The Myriad

There’s a deep sense of having to sell yourself in all avenues of capitalistic society of course, but I’ve become especially sensitive to it on video/social media platforms as of late. I spend the majority of my time making videos of various sort, or thinking about my “career” as an internet personality so, of course I’m biased and will notice it there most of all.

It does seem to permeate everything though; job interviews, auditions, even our every day appearance, constant selling of the self. I of course am not above this and in fact perhaps much more than most people I work hard to sell myself every moment of every day, the desire/need to do so amplified exponentially by each layer or lens of my various identities. As a black person, as a trans/queer person. as an internet personality, etc. Each a multiplier of its own.

Over the last year however, I’ve really found myself slowly sliding and settling into a sort of energy/space that makes it very difficult to sell myself effectively. This may have something to do with the lack of energy stemming from my dalliance with serious illness and/or my mortality but I gotta tell ya, I really struggle to feel the motivation to really push for/sell things with that usual sort of gusto.

I frequently think of a chat message I got a handful of years ago. Someone had hopped into the stream, viewing for the first time in a few years and asked if I was okay, if something had happened, why I seemed so deflated compared to the first few years of being a “content creator”. I got really annoyed with this person, angry even, and when the viewer noticed this, they wished me the best hoping I get better and left. Over the years I keep thinking back to that message because— well they were absolutely correct. I am in fact a lot less energetic, driven, or enthusiastic about well everything and for some time this was a source of some distress but lately the tone has shifted into a sense of…peace.

I would really kill myself over the performance of any sort of videos or art I put out there, I’d really beat myself up and cringe and wanna rip my skin off for being so idiotic and earnest and completely unaware of myself. I would frequently delete entire catalogues of videos or channels, completely rebrand, lose many nights of sleep editing a big video that was sure to be the one every time only to repeat the cycle when it was met with either “failure” or middling success.

I was incredibly desperate for various reasons yknow? I needed videos to do well so I could make money so I could “get out of the mud” as I so often phrased it. I needed things to work out so I could have a life and not be a failure, lots of that sort of thinking. I would still really love it if those things happened, and it still stings when something I really put my heart into “flops” as they say but, I’m certainly no longer desperate at all.

I remember a sound byte from a conversation with Leslie Jones and another actor/comedian I can’t quite recall where they talked about how they were so desperate to make it and things never went anywhere until they finally said fuck it, sort of gave up, and just let it be what it was going to be.

Maybe its a cope, maybe its how losers think blah blah but there’s a peace in that sentiment which feels so valuable to me now. A raindrop into a still lake and the ripples that echo from it, I’m kinda chillin’ lowkey.

I deleted, then recovered, then deactivated, then reactivated my tiktok page and deleted or privated all my videos on it this past month. Huge deal for me, easily my biggest social media page by a wide margin, one I spend the most mental turmoil on, one that provides the most opportunity that I seem to just keep missing out on.

I spent some time off the app, then came back to it with a different account. Made from a dummy email from a temp email site not connected to anything, and just trained the algo to show me things I like. It’s really crazy how much unbelievably cool art exists at the sedentary layer of the mega feed. paintings, animations, music, writing, and indeed tiktok videos made in a way that was very…. experiential? without that same sort of stink of desperation or needing to sell oneself. On the rare occasion that someone showed their face in one of these videos, they never ever spoke. Tons of incredible stuff I was bewildered to see wasn’t performing anywhere near as well as the (as I would bitterly, dejectedly describe) lowest common denominator slop. cheap, shock value, wasteful, arguably depraved, etc. etc. I can see the value in that sort of stuff though admittedly, not everyone lives chronically suffocatingly in their head, endlessly navel gazing and sniffing their own farts in ouroborean fasion.

Some people can enjoy things that are maybe shallow, cheap entertainment, doesn’t represent the best of humanity blah blah. In a way its more honest of them than I am being in my interests and operations by far, but I digress.

In doing so I came to recognize how much I admired these works that lacked the desperation of needing to sell oneself, to perform, to please algos or to even make sense. In doing so, I came to realize, I dont want to sell myself any longer. Really I don’t have the energy for it anyway and its demoralizing when people don’t buy it, in all senses of the word.

I received a comment a few weeks ago where someone commented on a video where I was describing how I actually genuinely feel and operate in the world as this husk, pantomime of a person and the commenter said something like “I saw your videos a few years ago and wondered why you were putting on such an obviously fake personality.”

How do the kids say? gagged? haha ahawhaw. I mean, I thought I did a pretty good job? tons of people seemed to like it…. I was a little offended actually, but they were of course, correct.

I have thought about the comment a lot over the last two weeks or so, it seems the ones that stick in my head do so to some degree because they ring true.

I can earnestly say though that I really no longer feel like performing, or selling myself. When I was in grade school, I would often say “I dont wanna play the game anymore!” in regards to life, social conventions and societal expectations. It was always such a strong and innate sense/drive within me that I’m a bit bewildered how I got to the point I did with all this internet nonsense. There’s a corrupting, corrosive element to it all I think, but at the same time, the phrase “power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals.” has also been bouncing around in my head a ton this week so maybe I wasn’t corrupted by internet fame or whatever, but rather my own inadequacies and desperations were simply revealed.

I’m feeling okay with myself though lately. No need to perform or sell, no need to be extra “on” and funny or outrageous, no need to desperately try to spruce up my appearance to be more something in hopes itll bolster the performance of whatever Im selling.

Really kinda okay just speaking in my slow, monotone repetitive way, doing stuff I like, not looking as desperately at the numbers, just being me. All of me, all of the myriad that I am.