I stepped in shit on Instagram. -Karen

 Hello dark readers,

It is a sun shiney, beautiful day in April in New England. I have spent a few hours in a full on debate with an instagram influencer. Her followers started gunning for me. They are writing hate poems about me. It’s a whole scene. 

Point is that I’ve invested my heart and intellect on this problem. And why it feels so charged to me. Why is it that we are so divided? Even when we are on the “same side?”

Lefties. Righties. Tighties. Loosies. 

Aren’t we all the fucking same in the end? 

I just hate seeing people who are OBVIOUSLY on the same side, rip each other to bits as if there is not enough pie.

We are a mirror. 

So when the sides start to rub up against each other, it creates energy, heat! It boils our blood and we find ourselves infighting - pointing the finger and the blame at each other for this shitshow, this dumpster fire, this life! 

These arguments feel like the definition of insanity: banging your head against the same wall and expecting it to crack every time. It never does. You keep banging. 

How can we find serenity when we find ourselves at opposite ends of the imagined moral spectrum expecting the other to change? Even when we know the BIG fight is not even about US.

I guess we realize that we are the same. There is no wall. There is no crack. There is no you. There is no me. 

Only us. Only this. Only everything. Only the mirror. 

But that is a hard place to land in a battle of wits on fucking instagram with angry people who are younger and smarter than I am! The worst in me came out. 

I’m not...proud. But I am glad that I said something.

I swore. I defended things I didn’t fully believe in. I was mean. I barked myself into a corner and let them pick at my bones and then apologized for speaking and excused myself. 

And pouted. And felt sorry for myelf in my fragility.

I was shamed. I was Karened. I guess I am Karen. 

I karened. And then you all bullied me HARD! That was so strange.

To that gorgeous instagram poet who I didn’t know anything about, I was your karen today. 

I commented on your post and lit a fire in your comments. By then end of it you had people telling you to send me an invoice. 

How did that get so out of hand? I think it is because of this:

I am a white, blonde, upper-class (by inheritance), cis-woman with pretty privlidge and the ability to pass as straight and as a “first-class citizen” in a white-supremisct society - at any time I choose. I am aware that by my existence, I have taken up space and air time and jobs and resources and education that could have been shared around the community more equally with BIPOC and the LGBTQIA+ community. 

Karen knows how much of a shithouse it is to hear privileged people whine and moan about their problems. “White people problems” I call them. Karens love that joke. 

We laugh about how uncomfortable we are with our ancestral wealth that came down from centuries of white-supremacy and slavery. It really makes us sick to our stomachs. We have IBS. 

And yet. We insist on speaking. Karens love to talk shit out of our mouths. 

We want to talk about representation too. We want to stand up for artists and women who are getting canceled. Not because we like them, but because the art was important. 

But sakes alive, I guess I will not do this anylonger without a huge SCOLDING!!!

And now I’m just talking for myself, because if I am your Karen, it wont matter if I apologize. Because I am your symbol, I’m human tool. 

But as an artist, it is important for me to say this to anyone reading, 

FUCK CENSORSHIP. 

Today I saw something in black and white on a poet’s page and wanted to throw in some color for perspective.  Give it some balance. I wanted to stand up for artists.

(The artist happened to be...Lena Denham. People really HATE HER. Like a lot of people. Every. Single. White man. I know. Hates Lena Denham with a firey passion. Most white women do too. Apparently now the entire BIPOC community and Queer community hater her. I don’t like her, but I believe she is a good artist. Is that wrong?)

I feel like ALL ARTISTS ARE ASSHOLES. They do horrible things! They have extreme opinions. They are Woody Allen. They are Harvey Weinstein. They are Michael Jackson. They are every Rolling Stone. They are Bill Cosby, (I still love his "Himself" comedy special and will laugh at it for the rest of my life.)  And Yes, they are Lena Denham. They are racists and rapists and sickos and depressives. They are sick. They are the scum of the earth.

They are...smokers.

They smoke in bars, for christ’s sake! As Fran Lebowitz says, and this is not a direct quote but a remembered quote from her doc (I'm the worst.) “Wanna know what you call a bunch of artists smoking in a bar?” “What?” “The history of art.”

We have to dare to be hated. In public. Artists have to speak when people will want to censor. 

I can say this with full honesty. If you are trying to silence your neighbor, WHOEVER THEY ARE, you are doing the world a disservice. 

Discourse. TALK. DEBATE. 

I’m ready to answer for my karen-ness. I’m ready to step in shit. 

I have lived with insane privilege in my life. It’s true. 

I have also survived my own traumas. 

I am also queer, and spent most of my life closeted and depressed. 

I am also angry. I also have the memory of trauma in my bones from my ancestry. 

I have also been drugged and silenced by my society.

I have secrets that erode the skin and make me sick. 

I have spent a lot of my life NOT standing up for my loved ones who had it harder than i did. 

Because I was scared to live my own truth. 

Because I honestly believed there wasn’t enough to go around. 

Even in my own family. 

It’s ugly. 

I’ve hurt people. I’m the Asshole. I’m the rapist and racist and pervert and the bad mom and Terf and the liberal and bisexual. I'M RELATED TO...(gasp)...TRUMP SUPPORTERS.

I’m also in my own personal hell/heaven cycle. We all are. 

People who are hurt, hurt other people. Ad noseum.

Karens hurt Karens. 

Women hurt women. 

I believe we can stop this.

I did not manage that peak of enlightenment today, unfortunately. I regret hurting someone with my words. The Instagram or whatever platform you chose to be on, is an easy place to debate. It’s cheap and I took a cheap shot at someone who I didn’t think would care, and it seemed to hurt them, and other people. But I will never have to see these people again. 

So that is why I need to get this conversation out in the open. To say that I have self awareness so much so that it is paralyzing. I believe your stereotypes about myself too. So how do I move out of them? 

How do I create a different world when I am of the world we live in? 

My answer is art. (one of my answers.)

I may piss you off. I may hurt your feelings. I don’t like doing that. 

You may tell me you don’t like my voice. That I need to “shut up.” 

You may tell me to stop. To go home. To listen. more. Talk less.

But I’m also not going to stop talking to please you. 

Any of you. 

Any more. 

Artists of all types - create. Create. Create. We need you to.

Even if you are a racist Dick. 

Even if you are privileged as FUCK.

I WOULD RATHER YOU MAKE ART THEN SHOOT PEOPLE AT A DAYCARE. 

You are our mirror. 

Thanks for making art, WOC poet on instagram who I offended

Thanks for making art, Lena Denham

You all piss me off. I thank you for it! 

Keep making art. 

Not war. 

I guess I need to go buy these people's books now. 💀😈😍