As my academic career comes to an end, I begin to ask myself, what comes next?
I’ve spent the last 4 years trying to figure out what I want to do and I still don’t have an answer. Well, not to say I’m completely clueless. I know what I want but my fears, anxieties, perceptions of the world make it all feel impossible. I don’t have a desire for a dead end 9-5 job, and maybe social media is to blame. Maybe, growing up watching youtube gave me a little too much hope.
Here is where things get complicated, what happens when you’re too mundane for your desires. I’m kind of smart, i’m funny, but what if my redeeming qualities aren’t redeeming enough? Am I then damned to a 9-5 and poverty or am I simply wrong? Is my fear of perception holding me back from the life I dream of? I’m 21, life has barely started yet it feels like it’s passing me by. Drowning in worry and self pity, self loathing. Too much, too boring, too loud, too big, too annoying. Maybe the problem isn’t that we all want attention. Hear me out, maybe the problem is that we’ve created a culture where attention is treated as proof of worth, and wanting it as treated as a character flaw.
Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to the internet, to the people and communities who have managed to turn themselves into something the algorithm deems worth watching, and to the strangely unique culture we’ve built around being seen. I’m fascinated by the desire to be somebody, I always will be but I’m equally fascinated by what that desire does to us. When does ambition become closer to obsession? When does wanting recognition become chasing validation? Why does it feel like we’re all competing for an audience, even when we’re not entirely sure what we want them to see or who we want to be?
These are the questions I’ve been sitting with for a long time, and they’re part of what inspired Clout Chased, the first issue of Girl Theory (stay tuned <3). I don’t have all the answers, but maybe that’s the point.
