The intimacy of Photoshop

There's a strange sense of intimacy in Photoshopping a person--not to change their appearance, but to remove smudges or scratches from the picture's surface. It feels like you're grooming them through real touch, even though you're only clicking on pixels. This can feel odd if you're fixing up a photo featuring someone you haven't seen in years, no longer have a relationship with, or have never met. There's a certain thrill in digitally primping someone you wish you had known, like a famous person or historical figure.

It's hard to divorce two-dimensional images of people from their tangible forms. For that reason, it's also eerie to find a photo of someone who is no longer alive and look into their eyes, even though they were alive in the picture. It's confusing to read a distraught message from a friend while seeing the userpic of their grinning face.

Time is never static, but photos give us the illusion of that. They really do seem to store an unchanging facet of a person. And maybe many of us present two-dimensional versions of ourselves in real life, because it feels safer than showing our fuller and unretouched selves.

The splitting of selves

Whether you still are defensive about something you’ve done in the past, or you feel objective enough to acknowledge the wrong of it without self-disgust, depends on how disconnected you are from that version of yourself. It depends on if it’s actually a past version of you. The transitory point is shame, when you no longer defend what you once said/did but are still not comfortable acknowledging it. That’s like when an amoeba is at the mid-point of separating from itself but is not yet two distinct bodies. Once you become a different version of yourself, you can look at some past actions with regret but not shame because it’s like observing someone else altogether.

Then again, that might be another self-deluding defense mechanism. I’m not really sure either way.

The Nazi room

Some friends have said that they regret using Facebook because it makes them like their peers less. That someone they would probably like in person becomes someone they can’t stand because of the opinions they post. I understand this sentiment, and at times I can relate to it. But at the same time, it’s hard to believe that somebody’s defining beliefs and overall worldview would never be expressed face to face if you know them well enough. And if they are hiding certain values, I’m not sure I’d rather be unaware of what those values are.

In the past, I have written that there is no single “true” self. People are multifaceted, and we can be kinder and more complicated than our belief systems. I don’t believe that a human necessarily has only one set of values; they can have several at odds with one another. But even if their values aren’t a neatly matching set, others can still feel alienated by a particular belief they have—even with the awareness that it isn’t their only belief. I know I will distance myself from a person if they express specific beliefs, just as I know I’m not exempt from alienating others with mine.

The internet is a paradoxical place. It’s a space where humans are bolder and more confrontational about expressing themselves, and at the same time more cautious if their words are for public consumption. It’s a place where individuals can perform a one-dimensional version of themselves, and where they can also share sides of their psyche that are not usually seen. It’s a meeting ground where people dismiss each other more readily because it’s easier to see a human as a set of pixels or an algorithm, but people also might offer each other more time. Because the online world is us, an outgrowth of both space and time.

Just as the internet is people and the internet is a place, people are places. Some are homes. Some are locations we think are homes, but turn out to be stops along the way. Some are havens we visit routinely, but where we don’t ultimately live. That’s why I think of a personality as a house. Some houses have consistent themes throughout. Those homes are cozy and predictable. Some prefer that, others find it dull. Some houses are neat and affable in the rooms that are meant for showcasing, but complete chaos in the private quarters. And others don’t hide their mess.

This is the type of home I’d find most disconcerting: The social, guest-receiving rooms are open and embracing. The living room contains an MLK poster and books about environmentalism and civil rights. Then, somewhere tucked far down a hallway, there’s a study full of KKK propaganda and Nazi memorabilia. The resident is flustered upon guests discovering it, but insists it’s “not a racist thing.” They say they have no problem with (X minority group), they just “don’t want them in their country.” (So what does “having no problem with them” mean? Not objecting to their basic existence, provided that existence occurs far away and they never have to inhabit the same space?) The person who owns and maintains this house may not see the space dedicated to bigotry as their “true” room. They may see it as just one coexisting with all the others, no more of a core space than anywhere else. They may even like to have minority friends in the house; just not in that area. But the guests who liked the main quarters won’t feel comfortable there anymore, and it would be especially scary if the house was a place where they’d regularly enjoyed spending time.

That figurative house is who some people are. Some may not actually be aware that they contain that specific room. Others might know about it but blame others for putting the contents inside, not acknowledging that they choose to hold onto those things. And I know my definition of welcoming is subjective; some would feel a lot more embraced in the bigotry room than in the main socially presented areas. But that is how I see it, and I think the internet provides a window into rooms that might not otherwise be seen—even by those who live in the house. The difference lies in whether or not the homeowner justifies that room; whether they respond to its discovery by more carefully hiding the contents, by bringing them out into the open, or by trying to renovate.

The trickster archetype

Two famous characters which seem to share certain parallels are Joker and the Cheshire Cat. It's not just because they both wear unnatural, unsettling grins on their faces. It's because they both represent order vs. chaos, but in different ways.

The Cheshire Cat acts as a guide among chaos, providing advice and order at times--although he's capricious and only helps when he feels like it. Rather than good or bad, he seems neutral and mainly motivated by his own whims for amusement.

In the Batman universe, Joker is also motivated by his own amusement and says perplexing things. But he wants to upend order and create chaos, which is somewhat the opposite of Cheshire Cat. The latter tries to provide balance between the two, whereas Joker just wants to destroy.

Also, both follow a motif of what they, in their own words, call "madness." They're products of their environments and arguably both well-adjusted to their surroundings, even if others would see them as nonsensical or erratic. It reminds me of the aphorism that it's no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society. The Joker has found a definite means of survival, living purely at the expense of others. He's sustained himself, but not in a way that could ever be seen as healthy. The Cheshire Cat seems better adapted because he accepts the inevitable disorder but tempers it with organization, and he's far less malevolent.

Hipsters in Ugg boots

I wonder how many things that aren't currently "cool" to enjoy will become cool once they're vintage. My theory is that a lot of vintage stuff is only cool because enough time has passed for people to forget why they originally disliked them. Then when it becomes too generic the second time, it gets abandoned because it's no longer ironic.

Prediction: In another twenty years (because it has to be at least twenty), hipsters will be wearing Ugg boots and listening to Bieber.

My inner emo child is showing

Watched Blink 182's new video for "Bored to Death" and am currently torn in two directions like a Stretch Armstrong doll. The song is repetitive and the lyric "Life is too short to last long" is one of those maddening statements that's clearly meant to sound profound, but really is just self-defining (it's like saying "Fire's too hot to be cold"). But at the same time, damned if the scene of the angsty punk boy scratching messages into his desk and his bleach-haired girlfriend jumping around listening to oversized headphones and them skating in the parking lot doesn't leave my early 2000s mallcore heart screaming. I'm surprised I didn't combust into a cloud of AIM icons featuring Sally the Ragdoll and skulls with little pink bows on top.

I’ll start out by saying that the recent cop killings are deplorable. People should not have to fear being murdered because of their jobs. When an officer is shot in vengeance after they did something unconscionable—such as Jackie Neal of San Antonio, who was shot after raping a woman on the job—I have to admit there’s a certain sense of compensation. But that doesn’t mean vigilante justice is right or that killing is an acceptable response, especially when other cops are being shot for another’s offense. So I’m sorry to hear about what happened in Baton Rouge, as well as what happened in Dallas. 

That being said, it's a dangerous assumption to claim that if a person is critical of police officers in general, or simply outspoken against police brutality, or even professedly anti-cop, that it means they must want the police to be murdered. There are people I can’t stand, cop and non-cop alike, but that doesn’t mean I want them killed. I might be petty and wish any number of irritations upon them. I might want them to spill hot coffee on their lap or never find a parking space or only ever step on Legos when they’re barefoot. I might hope they get fired or dumped or face failure, but I don’t wish for them to die. That may not be healthy or mature of me. However, it’s not the same as condoning murder. 

To respond to criticisms of police with “Then you want all cops to die!” is to smother any dissenting opinion. Because then the person is not discussing their actual grievances with the police force or with police brutality; they’re stuck defending their right to voice those thoughts and assuring others that they’re not saying cops should be massacred. Some cops and police supporters might genuinely believe that to criticize a cop is to sign their death warrant, but others use this as a red herring.

Unfortunately, I have heard some on my side of the issue celebrating the murder of cops. I’ve seen statements like “No tears for dead cops,” which sounds more like a command than a personal sentiment. This disturbs me. But that perspective is not the norm coming from those who speak out against police brutality. Most have the mindset of, “We don’t want you to be killed. We want you to stop killing people.” Some have pointed out that if you believe being against police brutality is the same as being anti-cop, it’s like saying objection to child abuse makes you anti-parent.

I’ve heard the argument that speaking against the actions of specific police officers stirs up anti-cop hatred that leads to them getting murdered. The argument can be paraphrased as, “You understand that anti-gay hate speech leads to gay people getting murdered, but you don’t acknowledge the same about cops.” This would make sense, except that criticizing police brutality and racial profiling doesn’t amount to hate speech, and the people who target LGBT people often do so because they literally believe that "God" commanded them to.

It is true that hatred of some groups leads to them being killed, but that mainly happens to oppressed populations. For example, there are individual gay people who hate heterosexuals due to years of oppression, but gay people aren’t shooting up straight clubs in Orlando. There are women who hate men, but there’s no pandemic of women slaughtering men simply for being male (and there are examples of the reverse situation. Elliot Rodger and the Montreal massacre of 1989 are two examples). Police aren’t an oppressed class. They sometimes do get intentionally killed simply for the job they have, and that is horrific. That’s inexcusable. But while the ones who are murdered are in no way at fault for their own deaths, they chose the job with awareness of the risks. Being a police officer is a choice. Race, gender, and sexual orientation are not.