Forgive me, Ariana Grande
While preparing for BBRC8, in between practice runs, I thought often about Ariana Grande. I tried, and failed, to imagine the impossible amount of scrutiny she has received since the beginning of her career. I can vividly remember her songs playing on the radio and the headlines in magazines and on social media that accompanied each new album release: tirades about her body, her whistle register, her makeup, her discography, her fashion, her tone, her trail of failed relationships. Though I have never managed to actively stan any one artist, I grew up watching her grow up, and I think I came to see her as a role model or sister figure of sorts.
A small coffee brewing competition is nothing. Compared to what Ariana Grande has experienced, BBRC8 can barely be called a stage. But it was the first time I allowed myself to be seen without the barriers that have been a fixture of my adult life: a blurry webcam, a laptop screen, and physical distance separating me from my conversational partners. I already talked about visibility in my preceding blog post but I just can't help thinking about it again, and about her. I'll say it once more: It's terrifying to put yourself out there, and to exist in the world. People interpret it as tacit permission to lambast the shit out of you and your horrible decisions and your disgusting body and this and that. Everything you are is fair game.
What crime did Ariana ever actually commit? She was too earnest, too desperate? Too eager for the stage? Too hungry for love and acceptance? What has she ever done except bravely step out and live her life in the limelight, warts and all?
My ultimate goal is to get to WBrC, to come home with something shiny and gold — and I know I have the privilege to pursue that, somehow, and the support, but a part of me also dreads this journey I‘ve chosen because I know it will come with a similar kind of scrutiny (albeit to a lesser degree). Choosing to compete requires accepting that every action is (or will be) under observation. Competing means I accept the risk: that I‘ll need to apologize for my mistakes, for weeks, or months, or years.
I've thought at length about the vanishing of third spaces and the rise of surveillance in the 21st century, though unfortunately I've not put enough of my thoughts to paper. Writing this, my ADHD (not officially diagnosed, though) brain is reminded that a few days ago people were also getting upset about crotch goblins mucking up public spaces and shitting in diapers:
Though sociology insists that our feeling of being watched is due to the spotlight effect — basically, a cognitive bias resulting from an over-active mind — I dare say that in recent years social anxiety is increasingly more justified.
The relentless, constant criticism of Ariana Grande, my diminuitive fear of "being known", the ease at which we spit putrescence at one another — are all part of the same malaise, but I'm not sure what to call it. Do we fold it under "late stage capitalism"? Surveillance culture? Social decay fuelled by technological advances?
A rose by any other name is just as sweet, and the inverse applies. Whatever this phenomenon is called, it stinks.
We live in terror of being monitored for our shortcomings, and we strike out and rebel by monitoring other people. We tell ourselves the lie that by policing and turning in others to the social consumption engine, we are keeping ourselves safe. (“If the spotlight is on them, then it’s away from us). In actuality, however, such betrayal of fellow man guarantees no protection. here I'll share Ilya Kaminsky's much cited poem, one of my favourites:
The point I’d like to make: we care too much and also not enough for one another.
More than the things in our rooms or the scattered ephemera on our desks, the interesting tools we purchase to satiate a deep longing within ourselves, we are surrounded by each other. I want to always remember that to live is to be fallible and weak, and in need of forgiveness. We cannot reject or denigrate society; we are society, and therefore we must do the work ourselves of being kind. The Internet and our screens and the ease of making yet an another anonymous account have made it easier to forget that they are not others but are we, are people, AKA, fellow humans.
Is this my way of asking you all to be gentle on me and my fellow competitors?
Is this my way of asking you to forgive Ariana Grande for the transgression of… nothing in particular? For being alive?
Both?
Remember: That‘s a person. If they aren‘t actually causing you harm, just leave them alone. Learn to differentiate between real and imagined crimes.
Guys, let's (re)learn how to live peacefully with one another.
I am not sure if I believe that Ariana is completely, totally OK right now. Regardless, I hope for her the same as I do for you: that she‘ll live a long and joyful life surrounded by people who are kind to her, who let her know gently when she’s gone astray, who intervene when things are out of hand. I wish her a lifetime of good music and inspiration and brilliant, sparkling moments. I wish her grace and love.