This is Not Some Cry for Help

It's a eulogy.

Too often I've posted things on Facebook or YouTube, complaining about the state of the internet or things that frustrate me in general about how things work, only to be met with people trying to give advice. They tell me I'm being too negative, or that I'm just not doing this or that right, with right being their way of doing things. To be honest, I'm utterly sick of it.

Sometimes you just need to scream. Yell at the top of your lungs and get it all out.

Life isn't easy, for most of us at least. Some of us are handed things on a silver platter, given the world and told we should be proud of what we've "accomplished". I think of people like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Jimmy Donaldson (aka Mr. Beast). These are people, we are told, that worked so hard to get where they are, and we should respect that work and strive to be as successful as they are.

But they didn't earn what they have, they were dealt a great hand in life. They were lucky to be born in the right place and time, or lucky to be seen by just the right person at the right time, or lucky to have an algorithm drop their way.

I can write all this, knowing that it'll never be seen. It'll get lost in the ocean that is the internet, doomed to surf the waves of the world wide web in obscurity like everything else I, and 99% of all others who visit this vast wasteland, have done. The internet, and the world in general, is nothing more than a lottery system where the luckiest make it big and the majority fall by the wayside.

When I first started making videos on YouTube, I watched a whole lot of channels tell me how to be successful. Just make the right videos, with the right thumbnails, and you too can make it big. I was stupid and believed I had some control over the outcome.

This is a very capitalist mindset. Hard work equals success. Just do things right, work harder than those around you and grind until your body starts to fall apart and you'll make it. But that's not the whole truth.

Hard work and dedication can prove effective in many ways, provided you're willing to sell out and just go with the current. Try anything non-traditional, and you're up against a machine that likes nothing more than to chew people up and spit them out.

See these people making a living off their art? Well, that's not typical and you should just go back to the coal mine like a good little worker. Want to start your own business, be your own boss? Get your friends and family to fund your dream and hope you don't get stomped on by the big boys.

And, to top it all off now, automation and AI are growing bigger by the day. Companies would much rather employ a small number of workers who use AI to run everything than pay people what they're worth. Never mind the fact that once every job is automated, there is no one to buy your goods because no one is making any money.

But I guess that's called winning at capitalism.

The whole system is fucking stupid. And by even using that word, in an appropriate manner and context, I've doomed any hope of anything I've said being taken seriously because we live in a juvenile society that doesn't know the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground. Hate speech and lies are allowed, but don't drop f-bombs because the kiddies might see or hear them.

And speaking of lies and hate speech, the election is less than 10 days away as of this writing.

A not-insignificant portion of the United States is still supporting Adolf Trump. They swear he's gonna be great for the economy, or that he'll stop all those horrible brown skinned drug dealers from flooding into our pristine country and poisoning our youth with their terrible ideas like free healthcare and equality.

And because this is the internet, I need to specify that I'm being very facetious. For those who might not know, that means I'm treating a serious issue with deliberate inappropriate humor. I have to state that because too many people failed to make it past an elementary school education. Not that they didn't get their high school diploma, or even a college degree, but they just tuned out after 5th grade and forgot how to think.

I won't lie, I've lost more than a little sleep worrying about the 2024 election. I've got two daughters and a son who might have to grow up in a world very similar to that experienced by children in Nazi Germany, and I don't want to see that happen. You can pretend all you want that he doesn't want to be a dictator, that what he says is just jokes meant to incite the "liberal lame stream media", but you'll need to remove the lead paint chips from your mouth before you tell me.

Maybe you think I'm being too harsh? Maybe you can feel the anger pouring from the screen as these words burn into your monitor or phone? You'd be right on one of those points.

I am mad.

Mad that we live in a world where it's ok to hate people for their gender, skin color, nationality, race or any other demographic but it's not ok to call a fascist for what they are. I'm mad that brainless content online gets traction, pushed by the companies that have built themselves on selling you as the product, when quality and well-thought-out art, music, movies and documentaries are shoved to the side.

I'm mad that hard working people get trampled on and taken advantage of while those who've never worked a day in their lives pull the strings and walk away with all the profits. I'm mad that anyone in this world should want for anything when we have the ability to provide for all.

I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind with this post, and I know that no one is even going to make it to this point, but sometimes it just feels good to scream. To yell into the void and get it out there.

This is not some cry for help, it's a eulogy.