The Witness
Photo by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash
9pm on a Sunday night. I’m attending to my nightly TikTok scroll before bed. As has become a regular occurrence, someone is begging - crying, imploring the viewer for help by simply watching. To pay in the most valuable currency around. Attention. Today, it’s the cropped out face of what could be a young girl, just a corner of her face with one eye visible. Welling with tears as it fights to hold in pain and emotion.
“Girls please stay so I can afford a lawyer against my grapist. Anything helps…”
→ A creator selling a car play adapter
→ An academic debating a dolt on a podcast
→ “106 & Park is returning”
→ “Buy the glitter!”
→ “Kids are being SOLD in BAGS in Congo… use this audio.”
→ Beyoncé dancing with Blue Ivy
On many a night, this has been the paces I’ve taken my psyche through before laying my head to rest. Same dance, when I first awake.
What does it do to the psyche to flip so casually from trauma to entertainment to consumer to irritation and so on?
Imagine the weight. The beating. The deadening and blunting of psychological senses from this overload and whiplash. There have been some nights in which it got too much so I closed the app. Then there are the ones where it got too much so I scrolled past. I didn’t wait the allotted time to ensure the creator would get paid for their content. I sped up the video. Practicing my indifference. Sharpening my negligence. Numbing my senses
The Digisphere has overstepped. Exchanged its helping hands for leashes. Proffering dessert in place of an entree. It was supposed to be an accessory. To assist connection, decentralize information. It has turned into a sedative.
What does it say of a society of people weakening in such a manner? How much strength and resilience is left for our daily lives and selves? What does it say of our ability to withstand the psychological war that is corporate, capitalism, western life?
How does it explain our inability to act in the face of true crisis. The erosion of rights, systems, infrastructure.
What does it mean to be a witness in a digital world? What obligations are required of your morality? Your empathy?
To be a witness used to hold responsibility. It served as a social guardrail against iniquity and malevolence. If witnessing no longer inspires action. What becomes of our empathy? Our purpose within community is being obviated with multidimensional consequences.