Manic March #2-2: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ASPHYXIATION

March 2, 2023

the failure in taking yourself too seriously

Identity formation - developing a clear sense of yourself, what you like, want, need, who you are, and how you interact with others is an inherent part of maturation. It is necessary to find yourself in relation to others, in different components of your life, excluding that which you do not agree with and bringing closer ideals which match closely. However, individuals are often met with a Goldilocks trap in this development process.

On one side, those who fail to form consistent identities face difficulties; if one is inconsistent internally, they will likely be the same externally, and in turn struggle forming relationships and pursuing things that they enjoy. It sounds silly, but one can not know what they want! Some people do not experience the realization that they can pursue things, experiences, and relations that they want; others do not realized that they have wants in the first place. If one is to make themselves happy, this is suboptimal, as one still has likes and dislikes, but they are buried deep in the brain, and one is rocked back and forth between waves of emotions that they do not know the source of. It is very nauseating when you cannot determine why you act a certain way. There can be developmental reasons for this, outside of what I wish to write about, but a more modern justification comes from Adorno.

Though I disagree with him on many things - namely his dislike of jazz (as I am listening to The Koln Album at the moment - his critique of standardization convincing the consumer into letting the media-maker think for them can be broadly extended into modern critiques of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok are all want-making machines, sparking desire in their users such that products can be sold. It is no wonder that so much capital is spent on internet ad revenues. However, this has had unintended side effects.

One of my favorite essays accessible online, The BuzzFeedifcation of Mental Health by P.E. Moskowitz (check their blog out!), discusses the founder of BuzzFeed’s academic paper on Deleuze, Guattari, and the acceleration of culture via the internet. In it, they discuss that identities are cut-up, pasted together, and resold to the user faster and faster; they scroll down their feed as fragments of themselves are modified and shown back to them in record time, their phones flawlessly streaming identity formation in 4K, H.264 codec, with gigabit internet. In short terms, the identity of the user is fragmented and sold back to them, greebled.

Of course, Peretti, the author of this paper, went on to found BuzzFeed, underlying the formation of the modern internet and online identity politics as we know it. Not that it wouldn’t have happened otherwise, but I believe that this was an underlying substrate for the constant discourse raging across Tumblr, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, etc., (note that I included Facebook - old people are not immune to memetic virii either). When one takes a step back, it is evident that identity drives a large part of discussions. I’m not as online as I once was, but I’m sure that Tumblr/Twitter/TikTok teens are still arguing about microidentities and who deserves “validity” (a word that I view so derisively, as “validity” is an excuse to lie dependent on others instead of cultivating an internal sense of self worth). On the other hand, Facebook, with its conservative FB groups, discussing resistance to vaccines, fifteen-minute cities, and whatever other B.S. they’re on this week is also driven by an conservative cultural identity, with demographic information underlying that as well (insert the “they brainwashed you” meme here). It isn’t fun being the both-sides-centrist, but somebody has to do it!

The problem with this failure to develop a identity from the self is that it stops a person from achieving their full potential. As said above, identity serves as a way for people to find their likes and dislikes, what they can and cannot do. By subjecting oneself to these tides of internet identity formation, one develops a false sense of their capabilities. People think that because they’re a conservative, they should not get vaccinated, or make sensible economic decisions (see the gas mileage of the average F-150). Or, due to their having ADHD, they cannot drive/do taxes/insert activity requiring focus here. If you’re a liberal, you have to support GOOD THING POPULAR ON SOCIAL MEDIA THIS WEEK and not BAD THING POPULAR AMONG FOX NEWS VIEWERS. At all costs, you cannot think for yourself! This process of identity formation sold to you by social media constrains you into thinking that you are only that identity; that you cannot change, negotiating between your wants, needs, likes, and dislikes as your situation in life changes. It strangles the life out of a person, into thinking that they are only the identities sold to them and never to exceed that - stereotype threat, extended! It’s a slow death by autobiographical asphyxiation.