Genki Life Magazine 35 - Spring 2019

don’t use social media as much as I used to, and in some ways, my
decision to step back has improved my stress levels. It was around
maybe the beginning of college when I created a Twitter account.
I was looking for sharp and animated discussion on the anime I
liked. I was also looking for an easier way to keep up with political Inews. I’m a political scientist, after all, and I’m also an anime fan.
I followed a lot of anime critics. I turned
my social media feed into a news aggregator.
The two spheres of Twitter that I
joined ended up overlapping each other
in key areas. I found myself among
politically conscious anime fans, and at
the beginning, I enjoyed being a part
of that community. I owe my outlook
towards art and life to those critics, to
minds who stressed how both areas
intersected with the other. They were
also silly and fun, and I felt that I could
let loose with them. I’ve made some great
friends during those dog days of college.
The dogs were let lie and eventually put
down, and my relationship with social
media changed for the worse. Change
marches onward regardless of our wants,
and people are angrier than before. Laying
alone in bed with nothing but a Twitter app,
I could feel myself slipping
into misanthropy. I’ve been cynical about
things for as long as I could remember.
I’ve always known articles to prioritize scandalous and sensational
headlines. In many respects, it’s a great thing that
people are more critical and skeptical about the status quo.
But in remaining hooked to social media IVs in its new
tenor—its drip-feed medley of terrible news and violent
rhetoric—I could feel my mind wasting . My body felt heavy
with the futility of existence, possessed by entities whose
names in legion mean The World. I noticed it crouched over
my shoulders, and I felt its weight with my own.
What with my tendency to look at events from a macroscale
(studying history does that to you), I began to see
every moment of living as this tragic microcosm in the
larger story of human suffering: cyclic, ceaseless, immutable,
inevitable. “Bad People are a mistake,” my motto began,
and then I started cutting out the “Bad.” But then I started
distancing myself from the larger Twitter discourses. My
headspace started clearing like god rays breaking through
clouds. My career as a cloistered student is past, the me of
present now teaching English to kids. There’s a joy in watching
mouths gasp in understanding, in seeing eyes sparkle
while tiny arms clutch black-dyed jeans during “Black!”
Color Touch. There’s a sanity in working with people who
know the struggles of managing children, with colleagues
68 Genki Life Magazine • Spring 2019