Don't Call it Comeback

 

It's been five and a half years since my last blog post. I intentionally stopped blogging and posting a great deal on social media around the same time. Becoming an aid worker made me look at my then relationship with social media in a specific way. I worked with a protection agency that took its work very seriously and for good reason. We were working in areas of conflict where the stakes were high but mostly for the people we worked with who had fled their homes and had very little power, protection or security. My colleagues and I were working with people who had sought refuge in camps to escape persecution and violence from those who were in power. Therefore it was clearly organizational protocol that we were not to post photos of vulnerable people as it could expose them to the very people they were fleeing from.  I'm embarrassed to say I remember that there was a moment of struggle in realising I couldn't post the "good work" I was doing and let others know how saintly and special I was to work in a difficult place giving of myself to benefit others. Of course now I write that with sarcasm. But to be honest, the truth of my words was very unsettlingly near the surface. When I lived in Los Angeles,  the expression I used to jokingly (but not that jokingly) use was "If it's not on Facebook, it didn't happen." You can image the existential crisis I faced with the notion that my work would not be out there for others to envy and admire! How then could it actually happen? The protocol turned out, not surprisingly, to benefit me as well as the vulnerable. 

Following the protocol, which was made for practical purposes, also prompted the idea of really examining the idea of promoting yourself or even the organisation. What role does marketing, advertising and promotion play in aid work?  I came to examine in myself and in the industry I worked in was this concept of the White Savior Syndrome. The notion of White Western educated learned people coming into developing nations, typically populated by Black or brown peoples and "saving" that area or conflict or situation. Thank God We're Here!! This is all over aid work and in missions as well, often short term missions. It's often largely unexamined and indicates a larger problematic systemic inequality. But limiting to social media, it is positing content that comes from a perspective of these poor people and what they suffer and here are pics of me doing things to help them, #humblebrag. Subtle things like centering yourself in pictures with locals, particularly local children or women. Check out the Barbie Savior Instagram account. It's very helpful and indicting, speaking from personal experience. here

In following the protocol, I eventually found safety and comfort in posting less. I posted only on vacation and my last blog post was an attempt to blog on vacation. But it became this weight of carrying around an audience to my life. A weight I didn't want. So when I went on vacation or when I did post, 'sharing' became just that. I'm sharing this thing in my life with a public, an audience? Friends and family etc. Followers? It was actually very nice that as instagram was taking off and there were these clickbaits on how to increase your instagram or twitter followers,  I luxuriated in the mindset of no thanks, I'm set. I liked and still do like the anonymity. Not that I have social media figured out. I consume way too much of it, but that's for 2022 Corrie to sort out, among many other things. 

So why come back to the blog? Because I have finally surrendered to myself that this, writing, is how I come at the world. How I process myself and my experiences. It is my primary form of self expression and therefore writing is how I am my true being. I joined tiktok early in the year and realised I am not a tiktokker. Not naturally. And I don't mean that in a pejorative or dismissive way. I love these amazing people who are doing incredible high quality content in one minute. They put a lot of hard work into it and understand the medium in a way that makes what they do seem effortless. But what I know, is that is not me. I need more than one minute. I need vocabulary and metaphor and drama and mood and words and phrases. And I don't need followers or likes. ANd while i'm not sure exactly what I need, for now I just need my words to be out in the ether. 

Who cares what my plan is going forward? I'm just going to do my thing and when I'm once again happy with my thing, I'll try to find some eyeballs for it. Until then, this is my blog, this is my unfiltered voice and these are my thoughts. Happy New Year.