Jim Swill, RESISTING THE VIRAL SELF

This is no time for cheap imitations of human life!
Rock stars, movie stars, viral stars are null and void!

Isn’t it so apparent that realities like that only deaden a person into a numbed shell engulfed in material hell, forever documented in shameful states, forever remembered as more human than a human can be, their true identity reduced to mere photographs and elaborate misinterpretations. A terrifying state of existence furthers us from discovering our innermost personal identity, stripping us from agenda and turning our awareness into mind-numbing cynicism! We’re here together, post 9-11, still stuck in a war with words in the middle east, force fed unnecessary medications that turn us into legal drug addicts, consuming nutrient-less food waste and cancerous chemicals, worrying about what happened to rock and roll, worrying about what people said about us on the internet, still living with ever increasingly totalitarian authority and an ever degrading economy to match. All of these realities blending and blurring together into a numbing information stream, pummeling our minds with trivial and tragic realities that hold little relevance to what is important to achieving happiness. We’re here in this weird world together, but are we really together? If you have to email and text everyone you know is that really together? Have we really become so afraid of confrontation that we can't even face the voices of our companions? Do you have to hide behind an avatar, do you have to be more than a friend, do you have to provide entertainment, are you really too busy? Are we just more focused on our egos than ever before? When we become too involved with a digital fix, we become numb to reality, and in case we forget - reality is always gonna be there. A world of hyper isolation, a world of total permanent humiliation, where sarcasm and cynicism reign supreme, and an attempt at a cause is deemed a failure prior to its existence. One thing I’ve learned through the shortcomings of punk culture is that although my efforts may never dissolve a government or majority ignorance, they can still change an immediate life, an instant reality, my reality, your reality, together instantly we can grab hold of a fleeting idea once known as personal identity. An identity can’t be found in what is merely an extension of the ego, an identity can’t be found in thousands of myspace friends who didn’t even know they were in your list, an identity can't be found in self-glorification. NO, an identity is found by you and you alone. When you wake up in this world and see that it was never fair from the get go, when you see it’s just as prehistoric and Romanesque as ever, a prison planet, where challenging authorities is punishable by death or, even worse, deletion. A world where our history is getting converted over to text files, all imminently lost in an instant, erasing physical matter, ensuing an absolute information dictatorship. A world in which we are drilled into society with icons and anti-realities projected upon us to imitate and emulate! This is a harsh existence here and now. Human contact and compassion are so much more vital to the progress of our modern society.

Every year it is more subversive but still present; instruments of alienation and self-satisfaction infecting the network of subcultures, drawing them up to the imminent demise of the mainstream, same as the rain is to the worms in the soil, marketing agents hang over our drowning writhing existence like starving birds itching to swallow us alive. How can we avoid such a sick and masturbatory reality? It starts with resisting self-gratification. It starts with reclamation of true community. Online networks are wielded as a dangerous weapon by corporations in order to provide a far more secretive and, in turn, effective method of conforming the youth into a self-serving, isolated, consumerist mass, incapable of appreciating social interaction outside of the available pre-programmed reality. Though these networking sites can be used as valuable additions to keeping in contact with the rest of our “global village”, we must keep in mind that everything must be kept within moderation. There is hardly anything that is more potent or intoxicating to human kind than the worship of the ego. Community is what will hold us together in the long run, so never forget what that means. Online community is more a symbol or a representation of community. It's text and images but it is not real or tangible. It won’t be there when you need an arm around you, it won’t be there when you need a voice, it won’t be there to cook you some food when you are sick, it won't be there to share an experience, it will only further advance alienation if we put our faith in it as our sole contact with the world. Remember what it is to be friend. Remember what it is to be a person. Remember we are not these bodies, we are not these images. Remember we are here together, all of us, human, alive right NOW.