What hits distinctly in our post-internet existence is the derealization of common sense, annihilation of collective intelligent thought, and degradation of attention spans. The cybersociety is also warped into farcical proportions by factions of the internet existing seemingly with a tunnel vision of hatred. Mainly, the imbecilic culture of the manosphere and the disgusting girlbossification of society.
When I talk about this disgusting girlbossification of society, I don’t mean to incite antifeminist rhetoric. Quite the opposite, and expanding this complex issue a bit more, I mean to say that there is a difficult landscape for women right now. (Is there ever not?) Legally, we have quite a bit more freedom today compared to the days of old, but with this arguably illusory freedom comes a psychological consequence. Roe v Wade’s overturning and the haunting protoreality of The Handmaid’s Tale harken at a grimness that’s within our grasp. Rather, we are within its grasp. In her incredible book The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf talks about the archetypal “Iron Maiden” torture device (once physical, now mental) that presents itself as an enormous subconscious burden women carry — one that is repeatedly and incessantly drilled into us by the society we live in. Not beautiful enough. Not thin enough. Not pliant enough. Not submissive enough. Not reproductive enough. Now, not productive enough. The burden of “needing to be it all” in a real-time digital public forum creates the perfect atmosphere for our minds and spirits to develop necrosis without palliative care. Parts of our souls, psyches, egos, memories, attention spans will just fall away. Aside from observation and removing the self from the online world as much as possible (which is hardly possible because to live is to live digitally), there is no solution and our cases are terminal.
We have to be on top of everything; we have to grind, hustle, slay sis, get that bag girl. A 24/7 spectacle of toxic overwork, burnout that leaves no time for rest or true self-reflection. It is all broadcast for the world to see, in real time, on our socials. We can’t escape the technological gaze any more than we can the male gaze. Introspection is largely a thing of the past. Our leisure time keeps getting erased. Success by contemporary mainstream capitalist definition can be a wonderful thing, but the overwork and overexposure that comes with it robs one of leisure time and peace of mind. Conveniently, those aren’t values highly regarded or prioritized in our oversaturated world. We’re valued higher if we can keep our virality, and in an algorithm of intermittent reinforcement, keeping our virality becomes a herculean task, a Sisyphean burden. We're valued higher if we're constantly producing, hustling, grinding, neglecting much-needed rest. To me, it's not a compliment if someone says they're proud of my/their/anyone's "hustle" and ability to grind it out for long periods. "Why haven't you posted in so long?" "Why don't you come out with us more?" "Where did you disappear?" "When is the next one?"
What is so wrong with allowing ourselves time and space to rest and recover from burnout? We all have different levels of stamina. For me, it is not just helpful but essential, critical, necessary to rest. I need constant chill days to recalibrate from years of mental and physical traumas to my nervous system.
Tell yourself this until it becomes an ingrained truth. There is nothing wrong with being unproductive. End this fuckin nasty ass hustle grind productivity culture and toxic consumerism. Be a sloth. Have less stuff. Put in the bare minimum on societally programmed indoctrinations of self-abuse, and put your heart into values you care about instead. We exist in this system that perpetuates overachieving/burnout, rewards psychopathic amounts of work, and looks down on resting. I'm not saying to become an ensconced shut-in hermit or to use this principle as an excuse to be a complete bum. Sometimes it's good to be a bit lazy though because our generation is highly overworked. Contrary to popular boomer belief, the younger generations are not lazy: we're traumatized by capitalist grind culture. We have one (1) life on this planet and putting in 80hr workweeks isn’t a flex, it’s just sad. Enduring 12+hrs of screen time is sad.
The mental health industry logistically cannot keep up with the rate of neurological damage happening to our brains on digital addiction. This is a recent phenomenon; the speed of technological expansion far outpaces the sluggishness of human evolution and meager attempts at adaptation. The singularity is already here, and in this technohell we Girlboss, gaslight, gatekeep. Even our memes, aka our new educational systems, spotlight how strange and farcical the girlbossing concept is.
I recently went down a rabbit hole of civilian female YouTubers talking about OnlyFans, and the women in question were all derisive of it, saying it was “unfeminist” and “unempowering” and a slew of other things I don't wish to repeat, whilst sitting on their high horse as total girlbosses who (while still sexy, but not a whore way duh,) by default must be on more enlightened moral ground than anyone irredeemably adjacent to the sex industry. That is some leaky SWERF energy for you. SWERFs are sex work exclusionary feminists. They are among the most warped minds online today. SWERF ideology claims to call to action rhetoric against human trafficking, yet fails to distinguish that there are sex workers who choose to join this line of work on their own autonomy, choice, agency and will. If that is overly redundant, that is because it needs to be said one, two, three, four times. Some individuals align themselves with sex work on purpose. Does this threaten or offend you?
This type of SWERF-ic mental gymnastics dovetails sex work with sex slavery, which is harmful both to sex workers on their own volition and victims of trafficking both. Certain "feminist" ideology claims to represent women of color, have class consciousness, be allies, etc, appearing intersectional, but true intersectional feminism would allow pleasure and volition (not just injustice) to factor into their perception of sex work. What truly would disrupt the industry is not civilians who have no business speaking on this (borderline sex work tourism), but more heartfelt media from within the SW perspective.
An OF subscriber of mine requested I write something about “the manosphere" (and its offshoots like MGTOW and NoFap) as symptomatic of backlash due to a lack of space to discuss positive masculinities. You seem to understand vulnerabilities of your subscribers and also want to humanize them. Perhaps you are uniquely well placed to consider what heterosexual men need in contemporary culture without being “redpilled” about it?) I gather this warrants a multi-part article, with part 2 coming shortly. Meanwhile...
MGTOW, incels, NoFap, … it’s a bunch of unhinged misogyny couched in pseudoscientific rhetoric. Going on those corners of the internet is enough tp give one a migraine and should come with a medical warning. Do I have to explain this in detail? I would like to quote a YouTube comment:
"Leanmaxing and looksmaxing really feels like terms you’d use to describe character stat growths in Fire Emblem or Persona or something, these people really think they’re living in the Matrix or a video game. It’s kind of impressive how far into their delusion they’ve worked themselves, but also kinda mortifying lmao"
What the hell. I have learned terms and concepts that I wish I could unlearn, and seen things I wish I could unsee. The incel echo chamber is probably one of the most deafening. Go in blindly and callously looking for something to casually research and wind up completely destroying any sort of healthy perception of people -- I do not question why some women fear men even more than I do, and I can't imagine the feelings and thoughts of a man going into these incel corners of the internet, reflecting what his brethren have become. Well, I kind of can, now that I've seen FDS (Female Dating Strategy) and SWERFs.
Female Dating Strategy is no better: at first glance it may seem like an empowering system — high value females looking high value males, ok — until you reach the core of its design which is as uninclusive and damaging as incel culture. The concept of “high value” dating is also laughable in how seriously they take it. It's essentially parsed as such: if throughout movie and media history a 5 like Simon Pegg can pull a 10 like Megan Fox, Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow (in her prime), Jonah Hill and Emma Stone, and so forth, why can't it be the other way around: average looking women attracting perfect specimens of a male and settling for no less -- is it better, therefore, to be pathologically alone awaiting with blinders the mirage of the rich and handsome knight? Still, as fucked up and weird as FDS is, it's not nearly as directly dangerous as incel culture, which has physically harmed women. If FDS is a reaction to incels and negative male rhetoric, it does nothing to create a space for male positivity and improvement.
In a society already plagued by looks and status, FDS only further perpetuates the shallowness of our current culture. Yes, we all want a wonderful dating partner and a meaningful relationship with someone who is good looking, wealthy, and well put together, who values us genuinely. In my own personal life, I am very happy with my partner -- I feel accepted even with my flaws and I echo that sentiment back. It took a long time for me to even get to a place where I could be in a relationship and share my life with another; the personal work and shadow work was not easy, but entirely worth it. A relationship is like a mirror that magnifies the depths of our psyche. What does it say about us if we reject anyone but our inexistent ideal of perfection? In what world do we expect to hold out for a seven-figure male with all the characteristics of Prince Charming? Referring to men as "scrotes" in the same way blackpilled cretins refer to women as "femoids", FDS ideology is akin to incels negating the qualities of real women in favor of their projected ideal of the porn star/supermodel/girl next door/unspoiled virgin hybrid, a chimera of all possible attractivenesses that could never realistically exist.
My takeaway from e-societal observations, the bottom line in this written piece, is that no one wins. There is no win. Not for the men. Not for the women. No one inbetween. We all contend with dystopian cyberburdens and have unique crosses to bear, traumas to live through, weird kinks to conceal, post-traumatic troubles to project. The metaphysic of a 2D life for a 3D being is a harsh one.
For women especially, trauma and pain seem to be fetishized. Yes, men draw a losing straw as well, in the way that their expression of perfectly normal human emotions is stigmatized, but they are not critiqued as harshly as women. They are not doxxed, erased, emotionally harmed, physically harmed, raped (men can be raped, but those cases are extremely rare), murdered, objectified, dehumanized as much as women. When a woman takes control of her narrative and her sexual proclivity, it is seen as threatening. Burn the witch. Cancel the e-girl. Even other women, like the aforementioned SWERFs, villainize those they find uncouth. Society pits us against each other. This is truly tragic because now more than ever we need deep sisterhood. We need deep self-reflection and healing. Who is the woman you resent? You will become the woman you resent. Befriend your future. Do not escape aging. It's beautiful.
I do believe we may be heading, eventually, at a snail’s pace, into a more matriarchal system. “This is the future liberals want” meme. Still, there is a massive erasure of women’s historical contributions to civilization. The ones we all know — Cleopatra, Marie-Antoinette — are somewhat of a spectacle. To be a woman is to be a spectacle. There are so few historical perspectives on cultural criticism from a woman’s point of view. The works cited list in my Cyberhorny PDF lists mostly men from Adorno to Zizek, with few exceptions: Sherry Turkle, Sylvia Plath, Anais Nin, Emily Nagoski, and aforementioned Naomi Wolf. We are more driven to want to become online celebrities and chase the dopamine-ridden craving of going viral (Watch YouTube video: “TikTok Is Worse Than You Thought”), than to become writers, teachers, students, scientists, engineers, philosophers, critics, thinkers, quiet observers of reality. Perhaps there is a way to be both. Lure them in with boobs, butts, and salacious titles, and then unleash the discourse. I want to say this now, because fake it till you make it, and like attracts like, and the Secret told me to. I am a philosopher, I am a cultural critic, I am a girlboss rising. Just a lecherous cur building her empire. They hate to see a Girlboss winning. (My laptop, btw, started to auto capitalize the word “Girlboss”.)
In the future, articles like this will not only be more common, they will be more widely studied with appeal and fervor. My egoic wish is for Cyberhorny to be taught, preserved, and presented. Even more so, I believe my work and my existence represents something larger than myself — the un-smothering of the free cyberwoman by society’s outdated rules. I would without a shadow of a doubt consider myself a feminist. A feminist, bimbo, whore, jezebel, genius, sex goddess, virgin, healer, destroyer, slut, idiot, athlete, girlboss, chitch, unpaid intern, icon, legend, useless pixellated space of nothingness. To quote Maeve from Westworld, "in the new world you can be whoever the fuck you want to be."
The proverbial Iron Maiden continues to smother us. Female empowerment is delicate, fragile, vulnerable to predators. As the manosphere gets more toxic and misogynistic sites attract more men, we are in a very strange position as providers: online men are our clients who we want to hold to make an income, yet they can also often be causes of our rage. There is also an epidemic of male loneliness which creates an opening for sites like OnlyFans to either exploit the subscribers, or cater to a real need: that of personal parasocial connection. It’s a real gold rush in which it can be hard to discern which provider/model is sincere, and who is just there to aimlessly scam men out of money. As providers, the majority of us want to be kind and hospitable, holding space for personal conversation and deep discourse.
The digitization of transactional sex spurs many emotions in men, ranging from happiness to horny joy to deep sadness to livid rage at females controlling their own income stream, and even more so, their own sexuality. Of course there will always be despicable e-capitalists who sign on to spam shitty, low-quality content, and practice abominable business techniques that give honest creators on OnlyFans a bad name. Navigating these personal dystopias becomes a prominent issue in online sex work. Male rage. Female rage. Male sincerity and emotion. Ethics. Authenticity. Deception. Helpfulness. Anger. Greed. Joy. Fear. Non binary, queer, trans perspectives — I do not have enough subscribers like this to warrant an analysis, so primarily I am writing about the male and female binary until I develop a closer view. In the future, it’s likely that gender will be merely an afterthought, as it is ultimately a performance, but needless to say right now we live in a very gendered world. A deeper take on this I have experimentally collaged in Princess on Vacation, a student fantasy film I made about life in the year 2121 under a totalitarian utopia. What is even next? Will we make it to 100 years from now as a civilization with our integrity and mental health intact? Absorbing content from a funhouse of filters, affirmations, and toxic positivity creates cognitive dissonance and an invalidation of our emotional reality. Why do we do the things we do?
There's a difference between following a passion + being inspired to move forward by it, vs arbitrarily churning shit out to add to the already extant oversaturation of data out there. As it is, people with vision that is not so easily digestible have a hard time in this "seven-second attention span" dominant culture. It's hard to stay motivated. Feelings of alienation arise often in the line of work that directly makes money from the internet. Motivation, inspiration, discipline, and drive become a quadrant of shame-oozing personal hells.
Nothing is normal. There is no normal. No one is a positive self-loving life-affirming activist 100% of the time. Add elitism and comparison to this soup of bleakness, and it becomes a swamp. These things are catalyzed progressively by social media apps, especially Tiktok and Instagram. Tiktok has without a doubt lowered the average IQ of the entire population and turned mental illness into QuIrKyy tRenD, where every other chitch is a self-aggrandizing wellness expert. Instagram has us willingly trapped in a world of filters and "aspirational" promo-farce. The e-Stockholm syndrome that holds us hostage: is it more useful to escape it, or adapt to it? The pandemic didn't help either. Socially awkward and insecure dudes ... thotty egirls foaming at the mouth rabid for validation and likes ... children coming of age in the time of app dominion ... denizens of our own private mental hospitals in lockdown for extended periods of time with little to no human interaction. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Just avatars of avatars of avatars of ourselves, reflections of our personal egoic illnesses.
Spoiled petulant pathetic brats, useless drivel
The architects admit and regret
Integrated studies, but we ignore it
We all know logically that these apps diminish our self worth, attention spans, sense of reality, etc. but we are hardwired both societally and psychologically to not be able to quit them. In what world will we able to break the cycle? Is it coming soon, or are we too late, forever submitting to the insentient apps and machines that so tactically subjugate us?
Good day -- see you next time for Part 2 of this article.
Issues that should concern us all. Thank you.