Someday I’ll Find It, The Rainbow Connection
For all of it’s weaknesses and pitfalls, social media is the platform which allowed me to connect with the world at large.
My first foray into the world of social media came in 2003 when I learned about a website called “LiveJournal” from a friend. I twisted myself inside and out trying to figure out how I could get my hands on an “invitation” because apparently that was needed before you could become a member. My friend sounded so reluctant when I finally broke down and asked her if she could invite me. Members only had five invites, so I thought I was forcing her to waste one of her valuable invitations.
There was so much I did not understand at the time.
It seemed like such a harmless thing. It was like writing a diary but which others could read. I didn’t have that many “friends” on LiveJournal at first. Just the woman who I wrangled the invite from and I can’t even remember how I made them, but I soon had a number of others who became part of my extended digital family.
They became my support group. I would read their posts and comment. They would read mine and comment. I was already living a life that was quite isolated since my decision to close up a law practice a few years earlier in order to embark on a career as a professional actor for film and television. It was a hand to mouth existence which precluded all the ordinary forms of interaction which required expenditures of money which I did not have.
So my digital family became all the more important when I became ill with an illness which defied diagnosis in the fall of 2004. My energy fell to such a low level, my world was reduced to my ability to reach my desktop computer and type a few words on the keyboard. Even as I fooled myself about the seriousness of my new illness — I held onto my gym membership for two years always hoping I would recover so that I could at least experience the communion of sweating in a room with strangers — I used my connection to the others on LiveJournal to vent.
Everything I did on LiveJournal was “public”. Who had even heard of LiveJournal? I figured the only way I was going to attract new friends would be to leave myself open, allow others to read and hopefully find something the wanted to have regular contact with. Which was fine until the day I discovered one of my older brothers had cyberstalked me, (he apparently googled my name) and discovered my journal.
I never used any names, but he quickly recognized himself in some of my stories. I wasn’t lying or embellishing the truth, but he took offence. And without informing me of his discover, he went about showing my journal to others in my family. Apparently, they did not like being written about in public even though I wasn’t even using their names. They shunned me in real life.
I immediately switched all of my posts to “Private”, but the damage had already been done.
At some point, a Russian entity bought LiveJournal and this freaked people out. I wasn’t quite so troubled, but suddenly people started disappearing from LiveJournal.
I heard about this new social group, Facebook starting around 2007. I investigated it and took out a membership but basically kept it at arms length for many years until I finally decided to take the plunge and see what might happen.
It was a different experience from LiveJournal. Where LiveJournal was like a series of linked ponds through which you waded in a slow contemplative style, Facebook was a fast moving stream. People posted quick comments or links to articles. There was a flurry of comments. Threads grew so fast you could weave a tapestry in a matter of hours.
I ‘met’ a wider variety of people through engagement with topical groups within Facebook. My own friends list grew almost effortlessly and names began to become familiar. I would still visit LiveJournal from time to time, but it had become a quiet place, almost a graveyard. Facebook kept pulling me back with it’s quick pace and endless interactions. I grew to know and love a lot of the people there.
And then it happened.
I had heard about people being ‘punished’ by Facebook for perceived infractions. I had to admit, with some of the strong opinions I had shared over the years, I was surprised I had not run afoul of the “Facebook Police”.
The first time I was cautioned, it seemed ridiculous. Someone had written a post about illegal immigration and I wanted to make a statement about how some laws are meant to be violated. So I shared a meme I had come across previously. A German Nazi soldier was scolding an elderly Jewish man and the caption was “Stop with your “fuck the Nazis” and start obeying the law”.
Apparently, the Facebook Police did not have a) a sense of humour, or b) an appreciation for satirical comment in the context. I was banned for three days.
On another occasion, I was writing on a friend’s wall in response to something she had written. I realized sheepishly that I had made a rather sexist statement in the context, so I wrote her “All men are dogs”.
Before I could anything more, I got a pop up window telling me I had violated Community Standards with my “hate speech” and was banned for three days.
I appealed but after three days of waiting for Facebook’s response, I withdrew the appeal since they had run out the clock anyway.
Each time I was banned, I swore I would quit Facebook. How could I always worry about looking over my shoulder for that ironically faceless policing algorithm — there were over two billion users, it is highly unlikely that Facebook would have humans pouring over the torrent of posts searching for objectionable posts. So obviously there were key words that triggered the Terminators.
I became more careful about how I phrased things. It was so offensively arbitrary as to what Facebook considered “hate speech” that I learned to couch my words more vaguely, or use quotation marks more extensively.
And for several months, it worked. I wasn’t harassed. Until two days ago.
One of my good Facebook friends (I had a number of people who I have grown quite close with over the years) posted an article about Nazi anti-union legislation and how Republican “right to work” legislation was so similar to the Nazi anti-trade union movement. I wrote the first thing that came to my mind, the Nazi motto about labour, a universally recognized phrase which was emblazoned at the entry to every Concentration Camp, “Arbeit Macht Frei” (translation: “Work Makes Free”)
A pop up window instantly told me that I had violated Facebook’s Community Standards and was banned from participating in Facebook for 30 days.
I appealed and the punishment was confirmed.
I was crushed.
Prior to this moment, my illness, though not fatal, has led to my becoming totally disabled, unable to audition for roles in film and television. Not able to work any more, I was forced to apply for welfare. In the wake of a series of other events culminating with the Donald Trump election in the states, I tried to take my own life three years ago. I wound up in a psych ward in a local hospital where I remained for five weeks. While there, I was able to apply for disability welfare, which was ultimately approved some months later.
I could not longer work but at least I had support so that I was not homeless or incapable of feeding myself.
But a critical part of my life had become my outreach to the world through my Facebook existence. And Facebook arbitrarily took that away from me.
I’m doing what I can to compensate for that loss. I’ve reconnected with my LiveJournal presence. I had written a few “articles” for Medium but it had been many months, if not years, since I had “contributed” anything here.
It was not that long ago that I came to the realization that my existence was contingent upon my ability to maintain this fragile connection to the outer world. It was easiest through Facebook. The newsfeed kept flowing and I would read the posts and immediately share my thoughts which would precipitate a response and that would prompt another reply until the threads wound down through so many back and forths the original post got somehow lost. Frenzied but fun.
And being jailed is like having a door slammed on me for no logical reason.
Arbeit macht frei — hate speech? Don’t they look at context? It was a reply which was very much in sympathy with the premise of the article referred to. It was the very opposite of hate. It was a love affirmation. But to Facebook, it was an offence punishable by silencing.
What that policing algorithm doesn’t appreciate is the human element involved.
With my sickness, I wake most days questioning my existence. I had attempted to take my own life in a clumsy fashion three years ago but I had never really given up the suicidal ideation that led to that first attempt.
My primary reason to be was pursuing my passion, acting. The entire process of making myself available for auditions, taking the sides, doing the preparation, attending the audition, showing my own ability, my own take on the part, performing for a small audience of casting directors and producers, the uncertainty of the effort and yet booking enough work to pay my rent and buy my food, was the fulfillment of my life goal.
And yet, I could no longer do that because of an illness which has left me incapable of leaving my apartment except for a brief trip to the grocery store every week, an effort that left me crashed requiring days to recover.
I recently shared the following on my Facebook feed. “I write and therefore I exist”.
Facebook has silenced me, prevented me from writing. Even though it is only for thirty days, being banned even for one day felt like a harsh punishment. Thirty days when you are emotionally fragile and standing on the edge of the precipice can be an eternity.
Facebook offered me a chance to “give them feedback to improve” their service in future.
I wrote to them that my only mistake was not paying Facebook to publish the statement “Arbeit Macht Frei” because, as Mark Zuckerberg recently told Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Facebook doesn’t police free speech for politicians. So, obviously, my only mistake was not paying Facebook for the privilege of saying whatever I wanted.
I don’t think I can go back to Facebook. I cannot condone it’s arbitrary business practises which have not only contributed to the chaos in Britain over the whole Brexit fiasco, but played a not so minor role in the election of Donald Trump and the imposition of a would be tyrant on the world. They are dangerous and I kept fooling myself that using the Facebook platform was innocent enough.
And so, here I am, back in Medium, trying to fill a gap, a yawning void in my heart, because I have a burning need to express myself. But no one knows me here. And I have no expectations about receiving thoughtful replies. I am typing out my words and stuffing them into a bottle, and throwing that bottle into the digital ocean, never truly knowing if anyone will spot it and read the message inside.
My limited existence grows smaller each and every day. It doesn’t help when a faceless (again, rather ironic description) entity is able to snatch away the thing that gives meaning to my shrinking presence.
If I could (if I knew how), I would embed a YouTube video here, of either the original Kermit the Frog song, Rainbow Connection, or the lovely Pamplamoose reboot of the song.
“Someday, I’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreams and me …”
Wish me luck. I need it.
