Ghost of Censorship Present
Poetry by The Irrational Sage
I made this little video below during 2020, whoa, it’s amazing how much I’ve changed in 4 years….but what hasn’t changed is the censorship.
One time I was censored for posting about a tree. How did that get on the snope nope list? Is there a Watch-List for tree posts? Being a symbol of truth and courage, I guess I can see why “trees” made the list.
Self-censoring has become normalized in response to being censored so much that I can feel myself hesitating before any post….will this be the one post that does me in…poof, deleted again…my creativity, shares, connections all gone because someone I’ll never know decided to pull the plug? My Facebook disappeared entirely for 6 months during that time and then reappeared out of the blue one day. I learned two things when that happened:
No one cares or will reach out wondering where you went if your social media disappears….you’ll just vanish…like a ghost…it feels surreal. A digital death that definitely shook me and showed me where I was placing too much time and energy inside the digital-dopamine-dementor black mirror. Shit, is Harry Potter really a documentary?
You better back up anything you want to keep…out of the machine. They say things are permanent on the internet, but where do the censored accounts go…is there an AI graveyard somewhere, does it have an IP address? Can I dig up my grave of non-compliant posts and resurrect them for my scrapbook or to bury in a time capsule…if so is there a Robinhood Superhero Hacker I can hire to help?
“If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.”
It’s funny how getting shadowbanned on instagram is one way of censoring…why all the shadowy ghosty terms? You want to survive these times, you better become a sleuth, a detective for truth….I guess there was a reason I loved Nancy Drew so much as a kid, I just didn’t realize how things would become so relevant. I’m not saying you should ditch the digital and buy old books, but you should buy old books and hoard them for the future, leave clues inside about these times, highlight letters, make a cipher, it’s important work. If the memes get burned, they will need another way to decode messages. You’re going to be an ancestor someday, you’ll be glad you did this.
Everytime I see "You've violated our community standards" I think of Urkel from that show in the 90's and I hear a high pitched voice saying...Yeweeee can't do thaaaaat!
Before 2020, ghosting by people was becoming a more common behavior on the dating scene. How is it that in a world where it’s easier to communicate, there is less communication than back in the days when you had to shoot straight by showing up if you said you would, by doing what you said you would….or being forced to observe real life consequences beyond the illusion of screens and delusion. There’s a theme playing out….it goes beyond the realm of technology.
Many years ago, I remember being in a hotel in China unable to access my social media because it is banned there and thinking to myself, “oh how awful they have it.” I was ignorant to what would come all these years later and what was already censoring us in America by way of algorithms, social conditioning, and search results, giving us the “approved” information only.
Thought police are more like haunting thought forms of demon possessed fact checkers that are probably wound up so tight inside the propaganda that you could pop them with a pin and they’d just float away….at least that’s what I imagine on the other side of the screen, angry virtue signaling robot wanna-be’s….rapture by reverse mind control, triggery glitch beware….ghost in the machine for hire….are you a good ghost or a bad ghost, which team are you on? Let’s see how well you can make a fright with might for what’s right….just remember, it’s boos not booze!
I certainly felt like a ghost during those times (still do sometimes). I never wore a mask, and while I did have some uncomfortable situations arise like getting threatened, stared at, assaulted, yelled at and kicked out of some places, the strangest part of all was that most of the time it was none of that, but more like being a ghost…somebody pinch me.
Obviously the symbolism behind the masking is vast, including that of suffocating the spirit (inspiration) leading to submission, suppression, loss of connection, confusion, and killing of the voice (aka compliant self-censorship). The intentions by the propaganda on display made it known that we live in a world where any individuality or opposing view was frowned upon and discouraged. How dare you speak, create, or express anything not approved by the Ministry of Mis(sing)-Information!!!
I’d go in a store and be the only person there that wasn’t masked up and no one made eye-contact, no one conversed, and no matter what I did, it truly seemed like I was invisible. Real life censorship by ghost-mode while walking down streets staring at living ghost- emoji’s, I can see clearly, but can anyone see me….is this a thing?
Clown world turned ghost world….had I stepped into a detective novel: The Covid Chronicles: An eerie tale of the invisibility cloaked woman evading the masked crowd.
It was all a little too Beetlejuice for me. Will we look back on this as a blip in time like many other mass-psychosis displays throughout history?
Maybe the wearing of a mask reduced vision in some way? I don’t know.
A ghost online and a ghost in line at the corner store, either way, it felt like a blessing and a curse to be walking around staring at half faces, wondering if anyone could see me, or not. I turned it into a game. On one hand I was glad to feel invisible and avoid the ridiculous drama, on the other hand I missed smiles and so I smiled a lot, hoping to remind the others they are not dead and their humanness is needed…for all I really saw staring back at me behind most masked faces was just another kind of ghost…the ghost of sadness and despair. It’s easier to pretend the “ghost-like” days of the scamdemic never were, that they are behind us, to pretend everything is ok now…but that is definitely not the case.
And the digital book burning, sneaky algorithms, undermining apps, data collection, mind control propaganda and blatant censorship continues whether you’re scrolling on the phone or passing billboards on the interstate, it’s all pointing in the same direction hoping you’ll look where they tell you to and FALL-in-line…but this ‘aint no time for falling!
They say obey….I say oy vey!
The not-so-powers-at-be still want us to hush up our voices and join the hive, to that I say, I will haunt you in my astral travel if you don’t get out of my way and I’m only half joking….Boo-Mofo-Boo… the only ghost in this place is your made-up-make-believe invisible enemy that you want everyone to fear, but I don’t play games in the land of fiction. ;-)
Sometimes, you just have to make the best of a situation no matter how strange, censored or not, wearing an invisibility cloak or not…live life and make it awesome, even if it’s not on the internet, even if it goes into the AI graveyard, even if they censor-shadowban-delete you, even if you feel like you might as well have a sheet over your head!
“I’m the ghost with the most, babe.”
Ghost of Censorship Present
Holy shit. I have chills everywhere. First off, i relate 1000%. It's a fucked up thing to grapple with, knowing you can (and have been) deleted or muted from the public communication-share-think space for "wrong think" or "wrong speak" -- and i too got a strike on IG for sharing a homesteading meme (incitement of violence) although there was a small sentence at the bottom that mentioned shooting a fed if they came on the property - i legit didn't see it, but i still would have posted it if i had.
then there's the times where you're given a strike over a typo or the machine not understanding slang or punctuation, and then there's the truth which is a no-go for the algo. I almost changed my artist name because of the censorship issue.
ALSO... I feel the need to share this. I'm working on an album right now, some people know the title of it, but I haven't disclosed it publicly. I'm going to in this comment because its literally what you just did in that spoken word video, and you essentially wrote the same thing, just different wording above it. The title of the album is called Ghost in the Machine. thats why i have fkn chills. and here i am watching a video of you dressed like a ghost, reciting poetry, in the machine. this is fkng wild and i am really grateful i opened this email and read this. thank you.
💯 LOVE this ... "The not-so-powers-at-be still want us to hush up our voices and join the hive, to that I say, I will haunt you in my astral travel if you don’t get out of my way and I’m only half joking….Boo-Mofo-Boo… the only ghost in this place is your made-up-make-believe invisible enemy that you want everyone to fear, but I don’t play games in the land of fiction."