where do you fall on this compass

 this post is dedicated to my friend elliot— a dedicated reader and a blogger himself!

in my head exists a four-field political compass-esque chart: 

the vertical axis determines a spectrum across the opposites ‘inclusive’ and ‘exclusive’. inclusive means nonjudgemental and secure, in this case. naturally, exclusive would represent the opposite, judgmental and insecure. the horizontal axis separates ‘luddite’ from ‘brainrot’. a luddite strays from modern media and lowbrow pop culture. brainrotted folk (i’ve been hearing the word brainrot everywhere nowadays, hence this choice) consume so much modern media on a daily basis, more specifically through social media platforms. 

clear? okay. i have suspicion to believe that pretty much every person i’ve ever met in my adult life occupies a fixed space on this chart. for example, i think i'm somewhere smack dab in the middle, with a slight ‘brainrot’ bias. everyone i meet in berkeley is more of a luddite than i am, and nearly everyone i’ve met by other circumstances is more brainrotted. take my word for it that my immediate family is totally in the inclusive brainrot square. it’s how i was raised. (my mother, especially, is so far lost in the sauce— reclusive internet addiction). 

to clarify, luddite does not signify a net positive, and brainrot does not signify a net negative. in fact, what do people say when they’re so overstimulated by the artificial that they’ve become hyper self-aware? that they’re redpilled? based? alternatively, what does any luddite have to say about pop culture and social media that displays any sort of true, nuanced understanding? there are pros and cons to both.

who are the worst types of people on these axes? the exclusive brainrotted group. self explanatory, honestly—self-identifying with a judgement of anything analog is insane. 51/50 yourself if you identify with exclusive brainrot. who are the best? to me, the inclusive luddites take the cake. those people are truly free. they’ve shucked the constraints of social technology just enough to enjoy themselves on their phone or computer, but express no bitterness towards those who have lost their autonomy to it. at this point in my life, i might have a phone addiction. the only thing keeping me from the deep end is the aspiration to one day become a learned, sympathetic, inclusive luddite. (a fallacy i should point out: while inclusive and exclusive are opposites, luddite and brainrotted are not necessarily so. in fact, i cannot in good faith place on this compass a good friend of mine because i believe them to be a brainrotted luddite.)

a good portion of my artistry is dedicated to mixing all four of these concepts in different ratios. the concept of exclusivity is far more appealing than the practice of it, as is the concept of ludditry (is that a word? no. but does it matter? the red dots in my notes app signifying incorrect spelling are sort-of expressing to me an exclusivity of the written word. sometimes i think about my notes app and how much more appealing it would look to me if it were all written on paper— but i can’t organize a notebook by topic into fake folders like i can here. and if i start writing with a pen and decide it’s rubbish, i’ve wasted paper.) 

more on this later, maybe, etc. i just got off the train. zzzzzzz