It's a Fake World After All...

Tonight I was having food and drinks with some friends—two of the three I had just met. As is typical when I am in the company of more than, say, one person other than myself, I was the quiet one. The one who sits nearly silently (somewhat uncomfortably so) as she watches the world whiz by, trying (albeit briefly) to contribute to a conversation that is likely about some topic to which she simply cannot relate. Every time I’m in the company of a group of people, I realize that the things I think about and care to talk about are just not those things most people talk about. At least not in groups.

Always, always, always, there is some mention of movies or television shows or video games (I hope that’s the proper term?) and again, I sit blindly staring, wondering what the hell these people are even saying. Everyone is laughing gaily as someone refers to David Bowie’s tight pants and genitals and something about puppets; and here I am getting the sympathetic look from the one person at the table who knows me…because she is well aware that I have no idea what’s going on. Then she brings it up: “Audrey doesn’t watch movies.” To which one of the newcomers replies, “Oh, did you grow up with parents who didn’t allow it or something?” Me: “Ummm, no, I just don’t like movies.”

The conversation continues along its (painfully and monotonously) typical pop-culture path, eventually making it to (what I later learn to be) the video game portion. [You see, they just start talking about these games and movies as if everyone already knows what they are. Oh yeah, because they do!] Well, apparently there is a “game” called Second Life, that essentially allows people to pretend to have whatever life they dream or desire, and it is so mind-altering and hypnotic that real life becomes extremely confusing and crazy-making when you stop playing. As in, people actually go nuts over this shit. Like, they lose their shit because they don’t know how to function in their actual lives. Are you kidding me?!?! I’m pretty sure that I don’t have the words to properly convey how disturbing this is to me.

I’ve been doing a lot of pondering recently, considering what I see as rampant fakery everywhere...

Someone mentioned to me today that 30 percent of the cost of a tire is due to its advertising budget. Then I think, wow, advertising. Hmmm…there’s this whole business, this whole industry, where people go to work every day, millions of them, and they make advertising for things, things that may or may not be things we need, but regardless they are things we will buy, and then we pay more for these things, just because they are advertised, which means by buying these things we are paying for the salaries of these advertising people, and are essentially using our money to create an industry that only exists so that we can pay more for the things we buy. Woah. It’s all fake. I mean, it’s so fake.

And then I learn of this Second Life game, this game of fake life. And I sit among a group of people who are using all these fake things—movies, television, games—to relate to real, actual life. And again, I think, woah, it’s all fake.

We live in a fake world.

Why don’t we actually talk about and experience the life that is right before our very eyes, instead of talking about all this fakery?

It’s madness. Madness I tell you!

Moral of the story: I don’t know. The world is fake.

Result of the story: It’s always the same. I am weird. I am awkward. I feel more alone with a group of people than I do when I am actually alone.