Where is The Real World?

Cameras don’t capture the real feelings in a scene. Screens are literally surface levels. And that’s how most get deceived. Now, with creator culture, everyone is inspired to only show their good side on their stream. Which turns the entirety of the web into home-made pornography. The stability and steadiness of life is now compromised by what goes in front of the camera. Set up the scene and click. Real life doesn’t matter. Real connections can wait, the stream and the followers cannot.

Most of society is corrupt anywhere and everywhere by virtue of laziness and alienation. Some say human nature is vicious, some say its greedy, some say its pure, but if you observe it for long enough you see humans are mainly lazy. We seek rewards for minimum effort. And if a reward is available instantly, we keep swiping forever and reach for a snack, instead of getting up and doing the hard work.

This is a very simple story that doesn’t go in many twists and turns. You start with the little kid who is loaded with constant impulses of energy. Animated, energized, ready to go! Breaks shit around the house and the parent get mad but who cares, life moves through him, and he doesn’t know much about the benefits of boredom yet to ever sit still. He is energized and active and mobile to say the least. You get the idea. 5 or 6 decades ago, that little child would have been out playing street soccer or riding his bike all around town for hours non-stop. He would have been getting into fights and learning about physical safety, he would have been making friends, and exploring human connections. He would probably get to bed every night with his energy out, his eyes would shut, and he wouldn’t know it until it is daytime again.

Our protagonist is faced with a dilemma, his parents live in a busy city. Cities aren’t safe. Mom and dad spend all their time at home. They don’t know their neighbors and they don’t trust their neighbors. They love their son so much; they are worried about him leaving the house and getting into trouble. The keep him under their watch at all times. The little child breaks a TV. Goes mad at times, and thinks there is something wrong with him.

Our little kiddo is not allowed outside, only indoors, only within walls. He discovers the web. He discovers the internet. Unlike his parents’ apartment, the internet is spacious. He can go on forever and never reach its end. He is a bit of a genius, so he discovers Wikipedia at first, reads so much his head explodes. He then finds out about Reddit and reads stories of kids like him, kids trapped in their bedroom playing video games and surfing online. He dreams of meeting them in person. He tells his parents that he found out there are other small humans in this world that like to play and break TVs like he does. He really wants to go meet them. He really wants to play with them, they might play basketball and might play soccer and might ride bikes until sunset.

Mom asks if he knows their names, their houses, who they are and why he should trust them.

The little kiddo wasn’t speaking literally but his mom is as literal as it gets. He goes to his dad, repeats the same rhetoric and father said they would be worried about him. Father said the city is not safe and the dangers are grand. Little kid needs to be under watch and parents need to watch. His excitement to find out more about the world outside their walls wasn’t enough for them to drop their fears. His parents here are instilling in him the same fear that got them locked into an apartment in the first place. They were teaching him the fear that would keep him subservient for the rest of his life. The fear that would lock him into a boring soul sucking job, the fear that would lock him into a misaligned marriage, the fear that would lock him into isolation forever. Our little kid might never recover from that fear. It’s now being embedded in him. Every time he brings about curiosity about the world, they put it down with fear and tell him to go back into his room. And in his room he finds his energy surmount and rabid. Conflicted between his organic desires and the context he is born into, coping kicks in. And in this case coping means shutting down his own self energy. Accepting the dullness of prison, accepting the defeat by his parents, accepting the defeat by the dangers or the world, he goes back to his desk and spends hours browsing on that computer screen, his only option for roaming the world.

He goes back to reddit and meets the children his age again, they spark that dream of playing outside in the sun again, he couldn’t help it, he gets excited again and shakes off that fear and confronts his parents once more: I need to go out and play, I wasn’t built to be trapped between walls forever, your fear is yours and my life is mine and I want to spend it playing and losing my mind. Parents remind him of the immense dangers outside and the great comforts inside. Dad gets him a tablet for his birthday, while what he really needs is a soccer ball.

He meets a girl online and now he is on fire. Mom, dad, she is so much like me! I need to go meet her. She is in Thailand, but she is fun to talk to, where is Thailand? How can I go to meet her? Parents laugh for their little kid is not even a teenager and love are starting to pull his strings. And without compromise, they say no another time. But this time they explain, Thailand is thousands of miles away, and he might have better luck if he was a little more realistic and fell in love with a girl living in the same city.

He goes back into his room, defeated again, hopeless and frustrated. Big humans don’t understand love. They are so incapacitated by their routine, and they live such boring lives they don’t take risks. Everyone online talks to him about taking risks. And I want to take a risk.

Dad started travelling for his job. And that meant that little kiddo had to watch himself during the afternoons on weekends as his mom went to the hospital for work. Little kiddo didn’t think much of it at first, but after a couple of weekends a light bulb was lit in his head: He can escape! Not forever, and not far, he can just escape for a couple of hours during the weekend. Go wander the city on his own. He found it on Google maps, there is a basketball field only 3 blocks away from his house, he can go there on his own, and he can meet some more small humans and make friends in real life for the first time.

It wasn’t easy at first and now he had to face his own fears. Was he ready to be out and about on his own? He never crossed the street alone. Now he has to time it all by himself. He remembered his mom always looked to both sides of the street before crossing and always rushed across the street. He planned to do exactly the same, cars were coming from only one side, but he followed his mother’s tactic regardless. Looked to one side and then to the other, repeated the movement a few times even after there were no cars. And then took his first step out into the real world all by himself! How brave! He ran across the street, and he made it safe to the other side. What a feat. His felt the rush. Scary and exciting. He looked up and saw the sun, it was not as pretty as the sun he often saw online. The skies were always brighter online. The real sun he was looking at was obstructed by clouds of dust and polluted air. Nevertheless, he can feel the heat coming from this sun on his skin, the one on his computer screen radiates no heat and leaves his heart cold and isolated. He then saw a fruit stand and thought to himself he should bring cash the next time he escaped, he would have to steal the cash, but that would be justified since it will allow him to buy something for real in real life for the first time. Does he know if his parents keep cash? Does he know where? Questions for him to figure out later.

He walked two blocks down and then three blocks East straight towards the basketball field. What a freeing moment this was for him! The world felt animated around him, and he felt present. His thoughts weren’t latching on to subjects, they were able to move quickly from one thought to another and everything he saw inspired awe and inspiration. A lot of colors and a lot of moving objects and the most important, a lot of people. And the field, the ground was orange, and the racks were a bit rusty exactly like those on Instagram feeds. He saw three kids sitting in the field and his heart started racing. They might become his new friends. His new real-life friends. This is it, an opportunity to make contact with the world outside of his parents’ walls. An opportunity to break free from the damages of isolation. He saw straight into the future. He will escape every weekend until his father is gone. He is going to grab some cash, he is going to buy fruit, walk straight to the field, meet his new friends and they will play games together, they will sweat and hurt themselves and laugh and get tired and then go home and sleep. He caught himself daydreaming and got realistic out of a sudden, if he gets too sweaty his mom would find out from the smell of his clothes that he left the apartment. He might have to be cautious with how much sweat he accumulates on his adventure. Oh and no hurting himself for that would be an absolute disaster for the parents. That would just give them a reason to lock him up even more that they have ever. Alas, he looked ahead and started walking towards connection. He started walking towards the new depth of reality, the new friends, the new company!

The three kids were sitting side by side under one of the racks, they had no ball and didn’t seem like they were playing. Even worse, they all had their heads tilted down zoned in on their phones, scrolling endlessly. He stopped by and said hi. They looked up, they were like zombies, they said hi but it was soulless. He recognized one of them, he is one of his reddit friends. He called him by his name. The reddit friend was slow to respond or recognize the name. It took him a minute to make the connection, and when he did, his reaction didn’t change much. He was dull and lifeless. Everyone seemed to be so.

For weeks non-stop, our little kid would go out to the field and sit there waiting for a real connection for an opportunity to make friends, but all the kids that would show up would have their heads fixated on their phones. No opportunity to make a real connection in this world after all.

Cameras don’t capture the real feelings in a scene. Screens are literally surface levels. And that’s how most get deceived. Now, with creator culture, everyone is inspired to only show their good side on their stream. Which turns the entirety of the web into home-made pornography. The stability and steadiness of life is now compromised by what goes in front of the camera. Set up the scene and click. Real life doesn’t matter. Real connections can wait, the stream and the followers cannot.