By Kofi Fosu Forson
Love binds – it is our greatest means for survival.
Sex and romance as human equation is sub-par when compared to (thought and text) – act of committing to writing a (tweet); a more profitable human dialogue, than sex and romance.
Recent reports have revealed decline in sex partnership among the younger generation; greater percentage of whom spend time online; zombie-like fascination of walking while checking information on timelines of most social media accounts.
Inter-personally, there are those who do the very thing of texting while at dinner with other people, or even taking turns examining their smartphones during sex, given variety of sex positions.
These are all bizarre accusations of deeming human beings part of a “walking dead”.
Primarily, inception of life online was to enhance engagement of intercommunication between lost souls, (friends); ambiguity of the word made more pathetic as in “followers”.
Detriment in time allotted for online activity when governed by perverse nature of humanizing online friends (followers), virtual spirits with profiles, is suspension of human activity as transcendence into otherworldliness.
“Otherworldliness” – supernatural manifestation borne out of a metamorphosis; human ascension experienced as god or demon rendering of (bright) or (black) light fueled by the inter-relatability between humans or within nature, resulting in psychosis or transformation; deliverance from supposes super-human subjectivity or status which inspires all forms of (human) life or otherwise surrounding.
The idea of fooling ones-self into thinking they possess a god-like status by being online takes away from actual process by which one acquires or achieves greatness.
“Greatness” – ability to seduce (an assumption separate from love); determinable as form of conviction and power which is interpreted not by worth in an individual but scheme with which an act proliferates.
In online “speak” – it goes viral.
For something to go viral, what resonates takes root in the post and its fascination, not in the individual who posted it.
This then begets the fancy of attempting to go viral; shot in the dark, pebble thrown into pool of the virtual, hoping it makes a thousand or more ripples.
Claiming of one’s worth online supposes tomfoolery which many see as way to pass time; an alternative to the seriousness of assuming the role of a human person, committed to living.
What is problematic is how people do view themselves as humans, and not virtual spirits. The availability of having and being given space to experiment; one would think people would create aforementioned supernatural profiles; wherewithal to be spectacular.
Counter-intuitively, most people express boredom. That circumstance for living is indeed boring, not much happens. As a matter of fact when one surfs most timelines on various accounts, not much is learned.
The zombie-like trance happens time and time again.
Proto-functionability coordinated between online particulars revealed a community of those who sought out thought from similar minds or others taking from the vacuous space, ideas, behavior, relevant to the moment, time and space.
Introduction to gender and sexual politics, post-post feminism, sexual neologisms of the pre-post W. Bush years infiltrated the conscience of many in the assumption of what became post-consciousness.
Decade of the 90s and its relevance to Clintonian politics, fetishism, grunge music/culture, reality show, heroin chic, post-Neo Expressionism, theater of the avant garde… (Mockumentaries) –
Exploded into welcoming of a new century…
This is what became of us; our programmable lives fashioned after theory that life was happening somewhere else and not where you were.
Eventually our ready-made-to-order lives were transported onto a computer screen where we sought to communicate with other people in hope of achieving an orgasmic charge, whether in the adjoining of coital circumstances; “international hook-ups”, virtual sex, “poking”…
We co-existed, inter-related and masterminded an undertaking; early attempts at “going live”, exploring the Barthes-ian philosophy of seducing the language; pre-emoji, “Lol” ridiculousness.
Origin for the self-obsession, subtle narcissism of the online user/abuser all stemmed from an acute neuroticism of the artist, dating as far back in time.
The selfie is an art-abstracticizing of the ego; Picasso’s many ways to look at himself through the Cubistic images of Dora Maar, Mapplethorpe’s fascination with processing his sexual prowess, Cindy Sherman’s film stills.
Self-obsession counter-balanced with an art neurosis was pragmatically the profile for every user/abuser with an online account.
Circumstantially, one was an actual artist and chose the online account as way of furthering the marketing of their talent and worth.
In doing so – the work is posted as would be in a gallery. Instead of unheard small talk made about the work or what would be written in a book left at the door, thread conversations revealed actual thought and opinion of the work.
Thread conversations were what became of the Kofi Fosu Forson/Dianne Bowen art project, Dismember the Night; where they took turns writing poetry as a thread, took themed selfies; these as a project was a first, which later premiered at Tribes Gallery, NYC.
The common online friend or follower does not have knack and ability to suppose the art profile of a professional; worth of thought in musings is more than a fib or faux pretense.
Exacting of a faux persona was and is the online ridicule.
This has resulted in mass exit from Facebook, not so much in its misuse, but evolution of posting, relatively from thought to image.
Instagram is newer processing of thought.
Taken from themes in title of Barthes’ Image/Music/Text – the image prioritizes the ego more than thought.
What then is dynamic behind Twitter – obsessiveness in the knee-jerk reaction of tweeting?
Where does one go when one forms an opinion - ? The op-ed pages have always been crucial in furthering of thought in the public frame.
More or less, talking heads on most cable news programs have origins as those who form opinions and via the wider more commercial venue; they are interviewed.
Pre-Facebook and Twitter, one blogged; this, a lost art form, was basis for the opinion-driven posts on most social media accounts and is now the cult of Twitter and tweeting.
Tweeting is the writer sans the pen or typewriter; a rabble-rouser at a bar, wit at cocktail party.
This is the assertion and yes, opinion of what most people have of Twitter, and perhaps it is that very thing.
Given the happenings and going-ons in the media and news cycle, topics that ”trend” receive a rigorous evaluation, over-evaluation and interpretation in tweets; the very purpose for tweeting; to urgently speak when one has no place for such activity.
Overwhelming aspect of Twitter and power in the tweet certifies manifestation of thought in its origin and how the world-wide-web reacts to it.
The thinker/academic/cum –interpreter of thought, values Twitter as a place for additional pedagogy.
Perhaps not forum for intuitively subjecting one to process thought as administered in a university setting; but the rhythm with which one tweets in its collectedness and recycling, wears on the conscience, forming a greater opinion in how one masters the written word or researches information.
What then is self-authorship?
The selfie reveals peculiarity with which one observes changes in the countenance, ordering of a facial diary.
Self-authorship gives credit to originating of thought from its base, as in a graffiti artist’s tag or painter’s self-portrait.
Self-authorship is the writer’s self-ownership; not warranted in copyright but addressed as opinion given respect and title.
Officializing one’s thought mainly under the guise of a tweet – gives merit to authorship.
Professional writers aren’t always proficient at tweeting – if as a way of fleshing out an original thought from its philosophical mode.
Rarely does one value the tweet of a professional writer as quotable within margins of quotes by acclaimed writers in history.
Rule of Twitter is a game – uplifting of one’s ego, with number of likes or retweets suggesting fame or popularity.
The acclaimed writer/celebrity is able to exchange ideas with a fan base.
How then is writing a more profitable human dialogue than sex or romance?
Sex, first, is an exaggerated act – meeting a nonsensical conclusion.
“Lovemaking for all its pleasures alone is stupid. Nothing comes of it” - Umberto Eco.
One has to think of it in terms of hyper-sexuality and perversion; resolve one draws from masturbation, BDSM, group sex, virtual sex, talking dirty, (sexting), phone sex /rape - sodomy.
Then think of the mind and body in its puritanical state.
Hopelessness of both extremes emphasizes discipline one must muster to achieve self-control, refrain from indulging the senses in behavior held in question, suggestive of the carnal, obsequious or extremism.
Sex is hot air one breathes.
What one does to meet that need is purely speculative and in modernistic terms need not be understood as circumstance for promoting the sex act.
Process for this summation is evolution of gender and sexual theorizing within manner and exercising of male dominance and control in the official standard with which male and female behavioral patterns are met.
To think and write, as in a tweet; the graffiti artist’s tag, is all preemptive to turf war, bodily harm, sex-threat.
Perhaps questionable as means of directing policy – a tweet possesses possibility of counteracting fury displayed out-rightly in street body-sizing, corporate positioning, familial stress.
If - a more profitable dialogue than sex and romance; what accounts for advertism?
We are rendered human at birth; our governance, be it; of and by government, parental discipline, religious and spiritual intervention is based on a knowingness that we can overcome; our supposed superhuman potential.
Post-conscientiously, we have become virtual; android in our thinking and behavior.
What constitutes a human variety of behavior is rooted in the self; how one chooses to prolong and add to involvement of human participation is without judgment or conduct.
One can then draw back to theory of love; how it binds –
Conclusion therefore revolves around theory of the circle.
I would assume squared circle or an offerable grid and its systems is how we operate.
Advertism prolongs continuance; pluralism of thought, generations, populations, growth.
80s single-women-fad of making babies as an accessory – is marked in 90s faux lesbianism, suicide girl, internet-porn vixen, post-post feminist… (political nudists)
Commercialization of sex, and its modern romance-television reality shows, romantic comedies, celebrity gossip, centrally normalizes functionability of human evolution process.
Who and what are we; what do we become?
Theorizing of existentialism has met its surrender in the virtual world.
The great writer forms thought, makes space for the thought; proceeds in fleshing out the thought as fragment, sentence, book or volume.
The tweet makes that possible for those marginalized as pretenders.
Much as art is promulgated around pretense, the tweet limits preponderance of thought with its restricted number of characters; continuing the ongoing Kafka-esque trap we found ourselves in.
Writing (relevant) as tweet is more profitable human dialogue than sex and romance only in that we are sub-human or alternatively more-human.
One can make this definitive in the gender war / #metoo / pre-post carnal sexual ideologies /proliferation of sexual neologisms / tinder and match.coms-dating online…
The artist was once sought after, until posthumous sales of art became a reality; perhaps not cancelable in how the artist ultimately creates. The acclaimed author once had political merit; that notion is in question since the poet and poetry in general underwent a socio-political transformation; misunderstood interpretation of role of the public speaker, author and poet.
Follower on Twitter generates the strategy of the artist, author and poet – in some cases he is an artist, author and poet.
Language once shaped by diction, has been debased into a generational vernacular.
We are far from the writers in history who prioritized language – made use of thought as principle way of communicating.
Thought is elixir of semiotics.
Notion for communicating in modern terms is a form of id-orientation.
The tweet makes this possible.
Overall, social media has broadened meaning of self-governance.
World we inhabit has its priorities we incorporate into means for survival.
Desire is drawn as conclusion from problems that arise.
How we feed or commit to extraneous matters in our need to meet an end, results in the human person, conditioned to function as human, determined by the original functionality of love binding all that we are and what we do, to a more subtracted persona of –
The thought- animal –
Once isolated, imprisoned or self-imprisoned we think.
Placement for our thought is Twitter.
The human person is born to live, give birth, grow old, die – live on through other means.
The virtual spirit, “friend” – follower – meets an end with a post.
With a tweet, the world beckons.
It’s either power of a ruler speaking before an assembled audience, or a loner with a phone.
Photographs by Fabienne Perrier
https://min336.wixsite.com/fabienne-perrier
