The Copy of a Copy of a Copy

- Anusha, SYBA

I want to pick out the perfect outfit, something that screams ME. Something that makes me stand apart from the mediocre, tedious, and almost prosaic crowd, but not too unique - I am still part of society, and my belonging comes from fitting in. Who doesn’t love the feeling of a girl’s girl complimenting them on their outfit? Exclaiming how lovely my nails are, how perfectly they fit the aesthetic of European summer. I should wear that watch my grandmother used to love. I would love carrying a part of her around. She shaped the person I have become. And of course, vintage thrifted watches are all the rage (at least it was so two hours ago). Perhaps I could modify it ever so slightly and melt it into one of those watch rings. The thunderous sound of the rain reminds me of itself, pounding away at my shuddering windows. I should carry an umbrella….. but I don’t have a cottagecore one; perhaps I should leave my bag behind too. As the windows give in under the unrelenting pressure of the water, I find my knees buckling and my mind swaying under the same unrelenting pressure.

I have the ultimate question of humanity wrapping its existential bony arms around me. It isn’t a new question. Throughout the course of history, humans have been asking each other and themselves the same question, over and over again, but to no avail. 

Who am I? Who is anyone? 

Am I the six a.m. morning walks that bring me serenity? 

But what if the old relict me ends up hating walks? Will I still be the same me?

Am I the undying alliance to chai that I had pledged just last year?

Or perhaps the deep cut top that would have been too girly for the younger me?  

Which part is the real me? My body? My brain? My emotions? My experiences? If I lose all these and more to an unseeable, all-corrupting disease, would I retain my individuality? As Theseus loses his sleep over his ship, I do so over my personhood*.

Screw ancient philosophers who have given us new ways to think and to live. They have only come up with increasingly elaborate answers to the questions that still engulf me. These questions are of profound importance and have formed the foundation of modern civilisation. All of our art, our introspective writing, glorious fashions, marvellous sculptures - what are they if not reflections, mere stab-in-the-darks of what our existence is supposed to amount to? 

But I doubt whether they would survive in the digital world, in the world of optics and aesthetics - aesthetics which often birth new and increasingly modern cults. The two types of selves that Heidegger (1927/1962) talked about are long gone, now mere fragments of paper wandering down the aisles of history that everyone loves to forget. The two types, arguably the only two types of self that matter today are: 

The digital self and the real self. 

Or perhaps the work of the greatest remains eternal. "The Self of everyday Dasein is the they-self, which we distinguish from the authentic Self—that is, from the Self which has been taken hold of in its own way. As they-self, the particular Dasein has been dispersed into the 'they', and must first find itself" (Heidegger, 1927/1962, p. 167).

In his seminal work ‘Being and Time’, Heidegger argued that our default state of existence, Dasein, is inauthentic. Instead, we spend our lives trapped in the they-self (Das Man), unconsciously surrendering our individuality to societal expectations. We don't want to simply think, we want to think what they think. In today's modern technocapitalist world, this Dasein and the mundane life of they-self comes packaged with a big shiny bow (just like everything else). Today’s social norm, the conventional way of being, has now been packaged as a cool, rebellious new alternative answer to the generationally imposed they-self, but instead terrifyingly dons the same robes that it pretends to destroy. 

The online world presented to us was a super cool and alluring place, especially since our generation was the first to grow up with this technology. It was an exciting new place for expression, where you could be anyone you wanted, and exhibit the true depths of your soul without the usual social norms and oppressions. That world was filled with glamorous clothes you wouldn't find on the street, stunning art that your originally tiny social circle wouldn't have exposed you to, or even job opportunities that could change your life. The space was abundant, for art, for entertainment, for expression, and especially for validation. 

What could beat the feeling of knowing that over 2000 people in the globe loved the way you lip synced to the trending song? Imagine that number of people being supportive of your real-life choices. Languages started to adapt to this world too, with acronyms like ‘irl’, ‘lmao’, and ‘lol’. The validation was the best part. It provided instant gratification from all around the world, something that was impossible if you created art in the traditional sense. 

The digital world thrusted itself into every fragment of our monotonous daily lives. Inspiration was seeping into our offline world and day-to-day lives with a whirlwind pace, while the oldies looked at the pull it had on our personalities, only to join in after a couple of years.

Inspiration was multifold. But an abundance of inspiration is rendered useless if it doesn't actually inspire. The online world provided such multitudinous content that there was no offline world in which you could create - it was the simple yet vicious loop of consume, validate (maybe save for later if your inspiration becomes too much - telling the online world to remember for you; what remains of yourself if not for your memories?), and then maybe sleep, then again consume, validate, consume, validate, ad infinitum. 

“The narrowing of free political choice to free economic consumption requires the unlimited production and consumption of images. The freedom to consume a plurality of images and goods is equated with freedom itself” (Sontag, 1977, p. 178).

Susan Sontag wrote this in the late 20th century, writing purely about the horrors that photography presented. What would she have written about the virtual world that continues to engulf the real, offline world, dissecting every moment and deciding if our experiences are ‘instagrammable’ enough to live and if not, to not live at all? The online world that once was the world of expression has quickly turned into the world of curation and pretense. Of course, every social situation possesses some level of pretense, irrespective of Heidegger’s advice. But when you can manipulate every aspect of your external being, when all of it can easily be (& is) pretense, what remains of your authentic self? What is the difference between you and the ship of Theseus?

A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it—by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir (Sontag, 1977, p. 9).

Susan Sontag warned us that our consciousnesses were in danger of being overwhelmed, our aesthetic and ethical senses dulled and muddled by an ever-intensifying blizzard of mechanically produced pictures. How would we be able to sort through them all, to decode their messages, and judge their merits? How would we know what was real? 

Our college would be the perfect place to observe this. Or yourself. How many of the mannerisms of the digital world have you subconsciously adopted? You might do the small clock it gesture despite not being in front of a camera. Words like ‘unc’ and ‘cooked’ effortlessly seep into the conversations you have with your friends. Dressing up in different aesthetics and romanticising your life is amusing, but what if the freedom it once promised now seems to restrict you when you go shopping because it wouldn't fit your personal ‘brand’?

Our digital world thus converts our offline persona into a copy of itself. Our real life thus becomes a mere copy of a copy, devoid of its original substance. The two starkly different and polarising worlds that once existed now seem to be feeding into one another: what exists online shapes what exists offline, while the offline self continues to have itself sucked into the digital persona. What emerges is not two distinct worlds, but an uncategorisable grey zone where the boundaries between the two become increasingly difficult to locate. Thus the question of ‘Who am I?’ becomes increasingly difficult to answer, once we have adapted the online persona that gets the most validation, have internalised the socially accepted and appropriated behaviour, and have turned ourselves into true copies of copies of copies. Thus Baudrillard’s (1981/1994) concept of hyperreality now seems to crush society under its uncompromising grasp, where the lines between truth and illusion completely disappear, with only copies remaining - the originals of which no one remembers.

As I sit with existential dread, the question slowly suffocates me with its grasp, and there is nothing I can do. I am forever stuck between the two worlds, even if one is engulfing the other, and like the pouring rain I feel myself start to pour away. I start to wonder if the reason why I am so easily suffocated is because I remain a mere copy. The question’s ugly, shadowy grasp accompanies me everywhere, always tormenting me, and asking me the simple question, ‘Who are you?’

Footnotes

*The Ship of Theseus is a philosophical experiment about whether an object remains the same if all its parts are replaced over time. Theseus replaced every rotting plank of his legendary ship until no original wood remained, wondering if it was still his vessel. Yet when he built a second ship from the discarded old planks, he had to ask which one was the true original.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation (S. F. Glaser, Trans.). University of Michigan Press. (Original work published 1981)

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.) Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927).

Sontag, S. (1977). On photography. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.