Everyone Wants to Feel Important on the Internet

(including me, unfortunately)

The holiday and end of the year meant a new wave of social media content slop. Users came out of the woodwork to post for their of followers, ranging from tens to billions, about their year: their resolutions, their photogenic family, and the media they’ve consumed over the year. There’s a checklist that goes around where you share to everyone all that you’ve accomplished through the year -- Did you kiss anyone? Did you travel abroad? Did you fall down a K-hole? Did you lose your girlfriend to your second cousin and her white spiritual healer partner named after a medicinal plant?

There’s the posts where people share the pile of Christmas gifts they received, and share pictures of their family in an immaculately decorated house, all in matching pajamas. I often forget that people still do all that. It also tells me what many of these people’s upbringings were like. Sure, some people married into or blended into these sorts of families; but for a lot of them, this is just another Smith Family Christmas.

Over the past couple months, I’ve had to go through my Instagram following list and explicitly unfollow dozens of people. Many people I was following that aren’t artists or celebrities were not people I knew personally, or had very limited social interactions with, and I only followed them for the sake of having mutuals that I followed and only knew of through their Instagram presence (I also noticed I followed a lot of people solely because they’re hot, so I’m trying not to do that either). And these people I acknowledged from afar I would see on my feed very minimally, until the end of the year, when they all come out of the woodwork to update us all on their lives.

This is not at all a new phenomenon, and the thesis statement is just that I have to get off of Instagram and stop habitually sifting through people’s stories, but also I think it just reflects this need to make sure we stay relevant to the little people that live in our phone. I have posted my Spotify Wrapped for many years. Why? No idea, I probably just felt like I was supposed to, and even when I felt embarrassed by the results and felt the need to explain it or cover it up. This video discusses the way Spotify has influenced how people listen to music, because the social and algorithmic features introduce an element of surveillance, which hit way too close to home for me.

One thing I’ve noticed, living in my current city for a couple years, is that there’s a level of extremely small and niche micro-celebrity status that arises, whether that’s just how I view other people, or that’s how they view themselves. There are some people who I know solely through following them on social media, and then have a strange mini-celebrity-freakout-moment when I come across them in public. A bit of an “WOW I follow them online and their art is so cool, they seem so chill I’d love to be their friend! But also they seem so interconnected and respected in the local queer community that they would NEVER talk to a mere peasant like me!” Which is such a strange way to feel about people who are effectively your neighbors. I’m sure many of these people don’t feel this way, but I’ve also met a couple people who seem to be trying to self-impose this status on themselves. I don’t know how this compares to subcultures and local celebrity status that would’ve arisen without social media in the days of yore, but I’m sure it’s not entirely new.

Yes, I have met and had interactions with some of the people I viewed as a distant niche micro-celebrity, and of course they were perfectly normal about it. They were so kind and genuinely wanted to hear what I had to say – what a concept!

Recently, I was at an event where I met someone who was essentially bragging about how they are frequently posted on the Instagram account of a group who hosts regular parties that are very popular in the local queer scene. “I get posted after EVERY party!” and I just sat there listening in on the conversation thinking, “is that supposed to be impressive? Is this your crowning achievement?” Being posted on this Instagram account after the events can be exciting for people who attend and put a lot of effort into their outfits, but generally I don’t think people memorize who else gets posted – but maybe they do, and that’s a huge flex to other people. To be fair, I had also already known that this person has a reputation for being… not the best person, so I already was a hater and everything that came after was going through the hater-lens.

The point is, there’s this atmosphere of putting strangers on pedestals, which in turn can lead to a desire to be that person OTHER people put on that pedestal as well. To create a brand, to create an idealized self that becomes well-known and respected among peers. This certainly isn’t new either, but social media is the biggest tool nowadays to find relevance outside of your immediate social circle.

My goal in creating a SubStack, and posting my writing and art on both SubStack on Tumblr, is largely for myself, or at least that’s what I’ve been trying to convince myself. For years, I had a hard time posting things when accounts were under my name, and the anxiety around my work being “bad” and reflecting badly on my social standing. I felt pressured to create an art account on Instagram, as though any artistic endeavors have to be PERFECT and posted publicly for the sake of promoting myself and leading into a way to commodify it to make money. There’s that anxiety around creating work that’s “cringe”, and for the longest time, I didn’t let myself get back into writing, because I was worried it would be far too cliché and played-out. I have seen quite a few creators online recently discuss the need to just create without the worry about creating the perfect, finished work, and that has been very motivating for me, like this video, which encourages viewers to create the work you want to create or see exist, both for the sake of personal fulfillment and just for the sake of practicing craft.

In the past few months, I’ve found myself talking shit about people who overly promote their creative work, even when they are seemingly very new to it, and still finding their groove – as if people aren’t allowed to be proud of/excited about their work that I deem lame or under-developed.

Guess what? I’m realizing that’s probably less about them, and more of a reflection of my own internal worries about sharing my work! How shocking!

My perfectionist ass cannot stand the idea of having to practice things before they get to the level I expect them to be: if I’m not amazing at something from the jump, I’m very likely to abandon it.

I couldn’t get into journaling (at least the kind where you write, I love collage and junk journaling), because I thought my ideas and thoughts were far too redundant to write down, and too tedious.

Like many kids who grew up watching YouTube, I wanted to be internet famous. Not TOO famous, but enough that I had a decent following who watched my videos. There were a few smaller creators who I became really attached to, and hoped to cultivate what they had. I started my own YouTube channel and obsessively watched the analytics as they stayed below 50 views, especially given that majority of my views were just classmates – at that time, I was far more gutsy about sharing what I was working on with my middle school peers, though at the same time I also found it very embarrassing, because I knew my videos were not up to the level I imagined they could be.

Now, I’m realizing I need to allow the learning curve to do its curving. That’s what this is, right? If this ends up getting posted, anyway. I’m not saying anything revolutionary, and it’s all heavily inspired by the media I consume and the people I talk to, but it’s still through the Jay Brain Filter.

Theoretically, I’m posting my writing and art without the expectation of people seeing it. Theoretically, I’m only posting my writing and art as a way to force myself to complete work, to see it though and put it together in a way I’m satisfied with, whether or not I think it’s up to par with pseudo-celebrities on the internet that I build up in my mind. But of course, I also occasionally catch myself checking the notifications, to see if anyone has found it and given positive feedback on it, if I’m becoming the niche micro-celebrity I always hope I’ll become in the back of my mind. My goal is to face that head-on, to catch myself looking for the external reinforcement, and remind myself that’s not why I’m doing it.

The other day, I met someone who was talking about how they’re new to embracing their ability to explore creativity, and that they hadn’t really had the space to do so in the past. We ended up discussing how there’s this push to find a way to gain a following or build a side-hustle out of anything you decide to pursue in your spare time. Capitalism ties our worth to our labor, and any of our time and labor not being sold is considered wasted, blah blah blah. This is especially true if it’s a pastime or hobby that is far more prevalent on mainstream media, and has a comparative nature to it’s media presence. Your hobby participation must fit the aesthetic test, and match the fervor of wealthy influencers and creators who dedicate their livelihoods to presenting an idealistic lifestyle on the internet. Everything someone does in their free time, there’s a pressure to commodify it, to make it a side hustle or something that’s posted online for the purpose of making money.

These presentations of idealism, at least personally, have had a large impact on how I engage with hobbies and trying out new artistic skills. Technically, I have more than enough art supplies. Technically, I have more than enough to try out many hobbies on a rudimentary scale, and at least test the waters and cultivate the skills needed. However, I feel compelled to buy all the best tools, to start fresh and find the prettiest supplies. I can’t use up the pens I already have, I have to buy cute ones. I need new stationery and notebooks, even though I have dozens of empty or half-used ones piled up in my closet.

A large source of punk discourse online is the nature and definition of punk. Aestheticization has made a lot of new punks (myself included) feel as though there’s a specific uniform, and specific items required to attain group membership. Plenty of businesses are happy to prey on this pressure, and sell exactly what we need to check the boxes! But this emphasis on the material conditions overlooks the entire philosophy that punk has always been created around. You don’t need an all-new wardrobe, what you have now is just fine. You don’t need the perfect supply kit to make zines and patches, you don’t even HAVE to make them! Sustainability too, which I’ve started a separate essay about – zero waste influencers and shops seem heavily focused on buying the proper tools to create the perfect zero waste aesthetic lifestyle, but don’t always make it clear that if you’re considering buying a fancy soap dispenser or new all-natural sponges, USE UP WHAT YOU ALREADY OWN FIRST. Only buy the sustainably-made brand new clothing when you’re current wardrobe can no longer be repaired, when you HAVE to buy new clothes – it should not merely be a loophole for guilt-free shopping.

It’s all about the trend, or trying to figure out which label best suits you, and doing what you can to make sure you align with it. Those end-of-year posts are involving trend predictions, in-and-out lists, and public posting of resolutions. Sure, this isn’t how everyone approaches internet consumption and subsequent aesthetics based on their given subcultures and online communities, but I often find myself having to fight the urge to fall into aestheticization, the connection of consumption and material perception with belonging.

One of my recent goals has been forcing myself to get out more. God that sounds sad. But I tend to rely on other people to determine my social plans. If I want to go somewhere, I used to only go if I could find someone to go with me. A large component of this was transportation, but also just the desire to avoid the discomfort of being in a social situation where I don’t know anyone and holding myself accountable when it came to getting out even without having made a commitment to someone.

So, I’ve been going on more solo outings. I’m taking the bus, including route transfers, to get to the events I want to try. I’m seeing movies and eating at restaurants alone. And god, it’s awesome. I’ll talk about that another time. But I will say that simply existing out in the world and interacting with my local community more often has been extremely helpful when it comes to developing a sense of belonging and interconnectedness with my neighbors, which I suppose is pretty obvious. It feels very empowering to get to know the regulars on my bus route, to meet people who you regularly run into at social events, to recognize the signatures and styles of the artists who draw on walls and benches with paint markers. It also helps me fight the urge to attain online attention, identify with specific aesthetics/labels, and determine a “proper” way to present myself. I hate that it became so difficult for me to get here, to get myself to engage with my physical surroundings, but I’ve been chronically online and indoors for a long time.