Crackheads, but for Likes
A first world country in the twenty-first century is faced with an abundance of luxury, convenience, and peace. When everything is so easy that we have little contact with the natural world, we begin to resent everything that is hard. Anything that takes effort and doesn’t have an immediate, objective, pleasurable result is deemed unnecessary.
These days, mental health has a negative correlation with the amount of social media & entertainment you consume. Our fight is no longer against scarcity, but abundance.
We were definitely spoiled with convenience before the internet, based on the sole fact that we didn’t have to hunt for food anymore; however, the internet has overindulged us in convenience, shooting up straight to our brains.
Now, instead of indulging in physical pleasures, we don’t even meet it halfway anymore. We have access to instant dopamine shots in the palm of our hands.
It began with the Likes. This is when the convenience hit our brains. Our technology feigned human connections and hit us with dopamine rushes every time we get a “like”. The “Like” is a metaphor for all the other ways we indulge in instant gratification.
Articulated best by one of the voices of our generation, ex-stripper-turned-rapper Cardi B: They do anything for clout.
Likes do have the potential to hold monetary value, so the thirst for them is just that much stronger.
Even the sacred female form has been commodified. It’s common for women to post photos of their actual ass and have Premium Snapchats so people can pay for exclusive nude content from them.
Likes have forced free-thinking minds into groupthink. If you’re not careful, you might confuse the number of Likes and Shares with the amount of Truth that a post holds. It’s a common mistake to internalize what’s read on the internet because of the seemingly quantitative measure of the popularity of an idea.
There is an aggressive defense of what seems to be such an obviously silly and immoral behavior. Straight up finger pointing. Women, the Selectors of Civilization, defend opening up their portals to unworthy men simply because men aren’t sexually selective. Very rarely is there reasoning to this behavior, only finger pointing at men.
If you question a woman’s openness about her lack of selectivity, you are immediately deemed a “Slut Shamer,” aka a Bigot, and are to be Silenced. Seldom is there a dialogue in between you questioning and being labeled — you are automatically just a bad person.
Same with bullying white people. Rather than acknowledging that it is obviously not good to bully someone because of the color of their skin, so-called activists frequently defend their behavior by pointing at the previous generations of white people and saying that since they do it, why can’t I?
If you question this backwards behavior, you are immediately deemed “Racist” and “Part Of The Problem.”
It’s easy to not hold yourself accountable; however, this behavior places one’s own morals and the standards they hold themselves to into the hands of someone who oppressed them. This only furthers oppression because it maintains an inferiority complex.
As within so without: feel inferior, be inferior. When you hold yourself only to the standard of your oppressor, you give them full control over your behavior.
We can go back and forth all day about personal agency, but the harsh truth is that we have collectively devalued self respect in the seeking of instant gratification.
Rather than holding ourselves accountable, setting standards for ourselves, and doing the dirty work of actually living up to them, we would rather place our agency into the hands of those we resent and act as a passenger in our own lives.
When everything has a short cut, we lose sight of what shouldn’t.
We are like crackheads on the street corner, defending our addictions. From the outside, it is clear that we are hurting ourselves with our behavior. But we don’t care because we just want our fix.
Some people go as far as to humiliate their children on camera for virtual engagement. One thing that has been very normalized is showing your actual ass. There’s a whole industry for it.
Remember when the internet was still kind of new and we were told to be cautious of giving out our information over the web? Yeah, look at us now. All it took was a few little red hearts to pop up on our screen for the Selectors of Civilization to strip naked and turn to the Black Mirror for validation.
We are so lucky — nay, blessed — to be living in a time of such convenience and peace.
My ask is that we take time to reflect on our indulgences. In a time where everything is instant, there is little room to really think about our decisions.
Get hot cookies delivered to your door at 3AM? Yes please!
Show off your naked body to the world to get attention and Likes? Let’s take a moment to step back and think about where to draw the line.
What are you choosing to indulge in?
Is the desire to indulge coming from within, or is it a result of being subjected to your environment?
I challenge you to think of ways that you can produce your own pleasure rather than consuming it.
You already have everything you need.
It all starts from within.
Have a blessed day.
