Opening Thoughts on a Monday

It’s hard being internet famous.

Even typing that sentence was hard to muster.

It feels counterfeit to even remotely consider myself “famous” by any stretch of the imagination. My presence isn’t the biggest, and what I do doesn’t demand the most attention by your average user, but I am what the locals colloquially call a “micro-celebrity”. However, even with the smallest slice of the internet I have carved out for myself, the pressure of responsibility can be suffocating. You are tasked with always having the right opinion, always knowing when to say the right thing. It stretches out to smaller circles too. Even among friends, you are constantly acutely aware that your opinion is of utmost importance, even if subconsciously. They hang on your every word of praise, condemnation, and contemplation. It’s such a weirdly specific type of discrimination that I can’t talk about directly without sounding like an unabashed narcissist.

Many people believe that I am one. Maybe I should just fill the role they want me to play.

In all honesty I wish I could sometimes. It would be easier than the truth.

Isn’t that always what it comes down to, choosing between what is right and what is easy? I think that’s actually Dumbledore quote. And despite coming from a fictional wizard teacher (and a piece of shit author), that choice has been popping up in my life consistently.

Hardship after hardship, I continue to persevere (barely). And every time I choose truth over what is easy, I feel increasingly authentic to myself and to the people around me. Still, I think my journey is a bit too real for the likes of Twitter and my public image. That’s the reason I am writing to you now semi-anonymously: I believe we are at a crisis of authenticity online. We have been for some time. But there is hope, after a two year pandemic I am seeing small subsets of people slowly come to a realization of just how apathetic and out of touch our culture has become. But we’re here to change that one step and one person at a time. That’s all it takes.

When we get better, when I get better, maybe I’ll step out from behind the curtain. But for now, I hope you can glean something from my scattered ramblings about life, the uphill struggles of mental illness and, with luck, finding a better version of myself every new day.

I hope this reaches you,

Theo