I’m a people watcher. I pretend I’m a keen observer of social interactions, activities, and the funky foibles of people everyday life. But I’m a true voyeur. A peeping Tom on the verge of subversive perversion. A spy in the house of love for all humanity. Searching for the perfect spot to get comfortable in the overkill modern world of high-tech surveillance. Most people think nobody’s watching them, yet everybody’s watching all the time.
Like picking your nose in the car while waiting for the light to change. You think no one’s looking. They reflect in the eye of a camera. There are cameras in every corner of the universe. You can’t hide. We love to watch each other’s fates and quirky habits collide. Like Chauncey Gardener, the character portrayed by Peter Sellers in the movie Being There. He liked to watch television all day long. He discovered TV was much more entertaining than reality. I like to watch too.
Today’s concept of reality and what passes for it on the internet and television is the farthest thing from reality. It’s a scripted show from beginning to end. Far out. Who cares what people think, say, or believe in whatever context or content anymore? Nobody’s listening, but everyone’s watching each other because someone’s always watching you. Some people believe that an all-seeing God is looking over them. Watching them be good, bad, or indifferent.
A perverted goody-two-shoes Santa Claus checking off his list. Or they have a guardian angel to watch over their beady-eyed heads, keeping them safe from harm. That’s stretching the truth about how well we get along in our daily lives. The new mindset of mega-rich and powerful elites who want world dominance at any cost. Including your personal freedom gone public. The stock market of born losers on the run.
It’s a livestream Zoom meeting of knucklehead clodhoppers posting podcasts about how this one, or that thing, or the other side is confused or mildly entertaining. A 24/7 DIY version of the old instructions manual book you forgot was in the sock drawer. Online forums and influencers silently screaming into the microcosm of disinformation along the internet highways and short-circuit byways. I got my Instagram's mixed up with my WhatsApp inside a YouTube of a bad TikTok video of some big heavyset guy dancing in his underwear. My Twitter feed is X’d out of control with professional misanthropes who spew propaganda like Halloween candy filled with fentanyl and razor blades. My Facebook fell out-of-the-blue sky with little butterflies flitting around my head, issuing second-rate proclamations about freedom. All the billionaires in the world can’t hold a candlestick to the last truth in advertising about democracy. The customers always duped. There’s no app for that.
I’m weening myself off the dry-drunk internet tit. I no longer need to confirm my feelings or validate my existence in this temporary physical form I currently inhabit. I live inside my head, not inside the computer. It’s a comedic conundrum of cancel culture and politically incorrect rhetoric that fills the void with airwaves currently heard in the so-called mainstream world of ideas. The internet is a box of broken toys nobody plays with anymore. Everything fits perfectly on the pin-headed prick of a mock reality. You get your kicks from the constant stream of porno, tweets, and homespun soundbites from threads and reels that amplify up exponentially to a pile of crappy data points made by random ones and zeros.
Your algorithms are going viral in a virtual reality of artificial intelligence. This is the cruelest joke of all. You want to belong. You wish you could be a part of something bigger than yourself. Remember never to eat anything bigger than your head or your heart. A hearty stew of sentimental values and morals is indigestible. You can’t eat half-baked ideas without getting an achy stomach and a noodle-brain headache. All that screaming into the void does nothing but give you a sore throat. My website has disappeared, and the other miscellaneous sites collect dust. My hard drive is limp, and the screensaver cracked beyond repair. Stored files on the backup server were removed permanently. All your emails are stuck in the outbox. My modem has a mind of its own.
The only thing online worth a robotic rat's ass is the popular website where you watch various video clips of clothes drying on a clothesline. It’s gotten likes and four followers. You know when all your memes are bad memories involving selfies standing on the edge of some cliff, hanging over the abyss. Post photos of your breakfast, lunch, or dinner instead. It’s a safe bet you won’t save this file in your documents. Shove the apps up your browser and kiss your sorry ass goodbye.
