The Internet Is A Bullshit Cesspool Of Competitive Mediocrity
I haven’t written in a long, long time.
And I suppose, that got to me a bit (well, not NOT writing, just the idea of having a weirdly unfinished blog on the internets). So I wanted to take some time to gather my thoughts and talk for a second about why I stopped writing.
It can be summed up in the title of this post: the internet is a bullshit cesspool of competitive mediocrity. And of come to loathe it. Not just mildly dislike it: actually truly detest and abhor it. As well as most of the people on it.
Now, it’s no secret that I haven’t been a fan of people for a really long time. Since I got married and began hearing about all of people’s bullshit opinions without being asked, I’ve slowly delved deeper and deeper into a happy hole or anthropophobia. I’ve been spending the past several months with my husband, my animals, my family, and that’s it.
I honestly can’t even be bothered lately, to answer phone calls or texts. I’ve become the person I hate – the one that doesn’t understand human connection is all we have.
I haven’t always been like this. In fact, I’ve written extensively about the importance of connection and the fact that I liked Facebook and Instagram for the connection they gave us with other humans, despite their many flaws. I was a people person. And I was happy with that.
But what can I say? A couple of years more of life experience and I couldn’t hold on to my love of people anymore. Maybe a better woman would have been able to, but not me. I’ll be the first to admit that the shitty people in the world got to me and changed me. I don’t know how I could possibly stay who I was in the face of the garbage in the world.
And this isn’t a “woe is me” post. I’m not saying or implying (nor do I believe) that I’m special and people were uniquely shitty to me. People are shitty. The world we live in is a shitty place. The election, the aftermath, what’s still going on in the United States today: I don’t believe in the good in people anymore because I don’t believe there is any.
And I’m not talking about ordinary, garden-variety shitty or large-scale, power-hungry shitty. I’m talking about both. I’m talking about people who:
- Are racists and treat minorities like dirt just because they can
- Are narcissistic assholes
- Believe they are better than everyone
- Spend hours typing trollish comments on the internet because their life is meaningless
- Mistreat animals
- Mistreat humans
And on and on. You get the point.
The LITMO Life started because I was going on an adventure and wanted to share it with people I really loved. The LITMO Life grew because it started to draw strangers interested in my story. The LITMO Life stalled because I couldn’t handle the armchair assholes.
I left social media and it made me super happy. I left The LITMO Life and it didn’t make me happy at all. When I came back to social media exclusively for yoga (one of the unfortunate facts is that to build even a brick-and-mortar business, you need SOME kind of social media presence, I’m currently working on how to get around this one but until then I’ve figured, if you can’t beat them, temporarily join them – and hey no shame in admitting I really want to own my own yoga studio in about six months, following it up soon after with a vegan restaurant lolol), I realized that to some extent, I could make it work for me, but I had to have the guts. For a while, I really don’t. Maybe, still don’t.
Again, I’ll be the first to admit it. In the face of terrible humans, I’m not one to grin and bear it. I’m one to feel stunned, run home, and lock myself in a room in tears, wishing there weren’t so many awful people in the world.
The LITMO Life could exist and flourish because of this thing we call the internet. This endless space of connection and criticism and love and hate and knowledge and ignorance and music and silence and movement and stillness. The internet that allows us to get all the information we could ever need – and all the information we will NEVER need – at the simple click of a button.
The internet that I, now, truly despise.
The fact that I’m typing this on the internet on a still-live website isn’t beyond me. I haven’t been able to fully let go of The LITMO Life because, well, I love it. And I’ve loved it for a long time.
The LITMO Life, unlike many other parts of the internet, is entirely ME. It has no editor, I can shut off the comments if I want, and I’m not bound to write what I think will get the most page views. I’m bound to write what makes me happy.
Still, I can’t get beyond the internet as a place that exists for people to amplify themselves in every way. I stopped writing not because I felt like I didn’t have anything to say, but because I felt like there was no point. There are a lot of vegans, a lot of people that don’t believe in having kids or monogamy, a lot of people who want to make the world a better place. I didn’t feel like I was adding anything to any discourse by shouting into the void – and I still don’t. For better or worse, I feel that most things written on the internet are just that – shouting into a huge void. That’s why I stopped writing for other outlets. The race to the bottom of “what story can draw the most sick, sad, pathetic people in” was a race I didn’t want a place in. I didn’t want to share my stories just for people to marvel at, like a zoo animal. I started writing to SHARE and make real connections. I stopped writing because I realized most people don’t want real connections, they want to gawk and stare and point and whisper.
And I feel like the internet is dying – that while, for a time, it was the way to get things accomplished and build the life you want, I just don’t see how that’s still possible in 2018 and beyond.
There’s just too much bullshit on the internet. There’s too much of everything. How are you supposed to feel even remotely unique when there are about a million other people feeling exactly what you do and about 500,000 of those people have the time, the skill, the fucking PATIENCE to curate their social media, their websites, do it all “right”? I don’t have the time or skill or patience. And I don’t honestly care if I actually am unique – all I cared about, for a time, was meeting those other people that were like me. But the internet didn’t let me do that, because, well, the BULLSHIT.
Even worse, the internet doesn’t allow you to change your mind. Build your career on pieces about the single life? Fuck you for getting married. Build your career on pieces about travel? Fuck you for staying home for a few months. Build your career on anything else – a particular videogame, a style of writing, restaurant critiques, etc., and want to change your mind, your direction, your life? Well, a big FUCK YOU because the people of the internet only value one thing: stagnancy.
So, people of the internet, fuck you.
I’ve missed The LITMO Life because it’s ME. And I’m ashamed that I let all the stupid bullshit get to me, but not entirely because that’s who I am. I’m sensitive as fuck and people being mean to other people really bothers me.
If nothing else, I’ve realized I want to keep The LITMO Life because it’s my dad’s legacy, because I wrote about so much of my life on here and will want to read all of that in here’s to come. Because I want to build something for MYSELF, where I talk about the things I love and ignore the things I don’t. I want to blabber on about how much I love my husband and my puppy and kitty and chatter about my new love of new things and my old love of forgotten things.
So, this time, I say to just MYSELF: Welcome to The LITMO Life, Anjali. It’s fucking missed you.