Heesun's Table #20: Bubble
It would be callous not to address the inhumane atrocities immigrants in the United States are currently facing. If you are able, please consider donating to a cause that helps support immigrant communities. I will link a few here that I have made personal donations to. I hope you follow suit or find an alternative way to be involved and stay motivated towards action during this tiring, overwhelming time.
CHIRLA - The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights
NDLON - National Day Labor Organizing Network
CARCEN LA - Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles
For my New York friends - please go out and VOTE! Do NOT rank Cuomo - keep that bigot out of our city. Go out and phone bank, canvas, and support leaders that actually want what’s best for our community.
Everyone can be connected online with minimal effort, thoughtlessly, and almost instantaneously. In this exact moment, the world and all of its peoples are more easily accessible than they have ever been in human history. We can make calls around the globe with one touch of a button - a tap, really. Scammers can wire money without Visa gift cards, U.S. national security leaders are responding with emojis in Signal group chats, concerning airstrikes in Yemen. Gone are the days where ask.fm and Kik were the main vessels for young tweens to share who they like in their fifth period - even tumblr has lost itself in the connection race. We are moving fast. After anything of remote significance occurs, we post about it on our stories, we direct message our friends, and we bask in our little bubbles of the internet, instantly.
I’ve always had a mixed relationship with the internet, a shared sentiment among most Gen Z/Millienials who grew up as social media, specifically, came into fruition. Instagram came out when I was still in middle school, and Facebook had long held its rank as the top social media platform, and that positioning didn’t really budge until late high school. Before Substack, I’d make similar lengthy posts on my Facebook account about curious encounters, frustrations with whatever I was upset about that week - as that frequently changes when you’re a teenager. Instagram B.C., Before Commodification, was a place where you’d share sepia-toned photos at the mall, sporting your new Victoria’s Secret Pink leggings, or sharing screenshots of funny tweets that Rihanna probably posted.
To see such a dire change of course for both platforms is completely mind-boggling. Instagram, now as one of the main vessels of commerce, and Facebook, a haven for extremist groups that cast their opinions to the world. TikTok and ChatGPT, I won’t even bother getting into it. For all of this to occur over the course of some less than fifteen years, is jarring.
Instant connection is jarring. We are exposed to everything, all the time. Beyond social media, you can text or phone a friend who’s halfway around the globe at any moment. International messaging charges are a thing of the past for anyone with a WiFi connection. Such convenience has its perks, of course. I write this while in utilizing Whatsapp and iMessage everyday in Korea. Still, part of me is unsettled by the grasp this instant connection has on all of us.
There are moments when I’m in certain parts of South Korea where my signal is canned, I have no WiFi, and I have to linger on without connection. Friends here have mentioned getting an ESim card, or buying portable WiFi routers when that happens. Even though it happens quite frequently, I haven’t bothered. I’ve surprisingly enjoyed those moments of disconnect.
After all, the world has been reeling, thrashing about with aggravation - concerning foreign affairs, imperialism, disgusting violent acts claimed to be for the benefit of all. We get new information as soon as it’s available, the abysmal especially fast. There hasn’t been a day where I’ve checked the news and have been alleviated by my own developing hopelessness, fatigue, and dread.
If you’re in my bubble of the internet, you get constant reminders that “this is what they [the other side] wants us to feel in response to the incessant news cycle of negativity.”
“They [the other guys] want us to be paralyzed in fear.”
“They [those really bad bad guys!!] want us to do nothing! We must be sustainable! We must push through! We must we must we must!”
— I get it.
But how horrifying is it, as a collective, that we have become so incredibly desensitized to genocide, to war? To read headlines proclaiming the U.S. is at war with Iran, and somehow still continue to perform normalcy in our day to day lives?Especially in a post George Floyd world, people are fearful of doing the right or wrong thing online. What is performative, what is okay to post, what is actually making a difference? Are these info graphs actually making a difference?1
In a society where power is so easily abused, where the big bad guys always seem to win, and the vulnerable only become more susceptible to hurt -
How can we make a difference?
Being away from home forces me to view the current situation in the States from a removed position. More and more, I see the bubble-like qualities of America. I feel my own prejudices and other preconceived beliefs, born out of my own American-ness, reflected back at me in Korea. I see the bubble of social media. I see the bubble of New York, of Korea, even. There is a clear boundary between each of them, separating experiences and containing their inhabitants to their enclosed realities. Such entrapment becomes just that - a trap. We fall for the ideas circulating within our little spheres, fearful of whatever it is outside of our designated “safe” zones. There is an aversion towards understanding, accepting realities outside of our own. The fear within all of us is palpable, no matter what party line you are a part of. How strange, considering we have the resources, the instant communication that you’d think would bring us closer together - not make us cower in fear of each other, of our differences, and tear us apart.
Photographs taken from the Vietnam War played a major role in ending the war. I scroll through my feed and find half starved children, only to be met with an ad for a skincare product immediately after. We are connected, we are seeing more than we were ever meant to see. Where is the solution in such connectivity, overexposure? Yet how can we not feel fatigued, battered? What are we supposed to do?
I don’t know.
The more I’ve accepted that I don’t know, the more ease I’ve felt with the situation. Surrendering to the truth that what we are experiencing right now is horrifying, debilitating to many, helps me maintain a semblance of humanity. To witness the complete absence of humanity blunted onto immigrants, those in Gaza, Iran, should feel temporarily paralyzing. To fasten the processing of such emotions in efforts to mobilize can be useful for some, less so for others. I believe there are many ways to get involved in the fight while also assessing what it is that you can contribute that will have a meaningful impact. Such contributions require critical thinking, self reflection, and time. Especially in periods of prolonged crisis, time is of the essence - of course. This does not mean, however, that we should misuse our time, or rush into action without understanding what the action we’re taking really is.
“He realizes that the things that are so important to him—the things that happened, and that he saw there, the things that left him feeling that nothing would ever be the same again—they just aren’t important here. Those things have no reality here. That’s what it feels like. So it makes you feel slightly insane or something, to have those things inside you, when they seem to have no reality here.”
Flesh by David Szalay
This passage from Flesh by David Szalay was partly why I started writing this post. In this selection, the protagonist István, is a young Hungarian man returning home from the army. The matter-of-fact tone throughout this book has captivated me in a way that The Coin didn't2, and I am savoring it as I near its end. I especially was taken by this description of realities, the importance of such realities in one environment only to be rendered meaningless in another. “To have those things inside you, when they seem to have no reality here.” can be felt by every person, I believe.
A follow up post with brighter tones will be sent out in about two minutes after I finish this one. I don’t want to call it a palate cleanser, that feels wrong.
Again, this is from my side of the bubble. Let’s remind ourselves that that’s another freaky thing about this instant connection of the internet, it is tailored to you. And it wants to hold you down.
Both books have very different styles and plots, mind you. Not a dig! Not a dig!!