THE CASE OF THE CHRONICALLY ONLINE (Poem)

Hey y’all!

For Day 20 of National Poetry Writing Month, this is the prompt:

Have you ever heard someone wonder what future archaeologists, whether human or from alien civilization, will make of us? Today, I’d like to challenge you to answer that question in poetic form, exploring a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist? The object or site of study could be anything from a “World’s Best Grandpa” coffee mug to a Pizza Hut, from a Pokemon poster to a cellphone.

Here’s my poem:

THE CASE OF THE CHRONICALLY ONLINE

By Farah Lawal Harris, © 2023

Groupthink:

When chronically online people

talk incessantly at

other chronically online people

about how they’re supposed to

think, act, speak,

love, worship, pee,

dance, rap, act,

promote, joke, vote, emote,

and wash their legs.

Ferguson turned me into

a chronically online person—

the overcommitted version;

refreshing Tumblr feeds to see

activists on the ground

Black life ground down

to blood-stained concrete.

Videos I can’t unsee

no matter how quickly

I scrolled.

Did you know

Russia posed as Black folks to post

traumatic shit,

then turned those accounts to

anti-Hilary Clinton?

Yup! According to another

chronically online person.

I moved on to Twitter,

where activists I followed back then

have since been exposed for sin,

placed in online purgatory

until the next big story.

I’m thinking for myself nowadays,

exposing the ways

my opinion was informed by

reposts and tweets

rather than me.

Answering my questions honestly.

Most days, I don’t know.

…I should turn this into a TikTok video.