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Brief Meditation On The Life of Maggie Pollitt and other poems

The Social Gaze: On Watching and Being Watched

“Today everything exists to end in a photograph.”

 – Susan Sontag, On Photography

Sontag’s remarks were deemed controversial in the late 70s. In the digital age of image saturation, however, she’s the disseminator of the gospel truth. Everything today from our casual interests, beliefs, interactions across mediums, and even our personality – exists to end up in a 1080 x 1080 pixel and 4:5 aspect ratio photograph, nestled in a thoughtfully curated grid – for the feasting eyes of the other.

The malleability provided by social media platforms to alter our identities has been a matter of discourse since its inception. Our online personas have never existed in a vacuum. As social creatures, we’re in constant anticipation of the outsider’s gaze, in both awe and fear. The inherent need to be seen is always accompanied by the fearful clasp of judgment tight around its neck. The human herd instinct to seek approval makes most of our behaviour in social settings performative. From the clothes we wear and the movies we watch to the opinions we hold more often than not arise from the need to achieve a sense of belonging – the one slated third in Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs[1].

While the performances persist, it’s only human to slip up at times.
Entrée the power of social media.
Social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and X (formerly Twitter) allow us to not only create a production out of our existence but up the ante as well – we get to control who views our performance, along with the parts they get to see.

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine you’re (doom)scrolling through Instagram when you come across a post by a conventionally attractive, white woman. She’s seated in an outdoor cafe. The sunbeams bounce perfectly off of her black sunglasses. Her profile faces the camera as she peers into her phone’s screen, carefully reapplying her lipstick.

Seems cool enough right? What if you zoom in just a bit?

Those sunglasses are the coveted Tom Fords in Whitney, and her lipstick is the classic Rouge Dior. What else, the bottom half of the picture seems to cut off a pack of Marlboro Lights and what appears to be an incredibly expensive lighter!

There’s at least a fifty per cent chance that you’ll believe you’ve stumbled across the feed of an heiress out to lunch in Italy. Such is the power of branding. The mere association with brands established as luxurious converts a simple photograph into an identity definer, as Professor Nita Mathur notes, “commercial brands and luxury commodities have come to serve as signifiers of identity in society”[2], allowing individuals to construct, deconstruct or reconstruct their social identities.

References

https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm
https://sk.sagepub.com/books/consumer-culture-modernity-and-identity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14JGQ1JWSgc&t=632s
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2023/01/26/why-and-how-to-implement-social-media-branding/?sh=3c975389793b
https://internetprincess.substack.com/p/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-complex
https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/32/1/171/1796334?redirectedFrom=fulltext
https://www.wired.com/story/business-gen-z-social-media/
https://creative.salon/articles/features/is-social-media-over-for-the-younger-generation
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/new-nihilism-how-gen-z-is-embracing-a-life-of-futility-and-meaninglessness-20231016-p5ecra.html
https://www.businessoffashion.com/reports/news-analysis/the-state-of-fashion-2024-report-bof-mckinsey/

Appears in —

Kai

Kai is a student of literature and a fan of stories in all forms. Currently fidgeting behind a camera lens, she’s always struggling with thinking too much and not writing enough.

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Brief Meditation On The Life of Maggie Pollitt

this rose quartz chinadoll; this sunken chunk of flesh and sex; this four-poster bed draped in southern wind, the little traces of sunlight blinking through the lilywhite + cream curtains – the peak, the sneak, the garter belt, the rotation of heels and earrings ; the pearls; the diamonds cascading through fingertips still silken at the skin,, still soaked in sin, still flashing tumbler whiskey dry , high time , high noon , Memphis heat boiling over the ice cube coldness – bitter fringe of society; the society we live in; the rolled up pant leg to expose / to expose; the exposition of timelessness; of ankles broken, twisted, mangled words hulked on top of one another like a hawk-cries’ promise \\ It’s just a mechanical thing, this love ; or the magical disappearing act of it \ it’s just a mechanical thing, this heart or the wild feet I race back and forth in circles / This blue satin love, a sash around the waist, a dash of haste stealing around your chaste angled brow upwards,, the disdain, the rotating glass chiming clock chimes in the hallway, endless hours of saturated sun ; croquet balls flung mid moon air suspended ; never hitting the target through the delicate wire frame the ball is supposed to chime through ; the delicate wire frame ; the endless succession of words, the postponement of pleasure, of honesty, the bravery of standing on your own two feet, and barking into the moonlight

When the hair was snipped

When the hair was snipped
the panic rose on the back of my neck
like a pair of traps releasing on each foot /
I liked to hide behind this tiny patch – this little
window shade from the world;;
The air on the side of my face
was nothing short of terrifying –
all of the new light the sun could splay on me;
all of the imperfect pores that could feel the atmosphere //
the nakedness felt immense –
And my rapturous heart knew nothing else
but the kind of fear that approaches you from behind
(this had come from the front – with my consent, no less)


I sat with the mounting anxiety as it traced me
home, down the NJ transit line, little train plodding slowly
(too slowly) and me and my little heartbeat thudding endlessly


I sat with the fearful residue sliding over my body —
approached it like a small animal
and began to call it pet names ;
It began to comfort me – the radiant terror
transforming into something resembling release —
The courage of follicles tossed to the
ground like some sort of ancient foliage
gone free — the bliss of winter branches reaching


I wondered about the radical resistance of our bodies;;
the way that my projection of sliding cells
curls my little name into an image — how the grace
of giving away your identity
rattles out the little neurons waiting
in the back of my brain to be called on;
Waiting to be forced to stand up /


And here comes the army of new selves
rushing from the last row – here comes the maraca of my brain;
shook
and surrendering
to the agony of fearlessness
you force yourself to allow yourself to grow into
by pulling up the weeds keeping
the soil
together

Lighter

I kept your lighter
grabbed it in an instant
tucked into the folds of
my coat and bumbled my way
home —


when a memory folds itself
like cupped hands under a
tucked chin, I always gape at it;
laugh and wave my hands
like it is a friend that has come
to console me — but
here there is only the end of the
telephone wire, and a chunk
of ones and zeros
that line up to make your face;
and the dropped conversation
that sits like a pair of
folded hands with
no memory of itself;
folded paper that leaves no crease


I kept your lighter,
maybe to set this paper on fire,
watch it burn in the afternoon light;
tuck the ashes under my pillow;
make a few wishes on them and pull
a few teeth out, hoping a fairy or two
will leave me something
in the morning;
something more concrete of you –
like copper or scratched silver;
or a flame and
something to set ablaze

Appears in —

Lauren Suchenski

Lauren Suchenski (she/her) has a difficult relationship with punctuation. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and four times for The Best of the Net. Her chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” (2017) is available from Finishing Line Press, and a full-length collection “All You Can Measure” as well as a chapbook “All Atmosphere” (Selcouth Station 2022) are forthcoming. You can find more of her writing on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski.

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