I've
been using Tinder quite a lot lately. I know, how relateable, who
among us has not used Tinder. It's quadruply ironic, first because
dating apps are weird, second because we use it anyway because we
want to have sex, third because we don't want to have sex, fourth
because it's boring to find this stuff ironic anymore. Well, to me,
anyway, but I think the sentiment is shared; all of us are disgusted
by the clutch of relateable topics that hold us together, that
prevent our true feelings from rising to the surface and tearing us
to shreds. The memes, the emojis, and the gifs. Who among us has not
sent a gif; but did you feel the whiplash? The sudden pang of
emptiness, the subsequent guilt, the guilt of self-negation.
We
are alienated from our gifs, comrades, because they do not belong to
us. And this is worrying. Whenever facebook or apple redesigns an
emoji, there's a moment of panic: how could they get this
so wrong? The eyes are too wobbly!
The fact that something you use to know who you are is entirely under
someone else's control is unveiled, and the reality is unbearable.
Where does it stop? How far beyond social media does this go? But
perhaps I am too zealous. I can understand the appeal of sending a
gif, drawn from pop culture and selected specifically for its
efficacy. It's a sure bet. There's no way you can fuck up, socially
speaking, by sending a gif. Everyone will understand you, it was made
by experts for christssake. There's only a teensy, tiny, price for
you to pay: your soul.
For
Kierkegaard, the self is made of three components. The finite, which
means our specific locus in time, space, and possibility, and the
infinite, which means everything we can imagine, think, and could
possibly be, make up the first two components. The self is what they
already are, and what they could be next, and at the impossible space
between the two is the third: the spirit. The spirit is a synthesis,
a becoming, and it can never be pinned down, not even in writing. It
escapes all definition because it is always beyond conceptualisation
which would reduce it to a mere function of the infinite. But
Kierkegaard correctly detects a frightening tendency in our times:
none of us want to be
ourselves. We choose every day to be someone else: to notice almost
only our thoughts and to forget our bodies, to think only of who we
could be and forget who we are, to forget who we really are and just
be like everyone else. A gif is a perfect example of this own
violence against the soul, against the true self. I do not
exist, I am in fact a mirage of forms that have united of their own
will, my consciousness is an accessory to my existence with no
potential and certainly no meaning.
There
is a long history behind gifs, if you think about it. Two twin
traditions, tumblr and the television industry, iterating and
iterating on forms to arrive at increasingly perfect entertainment,
simultaneously shaping the subjects they entertain, a history that
has always been climaxing with its ability to cross bridges and unite
people. Gifs bring us together, everyone can understand them. The
roots of the jokes of modern TV are in the TV of our parents'
generation, we have been trained for this moment.
I understand you, I can say, when I receive a gif, I know what this
means. But if we don't do something, there's one question that will
keep coming back, no matter where we turn or what we say. You'll find
yourself in a room with someone, in a bed with someone, in a marriage
with someone, with one, singular, annihilating question ringing
through your head, as much directed at yourself as anyone else, a
modern sun, illuminating all directions: Who are you?
