OMfg Liek ths on FB lol #fleek | Teen Ink

OMfg Liek ths on FB lol #fleek

March 9, 2015
By AustinModdrell SILVER, Maryville, Missouri
AustinModdrell SILVER, Maryville, Missouri
6 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Sure, you’ve got your Facebook and you’ve got your phone,
But stop me now if you don’t like my tone, that’s something you’re not used to, I know.
Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, just faces on loan briefly shown,
I think we’re all dead scared, cause when you get down to it, were all very alone.
Earbuds in, talking to friends, missing the faces and the places, all the bare basics of relations, interaction, Just a fraction of what can happen if you hang up, get a reaction,
Our ears are famines, starving for real words from real lips the same way or skin is starving for the feel of real fingertips.
Not some digital facsimile on a dating site claiming to be “family-friendly”
to some ordinal girl or boy a hundred miles away, when your conversation draws to a close you can’t say “can you stay just a little longer?” cause they’ve been gone all along,
you just forgot to ponder how you lost that sense of wonder
standing so close you can see their follicles, the individual molecules that make their body,
multitudes of detail that alludes this is more than retail rental connection,
these are words with meaning and inflection.
You’ve been overruled by reaching too far out, and a computer doesn’t know how to scream out,
how to shout, three words that mean everything, or illustrate your internal disparity.
If we made eye contact we wouldn’t know where to begin, it’s easier, faster, to cut the laughter,
cue a social disaster, because I can see the laptops opening all across the United States map, so fast the brand name blurs and the stickers slapped on form different words.
You know that where the sidewalk ends is where crosstalk begins, so spare me, I beg you, your awkward apologies, I used the last of my patience figuring out this next slurred analogy.
Just a fraction of what can happen with what you have right in front of you, I’ve been sitting here and seen crystal clear people texting each other sitting in the same room like the oncoming doom of my private rubber room.
If I see something like that tomorrow I’ll admit myself, I’ll sign the papers in my own hand
if I have to borrow my down payment and every single month of rent, ever dollar and every cent,
you may think I’m demented, but when the world goes crazy it’s the sane ones that need a place that will protect them from themselves.
It’s not a coincidence we changed the shapes of coffins since the invention of the telephone,
and now were burying social skills in an Otterbox case shaped like Elvis Presley, and posting how tragic it is “he was gone too quickly”.
I’m watching these games you people play hidden safely behind a screen, and must admit, I’m not too keen, I see how you pull the strings, hidden in the wings, it’s not for me.
I think it’s been two hours since somebody has spoken in my direction. But Facebook updates?
Twenty-seven.
Authors used to spill words on a page, dissect, desiccate, and rearrange their words till it made enough sense that it made enough change in the world to overturn the unconcerned herd of illiterate masses and emerged (undeterred) from the absurd idea
that the written word is to be spoken but not heard.
Now what do you call it? Social media expert? That sounds like a nice word for “professional troll /introvert” posting blogs on the best way to twerk.
Do the world a favor; keep quiet if you’ve got nothing to say.
There’s a screen name chain gang stretched around this planet, fettered to circuitry they don’t understand, safe in the knowledge when you put it in your hand it will do what you want.
Wake up and smell the roses, real ones, take a walk with your own two feet, stop exploring Nepal in google maps.
Go play ball with your kids instead of fantasy football with your fantasy friends.
We don’t have to rely on these bricks of plastic and metal, Americans love  their burgers, but who’s the real  cattle being led onward with the bait of a the newest IOS update
taunting them, their status irate, unheard,
left behind in 3.0, they were too little too late, not caught up in the modern age.
At home you sit watching Netflix, Xbox, Hulu plus, ctrl-alt-select,
when was the last time you really connected
with another reflection of the beliefs you hold in your soul?
You’re blind to the things that really matter,
You sit behind your desk while the world grows fatter
scrolling past news of the latest hate crime like its empty data
But you’ll leap to your feet at the clatter
of your tablet hitting the floor, you’re starting to speak in binary grammar,
it’s happening more since you were promoted to professional programmer.
Get up, get out, I can’t stand the sight of you anymore, come on, this way, there’s the door.
You’re fired from the human race because your human compassion is so poor.

You remember when Bill Nye fell to the floor, inches from the podium,
and nobody ran to help him to his feet, but there were plenty of smartphones  homed in,
I remember last year on a St. Louis street, a guy was being jumped, the video was all over the news,
it was viral for months. But the person behind the camera,
what was going through their head?
Did they try and help or stand there and stammer; “Uh,
this is none of my business, the best I can do is film this, show it to the cops later,
turn it later to turn a blind eye, a favor."
Makes no difference to the fellow on film, he’s dead, and it’s not the mugger that killed him,
It was the fellow who watched from behind his IPhone, he could have helped instead.

Maybe you see what I’m getting at now, maybe it’s started to soak in how
we live in a rock floating through space and we have all of this money with the potential for grace,
but our leaders stand on pedestals preaching about “principle” funding and trade overseas, stocks that only exist as numbers on a TV screen,
when really what they’re doing is trying to save face, and the reasons the pedestal is there is so we can’t see their knees shake.
Deep down I know you’re screaming “Its fake, its fake, I want to wake up, I want to be awake!”
Or maybe you want to peek your head into the real world just long enough to grab it, to hold it, to fold it, shape and mold it, post it on your blog and see how many likes it gets.
We can’t tear ourselves away from Chatroullete long enough to realize there’s a better way to spend your life, how much you can do when you’re out on the street, you being you.
You would rather sit in your room downloading memes of grumpy cat to your desktop, do your best to romanticize, and pretend you have nothing better to do tonight.
And I'd rather slit my wrists than boot up ABC news to see another story about cyberbullying and the high school fight where everyone turned a blind eye, on more f***ing selfie
from a girl just dying to hear someone tell her that she’s pretty.
The greatest truth you’ll ever hear isn’t a viral quote from Tim Burton telling you to “be true to yourself”.
What you need to realize right now is that you are a worm.
You are a worm in love with its own hook, happy to be impaled because even though the worm may be bleeding out, a worm has five hearts, it can spare being torn apart, and it clings all the more tightly because the hook is still better than the fish.
I’m well aware we humans have only got one heart in our chest, but destroying it seems to be what we do the best.
and it doesn't hurt us anymore than this habit we’ve got ourselves stuck on.
Everyone thinks they can change until it’s too late.

You have all traded quality for quantity, and I have friends that honestly,
I’ve seen once in a lifetime, that’s fine by me, just as long as we’re clear they see I expect more than their thumbnail image and a like on my page.
We are not here to add to somebody’s list of followers.
We are not here to accumulate YouTube subscriptions.
We are not here to collapse from this addiction.
The internet is not our pharmaceutical prescription to fix what’s wrong with us.
You have sold your soul a gig at a time, now your storage is taken up and you waste your mind trying to keep in touch as if the internet is some kind of crutch you can lean on and avoid looking away
and realize we need to tuck our children into bed but we have pre-recorded storybooks instead.
That’s a line you should have never crossed, the minute you did that you let go and lost
the link to the next generation, our future, which will never have the memory of their mothers voice reading them a bedtime story.
Tell me how it’s working when you stop to think all this through. I'll be in the real world. Don’t try and find me. I’ve got no time for people like you.



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