Did you know that Walt Whitman wrote a poem about social media and the internet? Yeah, I didn’t either, until Ze Frank told me in his video Thinks Like Me.
Side note… I am in love with Ze Frank. Not in a weird– please be my best friend, stalker sort of way, although I did start digging through his online closet after he started following me on Twitter and sent me some great advice, through a spat of DMs, concerning my Daraja fundraiser,–but more in a, I really respect you man, sort of way.
Maybe in love is the wrong way to put it– I love Ze Frank? Still sounds weird. I respect, admire, am in awe of…no no love will do. I love Ze Frank. Perhaps my admiration stems from the fact that I am new to his work. Yes, I knew of him through the Young Me, Now Me project, but I had never fully explored the extent of his work. Now that I have, explored, I realize that much of what he does is everything I love about the web, about people, about life. His work is light, funny, deep, poignant, collaborative, beautiful, loving, self-deprecating, and true. While he doesn’t take himself too seriously, the work speaks volumes about the human experience in the digital age. …end side note.
Sorry this wasn’t meant to be a declaration of love to Ze, it was meant to be about Walt, Spiders, and The Interwebz. I love it when my passions collide: Poetry by ancient bearded queers, social media, arachnids, and online collaborative artists? Yes please. I am assuming you have already watched Thinks Like Me.
What you haven’t watched it yet? Decided to skip that hyperlink, cuz there were too many? I can’t say I am not disappointment in your lack of media literacy, but that is fine. You are learning and I am a teacher. I get that too many links can be annoying, but sometimes you need to stop and read the links that is what a hyperlink is after all: an embedded connection to other content to clarify and add context to existing text.
Anyway, watch the video, you need it for contextual reference if we are to continue. (Man! That is a lot of alliteration or is it consonance?) We will be dealing with the part around 2:3o where he casually mentions that (this) Whitman poem:
It’s about the web right? You and me? Connecting? We are the spiders right? Isolated exploring the vacant, vast surroundings? Launching forth filament, instagrams, filament, Facebook updates, filament, out of ourselves. Aren’t we ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them. Aren’t we surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of (cyber) space. Ceaselessly musing, blogging, venturing, you-tubing, throwing, tweeting—seeking the spheres, to connect them. You to me. Us? Till the bridge we will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold? Aren’t we hoping that flung gossamer thread will catch somewhere? That someone will read? Comment? Re-tweet? Spin the web of our consciousnesses?
O my soul indeed! I get it Ze. I get it. And so did my grade seven students when we looked at this poem and I mentioned it might be about the internet. They smiled, cuz it is that simple and clear and obvious. That technology and social media is not about technology or social media, it is about connection. It is about the human need to launch forth from itself! Whitman got it, over a hundred years ago. Only difference is that now, it is easier to find an anchor hold. The gossamer threads are fiber-optic and packed with multi-media, which in and of itself adds layers of complexity, but the need to connect, to create, to share is timeless.
All of this philosophizing reminds me of a post I wrote last year, Far From Home on a Dark Night.
Maybe what you are feeling, someone else feels. Maybe what you are feeling, someone else feels.Wow! That is what I wanted all along.
Seems relevant somehow. Looks like more and more of us are feeling it. Interesting that Justin also uses the metaphor of threads. What do you think? Walt Whitman- social media expert? I can see his Twitter handle now:
