Being for Others – an Article of Bad Faith, or Why I am on Twitter
Three years, eight months and twenty days ago is when twitter first entered my life. That is when I began shouting my useless thoughts into a narcissistic void. What impelled me to think the internet needed to know my innermost thoughts? The question should rather be, who impelled me. I can tell you the exact moment.
But first some background. I used to like taking my camera with me everywhere. I would ‘emotively document’ the minutia of my life. This was before overuse of the iPhone destroyed any hope of being an actual photographer.
It was New Year ’s Eve. I was meandering about when I caught somebody’s eye, looked at what camera she was using and paused long enough to note it was similar to mine. The pause was long enough for it to be too awkward to move on, and I thought I would say something. I said, “You caught me leering at your camera. Is it a D60?”
Is this relevant? Bear with me. Everyone will have some such story as to what motivated them to join a social network. This line was enough for her to draw a wry smile, and to talk back to me. We talked about photography and exchanged Flickr accounts. Later we were friends on Facebook. She said something along the lines of, ‘Your wry humour would do well on Twitter’. She was engaging and quite beautiful, and she ‘liked’ my photos regularly. By then I was taken enough with this online friendship of shared hobbies to sign up. I thought, what a perfect forum to satisfy my hungry ego.
140 characters later I had composed my first tweet. It read ‘I’m awake watching a J-Lo music vid while signing up to Twitter finally. I should be sleeping.’ This enticing bit of information was intended to make me sound ironically hip to a post-taste culture that incorporated J-Lo alongside other more obscure influences. The ‘I should be sleeping’ referred to a glamorous insomnia, and appealed to the banality I associated with this mode of communication. Basically I was showing off in ever more obscure fashions. I was an idiot. To paraphrase 10cc – the things we do for the false admiration of someone we don’t even know.
So now I was on twitter, and under the impression that people would be interested in this drivel. I continued in a similar vein, advertising my ‘wry humour’, building yet another language based caricature of myself, and revealing a little too much disorder and self-pity in the process. I never asked who read it, just assumed people would. I continued, because it was satisfying, and because it kept me friends with this girl, who I liked and who I didn’t know. Now I’m just in the habit.
I now use Twitter more sparingly, and cautiously, but still find myself working on the assumption that somebody cares about all this, a common assumption and maybe one to be questioned. As a social document, it makes you feel like you have a broader reach as an individual. Sort of like being a journalist but not as cool, credible, or rigorous. More like talking to yourself in the street. It keeps you connected with people, who you know, partly know, or don’t know at all. It is as good a distraction as any from loneliness and entropic lack of purpose. It is kind of fun and informative. It’s something to do. Will I leave twitter? Probably not. Do I regret joining? No. But I find my reasons for joining retrospectively naïve, and tragically hilarious. Reading back my tweets gives me an interesting portrait of a time I never would have bothered putting in a diary. And it still serves as an outlet for thoughts, witty or otherwise. It is a grand distraction from what I should be doing, and I thank it for that. Twitter is a slightly more considered outlet than Facebook, a forum where we can all pretend to be public figures, and reach for our futile fifteen minutes of fame. As such, it should be celebrated. These words are my attempt.
Author: mydadsjacket
B. 1984, Leighton Hospital, Cheshire. Moved to Hereford aged two-and-a-half. Painting on sugar paper. A Volvo named after Spot’s mum. Nice neighbours. Scrapbooks. A den in a hedge. My friend Jonathan and Transformers and hiding in the garden. Learning to cycle a blue BMX at the park. Bad clown in a box scared me.///Rising fives. Starting school, I can tie shoelace. Look I made a paper robot. Look Jane, look! Nadia is born in Hereford County hospital, 1988. “How do you like your new sister?” “Fine.” /// Milk and a Jaffa Cake every morning. Walking through the park with Granny. SATs. Kiss chase. Conifers and grass stains on grey. Name tags on jumpers. Carpeted coach seats. Conkers. A quarter-ounce of cola-cubes. Sing Hosanna, sing banana. See the headmaster. Mystery books read by torchlight. Learning to swear. School plays written by teachers. Recorder practice. Gappy teeth and chubby cheeks. Scratched violin. Racing raindrops. Sleepover philosophizing. Crazy golf. The zoo. Eurocamp. Judo. Skiing. Goldfish. White shirts and marker pens on the last day.///Entrance exams. A scholarship. Awkward communal showers. Posters. Kissing at parties. Playstation. Peel lullabies. A fight on the green. Compilation tapes. Leaving the Scouts. Awkward phonecalls. Skateboarding in car parks. Staying up to watch films. A half-grown moustache. Shaving. Masturbating. PGL and Panda Lemonade and Green Day. The first taste of hash on a park bench. Army Cadets. Scoring from a friend. Forgetting how to count 4/4 in piano lessons. Shooting toys with air rifles. Reading. Making up birthdays for bouncers. Trying to keep a diary. Drawing in a notepad. Volunteering at the hospital. Hiking. Eavesdropping on public transport. Poetry as obsessive and inefficient self-examination. Prizes for same poetry. Gatecrashing a party and playing table-tennis with someone’s drunk dad. Golf. Taking pictures without a good reason. Playing albums and making coffee at a photography shop. Black tie parties in village halls. Awkwardness and longing. Cycling a lot for a while. A burnt out car in a pond. Long walks around the outside of factories and through fields. Fleeting moments of joy. Swimming outdoors. Time in the darkroom. Mugs of tea. Washing my hands and trying to read the Koran. Albert Camus and Sartre speak to my frustrations. Thin and pockmarked. Wearing a gown to chapel and staring at stained glass. Recreational trespass. Relaxing in the bath with codeine and vodka. After lesson chats with my English teacher about Beckett and Buddhism. Opening a vein and being scared of blood. Playing squash. Walking with friends in the hills and feeling happy and free. A sad silence. Miserableism and the growing void. My body drawing in on itself. ///A failed Cambridge interview. Catering for invalids. Infatuation and happiness flecked with madness A lingering gloom. Medication. Crisis. Recovery///Art college. Hackysack on day one. Meeting some people. Getting stuck in. Sleeping in the car. Experimenting. Going on jaunts. Madness as a creative methodology. Overworking the photocopier. Justifiable vandalism. Sleeping in my car. Befriending the librarians. Flying kites, seeing bands. Acquiring new skills. Blagging. Watching films. Going to the pub. Getting a proper girlfriend at last, for a few happy weeks. ///Going to university properly. Leaving Hereford behind. A new place to live with a constant companion. Video games and newspapers on Sundays on the lawn. Mildew and rats and designed spaces. Disorder, ennui and a strange kind of contentment. A walk down the hill to uni. English and Journalism at Kingston. Reading books and talking about them. Not reading books and talking about them. Writing haphazard experimental essays. Writing occasionally for pleasure. ///Another stay in hospital. Apocalyptic visions and delusions of grandeur. Time travel and the shifting of dimensions. Art therapy and music therapy and talking therapy. Cooking and gardening. Relapse plans. Triggers. Breathing exercises. She visited every day, with cigarettes and a sympathetic smile. Playing six a side football. A trophy for most improved player. Routine against chaos. Starting Graphic Design and Photography. Resocialising, putting things behind me. Taking stock. Trying again. A break up. Out on my own then in a bedsit of increasing disrepair. Clutter that matches my mind and neighbours who frightens me. Erratic spells of near greatness and pits of shame and nothing. The Forge – where ideas are made, James said. Playing reed organ with Josh in a hushed basement in Camden. A lineage of excellent housemates, old faces and new. Finding a consistent creativity. Finishing with a 2:1 and feeling okay. Selling my final piece at the end of year show to a sweet couple who loaded it into a taxi. Writing for a living and commuting in reverse. Meeting someone new. Reassessing my future. Heading resolutely towards a long hidden horizon that was always there, putting one foot in front of the other and nurturing the dream, with trophy scars and a deep set shadow that strengthens the endeavour to continue and flourish.///2012
