social medium

by Gerald Lynch

My latest postings have only the one Like and zero Comments. The lone Like is my own. I’d have commented too. Only that’s not the way it works. Why no independent Likes and comments? I have thousands of friends. Tens of thousands friended and unfriended over time. Am I losing contact with my connections?

On my fave sites I posted a straightforward Q. When will Taylor Swift be dropping a divorce song?

I believe that in the coming year there will be a crisis in her relationship. Perhaps in her marriage. Depending. Just like the old days. Soon afterwards the song will drop. If history is any guide. Which a posting in a book I once read thought it should be. I didn’t want to come across as too fatalistic. Cynicism can kill hope of a thread developing. People want to feel good about themselves and the world. Understandably so. I’m the same.

I had streamed a football game. The camera frequently focused the fiancé. The hulk in uniform number 87. At every opportunity the shot showed Taylor in the VIP booth. There had been much excitement following the original hooking up. A chipmunk orgy of online chatter among the Swifties and some jocks. Pics both real and AI faked. Heated disagreements threatening unfriending. My fave fake had the boyfriend’s face on a football. Taylor, attired cutely in his numbered jersey, is about to boot it. That had inspired my Q.

In the Plexiglas booth Taylor acted like she was into the game. The old jock announcers acted embarrassed. They did reveal that the footballer’s pet name for her is “Tay-Tay.” That lit up all my sites next day. The high-school football star dating the most popular girl. A story conceived in cyber heaven. Surely Taylor Swift had been a cheerleader.

The new boyfriend appears to be a potential long-term fit for the astronomically famous Swift. Though even the football star’s considerable fame is no match for her uber-stellar status. His star’s rise is a cart-hooking effect. Which must hurt whatever pride he has left.

Their looming relationship disconnect also encouraged my Q. But nothing in response? I continue baffled and worried. A touch hurt. Authentically so.

I could have asked instead why the Kansas City football team is allowed to call itself the “Chiefs.” And said I was offended. Or it would have been nothing to pick a side in any of the wars raging all over the web. Or post a radical view of a growing crisis. Say, the one in masculinity. Or deny grocery shrinkflation. Doing any of which would have excited a holocaust of inflammatory commentary. Verbal and visual. With high likelihood of a burning-turd emoji. It would have taken me a whole day to respond to comments. And attend to follow-up replies. But I didn’t do that. I went for entertainment buzz. Is it possible that Tay-Tay’s relationship life has passed its sell-by date?

Whatever, I am now paying the price in instant isolation and threatened anonymity. What can be done?

Normally I spend mornings visiting fave sites. Afternoons commenting and responding to replies. I have three preferred. TikTok. YouTube. And X. We must respect Mr. Musk’s preference. Otherwise disrespect will rule. Then we can forget about commenters honouring our own posted preferences respecting personal pronouns.

Upset over the absence of responses to my post, I turn to PornPlanet.

I determine that this afternoon will be different. I will go out.

It is a Sunday afternoon. Sunny. I walk past the park. The tulips look a little less unreal than last time I walked out. I pass a couple of dark old churches dwarfed by surrounding glass-and-steel. At the second, the front doors are wide open. Organ music and shrill singing issues forth. The scene is like an old YouTube vid. A tumble weed could tumble by. Those who still attend church services need the reinforcement to stay off PornPlanet. If true, that need is dwindling. Posting such an observation of the crisis in religious observance would likely get no response either. Unless framed in terms of wasted valuable inner-city real estate. And so also the crisis in homelessness.

This feels different. This getting out. This moving about. But is it a good look for me?

My studio apartment can sometimes feel like a … Well, like something. Like something cramped. Like a … I really don’t know what to comment on this topic. I’ve never been good posting with metaphors and/or similes. Such imagined comparisons strain for connection. Such rhetoric masks real differences. Just as every commenter is different. We must recognize and respect those differences. I once posted that last meme. It was in reply to something. The generous responses were uniformly favourable. Not quite viral but much shared. That’s the way communication works when it’s working optimally.

The young woman ahead of me downshifts from jogging, to walking, to shuffling. I slow. She wears black yoga pants. Which would make it even easier to see her as naked from the waist down. Would because I don’t. I require no mental exertion not to. This has nothing to do with the condition of her body. It’s that post-PornPlanet I see women as more attractive fully dressed. At first, with my brain still crammed with graphic close-ups, I have to concentrate to see them covered. Clothed that is. Because on a Facebook farming post I learned that “covered” is a term for breeding.

The person before me does display a lovely bum. As if shrinkwrapped. Further exposed it and she would be indistinguishable from all the others on PornPlanet. That is not a comparison but a comment on how best to use internet porn to enhance wellness.

I have discovered an interest in fashion.

I inhale sharply. Coming towards me is a woman in a pale print dress. She looks good. I gaze as she passes close. An older woman. She doesn’t appear to mind my gaze.

What if I had stopped her on some pretext? Excuse me, ma’am, I’m a tourist here, I’m not trolling, could you tell me where Confederation Park is, or is it mademoiselle? What might have happened? I cannot imagine. Such an event could make for an exciting posting. It would take some work with words to represent it engagingly in a non-sexist, non-triggering way. A short vid meme would help. For example, she could look back. Our gazes connecting as in some old Hollywood vid or ad for a dating site. Romance still works online. No. Not for me.

I should have showered this morning. I haven’t for days.

The Jesus person in his usual place reminds me of something. Through a bullhorn he raves about nothing. He doesn’t solicit pedestrians. He broadcasts into the bright empty air. I don’t pause but slow to hear if he’s connecting in any way. He is saying that a war somewhere is a clear sign of the end times. Which he welcomes. Here and now he doesn’t even begin to connect with the passing show. He might have a chance at exciting response. If he had his own private space and good connection. Even with his radically cynical talk. Connections can respond well to extremism. People still believe in the power of a meme to provide meaning and identity. I once posted that idea. I got only one response. It advised me to fuck off with my trolling bullshit negativism. Live and learn.

The real Jesus also believed the end was nigh. What might he have accomplished with good connection? What if he had been fact-checked? We would know the historical truth about him. What he really did and said. Who he really was. Even if he really was. I expect the first event to be cancelled would be that whole rising from the dead fake.

His muddled “Blessed are” recording could be cleaned up with Peter Jackson’s wizardry. But had Jesus had connection, Mr. Fact-Checked Christ would himself likely have been cancelled even earlier by the Sanhedrin and Romans. No one on my sites would be offended by this speculative posting in alternative history of religion. It could well develop into an extended thread. I must remember this when I return to my private space. I will have to concentrate. Focus. Try extra hard. I’ve been finding it increasingly challenging to do so. I might suggest that that Ken Burns make a feature doc about Jesus Christ’s story.

I remember why I’m out here. I am looking for something. Something real. To “get real,” as a couple of my connections are always poking me. But where to go?

The tulip park made me think of the climate crisis. The Jesus freak of the crisis in belief systems. The woman in yoga pants of the crisis in masculinity.

The least of those crises attracts me back to the park. I believe I’m secretly hoping to get lucky. How specifically I’m unclear. Hope is an invaluable commodity. Luck rules. Keeping secrets no longer has currency. It speaks to dissociation neurosis. A-k-a the old obsession with personal space. Full disclosure: the ideas immediately preceding are from others’ postings.

The woman in the pale print dress from earlier is sitting on a black iron bench. Reading a book? Someone once posted a pic like that on LinkedIn. It was all unfocused. An ad. For a perfume called “Old Fashioned.” The text said, “Remember the good old days? Old Fashioned will take you back to a time when men were men and women were women!” I don’t know why I remember that. In the pic there was a vaguely drawn male off to the side looking at the female. The ad worked nothing on me. I’m not a troll. I don’t remember any such good old time. How could I want to go back there?

Someone once posted on Instagram that we must learn from our mistakes. And move forward. If we are to get past the current crisis in male-female relations. A self-described Trans responder posted “No, thanks! Our community is doing just fine thank you!!” They was gifted a bunch of LOLs and happy emojis. No, wait. That is not what happened. Correction: the original poster didn’t say “move forward” but “going forward.” And used three exclamation marks.

She’s not reading a book. She’s thumbing a phone. Good. Hunched intensely is not a good look for her. I dolly in. Her thumbs work blindingly. Another good sign. Standing behind her I begin to sense a weird connection. The pale part in her straw-coloured hair. I feel a strange familiarity with the downy skin of her nape. I am suffused in scents that come from everywhere. I am fairly overcome with weird emotions. Yearning. Nostalgia. Regret. Those are the words. I go forward. I stand at the end of the bench. I contemplate touching her right knee with my left. I can even imagine her whiter skin under the pale sundress of big yellow flowers. Sunflowers? Daisies? After tulips I scarcely know different words for flowers. Roses. I guess.

She is triggered by the shadow I cast. She looks up sideways without meeting my gaze. I say, “There is a crisis in human relations, especially in male-female relations and most especially in masculinity. Comment?”

She sits up straight. She takes the object dangling on her chest and blows on it—the whistle is like a knitting needle into my sinuses. There’s no one else in the park. Save a doddering couple taking selfies over at the tulip beds. Apparently deaf.

I want to reassure her. I want to touch her shoulder. My hand hovers. She screams “Help! Help!”

A brief silence follows explosive noise.

I gesture in a patting-hands emoji. “I’m neither trolling nor stalking.”

She blows the whistle again. Its piercing effect is cancelled this time by her return to screaming.

I step off. I hurry on.

Distant and enjoying an increased level of personal security. I wonder. In the time before connection, what was it like waking from pleasant dreams to that unravelling world? What did I do with the long empty day? I cannot remember. That will make for a good Q on X .

I also wonder about my knitting thought meme above. I will ChatGPT “knitting.” No one follows me.

Back in my place. Refreshed by a visit to PornPlanet. She had lousy tits anyway. Though her thighs had parted a touch under that pale-yellow-splotched material. When my knee touched hers. AI helps. She sits naked now on her park bench. Exposed in good detail. The pic is much better defined. Better than the myopic smudge of that forgettable ad about return to a time when men were men and women weren’t. Her knees drift farther apart. Double thumbs up. I applaud with green emoji hands. With appreciative noise lines rising. Imagination enhanced by AI is really all anybody should ask for. We must respect that.

I delete my dated Tay-Tay post. In future I will post more relevant questions. Not better but different, and more. About shrinkflation. The crisis in masculinity. Nanobots delivering Botox to inadequate booties. Needless linear coherence in our lives. What can be done with the city’s wasted parks? What with empty churches? Qs like that.

Or not like that. One of those. And more such. How can we make more profitable uses of charity.

Enough. For now. But going forward the world must do more for me. Much more.

Photo of Gerald Lynch

BIO: Gerald Lynch was born on a farm in Ireland and grew up in Canada. His latest novel, Plaguing Jake, was published in 2024. He has authored 10 books, 8 of them fiction, all with traditional publishers, and numerous short stories, essays, and reviews. The recipient of a few awards, including the gold award for short fiction in Canada’s National Magazine Awards, he lives in Ottawa. Website: http://geraldlynch.weebly.com/