All the written voices on the obscure plane of text. Many different people in the different voices, invisible and monolithic, but you can still find a little pure and unmixed string within it, finding a vein of gold or silver or something inside it, not quite assimilated into the one voice of the text. Let’s pick out one face in this faceless crowd, shall we? Let’s roam our eyes around for just one second, now. Where is he. I’m looking; where is he at? Is there one distinct and recognizable voice in this wall of anonymous statements?
Where is the hero of this story?
There he is:
He’s in a crowd and tapping his fingers on a little black box. Slide your fingers on the little black box. Find something to talk about there isn’t too dreadfully dull but just dull enough to know exactly what to say and when.
--“This post has a funny picture in it, I’ll see what this thread is about”
That’s good. There’s an air of the unfamiliar to the thread, but if you’re lost in the conversation you can just comment about the funny picture. That’s good. What is everybody else saying now? I have designated you to be the individual, hero, so everybody else is the monolith now, everybody else is the Other now. What is he, the Other saying to you?
--Everybody is talking about a tv show that I’ve never watched. I’ve heard good things, but really it never interested me.
That’s fine. This could be an educational experience; read what the other is saying to you, learn a bit about the show, see what jokes everybody is making. That’s fine. Read a bit and write a bit. Talk to the Other.
And now our hero is writing and moving his fingers on the screen, tapping and sliding his fingers on the screen. Tap and slide your fingers on the screen.
--“People say that I’m some kind of plebian for posting on a phone, but I think that it’s just fine. I’ve got places to go and I still want to be a part of the conversation. Typing on a touchscreen is difficult of course, but I think that it’s just fine.”
That’s fine.
Let’s look at his writing: Is it different from the Other? Yes: he is fond of using the colon to prove his points: the colon is a good piece of punctuation because it tells the reader that a statement will be immediately backed up by the proceeding one: here is my statement: this is why the statement is true; semicolons are a very good piece of punctuation as well; almost as good as the colon: a colon correlates statements, a semicolon juxtaposes them; when people are eating fruit flavored candy they will often avoid eating a piece that is the flavor they just ate; that’s juxtaposition: if you ate the same flavor twice the flavor would be less pronounced the second time around; if you eat a different flavor there will be a space of empty time where your tongue will just start to recognize a different taste is in your mouth: that empty space is a semicolon no it is a colon.
--“I think my post might have been a little longwinded; nobody’s responding to it. I wrote it all in one big line, too. I should have separated it into more individual lines. Should have added a funny picture to it as well; people respond to posts more often if they take up more real estate on the page.”
You know what you must do. If you don’t have the real estate, make some more. You’re anonymous; if you respond to your own post, I’m sure nobody will catch you in the act. You don’t need to feel bad about it, people do it all the time. If your post has some replies, people will contribute even more replies. It’s like a beggar’s cap. If it’s completely empty, people almost never put money into it, afraid to be the first. If it’s got a few of your own quarters and dimes in it to begin with, more people will add to it. So, my street urchin hero, throw in your own two cents and get to begging for the Other’s loose change.
--“I feel bad responding to my own post. I know it doesn’t really matter if I get caught or not, in fact getting caught usually gives you more replies. Still, though, it feels like I’m breaking an unwritten rule. It’s silly, really: if the rule is unwritten, and everyone already breaks it constantly, the rule must not really exist, in a written or unwritten form to begin with. The rule doesn’t exist, yet it still feels like I’m breaking it. Why is that? Do you understand what I’m asking?”
I understand why you think your posts are longwinded. Anyways, you’ve responded to your own post. Where’s that response? I know it was my suggestion, but you pretending to be somebody else responding to your own post makes this whole endeavor very difficult: you’re letting yourself fade back into the monolith. Don’t fade completely into the monolith. Not yet, at least. Is this one it? It must be:
It’s very short.
Maybe a little too short, I’d say. You’re increasing the count of replies your first post got, but you aren’t really taking up much space on the screen. You used a picture though, that helps bring attention to you. Is that a girl from an anime? Did you just use that because it would give you more attention through antagonism? What anime is this girl even from?
--“I dunno. I just know that people get mad at you when you post an anime girl, and then they’ll respond.”
That’s fine. But, hold on. Another person’s responded to your first post: it’s a little more eloquent than the first, the words flowing into each other like water droplets on a wet car windshield, combining with casual wisdom. It’s certainly more uncompromising, too: the language is extreme and the points are forceful, slamming into your brain like a 9 millimeter round between your eyes. Did you write this post, hero? I saw a few colons in it: either two or three, depending on your semantics. But it’s not enough for me to be sure that you made it.
Did somebody actually respond to your post already, or are you still talking to yourself, just in a different voice? What person is this post even from? I dunno. I just know that anonymous writing makes it hard to separate people’s thoughts from each other. Come on, I need to get some kind of response from you. I’m losing you in the crowd again. People are commenting on the responses you made to yourself now, they’re calling you an idiot. (That’s fair of course, you were pretending to be an idiot for attention.) I can’t find you anymore. I don’t know where you end and the Other begins. What posts are the Other responding to you? Which ones are you talking to yourself? I can’t tell anymore. Are you really going back to assimilating yourself with the rest of the voices already? Can you at the very least make it so the last words we consciously share aren’t about anime girls?
Fine, be that way.
I think I see one more semicolon; is it him? No, it’s too late. He’s merged back with the obscure plane of text. Gone for good. In a few hours, everything he said will be gone too, deleted. He disappeared into the text, and then the text itself will disappear soon. He was the hero of the story, I recognized him for a few posts, I acted as if he was my friend and he’s gone now.