Friendly reminder: please clear your head and disconnect from screens regularly (and the funny thing is that you are reading this sentence here).
Let’s be honest, the events that we have been experiencing for more than two years have significantly weighed down the spirits and the permanent consultation of the screens only makes the whole thing even more anxiety-provoking. We have been glued to our screens during the pandemic to try to understand the whys and wherefores. We have been bombarded with bad news from all over the world and this universal emotional charge has added to our own personal charge.
The war in Ukraine has now invaded our already frazzled minds.
Even if we were already kind of aware of it before, we fully understand today that the globalization of exchanges of people and goods, human overactivity, overconsumption and political alliances could precipitate in the blink of an eye the entire planet into situations almost uncontrollable such as a pandemic or a world war.
The heaviness has settled everywhere and the consultation of the screens aggravates it even more.
My two favorite social media, Instagram (which used to bring me beauty, good, joy) and Twitter (which brought me exactly the opposite but which I found and which I still find interesting as a societal observatory – even if I always close it with a sigh accompanied by a “yuck”) represented until recently in my eyes the little angel and the little devil that surround cartoon characters.
I must admit however that the difference I felt between these two social media tends to fade today: the little angel has grown wicked and the little devil has become even darker. Like many, I believed in a wake-up call, a paradigm shift, a post-pandemic mindset shift, and it never happened.
(Sorry, let’s stay optimistic: “it hasn’t happened yet”).
I am therefore prodigiously annoyed today by the pseudo-influencers offering comparative Zara/Shein videos (there are a plethora of them on Instagram and the whole thing is sponsored by Shein, which has experienced a delirious progression lately), by the douchebags who inflict on us their “unboxing” of 408 fast-fashion outfits or by the jerks who dead seriously explain to us how to lose 20 pounds in a week, because hey, we will certainly not be kind to ourselves and keep the pounds taken during a global crisis.
A pandemic, armed conflicts everywhere, women’s rights jeopardized particularly in Afghanistan or in the US, a climate crisis, migration crises, famine (and so on) – but no, some idiots are still proposing social contents where overconsumption and standardised appearances represent the ultimate pinnacle. The ‘never to rich, never to thin’ motto is still going strong.
The world is on fire but people are passionate about the defamation lawsuit filed by Johnny Deep against his ex-wife Amber Heard. Frankly, 98% of people who give their opinion on the subject on social media (Instagram and Twitter are inundated with videos and texts on the subject) should drop everything and go for a walk in the park. The only ones who offer interesting content are US lawyers who explain the intricacies of the legal process.
One could legitimately hope that the filmed trial would at least advance the cause of female victims of domestic violence – or the cause of male victims of domestic violence (depending on each side’s claims), but the problem is that the vast majority of people who publish their texts and videos on social networks have not watched the hearings in full and the opinions delivered are certainly not objective.
According to the vast majority of people hanging around on social media, there’s a fairy tale witch (Amber Heard) and a really, really nice guy (Johnny Depp). And that’s all. The reassuring need for Manichaeism makes us forget that in life, things and people are not white or black, but often grey. Breaking news: this is a story without hero.
In fact, Amber Heard is ridiculed on the social media with and the violence of the contents is barely imaginable.
And money remaining a top priority AS USUAL, YouTube decided to monetize the retransmission of the hearings, by asking people who wanted to live comment, well, to pay.
(Are you wondering if I’ve been watching the hearings? The answer is yes – at least I’ve been listening to them in the background – because I’m a lawyer and I’m generally passionate about the media’s treatment of current events).
Many people around me vocalized that they stopped following the lawsuit because they were confronted, without even asking (“what the fuck did I touch to have this garbage on my feed”) with something particularly toxic – as much on the substance of the lawsuit from which neither Johnny Depp nor Amber Heard come out with a stronger stature – as on the form, that is to say the media treatment.
In short, to paraphrase the New York Times “television turned the celebrity trial into a 24-hour tabloid spectacle. Social media made it into a sport”.
A shame. It would have been so interesting to raise the societal debate in discussing the concept of mutual abuse (because some specialists believe in it while others believe that there is always a primary perpetrator and a victim who responds with violence in a configuration of self-defense).
The same goes for the DARVO concept.
“DARVO” stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim into the offender.
This was hardly mentioned during the hearings of the Depp/Heard trial. I am well aware that we are talking about defamation but the absence of debates on these two subjects is a pity, in my humble opinion.
(At this very moment, I’m listening to the closing arguments and the jury has thus not yet deliberated).
I’ve come to believe that these digitally appendices that are our phones become year after year bad “digital spirits”. Oh, not horror movie spirits, but there’s no denying that the human being is caught up and obsessed with what’s happening on the phone screen and the effect is usually quite not positive. Not to mention the excesses that some allow themselves, thanks to anonymity (Dorian Gray wants his portrait back, ugly trolls).
Anyway. Let’s forget screens and social networks, let’s read in-depth articles and books, let’s listen to music, let’s get some fresh air, let’s try to reconnect with lightness and positive vibes.
This is the best we can do at this stage, I think.
May 27, 2022
Revillon leather jacket – Marc Jacobs top – Caroll trousers – Armani flat shoes – Lanvin purse – Chanel sunglasses
