Creatures of Consumption
The boy sits at his desk, posture unchecked, hair greasy with grease, notching his 4,704th hour in Dota 2 on his ultrawide. On the monitor to his left, his favorite Wednesday streamer smurfs Apex Legends and berates the children defeated by a man employed somehow by video games. The monitor to his right displays his desktop, and underneath the desktop lies a series of incognito tabs hosting furry porn that he's done with for now. He’ll come back to that in just a couple hours, or maybe fifteen minutes.
The boy is 34 and isn’t me.
It's 2:59 AM; the exact time the boy predicted it would be before looking at the clock. Through the THC-induced stupor, he feels something resembling pride, but this is quickly replaced by the acute shamepanic of the knowledge of his life slipping through his fingers. He takes another hit from his dab kit — baby needs his binky. The chemical salve strikes him with that wonderful sharp euphoria which quickly fades into that dull, regrettable oblivion. The boy goes to sleep without a shower, toothpaste, or a kiss goodnight. Who would even give it?
He's back now. Always he comes back. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he’s aware that his life being a permanent recess just can’t work; to solve this problem, he hurriedly inhales into his lungs a fog which travels to his brain and obscures the malevolent truth. He’s on 4chan now, delighting — in only the muted, warped fashion he’s capable of — in his rage at them. You know: those “people”. He’s tired of this now, so he goes back to his life’s work of figuring out how to maximize pleasurable sensations in the present moment.
The boy is 35 and can no longer be said to be anyone.
The girl sits on her couch where friends might sit, if friends on couches were still a thing. She's workshopping her third insta of the day: playing with a new filter which, when she angles her head just right… bit of a pout… oh yeah, now she's hot. No, never mind, can't post that one. She posts it and five adult boys scramble to give the girl the sweet, ego-laced lead she was looking for and yet doesn’t want. What she mainly wants is to play her clarinet again, but it’s been so long, and — well — there’s no money in it. She sips and slurps the last of her Boba tea; slicing the slimy tapioca bubbles clean in half with her front teeth before crushing them with her molars; more sporting that way. She accidentally bites her tongue in the process.
She's lying to a Hinge match about all the bad luck she's had on Raya, which she will never receive an invitation to. Out of the corner of her eye — that damn overflowing sink — she’s given a visual reminder of the myriad ways she’s failing to adult. The related panicshame has only one known cure by this time: the trusty penjamin. She inhales deeply; with the exhale, she releases stress, responsibility, delta 8 THC, and yet one more sliver of a mind which was once so alive. Unburdened by the ability to think more than, oh, an hour ahead, she loads up Uber Eats — thank God for Klarna — and commissions an exhausted African man to brave the rain and bring her her milkshake. That’ll be $53.25… buuuuuuut you could save $2.70 with Uber One! Thank. God. for. Klarna.
She does right by her friends, and o, if only they cared to do the same. She should find new ones; she knows this: but how? When? Where? Is anyone even real anymore? It takes such creative energy to imagine a way out of whatever hole she’s in. She can’t even map the space. She just needs to sleep.
The funko pop collector sits on his bean bag and plays Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which — you betcha — he owns every funko pop and Amiibo for. He’s not being observed and he’s not on his lefty Discords, so he’s free to masturbate to what if Pyra was real and seduced me? Ah, but she isn’t and would never. He has a clear mind now, so he logs on to Reddit to indulge in his seven hours’ hate of the various villainous other which he is forced to share a nation with. He's still in his bean bag.
He’s never struggled with substance abuse; his drug of choice is that most powerful of things: declaring his identity. He is educated. He is a decent person. He has such passion for the brands he chooses to wear on his body and chose to etch into his skin. He cannot comprehend what he might be without these things which let others truly know him. Even if he were something, how would others know it?
His father calls, and the incoming call screen insists upon itself, taunting him with a false dichotomy. He chooses the third door. Another call comes in. His thumb reluctantly plops down onto green, and his father's voice fills the space previously occupied by ambient menu music from his game. He spends an hour speaking to his deplorable father, dealing with the emotional labor of having to tell this “man” such things as how he's doing and how that thing with that girl is going. His phone dies and he doesn't charge it.
The blogger places the final piece of straw in his masterfully-crafted man, and despairs that he has failed. How easy he’s found it to pour all his frustrations at the sicknesses of our world into imagined people who are not him! It’s all much more convenient than doing a single shred of a thing to resolve these existential concerns. No, no: it’s those people responding to their material conditions who deserve the scorn. Can’t you see how annoying they are to him? Why can’t they just be different? Can't you find the pleasure in the sneer?
He logs on to Old School RuneScape and writes these few sentences to acknowledge his hypocrisy, as if that will absolve him. As if he truly believes he needs to be absolved.
And then those things which cannot go on forever finally collide with eventually. This, too, has passed. The bad times have come — or maybe they’re good times, against the odds — or maybe they’re just times. Those with audacity and agency and capital and the hubris to dare to shape the world have seized on the unsustainable contradictions and have molded it as they saw fit. How the boy or the girl or you or me saw fit is not relevant, for we were not part of the shaping.
The boy turns 39 and, facing eviction — the streaming thing didn’t work out and his parents, being that they’re in the ground, can no longer support him — takes a job as a line cook, and my God, you wouldn’t believe how a man’s personality can change with his environment. He loses that job six months later, but he knows now how to move forward.
The girl turns 25 and, facing eviction — gets evicted. Her parents resentfully house her. She is forced into circumstances she knows she is utterly incapable of handling — starting over — but her parents took her vape and her DoorDash account and, if we’re being honest, have overstepped; but adjust she must and adjust she does. She still doesn’t play the clarinet. Life isn’t that clean. She’ll be alright.
The funko pop collector eagerly awaits Donkey Kong Bananza and the birth of his daughter — not in that order. He worries he might be too selfish to responsibly raise a child as he gets a second job to minimize the chances that she ever wants for surety. He needs to and so learns to rely on his parents and, hell, even his father in order to keep his head above water.
The blogger continues to write on things he knows little about, ostensibly in an effort to understand them better. He knows he'll eventually have to stop pointing out problems and start offering solutions. Or stop talking.1
As if.
With such wide ranging and broadly applicable examples you're sure to insult most of your readers on this one, capping it off by publicly denigrating yourself. A fully realized lose-lose strategy. Excellent work. I look forward to the next post.