by Gina Twardosz
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Therapy is expensive, but Twitter is free. This is the mantra I live by, circumventing the labyrinthine American healthcare industrial complex by sharing my every waking thought with Internet strangers, or those familiar yet estranged. I love to post a concerning thought and let the likes roll in: a decidedly imagistic way to revel in positive affirmations. The little red heart beats once, twice, sometimes twenty or thirty times before it stops cold, the rush fading with each passing glance of likes; but then I do it again, share a singular thought, and that swell of perception smacks me across the cheek. It’s a pure hit of dopamine surging straight up to my brain. Twitter is an orgiastic cult of enabling, toxic coping strategies and I am both a willful participant and wise old elder.
Most days I exclusively live inside the confines of my laptop. I languish in the gray area between person and concept. Even before the global pandemic forced us all into little Zoom boxes, I nested in posts and pics, reveling in the freedom to adopt a new persona—one neither tethered nor tamed by reality's expectations. I spend many hours crafting a comedic persona. I can be dumb and enjoy reveling in stupidity. All at once I can be everyone's idiot Internet girlfriend, endlessly flirting with the anonymous masses in a way that Paris Hilton attempted to pilot in the early 2000s. “So hot!” I comment on any and all the selfies that pop up as I meander through my Twitter timeline, logging hours of devotion not unlike the nuns who trolled my college campus’ many chapels. When I’m not using the app as free therapy, I try to be everyone’s friend, each follower a new scrawl in my ledger of devotees. I’m ecstatic, feigning adoration to the point where people truly believe my compliments. Maybe I'm forthright in my appreciation, but the sentiment isn't extended out of the goodness of my heart: I commit to commenting so I can receive love and praise in return. I crave perception and will meet my followers where they are to achieve it. Quips, witticisms, cries for help, and cute selfies attract the most audience attention. Pictures of my face feel vain, so I work in a theme or two, reminding everyone, including myself, that this isn’t me, merely a character I control. I was a cowgirl for a while, my cowboy-hatted avatar adding another layer of comedic mystique. In October, I donned a witch’s hat and cackled. Many commented that they'd enjoy it if I hexed them. Someone created a mock movie poster for me, as if this character I'd crafted deserved more screen time. I used to workshop jokes on Twitter, but I’ve since retreated deeper into Internet culture — carefully constructed commentary on the national government turned into niche memes, until finally, the joke was on me. Proudly proclaiming I was “hot, dumb, and unbothered” one evening captured the hearts of a few dozen, and that was all it took to get me hooked. This is humor in its loosest form, nonsense parading as jokes, but I feel empowered. I found myself out of breath one evening, laughing so hard at somebody’s tweet: "When will they make drugs for girls." When indeed, I pondered, regaling my followers with my own foray into drug-related debauchery. I tweeted a thread about a springtime run-in with a campus nun. I was carrying a Christmas light box stuffed with marijuana. She narrowed her eyes, silently reciting the Hail Mary. I watched the likes to my thread role in and smiled, wondering if Sister Amy was still praying for me. In the early aughts of my digital self discovery, I was a walking contradiction. I turned inward, away from my peers; through the Internet I expanded outward. I yearned for connection that only seemed feasible with minute observations sent out into a void. I casted a net and waited, exhilarated by every pull on the line. I searched, addictive for validation. * * *
My father used to show me the T.V. programs that raised him, usually bookmarked by adages about how good things used to be. Commercial breaks were trip gongs. He reared up to remind me he didn’t have that cancerous wi-fi, that mind-melting social media in the halcyon days of his childhood (both pre- and post- impending nuclear holocaust). Then one evening, Ed Sullivan introduced a comedian I had never heard of before:
Here tonight, performing her “I’m Perfect” routine, is Totie Fields! She performed only for me, or a me not yet fully realized, budding soon to blossom. I knew women could be funny—I watched I Love Lucy and reveled in her shenanigans—but I didn’t know women could be funny, adored, dirty. “You’re dying to touch me, aren’t you?!” Totie berated a balding man who’s laughter turned his face beet red. Laughter bubbled up inside me and poured out. I cringed, yet enjoyed this crass salacious observation. I continued to laugh well after the bit was over... because my father wasn’t. He sat stone-faced and immovable. That to me meant everything, because it was my first step into independence. Naturally, I abused it. As a baby-faced latchkey kid, I was used to at least an illusory freedom. Walking home from middle school, I let myself into an empty house, boiled water for boxed mac and cheese, and booted up our household’s desktop computer. I'd created a Facebook account earlier than I should've been allowed. Facebook confused my father; he didn't put much stock in it. "It's a way to connect with my friends," I assured him, and he relented. This was true, of course. I enjoyed chatting with friends, watching the number of them grow each day as more and more finally wore their parents down, letting them make accounts. Initially, I played silly games to pass the time in between homework and getting ready for bed. But soon I posted statuses about what I was doing, what I was reading, watching, or eating. My content was lackluster, but many peers liked my statuses irregardless of what I said. Midwestern boredom often overpowered my more popular peers indifference. Encouraged by the attention, I grew bolder, until I was posting updates like, "I’m all alone! Wish I wasn’t :/ Looking for someone to make out with..." They were sentiments I knew nothing about at that tender, pre-pubescent age. Although, through a lengthy game of telephone tag, a mother of a friend contacted my father and relayed some of my greatest hits. My father didn’t find them humorous at the time. His face reddened when he checked my Facebook, his tongue twisting at the words I let drip, or really spilled, towards the thirsty masses. “You can’t post something like that! Somebody will see it and get the wrong idea!” “When you’re on T.V., you can say whatever you want.” He said. My lack of remorse exasperated him. “Until then, delete it.” My online writing garnered multiple reactions. I claimed the attention I sought, and in this, I became realized. Addicted to the taste of online controversy, I grew up exploring all the annals of social media. That ugly scene between my father and I played out throughout my life: He stumbled across my social media, irate about the things my persona posted. Most recently, he was upset about a Twitter poll I'd conducted: “What’s the horniest Hitchcock movie?” I thought it was a perfectly objective question (North by Northwest, obviously), but it set him off again. “Your Twitter’s been disgusting lately,” he chided, which made me chuckle, but then he went a step further. “I can’t believe it. I already had to go through this with your mother.” I unintentionally laughed at this, and in my father’s fury he hung up the phone. His grotesque reaching surprised me. It was absurd to compare my attempts at Internet humor to my mother’s transgressions. She had cheated on my father, causing their inevitable divorce and a taxing custody battle. On Twitter, I was just role playing a horny idiot in an imagined community. Yet, in the silence following the phone call, I felt the sting of my father's slap. Why did his words suddenly matter? A colorful over-exaggeration, a false comparison designed to hurt. It was wrong. I was not the “loose” woman—the moniker branded on my mother. When my mother cheated, my family hid nothing from me. She was referred to as a slut many times... but I didn’t know how not to become one. I barely knew what sex was at seven. Nobody explained what it meant to use your body for pleasure, to be in control of your wants and desires, and not have them control you. My mother was deprived of her personhood. She was a caricature of sin. Because of this, for many years I felt caged inside myself, unable to separate natural desire from devious betrayal. I internalized a chastity belt and wore it, ironically, as a white flag. I surrendered to this idea that any woman who wanted sex was inherently selfish. Although I enjoyed performative wisdom beyond my years on social media, I grew anxious about any reciprocation. Maybe this is why I let my father choose a college with a convent for me. He needn’t have worried. I would remain prudish during those early years, and I still feel the shame of sexiness. Even so... I still crave the attention, and most days I perpetrate the delusion — a desire for attention and need to keep my body and soul safe — through tweeting, or posting on Instagram, or dating app connections. Most days, anyway. Online, I’m baiting and begging people to love me. I’d be lying if I said I wasn't chasing unattainable adoration. At night, despite the likes and reposts, it's just me, haunting the apartment like a scorned apparition, following a set path that makes no sense. At the end of the day, it’s all a facade—an elaborate performance. When I'm bored of thinking out loud on Twitter, I turn to Tinder or Bumble, where I mindlessly swipe through pictures of guys who are also performing an idealized self more succinctly than I. I displace my disapproval of my own hungry need for adoration by judging the guys I swipe. I'm scornful of men who use dogs in dating app profile pictures. That dog is not doing nearly enough work as you think it is! Sure, it’s cute! How paternal that you have one, etc., etc., maybe you aren’t a murderer after all but I’m still going to need some other insight into your personality. You can still be an asshole with a dog. Also, yes, I’m willing to play twenty questions with you but only if you’re going to actually play the game. No, ‘pics?’ is not a question just because you’ve added a question mark after it. These men's lack of interest in a good old fashioned conversation doesn’t surprise me. (Though many guys show more interest in me than my own family.) Sometimes I meet-up with these men. Some continue the pursuit even after the mindless flirting has ceased. They start to understand how they’ve been misled. I’m not as charismatic as I am online. I’m moody. Frankly, I’m a little bitchy. Sometimes they’ll come home with me, anticipating a revival of the digital character I played so well. I relish it. I enjoy saying ‘no’ to sex. I’m a prude, through and through; any liberation I secure through pointed pleas for praise gets lost when I close the app. Even when I hold people at arm’s length, I crave the connection. In this Oz, I'm not Dorothy. I'm the Wizard. You’re not supposed to look beyond the green curtain. You’re not supposed to see who I really am, or what I really am. I use Twitter and Tinder to build the facade brick-by-brick. I let people think they’re getting to know me when really they’re only privy to what I want them to see. Am I a coward? Idealizing myself so much, I’ve now eschewed reality? I worry that my persona now eclipses the real me. I'm more like her than I've ever been, yet I still don't know who she is. She’s a cowgirl, a witch, a comedian, a vapid, dumb hot girl who exists solely within the confines of her collective. She wears my heart on her sleeve, but it was stolen. She's a reclamation of self, but she's only one piece of the whole. I need this attention to survive. The documentary The Social Dilemma claims social media is destroying our society. I feel torn apart. Can something devour you and feed you at the same time? I posed this question to my followers. They gave me no answers. I spoke it aloud and got more questions. Then, a reality salesman put his foot in the door and asked for more of my time. It was a one night hookup gone awry. This was the third date. I still wanted to keep seeing him. This wasn't what the Internet was for — a catalogue of fleeting moments, a huge collage of interiority strewn about for strangers to find and use. The Internet is not conducive to real connection, right? I rose from bed and sat down at my desk, absent-mindedly putting in my headphones. I wondered if I should write something and felt, as I often do, like bolting out the door. My friends think it's funny that I live tweet everything. One time: about being stranded on the side of road. I got irritated as online people wrongly assumed the tweet was an elaborate hoax, that I didn’t need rescuing (in the end, I called an Uber). I electronically log life so I can remain in it. Tweeting keeps me focused on the present—it doesn’t matter to me, but maybe it will matter to someone. What’s happening? asked the all-too-familiar Twitter tweet prompt. It assaulted me. I stared blankly at the whiteness of the screen. I turned and watched the guy's back rise, imperceptible, falling softly down into the throes of the many pillows I hoard, his head buried. In the blinds' illuminated slits, he was just a carved marble torso, existing all at once, fully realized, yet undone. I traced the light up the wall, slashes on brick, squinting against the moonlight reflecting off the silver crucifix that hung above my bed’s headboard. I forgot I was wearing headphones until Mitski’s guitar riffed, and “Your Best American Girl” blared in my ears. Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me, but I do, I think I do. I thought about tweeting the lyrics, then stopped. My laptop screen grew dimmer before going completely dark. I stared at myself in the reflection of the screen. The music stopped, and I sat in silence. “What are you trying to tell me?” I whispered. A question posed to nobody. It fell flat — a statement. I closed the laptop and climbed into bed. I picked up my phone and started to tweet. |
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Gina TwardoszGina Twardosz is a first year Creative Nonfiction MFA candidate. She has been published twice in the Saint Mary's College literary journal, The Avenue, and she has worked as a journalist for four years. She is a writer of humor and heartbreaking prose, which she balances with working on the occasional screenplay and spending about 20 hours a day online. You can find her musings on Twitter under the handle @okaypompeii.
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