Monday 12 May 2014

Stop Looking Down at Your Technological Gadgets and Start Looking Up at the Beauty of the World: A Poem by Darren Springer

I was looking at my smart phone the other day,
Texting and scrolling my life away,
When I realized something very important:
Technology in general is really bad, except for the fact that it puts me in touch more easily with other people who write That's So Raven fan fiction.

This media we call "social" is, ironically, not
We just sit around staring at screens like robots
And not even talking in person with loved ones
And that mostly sucks, although I will say it's not as bad when I'm writing That's So Raven fan fiction (which is most of the time) because talking to people will only distract me.

Can anyone doubt technology's role
In ensuring we all grow up without souls?
We don't even know how to communicate
But I do. I actually put a lot of myself into my That's So Raven fan fiction. Some of the autobiographical elements are so thinly veiled that it's actually hard for me to read. (For instance, a lot of my experience with painkiller addiction can be read into the story I wrote about Raven's dad leaving his bag lunch at home instead of bringing it to work.) That's my form of communication, which I think is better and more personal than "tweeting" (pffft!).

We spend so much time on Twitter and Facebook
That we don't even stop to take a good look
At the people around us that we claim to care about
But with me it's different, because most of the people I really care about are my fellow "Ravenettes" in the That's So Raven fan fiction community, and it's kind of a far-flung bunch. Most of them don't live anywhere near me. So with me it's different, like I said. (Shout-out to ToddRantinAndRaven in Orlando. Ha ha, you piece of shit!)

These "wonderful" devices are just tools of delusion
Spreading isolation and awful confusion
These machines that are designed to make us more productive
Are instead, in contrast, proving downright destructive. (Although, if I'm out doing errands and a great idea for a Raven plotline hits me, like "Chelsea gets a bad sunburn" or "someone's grandma dies and it was Raven's fault," then it's actually nice to have an iPad handy to jot it down or even start drafting it. So yeah, the way I use it is actually productive, but the way you use it is probably super-shitty.)

The next time you're riding on a bus or a train
Maybe try going against the grain
And actually speak to whoever's next to you
And then let me know how that goes. I've never done it myself because I'm usually reading other That's So Raven fan fiction so I know what plotlines have been used and what haven't. I recently had an idea for a story where Cory takes some bad acid at school and runs to the zoo and eats an alligator, but then another Ravenette posted a very similar story involving Eddie and some peyote, so that was out. Sometimes the pressure of coming up with something new and fresh for a long-cancelled Disney show doesn't seem worth it. But anyway, you should throw your laptop in the garbage.

And so I will leave you with these caring words
This technology we worship is just for the birds
So put away all of your gadgets and gidgets
And help me brainstorm this plot I came up with where Raven discovers that she can halt the earth's rotation whenever she fidgets.



No comments:

Post a Comment