Digital Witness
If I can’t show it, if you can’t see me,
what’s the point of doing anything?
If there’s one thing that I clearly figured out during my journey is how I’ve become worse and worse with social networks: aside from some sporadic pictures on Facebook — just to let my family and friends know that I was still alive somewhere in the world — I found difficult to keep all the social accounts updated. True is that the roadmap has been far from relaxing, being always in a hurry to visit as much landmarks as possible, so most of the time I felt exhausted at the end of the day to work with alacrity on writings and photographies.
In addition to the stressful schedule, I started to feel some kind of idiosyncrasy towards these modern tools. On one side, all the social media changed in a quick and exponential way through the years that I found difficult to keep updated — for example, I never got the utility of some apps like Snapchat, or features like Stories in Instagram, and somehow now I can understand what my parents went through with technology shift from VHS to DVD.
But there is another aspect that scares me about these technological innovations which is related to changes in human relationships. I know that in these last decades of Big Brother everybody got obsessed about knowing every aspect in the life of somebody, but honestly, I find this behavior quite psychotic and sick. I neither get why I should allow people to know what I’m doing or what I’m thinking every second of my life: does really people care if I’m drinking a whole bottle of wine while writing this piece and getting drunk as fuck? They really want to know every little secret, all the people I met or I had sex with?
Sometimes, in a moment of boredom while relaxing in bed or lying in the beach to get some tan, I quickly scrolled down the social networks. Maybe I could sound a bit arrogant or choosy, but I found most of the shared posts quite depressing. Assuming that everybody wants to be an attention whore — and unfortunately I guess I’ve been one of them too in my twenties — I found so sad to notice how many people are desperately in need for some appreciation, which is neither translated in kind words but a mere click on an heart icon or a thumb up button. You must be famous, you have to appear cool, you must do cool things, and if you’re really not able to, at least try to look like a weirdo because it’s always fascinating. Try to look intelligent publishing some empty rhetoric on social media, but if you’re not smart enough, well, at least workout and show your six pack. Though nobody can be perfect, better for you to project a polished reflection of yourself, doesn’t matter if it’s totally fake, because judgment from society must be your first obsession. Doesn’t need to be an anthropologist to understand these dynamics which, to tell the truth, are quite disheartening.
I also felt a bit bothered seeing continuous updates about people relationships on my Facebook dashboard. I seriously asked myself if it was a sincere form of envy for them or some other debatable feeling, but I came to the conclusion that what really upset me was the downplaying of an important feeling like that. Love doesn’t need any particular display anywhere, and actually the small routine of everyday is way more important that the biggest demonstrations. Real life is not inside the screen of a smartphone, real life is on your tiptoes, in the pain you feel under the feet after hiking a path, in the smell of a sweated body against yours, in the flavor of the food you’re enjoying, not in live videos, not in pictures digitally stored in some server in the United States which becomes of public domain.
Year after year, I believe that living is still the most interesting experience ever: there are so many people out there that I met during these three months, nights of wonderful conversations that I will never forget. I could have taken a selfie with them, stop the time in some digital memory, but I really didn’t care about it: I was enjoying those moments, those instants that would have never come back, tasting them until the last bite. The lady who wished me a wonderful day at the door of a Starbucks, the sparkling gaze of the homeless who I gave my lunch, hundreds of talks and faces I met: there are so many snippets every day that nobody will ever know because they are not shared anywhere, but they existed, they were true, tangible, they were real life. Some experiences are so beautiful that every second of them are worth to be lived and you find yourself wishing that they would never end. Every little piece of them are what makes myself the human being I am today.
Suggested Sountrack
St. Vincent, Digital Witness
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