The Case for Falling out of Touch

I See You with Your Lurking Ass

Image Courtesy of Getty

I’ve been saying (out loud and to no one in particular) that I wish we could still fall out of touch with people. As a girl, and now as a woman to Baby Boomer parents, I hear stories about long-lost friends and some well-intentioned and kismet (but rare) reunions. Being the youngest in my family I’m the bridge from the analog to the digital era for all of my close blood relatives.   I long to miss people or better yet, I long to forget about some folks. I’m prone to fits of obsession (this is why syndicated TV is my security blanket). Reruns of Law & Order (the Orbach years), Living Single (the Kyle years), Golden Girls (all the years) and other popular shows from my early childhood allow for me to passively indulge in nostalgia, familiarity, and humor without much at stake. The amount of time spent staring at the TV puts me in a trance-like state that offers me both disassociation from whatever end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it antic is pervading the news cycle and offers me comfort in the well of rote situation comedy or episodic procedural motifs. My personal life is relatively unaffected, perhaps other than thoughts of guilt from evading productivity. Social media, however, the other screen that seems to ABSORB time – is another matter completely.

Since my entrance into using my favorite time-stealing social media app: Instagram, I’ve been hesitant. Not so much about its nefarious nature and its data gathering and exploitation plots, which is another alarming scenario. But I’m hesitant because of its so-called intention of be-connected or to stay-in-touch.  This might seem unnecessarily resistant, but over the years I’ve noticed that people use social media for a lot more than just staying in touch. I know this because I have often, and hear stories about the online strategies that have emerged since it’s gained it’s sweeping popularity. A strategy that I’m not proud of but one that I am not above is: the lurk.  The Urban Dictionary definition of lurking goes:

Lurking

Spying on people online, while you remain invisible.

Even though he claims to be "In a MUCH better place” spends his days lurking online, to see who is talking to who.

Thank you, Meadow, for that usage in a sentence. It’s accurate. And incomplete. There is more to be said for what people are doing quietly, anonymously behind the veil of a screen. My motivations, and that of those who I talk to are shameless: we want to get a picture of what someone is willing to put out into the world.  Many people are incredible visual story tellers who understand image making and can use it as an extension of their values, aesthetics, social practices, hobbies, and interests. In the last few years, I have been fortunate to connect with a few souls who I first came into contact with online. Through just a glimpse of their tastes, they felt familiar, friendly and their use of meme sharing aligned with my rapidly-shifting and evolving Black queer (or queer Black) feminist praxis. Some of these incredible folks have become my friend-friends IRL. This is the blackplanet.com utopia my tweenaged self dreamt of.

Learning about trends, culture shifts, style, breaking (Black people) news and jokes is one way to obsess over the richness of digital culture. I love this part of the looky-loo. What I don’t like about it though is the false sense of familiarity it might bring when crossing the communication threshold aka the DM. The ambiguous ease in responding to people’s slideshows of IG Stories is troubling.  Some people are legit and will likely be talking to themselves in many a DM inbox in perpetuity. I am proud to say, that this is not my problem.  

Lurking, however, is unavoidable in this day and age. For certain of us Marginalized Millennials™️, it’s a slick way to get to know someone you may have encountered briefly IRL. You get a look at whatever credentials they might boast in their bio (a 🚩 for me but a 👍🏿 for others), who you may have in common or their commitment to certain digital motifs. Are you a daily social justice-mutual aid-bikini babe?  Are you a ratchet radical Black feminist who post viral content one a month? Are you a somewhere in-between; a Chatty-Cathy reel making funny motherfucker with an opinion about everything that you just gotta dish it kind of poster?  Or are you the fashionable, 420 friendly TikTok video curator? There are so many iterations. Those are a few of my favorites, but there are others who just make me cringe. And how do I know who I don’t like via 1” x 1” tiles on my overpriced conflict mineral-rich handheld device?

Lurking!