It is a fact that no matter how well you try to live your life, there will be people who don’t like you. This is as natural and unavoidable as weather, and occasionally as unpleasant. Before the internet, and especially before mobile phones, kids could get away from bullies after school, workplace difficulties could be left behind for the evening, and the private sphere was actually still pretty much private, for ordinary people. Royalty, politicians and celebrities have received public commentary on their lives for longer, and perhaps in some ways, rightly so.
In the age of continual (self-)surveillance we are subject to opinion, approbation, cancelling, bullying, lies, misconstrual, out-of-context appropriations, vendettas; but also hype, compliments, adoration, ego-polishing and a hundred other kinds of less than wholesome interaction. People who write, make art, perform, or teach, or who otherwise make their livelihood in the public realm are particularly prone to this, compared to, say, an accountant. So in some ways, it’s a labour issue, if this is our place of work and we are harassed here. Now that one requires an online presence even to have the most modest of sustained creative careers, it has become almost impossible to just do your thing, and make your living locally by being good at it. That’s not a complaint, it’s just a description of how things are around here lately1, and you can read the same in any number of analyses.
First published here with full transcript, notes and more images, December 18th 2023.
Episode 55 - Softening around hard things