Simon says close your eyes. Simon says push this button, that button. Simon says consume, copy. Simon doesn’t have to tell us twice.
Yesterday, I learned that more than 13,000 people have been killed in Gaza.
Yesterday, I scrolled through Instagram before bed. It’s a routine. As I perused from the luxury of my warless home, I flipped through countless reposts on the bombing of civilians. When I read that a Palestinian civilian’s home was as safe as the bombing next door, I remembered that I follow DV students on Instagram. I remembered that we repost, we like, we comment, all from our fluffy Ikea couches. I went to bed.
When I wake up, I go to school. Before the bell rings, I’m on Instagram again. Bodies cocooned in white cloth and billowing smoke flash on my screen. I put down my phone, and we learn about something that happened a couple hundred years ago. By the time sixth period ends, there’s been at least 20 reposts from my classmates.
As socially aware teenagers, we live similar lives. When our digital footprint keeps score of our glory, we’re activists, protesters and informed citizens of our upper middle-class society. But when the screen closes and the online crowd disappears, that’s a different story. Sure, we still care about the world, but where’s the crowd? Who’ll be there to witness our noble heroism? We’ll stand with Black lives, Palestinians, women, the LGBTQ+, transgender lives and some other marginalized communities later.
You can add to that list if another movement floods our feeds. By now, I’ve noticed that it comes in waves. When there’s a new tragedy circulating, that’s when our cultish instincts kick in. It’s time to join the crowd and repost the exact same Instagram slide that we saw in the previous 10 stories. Whether it’s inaccurate, insensitive, or superficial is irrelevant. Everyone else liked the post? That’s a safe bet to repost.
But I wonder what made us so cultish anyway. As I mull over my thoughts, sip from a lidless Hydro Flask and stare at my Apple screen, I realize that the answer is “I Love NY” T-shirts. And Stanleys and flare leggings and Nike Techs. Growing up in the red, white and blue, our right to the pursuit of happiness means our right to consume. After all, what else are we supposed to do when everyone else is sipping away at a Pumpkin Spice Latte? I want it because she has it, and I’m helpless until I join the crowd. In other words, we love cults because we love to buy.
After the DV student body and spending money, our next cult is the color blue. Every movement that’s grabbed our attention has been liberal-infused. It’s not concerning that most students happen to align with liberal ideologies, but it is concerning that they align with these ideologies because their peers do. In a hyper-political world, being politically unaware and unchallenged contributes to being ill-informed citizens and limits our knowledge on how we respond to our society.
It’s natural to want to belong, but we reach the extent of becoming robotic minions.
It’s natural to want to belong, but we reach the extent of becoming robotic minions. There’s so much tragedy in our world that when one of them reaches publicity, we can’t interpret it beyond just another misfortune. The Israel-Hamas war becomes just another war, and the pro-choice movement is just another plea for women. All of those causes we support lose meaning, and as much as we care in the moment, we forget.
To make matters worse, the ebb and flow of tragedies rising to fame and falling victim to our forgetfulness convinces us that we’re doing enough. When the Russia-Ukraine war was still circulating our Instagram pages, the routine persisted: we reposted, liked, commented. All of a sudden, the war dissipated from media outlets, and it all just went away. Every single wave concludes in a recession of media coverage, and we identify that as “The End”. After all, if we don’t hear about it anymore, is it even happening? It turns out that Ukrainians are still dying, but CNN doesn’t cover that in their banners anymore.
So if media outlets are neglecting the information that we need to hear, then how do we stay informed? Start with skimming over that Instagram repost. Maybe even read an article. Don’t expect the echoes of information you hear to sustain your knowledge, because it never will.
Today, I learned that while people are being killed in Gaza, the Biden administration has sent ammunition and interceptors to Israeli forces.
Today, I scrolled through Instagram. Even now, as the war rages, the flurry of reposts and frantic protests fade away. It’s a routine.
