Fluid Thought or What the Internet has in Common With a Bathroom Mirror
At a young age someone in my household discovered a remarkable thing: One could write on a mirror with dry erase marker.
Or rather, more remarkable, it came off easily with paper towels or toilet paper. (You can really write on a mirror with most markers. The main question is whether or not it can return to a functional mirror afterwards.)
From that day forwards household messages are conveyed through mirror. Wishings of "Happy Birthday," a notice that the cat got out, a quick, "I'm on a walk, don't panic." It was really made possible by the fact that the six of us shared a main bathroom, and so everyone could see it.
Flash forward about ten years. I'm standing in the room of one of my suite-mates at my college of choice. Eight of us share one large bathroom. Two showers, two toilet stalls, two sinks, and one mirror. Frankly our bathroom is an old disgusting mess. The shower heads and stall curtains probably should have been replaced a decade ago, and there is exactly nothing in the way of storage or shelving. So one proactive suite-mate had left a sticky note on the mirror beckoning us to a meeting.
We agree to go to the store to get the things we need. Around the end of the meeting we realize we need a more effective mode of communication. One girl is about to put her whiteboard in the bathroom when I remember my home's mirror. I tell everyone about it, whiteboard markers get donated, and chaos ensues.
By the end of the week, the massive mirror is covered. Snapchats usernames, meme drawings, games of tic tac toe, and long written conversations litter the space. It's kind of wonderful. I don't know most of these girls all that well, so I don't know who writes what. I just know that each time I go to brush my teeth or use the toilet, there's a good chance something creative or funny or stupid will be added, and it will probably bring a smile to my face.
At one point I invited some friends to my room and gave them a tour of the bathroom. One of them wrote in a blank spot, "Hail Satan." By the end of the next day there were two responses written beside it; "Hail Satan :)" and "Y'all need Jesus -.- ." Two days later both the original "Hail Satan" and the "Y'all need Jesus" had been erased and replaced with, "Rain Satan; Snow Satan; Sleet Satan" "I don't get it..." "PrecipiSATAN"
As a meteorology major, I appreciated the pun.
I'm going to take a quick detour. Stick with me, I promise it'll tie in.
I am an avid user of Pinterest. Less the cakes and weddings and vacation planning Pinterest and more the fandom/social justice Pinterest. As such, most of my contact with Tumblr has bee through screenshots.
Most people can probably relate to this is some way shape or form. Often I'll find a screenshot from a Tumblr post and it'll be really cool. And then I'll find the same Tumblr post screen-shotted from a different blog. Often the two will start the same, but different contact with different people will lead the post in wildly different directions. A not-very-extreme example of this is a screenshot of a post about a superhero concept; heroes with powers that contradict their personalities. There are two major versions floating around of this post: One of just the original post and a simple "this is really cool re-blog," and another where another blog reposted it and expanded it for character development. They're both really cool, but posts like that get me thinking.
We live in a hyper connected world. We have access to everything all the time. But as a result we get a lot of weird things like the aforementioned post. We get a conglomerate of fluid ideas, captured at different points in their formation and distributed to others. And which part of the idea you see, or even if you see it at all, is so up to chance. I can have a conversation with friends and be like, "Oh have you seen that one post about the vampire history teachers," and half will be like "Yes! That was so good/bad/bleh!" and the other half will be so lost.
I would be tempted to think this was simply a product of so much all the time if I didn't watch this happen on my bathroom mirror. It's definitely to a lesser extent, but it's still there. If I left campus for a day or erased something small as soon as I saw it, my understanding of what's on the mirror, (and then further, what's in the heads of my suite-mates) would be different. And so I wonder if the constant screenshots of fluid thought are more a product of giving a couple creative people a shaky sense of anonymity and watching the result.
Or rather, more remarkable, it came off easily with paper towels or toilet paper. (You can really write on a mirror with most markers. The main question is whether or not it can return to a functional mirror afterwards.)
From that day forwards household messages are conveyed through mirror. Wishings of "Happy Birthday," a notice that the cat got out, a quick, "I'm on a walk, don't panic." It was really made possible by the fact that the six of us shared a main bathroom, and so everyone could see it.
Flash forward about ten years. I'm standing in the room of one of my suite-mates at my college of choice. Eight of us share one large bathroom. Two showers, two toilet stalls, two sinks, and one mirror. Frankly our bathroom is an old disgusting mess. The shower heads and stall curtains probably should have been replaced a decade ago, and there is exactly nothing in the way of storage or shelving. So one proactive suite-mate had left a sticky note on the mirror beckoning us to a meeting.
We agree to go to the store to get the things we need. Around the end of the meeting we realize we need a more effective mode of communication. One girl is about to put her whiteboard in the bathroom when I remember my home's mirror. I tell everyone about it, whiteboard markers get donated, and chaos ensues.
By the end of the week, the massive mirror is covered. Snapchats usernames, meme drawings, games of tic tac toe, and long written conversations litter the space. It's kind of wonderful. I don't know most of these girls all that well, so I don't know who writes what. I just know that each time I go to brush my teeth or use the toilet, there's a good chance something creative or funny or stupid will be added, and it will probably bring a smile to my face.
At one point I invited some friends to my room and gave them a tour of the bathroom. One of them wrote in a blank spot, "Hail Satan." By the end of the next day there were two responses written beside it; "Hail Satan :)" and "Y'all need Jesus -.- ." Two days later both the original "Hail Satan" and the "Y'all need Jesus" had been erased and replaced with, "Rain Satan; Snow Satan; Sleet Satan" "I don't get it..." "PrecipiSATAN"
As a meteorology major, I appreciated the pun.
I'm going to take a quick detour. Stick with me, I promise it'll tie in.
I am an avid user of Pinterest. Less the cakes and weddings and vacation planning Pinterest and more the fandom/social justice Pinterest. As such, most of my contact with Tumblr has bee through screenshots.
Most people can probably relate to this is some way shape or form. Often I'll find a screenshot from a Tumblr post and it'll be really cool. And then I'll find the same Tumblr post screen-shotted from a different blog. Often the two will start the same, but different contact with different people will lead the post in wildly different directions. A not-very-extreme example of this is a screenshot of a post about a superhero concept; heroes with powers that contradict their personalities. There are two major versions floating around of this post: One of just the original post and a simple "this is really cool re-blog," and another where another blog reposted it and expanded it for character development. They're both really cool, but posts like that get me thinking.
We live in a hyper connected world. We have access to everything all the time. But as a result we get a lot of weird things like the aforementioned post. We get a conglomerate of fluid ideas, captured at different points in their formation and distributed to others. And which part of the idea you see, or even if you see it at all, is so up to chance. I can have a conversation with friends and be like, "Oh have you seen that one post about the vampire history teachers," and half will be like "Yes! That was so good/bad/bleh!" and the other half will be so lost.
I would be tempted to think this was simply a product of so much all the time if I didn't watch this happen on my bathroom mirror. It's definitely to a lesser extent, but it's still there. If I left campus for a day or erased something small as soon as I saw it, my understanding of what's on the mirror, (and then further, what's in the heads of my suite-mates) would be different. And so I wonder if the constant screenshots of fluid thought are more a product of giving a couple creative people a shaky sense of anonymity and watching the result.
Comments
Post a Comment