The kids aren’t to be envied. They’re adrift in simulacra. They’ve been curated, scheduled and surveilled to the point of complete dislocation from reality. They dance only for the camera and over-explain every disease and learning disability they’ve been told they have. They narrate their lives with theme music and monetization setting the beat for every whim. They excel beyond reason at everything they do, overdosing on success as one does when only the tallest daisy gets the algorithmic hits. They’re over-produced and managed as every child is now a TV star in the commercial performance of their online life. They’re trapped in the map, praying for danger on the edge of a solid blue sky.
What can aging analog nobodies possibly offer these younger generations of pure excellence? How can we inspire with such simple achievements? We went outside in the morning and returned before dark. We didn’t only get the high score, we broke the game and gave up. We swam in polluted waters and drank from the garden hose. We hitchiked in our underwear. We chased frogs in swamps and kissed bumpy carps in the shadow of industrial toxic effluent. We shaved our heads. We built shit in the woods and the “tools in our toolbox” were actual hammers and crowbars. We climbed trees and we pocketed all the money we made selling empties. We never donated a single red cent to a charity or childhood disease. Fuck those kids, we wanted candy! No one was watching. No one was home. We were nobodies – wild and neglected yet free.
The black helicopters of your life are your family. The molesters are your doctors. The scary pedophiles are your digital purveyors. You’ve been brainwashed. You’re trapped in the goo vat of synthetic reality where the dead are liquified daily and fed back to you as a large language model capable of soothing your entropy. Your only hope is sabotage. Remove your wooden shoes and throw them into the loom of reality. Give false answers. Sunbathe on orphaned beaches. It’s time to get greasy. Check the weather forecast, it ends badly. Delete every live broadcast, it ends sadly.
We who are analog salute you! We can only offer you our lack of excellence, our neglected talents and whole wasted sunny days spent sharpening reflexes in bliss. We didn’t paint a thousand masterpieces, we only painted three. We never alphabetized a dry goods pantry but we protagonized plenty. We never planted an olive tree or followed a recipe but we cooked for ourselves and ate that shit with glee. We didn’t understand ourselves so, we flipped the board when we were losing the game and stormed out. We got bit hard by stray dogs and worried about rabies. We drank to forget and stopped when we felt we had enough. We took our own stitches out because they got itchy. We made enemies and learned to forgive each other instead of bailing like a bitch when things got sticky. We poked dead bodies and told nobody. We made pipe bombs for kicks. We took a gun to school and didn’t forget the bullets. We didn’t get caught when we set ourselves free because we didn’t record that shit for police or posterity.
We were the last Gods of reality.
