a nice echo chamber to protect yourself. If you don’t have followers, it’s an easy reason to dismiss your views. If you are on an anonymous site, any post could be a lie for fun. What’s the point of engaging unless you want to practice for when you come face to face with that viewpoint? When I say “nothing matters except for now” I mean it the way a yogi or shawoman would tell you that the most important person is the one standing in front of you. The other people on the image board may be robots. Some people are there just to create rage. Some have made bots JUST FOR creating outrage. They are the mosh pit. If you see that happening and you don’t want to get beat up DON’T RUSH IN. That being said. The pit will forget everything eventually. Until then it will keep track of mistakes you thought were long buried. It will bring Harassment to your doorstep. It will tell you to kill yourself. It might try and kill you. It might succeed. It will take others content and claim it as it’s own. it will act like there is a good and evil to be sussed out when we all know it’s just a release of pent up aggression. It will put you on a path of an impossible goal and tell you that you were always failing and continue to fail. You are always wrong just for participating. Even if you think you’ve won for a while, kids will defy you just because authority sucks man.

plenty of thought pieces say that internet culture has given the monsters of the world a voice. To an actual monster it may seem that way. Plenty others say the internet has shown that the way you get power is by making people angry whether out of jealousy or repulsion. I say this. Without knowing how to be content, we will settle for tired. Without knowing how to connect, will settle for slamming into each other. This isn’t a problem. It’s part of what makes us fun. Nothing matters until it does, now. One day this will all be forgotten. There will be no image boards. No mosh pits in quiet rooms. If you doubt me just ask my old internet life. Oh wait… you can’t.

As always, thank you for reading,

-K-Wullums