“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last
fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat
money.”

― Cree Indian Prophecy

“Click, collect, where’s my card? No matter, I’ll just AfterPay it. Oh, wait, I’ve hit my limit, ZipPay? Easy, 1, 2, 3, and the money will be in my account in 10 minutes! All I have to do is put all of my personal information into this website and allow it access to my bank account, so simple! Am I working this week? No, I don’t have any shifts, maybe I’ll start influencing people on Instagram, my friends are always telling me how funny and good I am at things, ok, yes, I’ll do that. Who is someone that I follow that I think is fun and cool? I’ll just copy them. I remember that from my certificate 0.002 in Life Coaching online, “match, model, and lead”, yes, sounds like good advice. Ok, #NewYearNewMe here we go!” I’d better do a story on my Instagram with puppy ears and a nose so people find me relatable – oh, and I’ll share it on my SnapChat so everyone can see it on their maps, OMG this is so much fun already!”

“Wow, it’s really hot outside.”

Looking at life through their screens, allowing double taps, likes, shares and retweets to tell their brains they’re doing well, when their hearts and souls know the truth. On their screens it all looks so pretty and inviting, but the reality is anything but, and the irony that when what arrives at their door does not meet their expectations nor what they read on their screens in that of reviews, that they should return to the very beast that got them here in the first place to vent their anger and gather those who sound alike. A dull chorus of complaining, but within it is a the most subtle of notes that all can hear, yet cannot begin to understand, but then a realization that the second they cease to complain, they cease to exist. Haunting.

On their devices late at night, connected yet feeling anything but, wondering, worrying, that so much is missing. They open another tab in the hope that the answer to their problems is there, Google capturing every word typed into a search, ping, a product to ease the pain, something feels off, yet they cannot stop, a needle plunged into the vein, yet they frown at those who do so on their walk in and out of the train station each day. Shuttled back and forth between suburbia and the city in an air-conditioned cylinder, ‘mind the gap’, but in the gap is where they exist, barely living. Never stopping for a second to think that the very addiction the needle to the vein represents is that which they are experiencing themselves via the device in the palm of their hands.

“Wait, is that person looking at me? Are they judging me? Are they gas lighting me? They look like the type of person who would do that, I read an article on Facebook about the type of person that would do that, let me find it. I think I shared it; I’ll go back and look for it, which would be a great use of the present moment. Wait – that was not my thought”

The parallel existence of the human online and offline presence and the introduction of the inner narrative that conflicts with both, driving one while the other lays dormant. It’s only a matter of time before one goes to sleep for good and the other explodes once and for all. What goes up must come down, a universal law all too often ignored in this age. The watchers and the watched, said to be the two categories of we humans in the current digital age – but are we not both any given time? And if there are only the watchers looking over the watched, then where does it begin and where does it end? The parallel existence of matter, how physical things exist in a non-physical world, and how our brains form opinions on what they are, how they feel, what we can do with them and how soon we can return them when we’re over them and they no longer meet our needs. Everything so disposable and upgradeable, in accordance with the terms of the applicable interest-free finance, of course, coinciding with the holiday season when we’re all buffering from the year that’s been, re-loading for the year that’s to come and at our most vulnerable. Selling to vulnerability is easy if you know how, just manipulate sights and sounds with cleverly engineered colours and scents and you’ve got a deal.

For there can never be only those who are the watchers without themselves being watched. For that would mean that it would stop with just one, but there is not just one who can ever be that sure of themselves that they are not in need of someone watching them too. The irony of the digital age that no one person can truly be that sure of themselves given that it has done nothing but destroy our sense of selves in the pursuit of something greater than what we are, whatever that means. Attaching meaning to anything and everything that is ultimately meaningless in the end, the moments that we cherish in our minds are nothing more than metadata in the cloud. It’s astonishing just how quickly it’s taken us towards nothing that has been labeled as something all the while speeding away from everything that was keeping us together.

The removal of the ability for individual creativity and growth by monetizing habits, hobbies, and almost every business idea conceived. An ad has been popping up on their newsfeed all week; finally, they click…” are you sick of the 9-5 grind? How does working whenever you want from wherever you want sound!?!? Click HERE to know more! We can’t wait to meet you!”

It seems almost too good to be true! If only they’d listen to the sayings of yesteryear that warned us that which appears too good to be true, more often than not, is. Cautionary tales ceasing exist in their entirety due to the fact we are living one. The content piques their interest, sure, they’d love to give up their commute to the city each day and be their own boss, besides, the did a three-year bachelor degree, so they know more than their #boomer boss who started the company with nothing more than a pen, paper, and an idea. The desire to climb a ladder that is advertised here there and everywhere but no longer exists, for each ladder of the modern-day world leads to the same place, mediocrity at best. Templates and cardboard cut-outs of a life by design, creativity lost to franchise, the opportunity to get ahead cut short by tax brackets, and the soaring cost of living, which, ironically is motivated by a consumer-driven society that exists more or less to continue to consume.

The beast is hungry so the beast must be fed, and feed it they shall and not for a second will they stop to question why it keeps getting stronger, more aggressive, and how ideologies of years gone by seem to be disappearing at a rate quicker than trees, bees and the great barrier reef, even before we sold it to keep cars on the road for a few more years.  The stark realization sets in that they need the cars and the sales to get to the next protest, not for a second realizing that the very mode of transport they’ve chosen to get there is adding to the problem they’re trying to solve. The solution is there, the solution is known, and the solution is robust change at each and every level. The solution means giving up convenience and nice new shiny things that make noise and light up our lives in the dark of night when no one else is around or awake to talk to, or maybe they are but they’re using a different platform now.

How fast the online world grows, a beast all of its own, and it’s hungry, it needs to eat. And eat it shall, but food it does not crave, information on the superhighway that is the Internet, data is currency, and it’s their thoughts that produce it, even thinking that a thought can do this is. Producing the currency that is taking over us all, and we are almost too powerless to stop it. We built this city, we built this world, and it’s a frightening realization that in just a few short years, what we’ve built will realize it no longer needs us. Evolution transforming us to the end of being as we know it, when being was so far from what we ever were, for we were too busy doing, and human doings we so quickly became, so far from our destiny, such a shame.

A few definitions…

Celebrity

Noun

A famous person, especially in entertainment or sport.

“He became a sporting celebrity”

The state of being well known.

“His prestige and celebrity grew”

Influencer

Noun

A person or thing that influencers another.

“He was a champion of the arts and a huge influencer of taste”

Marketing

A person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.

“Influencers can add serious credibility to your brand”

Celebfluencer – I joined these two words together. I don’t really see the harm in doing so as you can see for yourself the degradation of the use of language between the meanings of the two words above, why not go for a hat trick?

Celebrities weighing in on political issues, football players becoming children’s book authors, influencers breathing, but so much easier with whiter than white teeth. Enter the era of celebrities influencing anyone and everything in a world that has not only lost its footing, for the most part, it would not know what stable footing is. I think Ricky Gervais said it best just recently addressing celebrities at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards;

“If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.”

The moral fabric underpinning what was once a relatively well functioning society and world has more than torn, it has disintegrated completely, and not even the cloud could catch it before it turned to dust. Sadly there is no data available to inform a report on the matter. A man who has not lived in the real world since his days in his dorm room writing code has taken it upon himself to shape our reality. It’s a reality that no longer has anyone at the helm, for it has developed its own thoughts, it’s own feelings, it’s own plan, and it is all of us we have to thank for that. Gradually pouring the contents of our minds and lives into algorithms designed to learn, designed to improve, designed to take over. It seemed to happen so slowly, it caught so many of us unaware, but then at the same time it seems to have happened so fast, and now it has our awareness all the time, we’ve forgotten what it’s like to live without it.

Lonely? Single? Or maybe you’re not single but you’ve lost the ability to communicate? Or maybe just looking for a bit of harmless fun? Download XYZ dating app right now for free and get swiping! Sure, it worked for a while and got people with little to no social skills nor the desire to ever develop them out of the house and down to the nearest bar and then maybe back to their house or another’s with some company for a night. But what has it really done for mental health, boundaries, and self –respect? Enter the casualization of sex lives never before seen and associated feelings of isolation, emptiness, regret and a general sense of feeling unclean and we’ve got a generation of young human’s de-skilling at a rate faster than quicksand. Dating app’s and the world they have allowed users to create has, by osmosis almost disrupted the very fabric of the universe that is biology and evolution occurring at a rate in sync with that in which it exists. Fast money, fast living, fast sex and even faster to run away from personal responsibility than ever before. Surely there must be an app or a website out there that can take that over?

They went online and raved about how much they were doing for the Earth, all the while using one device, while sitting behind another with yet another playing songs of nothing in the background, air-conditioning on high, everything charging. The subtle hum of the power grid was anything but soothing; it was becoming more or less deafening, if only there were ears to hear it, and a mind to ask what that noise could be. Then came the wave of activism set alight by none other than social media, all be it the users feeding the beast, for without the users it does not exist, sad that without out the beast in some cases the users no longer exist. Digital footprints that they thought left no trace, anonymity be thy name, the fact remaining that even anonymity has a price, and the freedom it brings costs a lifetime of what-ifs.

It was not long before the art was mass-produced and printed onto cotton t-shirts made in the very country that shook us to the core when they casually sailed into Sydney harbour, another online protest to the government ensued about that. Yet the irony fell on deaf ears. They clicked and they scrolled and they made sure they bought enough so as to avoid shipping costs. Why pay the price for stock to float over the ocean on carefully constructed pieces of metal burning coal, pouring waste into our oceans? Another protest they’d attend, next month looks free. The 20000 litres of water needed to produce 1 kilogram of cotton, equivalent to the very t-shirt they are proudly buying to #support their next #cause all forming part of the #WokeCulture conceived online, nurtured, packaged and sold as new age when it is anything but. “What’s this? An article on my feed about child exploitation and sweatshops operating in third world countries that sell to big brand names and are then walked down runways at Paris fashion week? Where’s my t-shirt by the way? I’m tracking it on my iPhone and it is taking too long. I know what I’ll do, I’ll go on their Facebook page and complain, I read an article online about how that works and sometimes you get things for free”.

“OMG worst product ever!”

That ought to do it, oh wow, there are a couple of other comments, I should like them to #support these poor people, I can’t believe they’ve had such bad customer service, someone needs to do something.

“I ordered a size 10 as I’m planning on being that size in 7-10 days. Product arrived, I’ve been drinking skinny detox tea all week, STILL DOES NOT FIT!”

“Website said free shipping if I spent over $150, the economy is bad so I could only spend $20, it’s not my fault! I want FREE SHIPPING! And the GOVERNMENT should pay for it! I want a ROYAL COMMISSION!!!”

I agree! The Government really should do something. We do need a royal commission into free shipping and how it’s not fair when you buy something online and it doesn’t look like it does in the picture in real life. They should do this after they make the planet not so hot again, that should come first because my power bill is really high, and my Instagram account is not making any money like the online course I did said it would by uploading sexually suggestive pictures with captions of nil context.  

Generations have not experienced real-life events outside of a screen since, well, since forever, so it should come as no shock that when a natural event or phenomenon occurs outside of an algorithm or SnapChat they fall to pieces. The brain knowing no different, for it is having a completely normal response to a perceived threat. The most incredible part being that at no point did the mind, before the stimuli hit the brain ever question the response and consider reframing it in accordance with an actual threat to a human being – true life or death – not just missing a sale online or an orange mochafrappacino not living up to the hype in real life. Some things are just too heartbreaking, feeling all of the feels, sending thoughts, prayers, hugs and good vibes xx.

The like, follow, and share culture online – imagine what that would look like in the real world – is it right to just impose everything we think on another whenever we see fit and expect nothing to come of it? Imagine just following someone around all the time because you like what they do and double-tapping them every time they spoke or promoted a shampoo.

And that was just it, they’d formed such deep attachments to what was ultimately nothing in the first place, placing meaning on all that exists within a meaningless world. So of course it was a shock when the Earth took over threatening everything they’d accumulated in their life that to them, meant so much. Netflix and Uber eats expanding waste lines and increasing public health care expenditure at a rate never seen before, yet all we seem to hear is how well the company is trading and the dividends paid out to shareholders. More money means good. Good is what we like. Bad is not what we like. Bad is bad, the vibe is off when things are bad and no one likes it when the vibe is off #goodvibesonly #yourvibeattractsyourtribe #etc.

And when all online was said and done, the headlines started rolling with news of the Black Friday sales – an annual event that until very recently, had not yet reached our shores. So it was only a matter of time that a country without a national identity aside from shame and guilt (that no one can be blamed for of course) would adopt. For when you’ve got nothing keeping you grounded, nothing keeping you anchored, you’ll cling to anything just to feel something. But this particular year the news headlines turned from how many billions we were expected to spend at retail outlets to some more BREAKING NEWS. The live streams quickly turned from interviewing people who had slept outside shopping malls to get the best bargains, to something far more unexpected that was happening.  

What started as a rumble quickly turned into the ground shaking, “we don’t get Earthquakes here” said a shopper, clinging to their cart to secure their stash. And then the pipes burst and the water came flooding in, gushing, and rushing throughout the store. Shoppers frantic, panicking! They’d only just gotten inside and now this water was going to get in the way of getting the next 65-inch TV for their viewing pleasure and a growing waistline. Who even goes to the cinema anymore? Why go out to eat when you can get your hot food delivered cold and crushed via a bicycle? It had been quite hot in the days leading up to the sales, so they kept their air-conditioning on high, but it was reaching boiling point, quite literally. What was once cool water running through the city to keep people comfortable had been bubbling away and the pipes could no longer contain it.

“And the shoppers were boiled in their carts!” screamed a reporter on the TV. “I’ve never seen anything like it! Not one of them tried to run! Not one of them let go of their carts! They all just jumped on top of them and the water rose over them! It killed them all! It’s like they didn’t even know it was happening! What in the world is going on?”

But the news had failed to reach the store next door, and a young man and woman had just finished having all of their new purchases scanned when the cashier turned to them, “and how would you like to pay today? Amex? Visa? PayPal? ZipPay? Time?” she said with a smirk.

“Wait, time? How do I pay with time?” thought the man and woman.

And that was just it. They had failed to grasp the concept of how life and the universe that supports it works. Suddenly it all started to make sense, and it was as if all they had been doing their entire existence felt like nothing at all. Never a truer moment experienced, all be it just a little too late. The ground began to shake and the water began to rush in, and they too suffered the same fate of those next door. But not a minute before they could put on their new t-shirts to support the now combined climate and child exploitation protest they were going to after they’d finished shopping, taking one last #selfie to upload to spread the word and make sure they were seen to be doing something by people they’ve never met on the Internet. #WokeCulture.