I published my first story on Medium yesterday, ostensibly under the label of poetry despite lacking any technical poetic elements other than me saying “Fuck you” to punctuation and grammar and everything I’ve been told my whole life about how to write. To date, it’s got one view but those few hours where it had zero views were the best and worst times of my life. I oscillated between relief that no one read my, frankly, embarrassing excuse of personal expression and an ever-present profound sense of inadequacy, of crushed dreams, of “of course” “of course no one wants to read it” “of course no one will see it”. On the one hand it was freeing, 0 views was proof I wrote for me and no one else — proof that I finally, in some small way, escaped the bureaucratic-educational complex that’s owned my body, thoughts, and writing for the past 16 years. I won’t get paid for that poem, I won’t get into college because of it, few except me will read it. But all of that doesn’t matter.
In the immortal words of Lady Gaga,
I live for the applause, applause, applause
It turns out, as any therapist or self-help book will tell you — that’s not a very good way to live. And — if the cold-brew drinkers and productivity masters of Medium have taught me anything — it’s not a very good way to write either. Of course, capitalism and educational bureaucrats give little thought to the immortal wisdom of Markdown users. Nearly from birth I was taught that my value was directly linked to other’s perceptions of me. Anything I wrote was, on its own, not good or bad until it was evaluated. Until I was told to excise it of bedeviled adverbs. Truly, my writing, my voice, any abstract sense of me was judged in the Court of public and professional opinion. The Clap-o-meter had replaced the Scales of Anubis and the early schools of thought of Socrates and eastern counterparts as the arbitrator of value.
This attitude, combined with the general decline of creativity and self-expression in modern totalitarian-adjacent public education largely led me to hate writing. Throughout my childhood I was a voracious reader and I had thousands of ideas. Alternate endings and inventions and magical worlds. But every time I attempted to put a pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) the flaws became immediately apparent. The “no ones” creeped in. No one wants to read about a school for ghosts, or my commentary on current events, or haikus about the really cute boy I met. My “voice”, whatever that is, has repeatedly been deemed by the Clap-o-meter as unworthy. Dually, it’s been largely disregarded when I speak up about issues that matter to me. The thoughts and grievances of a 16 year old with no followers, no significant monetary or legal resources, and no stunning world-changing manifestos are…unneeded.
But, you know what, fuck them. My very existence as a queer person is already a big “Fuck you” to society. I’ve clung to the capitalistic, patriarchal, and hierarchical structure of “wait your turn” “eventually you’ll go to college” “people will care then” for too long. I hope this gets 0 views (that’s taking it a little far, years of programming mean any view or clap will give me a whole lot of serotonin).
My writing doesn’t need to be perfect to deserve to exist. It costs me nothing but time to brain-vomit my thoughts onto a page. If anything, in the long run it’s probably helpful for improving my skills.
But I digress, time to refocus.
It doesn’t matter if Medium emboldens me to throw away grammar conventions and makes my writing “worse”. Because, very likely, most of the writing I do outside of here will never be my own. All I’m really doing here is making a (poor) copy of my brain, sending funny-shaped soldiers marching across the page, laying down my claim to have existed. Exercising my human right (and indeed duty) to scream into the void.
Sure, I would love if I started to get followers. Just like I love when my op-eds are published. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to shake the idea that the worth and value of my voice is proportional to it’s reach. Of course, in our modern zeitgeist, claps and views and followers do determine the power of my voice. I want that so so badly. For my words to be powerful. That might never happen, it might happen tonight. I guess we’ll see.
Writing this next part I don’t even really believe myself, I don’t believe my therapist, and I don’t believe all the writers on Medium promising to bring me personal growth and enlightenment who preach much the same:
Regardless of if it’s powerful or not my voice has value.
Even if it’s only to some future anthropologists seeking insight into the strange behavior of Earthian Internet Age homo sapiens.
At the very least, if I ever need motivation to write, I’ll look back on this and remember the visceral love I have for saying “Fuck you” to society. Remember the satisfying dreams of how I imagine all the people who told me I couldn’t will react when I do.
For the people in the back,
Fuck it. I’m going to be…
Scratch that.
Fuck it. I am a writer. And you better believe I’m going to be annoying about it. The thousands of words I write every day in emails, texts, etc. will be reincarnated here, the site of my official cloud-hosted brain.
