#39. I'm Nobody. Who are you?

Algorhythm's Gonna Get Ya / The Things We Do for Likes 👍

Dearest Readers,
I have learned a lot in the last few years. About myself, about the desire to write (what to do with it) and its relationship with celebrity / social media.
I deactivated my Facebook account in 2020 (for obvious reasons) and joined Instagram at about the same time - in a sort of wife/mistress endeavour. As it turned out I didn’t miss the first and found the other needy and insecure, not to mention a bit daft. About a year ago, I joined Substack, hoping to find The One.
Am I looking for love in all the wrong places? Has the rot spread? Possibly. But since I am not ready to swipe left here yet, below is a poem I wrote when I realised the honeymoon was over and below that, two more, far better ones, in the same vein.
I hope you like 👍 And subscribe! But most of all, I hope you still remember that you can do whatever the hell you want.
Power to the people! ✊
~ TS

iHeart Vancouver

Playing to the Gallery

Cat memes.
Your toddler’s first day at playschool.
A girl’s night out. The pie you baked.
A grainy image of you at sixteen,
Big hair and pink plastic earrings,
Axl Rose in spandex shorts
Behind you on a poster
Bought at Archies in 1986.
Better still, a fangless thought,
Scribbled behind a Starbucks bill,
A requiem to the fading slant of sunshine
That illuminates your windowsill,
Ever so gently.
182 likes.
Boom!

~ TS.

What might once have been called advertising must now be understood as continuous behavior modification on a titanic scale.

~ Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, 2018.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too? 
Then there’s a pair of us! 
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog – 
To tell one’s name – the livelong June – 
To an admiring Bog!

~ Emily Dickinson, from Poems, Series 2. 1891.

Don't go changing to try and please me
You never let me down before, mmm
Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore

I would not leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far, mmm
I took the good times, I'll take the bad times
I'll take you just the way you are

Don't go trying some new fashion
Don't change the color of your hair, mmm
You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care

I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard, mmm
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
Oh, but what will it take till you believe in me
The way that I believe in you?

I said I love you, that's forever
And this I promise from the heart, mmm
I couldn't love you any better
I love you just the way you are…

~ Billy Joel, Don’t Go Changing, The Stranger, 1977.