𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗱𝘆𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘆.

2. ┊ ✧. 𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐮𝐦.

south korean sociologist byung chul-han affirms that, as a burnout society (he deems it that way due to the high rate of mental pathologies amongst individuals of said society), we are far from french sociologist michel foucault's disciplinary society. this is due to the fact that the latter depended on external factors in order to produce docile bodies (that is, bodies which are conditioned to obeying the previously mentioned external factors, such as our bosses or the entirety of the bourgeoisie itself). as of now, "we are our own managers", meaning that no aforementioned external factors are now influencing our decision-making; meaning, thus, that we have the capitalist ideology of productivity ingrained in our minds to such an incomprehensible yet so predictable extent that it becomes demeaning to the self—that is, that it becomes impossible to dissociate it from our own mode of production.

and the internet has chronologically played a large role in numbing this theorized burnout, however "individuality-expressing" its first-glance nature might be (that is, the previously propounded platform is essentially a place in which people can manifest their uniqueness; nevertheless, it also works as anesthesia for han's mental pathologies described in his theory).

that is not to say that the invention of the internet, a result of the third industrial revolution and of the upgrading of the techniques to what brazilian geographer milton santos calls the technical-scientific-informational environment, is a blessing cast upon us by the gods above—it has surely worsened mental health statistics due to overall problematic algorithms and the lack of social interaction amidst teens and entailed in the pulverization of generation z's attention spam (including myself, whose concentration is now divided into listening to "for whom the bell tolls" by metallica and writing the text herein).

it is indubitable that the predominance of digital platforms amongst teenagers' preferred leisure activities is, at the very least, worrisome and definitely detrimental to social, interpersonal interactions. nonetheless, it is undeniable that this abstruse plane of existence in which we encounter ourselves (in simpler terms, social media itself) is a cultural, social, and at times even psychological panopticon. even though it feels as if we are being observed at all times (as we would be in a dictatorial, orwellian novel), the internet has provided us with contradictory freedom. it is not the land of the free nor the land of the brave: it is no man's land, and thus it is a communal farm in which we all produce our beans. logically, though, there are no beans or communal farms—we do live in a late-stage capitalist society, after all.

yet, it is unquestionable that the niche of social interactions within the extensive stratum of living we so keenly named "the internet" (that is, social media) is degrading to the self—one cannot claim that it is an easy task to live without getting triggered on social media. it is a vicious cycle (or at the very least something more snowball-like): you live within capitalism, you develop mental pathologies, you go to the social media to experience anesthesia, you find pro-ana twitter and thus the triggering ensues (and so do the previously mentioned pathologies as well, therefore restarting the cycle). that said, it is an inarguably herculean effort to keep from being part of the problem, however essential the recent wave of common sense and open-mindedness is. after all, who are we but expositors of our own pain? and what better place on which we can rip and hang our heart, mind, and body open than social media (and, by consequence, in the face of a thousand strangers)? ps: that is obviously not to justify the triggering aspects of social media, but it is undebatable that pro-ana twitter participants have got some issues of their own—again, i'm not justifying, just explaining.

moreover, it is controversial to affirm (although i myself have done it a billion times and thus am calling out my own hypocrisy) that the internet is what we, as part of a late-stage capitalist society (it all circles back to the political-economic system in which we are inserted!), deem it to be—a pastoral relic of glee. that has to do mostly with the fact that social media (which we already have established as our point of actual focus) has been capitalized. isn't it astonishing that we can now profit off of both heterogenous fanbases and niche groups of enthusiasts of one type of media or another? social media, not unlike globalization (or globalism, as american essayist toni morrison would name it), is but a way for large companies to capitalize on top of what once was "no man's land" and a platform within which you could potentially find fresh-out-of-high school adolescents with cat whiskers drawn on their faces (and i guess, if you couldn't before, that now one can probably tell to which "niche group of enthusiasts" i belonged to in my formative years).

capitalism, therefore, is the issue (as it shows itself to be in many analytical cases). i am not necessarily proposing—although i would adore to do such a thing—that we collectively garner socialist support for our revolution's cause. capitalism, however, is the root of most (if not all) mental health herculean hardships and needs to be addressed as such. it causes our pathologies and we thus seek comfort, we seek safety in small screens—and in the people showing up in said screens as well, but that is an analysis for another hour. in sum, one needs to comprehend the overwhelming influx capitalism (and the internet, which surprisingly is a byproduct of the latter) has on our minds and behavioral patterns.

most importantly, yet, is to comprehend the way the later generation views the internet—as an elysium.

η Οδύσσεια

this was also posted on substack! if you want to read it there and support my new account on that platform, access this link (it will be in the comments right here) > 

thank you so much!

yours truly,

—mae. 

η Οδύσσεια━━𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗢𝗗𝗬𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗬.

@𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗘𝗠𝗦. ;; april 16th, 2023