I cringe when I see people curate aesthetics on social media. I cannot understand why people care what  random people think to the point that they feel obligated to compartmentalize or  “brand” themselves. I see influencers wear one color on their feed for months at a time and all I can wonder is why? It doesn’t even look cool. It’s pretty corny if you ask me. It seems everyone is trying their hardest to differentiate themselves and in the process end up reminding me of everyone else. 

For as long as I have been on social media, I have been anti-branding. I remember I had friends who believed in my writing when I didn’t think it was “good” enough to share. They often encouraged me to “brand” myself as a writer which often left me asking myself “what does a writer look like?” Was Maya Angelou not a sex worker (out of survival, I know) before becoming  one of the most celebrated writers of all time? Murakami spent his twenties running a jazz club before he even picked up a pen to write his first story at 29. Writers do not look one way, they do not share the same backgrounds or life stories, and there certainly is not one way to brand oneself as a “writer”. Great people come from everywhere. There is not one look to greatness. Talent trumps all.

The internet birthed many Rupi Kaurs.  Poets who write clear and concise lines that are easily digestible to readers. the internet painted this digestible poetry in a “cool” way. I remember generally being confused by the poems my teachers in school shared but once I found tumblr, I was introduced to an entirely new world of literature. Metaphors and similes started making sense to me. Perhaps it was the relatability of these writers that made it easier for me to understand their words. 

I particularly found the poems of Nayyirah Waheed to be life-changing. They were brief yet captivating. In her three line poems, I found understanding. I realized so many new age poets were copying her, which is not a surprise at all. What doesn’t come from black women? My discovery of Waheed led me to Ysra Daley-Ward, a different black poet who also adopted Waheed’s style. Waheed was virtually an internet ghost, her personal social media pages decorated solely by her poems. I suppose Waheed was the image of a writer but my friends wanted me to adapt but I never could embody her method nor did I want to. 

I do not have many secrets. I like to share my thoughts, interests, and daily life updates. I was the opposite of a mysterious internet persona. I spent my formative teen years consumed by tumblr, discovering a love of black art like every other teenage girl on the internet. Tumblr exposed me to depth though. I remember reading Sylvia Plath’s journals at 14, which still remain some of the most intense pages I have read 

My relationship with social media has been inconsistent. I had a twitter in high school because everyone else in my high school did. It radicalized me. I was online during the beginning of the black lives matter movement and although I was never interactive with strangers about race relations online, I was soaking in a lot of information. As a result I transformed from being the token black girl at school to leveraging my student government position to highlight the issues of racism on my campus. No one expected my drastic change but I was inspired to speak my mind and no one could stop me from sharing my thoughts.

When I graduated from high school, I deleted my Facebook and Instagram account. High school at a racist white institution transformed me into a shell of myself that I wanted no reminders of. On the surface, I was a brave black girl, but underneath I was vulnerable and more afraid of the world than anything. I wish I could delete the memories from that time but instead I just deleted my social media pages. They were nothing but reminders of days that I wish I never experienced.

When I came to college, it took me until the end of my freshman year to create a new Instagram account and I only did it because I was starting to realize, people  prioritized social media to the point where I was missing out on events because I was so disconnected. In the next four years, I deleted my Instagram twice, and even deleted my twitter for some time. My internet presence was flighty at best. I didn’t like how people presented pieces of themselves and didn’t want to partake in that. I also hated posting pictures of myself.

When I graduated college, I deleted my social media pages again a few months after.

I just didn’t care what anyone had going on. It was the start of the pandemic and there was nothing on the internet but misery. I didn’t want to see any of it. I think my distaste for celebrities began that year. many people were getting evicted and dealing with so many different hardships yet every time I scrolled Instagram or Twitter, it was some rich person showing something off and appearing to ignore the problems of the world. The exuberant displays of wealth irritated me. I didn’t understand how some people could be so out of touch with the world. I also didn’t understand why some people were still stuck on the idea of showing a “perfect” life when everyone knew that perfect didn’t exist, especially not on social media. I used to look up to certain people just to later find out they were selling a lie. Things are never as they appear; things are often just what people want them to look like. 

 I have no idols. No one is perfect in my eyes; people are admirable though . Lately I have discovered most women I look up to are incredibly private. My favorite writer, Warsan Shire, tweets about five times a year. I have no idea what she’s up to. I strive to be a more private person now. I am tired of people’s projections of me.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not proud of everything I’ve said on the internet. I’ve dipped to extremely low points just to “get back” at people but I don’t care about that stuff anymore. I was recently bothered by a tweet that said I had “one of the worst digital footprints”on twitter. That onfused me because how can you say that about me when there are entire accounts dedicated to voicing violence against black women, being transphobic, homophobic, and etc. But one thing the internet has shown me is that the same people who are quick to elevate black women are often the first waiting to knock us down. I’ve seen it happen many times to myself and many other “online personas”. People are offended that I speak my mind on whatever I please. I had to accept that as long as I am myself, people will be angry. I do not care about coming off a certain way. I have never wanted to “brand” myself. If anything, my brand is the opposite of a brand. I strive to live authentically and to always show all sides of myself; the good and the bad. Humans are far from perfect and there needs  to be more people online who remind us of that.

I started “mdksays,” my personal blog, in 2017. I wanted to share my journey with my depression because people kept telling me they didn’t know “people like me” could be depressed. To this day, I don’t really understand what that means but I have some ideas. My twitter account in college primarily consisted of  jokes. I had a filed a Title IX case in college after I exposed my abuser online. I sat in the Title IX’s Coordinator’s office and she told me “your writing voice is nothing like your online voice,”something I’d never forget. I wanted to respond with something rude because first of all, what does that have to do with my case and two, I despise when people try to box me in. I have received a lot of comments like that coordinator’s. People tell me they things like “I didn’t know you could write like that” or when an old friend told me they had to learn how to distinguish my writer’s voice from my actual voice. Those comments irritate me because it made me realize that people only see the sides of me that they want to see and not me for who I actually am.

Recently I tweeted, “why is showing different sides of yourself always classified as a''rebrand”? have y’all never encountered multifaceted people before? people can be many different things at once & they do not have to tap into them at the same time just so they are easily digestible to the masses.”

People projecting their idea of who they think I should be and compartmentalizing me into something else is something I have dealt with for years. It is also something that is never getting addressed again. I am not someone who aims to present myself a certain way on social media because the people who feel the need to do that are running away from their authentic selves and are obsessed with perfection.

People want me to be ashamed of some of the things I have said online but that shame is not for me to carry. I am firm in my stances. When they are misconstrued and often taken out of context, I do get frustrated. I remind myself that people are going to think what they want. There is no reason to defend myself from  people who are just seeking a reaction from me. 

In a world obsessed with perfection, I am obsessed with authenticity which is the opposite of perfection. I want to be able to say that everything I did and said was because it is a true representation of myself and not of what I want people to think of me.

☪︎
published April 9, 2022