dystopian doom-scroll
I feel like there is just no scale to media anymore. Not to get all film student-y on you but there are certain techniques and tones that were previously reserved for cinema, but now, music videos are beginning to feel more cinematic. Though the film bros won’t be happy with this, the merging of these audio-visual expressions makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is the blending of journalism and social media, but I completely understand how we got here.
I used to watch the news every evening with my mum, and when it came to a British channel reporting on events occurring in Africa, she would switch to an African channel. Like, how honest is a coloniser going to be when they are talking about their ex-colony that they are still pillaging? From my mum’s decision to change the perspectives, I learnt that what I saw on the news was always to be challenged and cross-referenced. And now, the internet has provided us with an open forum to see real stories from real people who are at the heart of the disasters that the news may filter. In the past weeks, I have gained far more insight into what is actually happening in Palestine and Congo, than the news has shown me in months, and so I’m glad, but that has created a strange phenomenon.
I am a part of the generation that grew up with the internet (I’m not a iPad kid though, so fear not). When I first got Instagram, my friends and I mainly used it to share the wholesome activities we got up to on the weekend, or dare each other to take part in cringe challenges (may we never go back to those days). Now as I scroll, I see a new cookie recipe I want to try, a snippet from my fav comedian, journalists saying their goodbyes because they know they will be bombed overnight in Gaza. Updates on an ex-MP on a game show, a beautiful dance video, new stats on the death toll in Congo. Its bleak and its dystopian that I get to sit here in comfort and enjoy art whilst our fellow people are being murdered.
It’s never a question of how to return to normalcy when we are faced with injustice, it is always a call for a paradigm shift. How do you achieve that shift when you have to continue as you were?
I feel terrible because I am a part of it all in some way. Part of the distraction. When Instagram was solely for silly friend updates, sharing stuff was easy, but now, when Instagram has social and professional use, I find it murky. For anyone who works in a creative sector for a living, social media is part of your work. Let me speak for myself here, I am starting out with creative work and I use Instagram to share what I’m working on (there’s a good chance you got here from my Instagram story). That is also how I have found new opportunities, collaborators and employers. But when I post, I feel like I’m getting in the way of stories that actually matter. I understand that my life shouldn’t stop, capitalism kinda ensures that my life cannot stop, however, I have to acknowledge that that is a privilege. It is truly insane that we are at the point where having the right to live is a privilege.
Survivors guilt? Yeah, maybe, but I can’t sit in that guilt because I won’t move. In my last post, I said nihilism won’t get us to where we need to go. The same goes for guilt.
Here is a quote from Cole Arthur Riley that has been pushing me onward:
“Pity is not solidarity.
Despair is not solidarity.
Solidarity is the kind of presence that costs you something”
What we give our attention is so important, so I appreciate you giving me a moment of your time.
Love.
