What 2018 October looked like was an endless series of social media anxiety, triggers and jitters running all over one’s body. Failing to get out of bed, and switching off the internet was not really an option, since everyone talked about it. It felt like #metoo was a heavy blanket which one could not pull themselves out of. We all had a story to share, we kept our truths to ourselves for the fear of not being believed, or that we wanted to preserve our mental health, or we chose to speak because we did not want anybody to go through the same experience or because we wanted to stop doubting ourselves.
Many of us saw it as a space to form alliances and be part of support groups. But did the movement become about a specific crowd and space? Did it get dominated by the ones having access to resources and information? The movement seemed to be about the populist upper class, upper caste cis heterosexual women, who occupied the maximum space to speak about themselves and share other people’s stories with or without consent. It became another space for a fuelled system of power structure with no representation of gender inclusivity, encouraging people to understand that the ‘personal is political’ without putting oneself in the pressure.
There was a pool of social media support which was garnered and appreciated, framing alliance, systems of belief and trust. But was there a willingness to accept one’s not-so-linear idea of ‘personal is political’, or was there a set of limitations which was meant to not receive the politics in its entirety, but cutting a convenient piece of cake? What did belief, trust, and support look like? Was the allyship tailor-made to fit into the design of the idea of support aligning with the interest of pop-culture and away from our personal spaces to feed into a certain background, and class of people sharing the similar interests and ideologies?
When people were encouraged to talk about or acknowledge their trauma, did we create a boundary for ourselves which was supposed to be kept untouched, so as to live in oblivion? Why did we not look into our spaces? How did the flood of support diminish or vanish, as soon as people we are acquainted with, or are friends with, were pointed out? Suddenly all narratives changed?
Why does creating safe spaces and moving out become the sufferer’s job, whilst creating a bubble for toxic people to not question their attitudes and lead their way of life? Altogether, the ounce falls back on the people who have experienced the trauma, coming back to the loop where it started? Why again did the labour of building trust and belief and safe space fall back onto the one who experienced the sore? The question comes down to, are we feeding ourselves from the internet or that internet is fed by our stories?