Thoughts on influencers

 Something I was thinking about last evening: the online "influencers" (you know: the pretty people doing fun or exciting things, or opening boxes, or being "gifted*" things, getting stuff because they can provide free advertising) are really kind of a bane on our society

(*this seems to be a new usage, and I admit it grates on me a bit, I think "given" is the proper verb here but apparently to say "I was given this" sounds downmarket and like charity whereas "I was *gifted* this" may be a marker of "I'm a deserving person that's why I got this." Or that's what I "hear")

For a couple of reasons. For one thing, they're basically a lower-tier celebrity. (I don't like the concept of celebrity. Good musicians, yes. Good actors, yes. people good at sports, yes. But not the idea of someone being famous for being famous, or being famous because of attractiveness). We don't need more celebrities in our culture. We need more people willing to do the hard work, to take on the volunteer tasks, to serve on committees, to do the stuff that's not "sexy" or exciting but that serves the community. One of my colleagues was complaining about how it seems fairly few students now want to do research hours or work on projects; they want to find some alternative path to employment. And good on them, I guess, if they get it - but sometimes, especially in my field, the path to employment is you just....work at unexciting stuff until you work your way into a good position? And anyway, there are a few unexciting jobs that pay fairly well and are fairly stable, and it's good to get one of those even if it is unexciting. 

The fact that our culture now celebrates people who are notorious, who do outrageous things to get attention, seems seriously problematic. (I will note the case of a once-famous rapper, who has at least two major issues going for him that need to be worked on: one, serious anti-Semitism, the other, an apparent break from reality and in a better world, people who love him would be working to get him help, but perhaps instead of people who love him, he has people who profit off of him....). 

This bleeds into the other problem: influencers, if you think very much about what they do, they make you dissatisfied with your own life. I have spent a lot of time mewling these past couple years about how I fear I've "wasted" my life - because my own life seems small and circumscribed and I don't do things that are "fun"**

(** these days though I'm not sure I'd recognize fun if it bit me on the backside. It's been a hard couple of years and to be honest if someone asked me "well, what would you like to do that would make you happy" a lot of days I'd be hard-pressed to come up with something. I've been stuck in my own head for too long, I think)

And this morning, I found myself thinking about that. And thinking again of Mrs. Gaskin, the former organist  at my church, who died back in 2013. And the minister's comment at the service, about how she "lived life to the fullest" - this being a woman who rarely traveled far from home, who as far as I know lived within 100 miles of where she was born her entire life, who mostly lived a life for family and of service (being a church organist and minister's wife). 

And yes. She had a valuable life - she meant a lot to a lot of people. And while I won't mean a lot to people in the way a mother will to her children (not having children) or a wife will to her spouse (I'm not married and I think it's vanishingly unlikely I would at this point), still - she lived what would look like a very small life by internet standards. And yet: she was, as far as I could determine, content. She had  a role she played that was important to her.

But I don't know. It feels almost to me like living now is more complicated than it once was. Oh, I know, in many ways it's BETTER (if you're a single woman, if you're a member of an under-represented group - though then again it does feel like our society is backsliding in how it treats people) than it was, but also - it's harder in some ways because I look at what other people are doing - and oh, can I see a huge variety of what other people are doing - and feel like my own life is small and limited and "mean" in the sense of being very tight and close and not being out EXPERIENCING the world. And it makes me wonder.

And part of this, maybe, is midlife crisis? Me looking at my life and realizing that likely more is over than what I have left? Or maybe it's all the psychic damage I've taken in the past couple years, where now I look around at the world and many days cannot imagine things getting any better, and things aren't GREAT right now, so if they're only going to get worse....well, I have to just adjust my expectations for anything and everything way downward? Part of it is I'm not sure I have any dreams left to dream. Like, getting another research paper accepted? That's a LOT of work to get there, and also.....it's not exciting or wonderful or anything. But.....that's kind of what's left for me? More research, teaching a new class (which I am apprehensive about and don't want to go badly but I fear it will). What does someone in their fifties, without kids to hope get married/have children, dream of? Travel is kind of out - traveling alone as a single woman is a nightmare a lot of the time, and anyway, with "forever covid," I figure planning any kind of big travel is right out because if you plan six months ahead and a new variant crops up that's really bad, then where are you? And right now I'm effectively broke from the home renovations. I wish I could think of something though, right now all the things I can 'dream" of (new quilt projects, new sweater projects, research paper, etc., etc.) are just.....the same old things as before and there's a point where you feel like you've seen it all.

 Is this what getting old is? Where you kind of, like the old man in the red sweater, shrug, and go "Guess I'll die" because you can't find anything new to get excited about? Things I *might* want to do are not possible given my schedule and where I live and making them happen is kind of beyond me at that point. (Wild dreams are nice when you're young; when you get old you need achievable dreams and I don't have any that appeal to me at the moment). I guess I feel kind of stuck and I don't know how to get unstuck, or if that's even possible given what the world is right  now. 

But yes: spare me from people far prettier than I am, and richer than I am, and more interesting than I am, being sent all kinds of stuff because....apparently they matter far more than I do, or something. Maybe that's my beef with the influencers: the sense that now in this world there are People Who Matter and People Who Don't, and I'm pretty sure I'm in the People Who Don't group.