ZEROLIKES
Back in November 2019, I printed some t-shirts to express a disconnect between what I felt from what was happening in my life versus what I was seeing on social media platforms. I felt like the rich and textured online presence so many were showcasing, was not available to me. I didn’t know how to process this feeling. Nor did I feel I had the capacity to address it since I’ve never been very confident, and using social media presumes one feels that there’s a host of people out there who want to hear from you.
Due to factory shortages, I didn’t come with that setting.
Something on the radio had turned me on to Yuval Harari, so in an attempt to inform myself more deeply about “digital world issues," I’d been reading one of his books. It talked about “big data” gnawing into the biochemistry of our likes and dislikes, the shadow of AI assisted decision making and how our cognitive biases can be reinforced without our even realizing it. A lot of it went over my head, but one thing I knew. I didn’t like the sound of it.
My first response was thinking I’d try distancing myself from the digital world, more specifically social media. Most of my attempts to limit myself and my time on social platforms failed. I found myself logging on in any moments where I wasn’t actively doing something else. Or, as still happens to check the hours of local businesses and getting lost, losing sight of the original reason I logged on for. I took the FB app off my phone but, clever me, I’d just navigate to it via my browser. I turned on the screen time feature on my phone. Rather than inspiring me to spend less time on my phone, this just reinforced feelings of unworthiness and time rushing through my fingers (literally). Super annoying, I turned that feature off. Eventually, I installed the Freedom app on my laptop and set up a block schedule for FB from 8am to 9pm every day except for Fridays, the day I would set aside for social media at work. But I still had Instagram for any idle moments.
I soon found myself second guessing this distancing. I convinced myself it was a pathological identity pattern that had separated me from the rich and textured life that I had told myself wasn’t attainable. It was beginning to feel like I had to participate in an online social life in order to have a regular life. I was missing party invitations, concerts or life announcements of people I knew.
At the same time, I wasn’t sure (and still am not) how I felt about bumping into people I hadn’t seen in months and knowing all these random things about their personal lives that I had learned online. I couldn’t figure out the etiquette, of either jumping right into something I’d seen (like maybe someone died, they’d lost a job or bought a house) or politely waiting for them to bring it up as if things just were like olden times when we didn’t know everyone’s business in advance. I just never feel right barging in unannounced. Even if I’m invited, I like to knock.
Once I’d taken a decent break from Facebook and felt like I’d managed to set some (most likely temporary) healthier boundaries around social media, I re-entered. I stopped “liking” anything in hopes of getting a more unbiased view of what came my way. It seemed like the result was that I started seeing a lot more ads and less personal posts from people.
The top three ads I saw were for Huggies, Depends and Oreos. This targeting was inaccurate and I started to wonder where information about me was being gathered. Was I actually fooling the algorithm with my strategies? Do I just say, 'shit' a lot? Or maybe this was just a covering of broad strokes like ‘people with children in diapers,' ‘people with incontinence or who know / care for someone with incontinence’ and ‘people who disapprove of but can’t resist delicious, sugary palm-kernel oil based treats that remind them of their childhood’?
Then I started to get suspicious. Could it be as nefarious as feeding me images that make me question the deepest darkest questions of my psyche like, what would my life have been like with children of my own? Who will care for me when I can’t care for myself? Why can I still experience pleasure from foods that I know are harmful to the environment and living beings and the future of the planet? What kind of person am I?
The dilemmas I created between real life and digital life were overwhelming. This effortless jump to candidly talking to people about all facets of myself, the collection of likes to see who was listening and the posting of moments as documentation of a life lived seemed laborious... yet irresistible.
I could not find a way to reconcile this voluntary addiction to vapid serotonin hits with the increasingly serotonin-lite existence of my actual life. I didn’t like it.
And I needed a t-shirt to show it.
From my observations, it would seem that the t-shirt is (arguably) the ultimate form of self expression and has been for a long while. We love to promote not just our interests and favorite places on t-shirts, but happily promote brands and businesses without a second thought. Men’s t-shirts from the seventies might show a interest in women’s boobs or beer, maybe both. Or you might see a couple who are committed to “ARIZONA” every winter. From bands to brands T-shirts cover the whole range of thoughts from I can afford this brand / I skateboard / I’m spiritual to political agendas. They might even be the original social media post.
Anyway, finding a way to express that I was barely managing in the emotional blender of the real world, let alone able to manage a parallel identity that exists in the digital realm seemed relatable enough. One thing that social media has taught me is that whatever one might be feeling, there is a whole group of people out there somewhere who either also feel that way, or want to talk about it. A bit of a truth in jest, zerolikes was born. I wanted to call my line of t-shirts revolution couture, but I thought predicting a revolution was too inflammatory. But also, I didn’t trust my prescience.
Look where we are now.
I had recently finished Srdja Popovic’s book Blueprint for Revolution. This book is about nonviolent revolutions and is described on the back cover "a handbook for anyone who wants to effectively [and peacefully] improve your neighborhood, make a difference in your community, or change the world.” I don’t remember why I decided to read this book. I don’t think I was ever planning a revolution but the ideas in it made me wonder if I could create something to unify people who shared these particular conflicts with me, in real time. But that felt like I was getting too big for my britches. “I mean,” I told myself, “ if I boil it down I’m just bummed about being less outgoing than other people, right?”
Some time passed.
I was described as depressed. Confirmed by yet another one thousand dollars, thrown into the abyss of therapy, or self care, or personal growth. And it is indeed an abyss, as nothing seemed to change. I don't seem to change.
I am still an introvert, but an open person. I am deeply confused but know exactly what I'm doing. I am still vaguely angry all the time but love everything just how it is. I am white but still mixed race. I still never know what I want but have everything I want for. I never wait in line-ups but still seem to endlessly be waiting, for something. I am anti-everything but still complicit in all of it.
And I experience joy.
I’m forced to admit my own limited capacity to organize it.
How can I create a brand that speaks to the resistance of the current operating system ON that very platform? How can I use their currency (of likes) to say I’m not buying it anymore? How can I even run a business, if I choose not to support the only place most people are purchasing? How can so many people know something stands in stark contradiction to the changes they want to see in the world, but still keep showing support for it?
So many questions, so few ways to monetize them.
From the multitudes of voices for revolutionary change that more of us have lately tuned in to, I’ve realized that embracing nuance, less binary thinking and making room for conflict are pathways to peace not only reserved for accommodating others but… accommodating my self.
This constant re-setting of boundaries in order to protect my spirit from incoming media, constant questioning of the way things work and why, or who I am in each moment, each new setting is exhausting, but inescapable. The nature of social media, the bombardment of images and speed of it all, makes me have to work for self-preservation while it simultaneously acts as a vehicle of self-creation.
After taking time to consider how and why I use social media and a few months away from it (here and there, back and forth), I have found a little bit of creativity seeping back into my mind, and my dreams. And I want to keep going with zerolikes.
I’m working towards a general state of mind that is content with ‘zero likes’ while still trying to generate infinite likes in the aim of sharing self, work and purpose. Though these targets for me, always seem to be moving rather a lot.
In the end, for my t-shirt tagline I am considering: post-social couture, or battledress for lethargists, or fatigues for the fatigued. It’s still amorphous. It doesn’t have to make sense.
It feels good to be making a little mischief again, something that evaporated for a while. Maybe I’m more confident than I want to believe, perhaps so much so my megalomaniac self is ready to publicly admit I want to soothe the whole, wide-world with a shared t-shirt message.
Or at least a few of my closest ‘free-thinking followers’.
RADIO VOICE:
With cutting edge technology, zerolikes bridges the emotional gap on days when you’re not sure which institution to lay your disillusion: the persistent little head of patriarchy, government fueled racism, the toxic masculinity, the toxic femininity, the global warming: drought, locusts, plastic islands, ocean fires, the mono cropping: the fake meat vs. the real meat, methane, general extinction, the pollution=the unfettered capitalism, genocide + genocide ≠ less genocide, your own offspring, your own indifference or someones else’s lack of indifference that triggers you rather than inspiring you, your body type despite all the body positive thoughts you think, polyester, the barenaked ladies rapping, overstimulation: blue light,
notifications, endlessly nourishing oneself with food rapidly declining in nutrients, digital surveillance, finally facing the reality that in your own hero’s journey you are either stuck in a purgatory of the Supreme Ordeal stage or that the hero’s elixir for defeating said supreme ordeal and bringing forth miraculous world transformation is simply sinking into unlaundered bedsheets to take messy hair selfies while simultaneously watching netflix and obsessively checking for likes.
Cover all the options with zerolikes and adroitly avert the decision making process.
Wicks away the moisture sometimes called tears of dismay and recycles debilitating lethargy & stifled rage into stylish armchair activism. Comes in black or black.
z e r o l i k e s
