Dark Ages: Girlboss, Let Me Go
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“I can’t wait to work, to have a job, to have responsibility,” a ten year-old in adult-face tells the audience. “I’m most fulfilled when I’m contributing.” She blinks her fake lashes. Her father, who created the super conference she’s speaking at, is watching offstage. She beckons the arena to repeat after her: “I am going to work more! I am going to do more!” The crowd cheers. In a different video, the minor’s parents, motivational speakers and marketing consultants, say they consider success to be their third child.
Over dinner with the intent to impress, friends tell me about brands they’re working with, though I cannot fault their timing since, on some level, I exude an energy which makes people want to flex on me. At 5AM a tourist asks how I managed to work several jobs while I was in college—I’m confused by the question, as if performing tasks for money is ever coupled with genuine inspiration. Capitalism continues to harsh my buzz.
I'm beginning to feel insane watching artists I respect suck up to people online or at parties who can’t really help their careers, unless they’re the type that considers a write-up proof of success. Brown-nosing with an editor will get you somewhere, where exactly depends on the view from whichever rung of media hell you tweet from. I’m not sure why clout is still considered a currency, especially since the conversion rate varies so drastically depending on the zip code.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
A friend takes me to the micro-neighborhood du jour, one with a fake name where everyone has nice skin and over a thousand followers. On the street outside, she introduces me to a D list actor. “He was in…” The actor’s sitting with people who’ve published my writing, but they don’t recognize me and I don’t say anything. As my friend clumsily networks, I consider which letter we’d be assigned. We’re not on the list, so I suggest a bar around the corner.
“Maybe the best we can hope for is succeeding in one scene,” I tell someone at a different bar, “Most artists are only ever remembered during their lifetime. This might be as good as it gets.” I’m getting invited to less and less parties.
Another 5AM, I text my ex. The next afternoon someone asks if I feel embarrassed. A lesbian gets confronted by her girlfriend’s friends, in the weeks that follow, she distances herself from the group as though she were attacked. Willow Smith enlists Avril Lavigne to perform the pop-punk hook, “I’ve been putting work in / healing myself / still got room to grow.” I’m concerned with our diminishing capacity, in art and life, for natural emotions like anger and lust. That in prioritizing niceness we’re pathologizing imperfection; the daughter of millionaire celebrities telling a burning world to focus on self-reflection feels decidedly anti-punk. If suicide rates are any barometer, society has never been further from inner-peace. Though posters reading GO VEGAN have been plastered across town, so maybe these rebels have a different cause.
I’ve been taking long walks to purge this L.A. state of mind. The city’s glamour is fading or I’m getting older, it cannot be both. I keep thinking I see people I’ve fucked, but really we all just look alike. How a city’s foot traffic can expedite trends is not something I considered when I moved to New York, that and frozen dog shit. The anemic distinction between online culture/culture online has made original thought tricky, at least that’s what I tell myself.
Surrounded by gay men who look and dress just like me, this is not the type of community I had in mind. My hand hovers over “Faggots” at the bookstore, but I figure it’s best not to play into the feeling.
“Jake pushes this fake idea that we’re all old at twenty-five. We are not old!” A friend assures another on their birthday. “But I feel old,” they counter, “It’s totally up to us to fix our mistakes now.” I shrug and drink my off-brand White Claw. In the dark ages, life expectancy was thirty-one.
* * *
Like punks, I’ve been questioning systems. Everyone I know seems to be struggling to see the point of checking emails, commenting on the weather in virtual meeting rooms, going through the motions of career—maybe this is an aftershock of the Girlboss Years which put too much emphasis on performing these tasks in an effort to rebrand corporate success as “cool.” Others suggest we’re dealing with a global spiritual reckoning, in which an entire generation is questioning capitalism.
“This dynamic depresses me, obviously. I recently found out my great, great uncle had a lobotomy: so true, bestie.”
Supporting yourself can be worth celebrating (within reason), but not to the degree in which it obscures what’s actually fun about living. But in fairness, it’s a far scarier thing to define oneself outside of the parameters of labor. A scroll on Instagram suggests that Girlboss is proving to be a viral infection, one you cannot kick with the expired antibiotics your roommate saved because you don't have health insurance.
On a new reality series, an expat from an ultra-orthodox Jewish community who now runs a modeling agency asks a client if she sees herself becoming a brand. “I’m Latina and a mother,” says the model.
“Are you a single mom?”
“I am a single mom.”
“We would market that.”
“And he’s autistic.”
Later in the episode, a twenty year-old bisexual app designer kisses another girl with whom she shares little chemistry to assert her sexuality, agency, brand—these days, it’s hard to tell the difference.
At a friend’s apartment, someone puts on the Billie Eilish music video in which Twitter alleges she queer baits in. “What exactly is queer baiting?” Thankfully, someone’s Zoomer sister has done the required reading.
She explains; I’m not so convinced. “Sounds a little egotistical on gay people’s part…” At the bar before, the same Zoomer had asked if I knew other gay men from our two million plus hometown, offering only their first names. It’s interesting how so many can be well versed in the talking points of social justice, yet face-to-face with a real life queer, so clumsy. But I don’t cancel her because she’s lovely, and maybe I do know Brad or Ryan.
* * *
Less and less I’ll feel the need to remind my digital network that I’m alive, but ceasing to post altogether feels like a suicide, which I can’t commit to either. This dynamic depresses me, obviously. I recently found out my great, great uncle had a lobotomy: so true, bestie.
Someone was telling me a story about how a West Coast metal band gained traction with the alt crowd on TikTok because their lead singer was hot. E-boys and girls flocked to the show only to be horrified when they got caught in a mosh pit. “They were all on the internet complaining about the violence and toxicity of it.” I feel like there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
DARK AGES is a gonzo column about art, commerce and crisis by Jacob Seferian | Illustrations by Maria Ylvisaker
