Twenty-first century poetry sings,
ardently designs the elusive 'she'
She, the dreamy fighter,
the wondrous traveler,
the unimaginable lover,
the magnificent conqueror,
a perfect, aesthetic woman, girl,
that fulfills the longings of
digital hearts.
Beauty standards?
To hell with it!
Let's set personality standards instead.
Let's create a fantasical creature,
with cheesy quotes and unmeaning words,
now girls have to change their personality instead.
Go, now,
become the girl with demon wings and starry eyes,
become the girl that fights to death and silently cries,
become the girl that displays strength but is weak inside.
no, learning coding isn't magical enough,
no, displaying your emotions isn't elusive enough,
no, wanting to bake isn't wild enough.
Mind, Instapoets, 'she' is a representation of
our depression, anger and longing,
emotions that are forever bound by ever-pervasive isolation,
and while you submit to 'her' so willfully,
care before you sacrifice reality for inspiration.
***
I'll admit it, I like poems about the 'she' too. They sound exotic and otherworldly. They give me a fantasical 'role model' to follow in a life dictated by college admissions and academic credentials (nothing wrong with that I guess :P). The words are powerful: they are sweet to my ears, soothing to my heart and invigorating to my mind.
This one, for instance (and for obvious reasons), was a memorable quote:
However, I began to have second thoughts when I began to see kids using these as their Instagram captions. Ten more posts captioned the same way, and it became annoying, but I couldn't exactly put my finger on what was it about this 'she' that began to annoy me - this 'she' was beautiful, daring and exotic and even I admired her, so what's so different about it when kids younger than me begin to talk about her?
You see, what is odd with 'she' is that this creation glorifies sadness. It makes being depressed, lonely and elusive a beautiful, exotic and fearless thing to be. Crying behind closed doors, instead of seeking help, is lovely. Putting up an energetic, social persona, and crumbling behind curtains, is appealing. Being this messy, deep, dark girl that doesn't utter her deepest desires and acts them out through wildness is fashionable.
And when young teenagers are exposed to this kind of personification (without the context of a novel, unlike the Dean Koontz quote above), while the extent to which it can be dangerous is questionable, it would somewhat alter their idea of practicality. Being practical and responsible would be (and in fact, is) regarded as boring; being reckless, wild and full of fun (nothing wrong with a little bit of each though) would be the 'it' thing. This reminds of the Romantic era (refer Sophie's World book review) when inspiration and star-crossed love was glorified - perhaps it must be mentioned that in conjunction with the rise of romantic philosophers, suicide rates skyrocketed too. It still remains one of my favourite eras though.
On a deeper level, we could ask why we want to be romantic, why we like fantasy and magic, why we don't like practicality and empiricism. As Camus says in 'The Myth of Sisyphus' - without romanticizing things, life becomes stripped of all meaning and we find living to be indefinite and unworthy of living. (On a side note, The Myth of Sisyphus is an interesting read - it discusses if realizing life is meaningless necessitates suicide).
Though this may be a very small 'issue', and definitely a privileged, first-world one, it is something that has troubled my mind countless times.
Tell me what you think?
