Our Networks Save Us
Another spoiler-free thought from Megan Angelo’s Followers. It’s once again from a 2051 section of the book, when people are televising their lives in an endless livestream a la The Truman Show.
On page 205, Marlow talks about the benefits of being watched, of living out her life online. She knows that if she ever got into trouble, millions of people would know instantly. And they would rush to help her, even if it was just to alert the authorities.
She knew there was a third thing keeping her safe: the network. Her followers … Her whole life, Marlow had been sure that if she got into trouble, the network would protect her.
I always think about this tale from the early days of the Internet. Ayelet Waldman wrote a blog post while in a depressive episode, and someone read it and reached out, staying on the phone until she called her psychiatrist. Waldman’s network may have saved her life.
And that type of story repeated over and over again in those early days of the Internet when we used it to connect rather than scream at one another. Okay, so maybe we screamed at each other back then, too–it’s not as if trolls were formed out of thin air in 2016. But it did feel like a different time online, even though stories like Waldman’s continue to happen today.
There is this weird sense of safety that comes from being online. I’m assuming (and maybe I’m wrong) that if I didn’t post for a week or two, someone would send me an email and inquire whether I was okay. It’s out of character; I post here at least five times per week. You tether me. And, hopefully, I tether you. We tether each other. That’s a network.
And networks, sometimes, save us.
Maybe that is why it is so disconcerting when someone stops blogging and never returns. You were tethered to this person by their story–and they were tethered to you. A closing post allows you to tie a loop. But slipping away with the story open feels like a snapped cord dangling in the air.
This isn’t a guilt trip. It’s just something I was thinking about as I read those lines. How much you all mean to me.
6 comments
I often wonder about that. If I would be missed. I have a girlfriend and if I don’t hear from her weekly, I “cat call” her. We call it “cat calling” because the first time I did it, I explained that I did not want to be called by the building superintendent saying she’d died and been eaten by her cats. (like in that X-Files episode with Peter Boyle) She pointed out that she didn’t have any cats. I said that I didn’t think it mattered. If you die alone, cats find you and come to eat and I was NOT going to take that chance. So you ANSWER the damn cat call.
I really like this. And I’m glad someone saved Ayelet and used the internet for good. I wonder though, if now it would be as easy to call with everyone having cell phones instead of land lines?
Definitely having followers and being connected can be a great thing but I’ve also heard of the reverse. For instance where trolls encouraged people feeling suicidal to go through with it.
But yes I love the community here and the feeling that we all care about each other!
I’m nodding to everything you say. Trolls, connections, missing bloggers, meaningfulness of us, all of it.
I guess it depends on your presence/routine. I can disappear for weeks without inquiry, and I’m fairly active on the internet.
I love this- And, I think it’s true- for example where you post 5 days a week if you went dark for more than a day or two there would be lots of us noticing and saying, “hey what’s going on?” And, I too always wonder when someone just vanishes into thin air….. I’ll often keep a bookmark for years in hopes they come back. Slightly too optimistic usually but…..