There is an idea called binary opposition that comes out of structuralism. I don’t know that anybody studies structuralism anymore, but in 2016 after 10 years of social media it seems relevant. Social media is narrative building on a global scale that has never been seen before. Humans build narratives constantly and on Facebook or Twitter we can build them together 24×7. Binary Opposition says that two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. It is what we see on social media every day in the arguments that go on and on and on. Every post and argument extends the narrative which sadly is extremely boring and disheartening to most of us. If one side doesn’t have enough people to tell their side of the narrative it can be easily accounted for and efforts can be ramped up by bots. An equal measured binary response. In the digital age there are no lulls in the narrative or no intermissions. At this point I don’t think we are defining what each side of the narrative stands for. The structure of the narrative is more important than the content. The structure defines the elements of the narrative itself based on the corridors of human cognition that we can’t even see. We can’t seem to stop the narrative. The momentum is too great. Maybe someone can tell me how this ends or gets reset? I am not sure we know. This is new territory. Maybe I’m telling myself a narrative and none of this true at all? Maybe, but I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s turtles all the way down, for humans I think it’s stories all the way down. Personally I am going to do what I always do when I am clueless about the world or depressed. Pull out some old world narratives and read them for a few years. Books. At least most of those narratives have beginnings middles and ends.
Tag: Twitter
I Went Looking For My Form
I went looking for my form
My individual aspect
Didn’t find it on Facebook
Despite my best intentions
Wasn’t on Twitter
Checked my DM’s and mentions
Wasn’t in the digital ether
In the mist of one and two
Then I dug a little deeper
Almost all the way through
I found it dwindling and neglected
Dusty and asleep
To my overwhelming shock
It was made of meat
Sinew and bone
Blood making my heart beat
It was not of the virtual alone
The narrative had over taken me
The glowing luminous binary song
But the longing did awaken me
Seeking appeasement of the wrong
Shaking the dust from me
I did slowly arise
Taking an account of me
I slowly opened my eyes
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
Internet Hype Train
Internet hype train
Runs all night
Ignore any pain
Next new thing will get you right
Yelp it at 5 stars
So so good
Cell service is five bars
Instagram posts fast knock on wood!
Don’t stop to think
Engine don’t run on calm
Craft cocktails to drink
Handmade booze balm
Walk past the bathroom mirror
Glance, but don’t slow down
Hey did you hear her?
Next door is the hot place in town
Latest and greatest!
Wait what was that?
Latest and greatest!
Where you at?
Be there next
Leaving here quick
Got to stay in motion
Or I feel a little sick
Wake up tomorrow
Do it again
Don’t feel the sorrow
Ignore the shackles and chain
Gene G. McLaughlin 2015
The Digital World Skinner Box
The digital world Skinner box
Tightly closely in
In moments of clarity we take stock
Of where we are, but have not been
The time Twitters away
Which causes true dialogues decay
There is little left to say
That doesn’t sound like cliché
Step up away from the digital
Step into the physical aspect of today
Gene G. McLaughlin 2014
Emma Bovary’s Facebook Posts
Emma Bovary’s Facebook posts in the modern day
Remain ever misconstrued
Her tweets don’t express the love with which they
Are carefully imbued
That which emerges and disrupts
Might not affirm and renew
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
Words Like Thunder
Words resonated more
Before they were written down
Crashing like thunder
Confined to only sound
Now they are echoes
Lost and found
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
The Glorious Web Of Things
As you look at the flickering profiles
Pictures of food, vacations and babies
Status updates of bright proclamations of joyous lives
Full of that which you may lack
Recall there is no physical timeline
Only where you stand in relation to your feet
Only where you are in relation to the real of it
The solid physical aspect of it
The digital world is a not a fabrication
It is a trick of angles presenting only what side
Looks best on the LCD screen
If your phone is not in your hand
Or you have no followers or likes
You still exist in whole
Your timeline intact and uninterrupted
No screen between you
And that which it so inadequately represents
The glorious web of things that preceded it
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
#140 Characters
140 characters to sum up the day
140 characters to find a new way
140 characters for what I gotta say
140 characters timeline’s slipping away
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013
We Of The Divided Mind
We of the divided mind
Whose digital selves
Diverge from our day to day
Where the blacksmith
Once became
The hammer and tongs
Where the painter
Once became
The ladders and brushes
Where the man
Once became
The actions of his day
We of the divided mind
Whose dual selves
Drift between two worlds
Transverse two identities
Evolving best we can
Seek the moment
Where we become
That thing
We do
Gene G. McLaughlin 2013