control_freak_1
How often do you notice when a website is down? I used to go on Twitter whenever a particular site was malfunctioning (Instagram, Hulu) to see if others were experiencing the same thing. I needed to know I wasn’t alone. I’d sift through the collective discomfort of finding out something that always worked was suddenly broken. I love these interruptions. Or, rather, I love them in hindsight.
The first book I read this year was Anna Moschovakis’ Participation. She articulates this phenomenon, musing over what to call it.
“The feeling arises at the most obvious moments, or the least so: in a commuter-train lavatory, or while on a long airport layover caused by a weather delay, or caught beneath an awning because of a sudden rain, with or without company. Unexpected disruptions in the regular passage of time; moments in which strangers become visible, or intimates become strange. The intuition of an absurdity that can be as little apprehended as it can be flicked away: some solid understanding that overwrites, for an instant, whatever seemed, a moment before, to be so indisputable—so felt—so known. How to name it? ‘Alive, alive, alive,’ I sometimes involuntarily whisper, but that isn’t the whole story. ‘Of life’ comes closer, though it rings less. Of; a part. No us without them; no this without me; no me without you. Increasingly, an added echo: ‘despite, despite, despite.’”
Anyone who knows me would probably tell you I’m full of shit—that I actually hate these moments. I start to panic whenever I’m on a train car that finds itself stuck between stations for too long. I have a well-known fear of flying and ask strangers on the Internet to light candles whenever I travel. My fear of the unknown, of time delays, has dictated much of my life.
One of my new year’s resolutions was to stop reading my horoscope or engaging with any astrology-adjacent content. So far, I’ve been successful, but whenever I am feeling even remotely out of control, I crave divination. Magical thinking acts as a crutch to quell my anxiety. On TikTok, I watch an attractive woman wearing a Skims dress standing in what appears to be a luxury high-rise tell me which signs will be the “main character” next month. I look for clues, but often I’m left with more dread, finding something new to worry about in the process. I try to remind myself I’m not that special.
My friend Will Allstetter wrote about magical thinking and the algorithm for Syntax Magazine. He discusses TikTok spirituality, manifestation videos, and chain letters. Allstetter notes that our very approach to the inner-workings of our devices imbues them with mysticism.
“The sublime awe of TikTok’s algorithm drives me to continue recording an embarrassingly large fleet of videos in hope of accessing its promised rewards. My favorite claim is that I will have the best dinner of my life tonight if I ‘use’ a slowed-down Coldplay song. So long as the black box keeps the Algorithm’s logic at a ~mystically inaccessible~ distance, it is able to maintain its spiritual appearance.”
Reading this made me aware of everyone else who engages in magical thinking online by sharing posts, using sounds, or keeping the chain going out of hope/fear. I am not that special. I am comforted by our collective paranoia, just as I am comforted by our collective frustration when #InstagramDown.
I understand that the Internet is a volatile space, that any of the platforms I regularly engage with could “go down” and not just for a few hours, but for good. I’m not backing anything up nearly as much as I should, and attempts to archive web-based content will never be exhaustive. I’m also aware that once I post something it leaves my clutches. It is no longer mine. It’s floating freely, able to be repurposed and recontextualized. There’s a small thrill in it, like dropping a coin into a wishing well or throwing something off of a very tall ledge, unable to see to the bottom. Where could I end up? Will it be deleted? Screenshotted? How will I be seen? Am I sexy? Am I annoying? Am I sincere? Am I fucking with you?
In 2013, as I was moving out of Chicago, I placed a box of old self portraits I had taken in college in the trash, outside of my former apartment building. Months later, I awoke to the news that someone had found the prints in the trash and given them to the curator Paul-David Young. Young had put together a show of approximately 30 of the found photographs, with no intention of revealing my identity, despite being made aware of it. When Young was asked to comment by the Chicago Reader, he stated, “For me, to mention her name is/was only a distraction. Now, these photos will only be viewed as Molly Soda’s, rather than ‘photos in the trash.’ That’s fine though, so, that’s what I mean when I say the exhibition should stand on its own. I hope that didn’t seem deceptive, it’s a very sincere distinction I made.”
As the news unfolded, I watched it swirl around me, outside of me. I read impassioned tweets and discussions around ownership and whether or not a male curator anonymizing and appropriating my image was misogynistic. When asked to comment, I simply stated that I didn’t believe I had control over what happened to the images I threw away, let alone anything I posted online. It was better that he had found my photos than someone else's.
The summer after the show opened, the man who gave the photos to Young approached me at Pitchfork Music Festival and revealed he had found the photos in the trash on a walk. He knew who I was when he found them. We took a selfie together.
wowww the self portrait anecdote is so interesting!! I admire your detached approach