would you rather get punched in the face or ignored on social media

fame, security, and liking yourself

I just want financial security.

I think I should be famous.

I'm really pretty boring.

I think I'm actually really interesting.

I go back and forth between these conflicting thoughts.

I've been watching a lot of YouTube instead of writing or making art or working on something that actually matters to me. I like to think of my internet activities as “gathering research” but I don't know if that's actually what it is. I might just be wasting time.

I can spend hours watching a YouTuber just talk about their day or follow a narrative arc of their lives from several years ago by watching their older vlogs. I watch and I have a tendency to compare myself. I'm not like these people at all, and I know that.

I work a full-time job. I'm a poet and no one really cares about poetry. I know that. I'm not pulling pranks on my wannabe frat bros and I’m not driving around Los Angeles in my giant luxury vehicle to get eyelash extensions or my nails painted. I don't live a glamorous life. I stay at home in my studio apartment and work on my computer all day doing my day job. I’m not very exciting, I’m not exceptionally smart or beautiful, and I don’t even have much to say about anything. But I do have these delusions of grandeur where I think I should be living a more interesting life, that I should have more. And I'm not really doing anything about it. I'm not actively trying to increase my wealth or my standing in society. I don’t have a plan to go viral on social media. I am barely making my ends meet.

I should be working on my novel.

I should be writing that book review that I said I would write.

I should be reading.

I should be doing so many other things that I'm not doing.

Another poet called me a list poet which was interesting to me but I don't think that's actually true but I guess I do tend to think about things in like a list type format. I'm listing out my insufficiencies, I'm listing out my desires both fantastic and tangible. I'm pretty sure I could attain some level of financial security if I just focus on that, maybe budget some more, stop trying to live this fake elegant lifestyle which I can't support. I'm not making enough money to be flashy or fancy, plus like I barely leave my house so I would literally just be flexing for the gram. Today I spent several minutes looking at crossbody bags on Gucci’s website with the thought, I can get myself one of those. But I don’t need one, and the more I think about it I don’t even really want one.

I'm okay with being plain, and I’m okay with being boring. I really am. I don't think there's anything wrong with staying at home and doing quiet things but it doesn't marry well with my extravagant and poorly founded idea that I deserve to be famous. When I actually think about it, the idea of being famous is really not that appealing. Sure, when you’re famous you have a lot of people talking about you or whatever, and that kind of serves up some dopamine and resolves some past childhood trauma of being picked on and unpopular, but I don’t think it’s a reliable source of happiness.

Happiness comes from within, right? The idea of a lot of people knowing who you are and talking about you, like that's not going to make anybody happy. I don't think it would change one’s self esteem or self image. All that stuff is internal, it’s what we need to work on before we can go looking for external stimulation. And I think in my case, if I were to somehow suddenly become popular, I would get stuck into another loop where I'm just doing things to keep people talking to me. I think to an extent that is what happens to most people who suddenly become a subject of conversation. Like if you're famous for a certain reason you're going to try to keep doing things to stay in people's minds, you’re going to have to keep one-upping whatever you last did.

Take Anna Delvey. You know, she wanted to be famous, she wanted to insert herself into a wealthy lifestyle, so she did some scammy things to appear as if she had more money than she actually did. It worked and got her some friends and some fame for a little while but it wasn't real and it didn't last. She’s out of prison now and back on Instagram. I think she is succeeding in staying in people's minds but to what end? I guess she can now capitalize on her infamy, and it does look like the artworks she made in prison might be getting their own exhibition. Maybe she is happy. I don't know. I would be interested in knowing how she actually feels about maintaining her fame. Maybe I’m just projecting.

It would be fun to live in a fancy apartment and be able to post a selfie on Instagram and have thousands of people like it almost immediately but would you want more? Would that be enough for you? Would that be enough for me? Even with all of those things we could still compare yourself to more famous people, like oh Kim Kardashian gets more likes on Instagram, literally any pop star gets more likes on Instagram, BTS has millions of followers, like when is it ever enough? If you're just trying to maintain a level of fame on social media does that mean you need to like drop an album to keep up with try to get that pop star type of fame? I don't know.

I want to feel seen. I want to be valued. I want people to like me, and I know that starts with me caring about other people first, but maybe more than that it starts with me actually caring about myself. I need to like myself first. I remember a former friend telling me that if I want other people to like me I just need to be nice to them. She later mocked me on social media in a subtweet and said something like, she didn’t like it when I said just be nice to people! She expected people to like her for no reason. Lol, thank you for belittling me for my social anxiety.

I have a wall around me, I know this. It’s hard for me to break it down and trust other people. I was bullied badly as a kid, by the girls who I thought were my friends. I used to eat my lunch in a bathroom stall alone. I was physically abused by my classmates in elementary school. I keep my distance, I’m afraid to speak up for myself still. I’m in therapy and unlearning my defense mechanisms is difficult, to say the least.

Fame and excitement and never having enough versus an average and stable and quiet existence. I think about this stuff probably way too much. It’s a kind of roleplaying to escape my one-room stagnation, filling in the hollow places inside of me with fantasies of adoration and materiality and smoothing it over with daydreams of a simple humble life. I think I would just be happy I had an apartment with a kitchen, or a small house with a yard, to live with someone in mutual respect.