maybe we should cry online more

being radical in your presentation of grief

like many, i crave unfiltered interaction. i want to live with my chest cracked open pouring over those i love. not just love, but my grief, my fear and my sadness too.

everything we consume, every ad, billboard, instagram post and tiktok is rotting with perfection. the perfect nose, the perfect life, the perfect omelette posted to instagram with manicured nails and it makes my stomach turn. show me the dirt under your fingernails, the clothing on your floor, the secrets you whisper to the crack between the bed and the wall when it all becomes too much.

i once saw a girl crying on tiktok and in the comment section repeated over and over was, “imagine crying and then recording yourself”. what has the collective online conscious done? why tuck away what makes us human? why is this any different than setting up a camera to perform any other emotion we post? is it not to share with others and find connection?

the algorithm begs us to replace what makes us human with plastic parts and sterile personalities. if i see one more video of a woman packaging up her grief and delivering it in a higher-than-natural-pitched-customer-service voice im going to lose it. i would give anything to see the worst parts of you. the messy parts, the parts we’re told to tuck away. the parts that make us human.

being less than perfect has never been scarier. one misstep and be thrown into a pit reminiscent of Rome and its arenas. a spectacle to be consumed by your peers. most of us unwillingly participating with no escape. its in every scroll, the news and conversations around us.

maybe the only way out of this artificial world is by wearing it on our sleeve - by being radical in our presentation of grief. by not holding others to impossible standards. be messy, be unapologetically you, show the world what human really looks like.

i refuse to become a machine, i refuse to remove what makes me me.