Idols
Songs serenaded us to live fast, die young—pulsed through three-foot-tall speakers next to a stage atop which we danced and gyrated against one another in front of a dusty red velvet curtain—a relic from a previous decade—we felt the outline of each other’s bodies under tight micro skirts outfitted of the same material as the cheap leggings we wore to class the next day while our country financed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and blood poured from the mouths and eyes of children. This was when Big Pharma got rich off white pills being crushed and snorted or swallowed by teenagers hooked from football injuries or mothers trying to forget who they were and girls were being fed heroin-chic adverts and a constant media feed that they would never be good enough and young people were being trafficked across state lines without any media attention to submit to unthinkable acts for men profiting off our misery and we bought into the idea that anywhere would be better than here. I got off on anyone looking at me as I danced atop a speaker, objectifying me, infantilizing me. I wore a lacey push-up bra from Victoria’s Secret, a flowy thin shirt, a long necklace with a gold feather pendant, 3-inch wedges. I had never felt so skinny. The crowd reached up to our smooth, sweaty legs—palms up, hopeful.
We had grown up with the fog of war inside of us—growing in normalcy through consistency and morphing chaos into white noise. The hum of chaos lulled us to sleep. White parents who grew up in the 80s were too focused on fulfilling the American dream, realizing nuclear family fairy tales to notice the rise of surveillance society marketed as national security. They had made it—and there was nothing that was going to pry it from their white knuckled grasp—not when they had earned it. Not after their parents had fought for our continued freedom.
Most war movies then were a phallic tug aimed toward WWII nostalgia and victory. The US was the hero, our flag hoisted high—red, white, and blue flapping in the wind like a cape cutting through bright blue sky. Individualism shoved down our throats, collectivism rejected. What does war mean to a child who lives outside of it, clutching a tiny American flag on a wooden stick, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the same flag and manufactured in another country using cheap labor at a propaganda machine disguised as an outlet store? I saw the American flag so innocently then—though it still represented the same ideals as today.
While the housing market crumbled and the price of college tuition skyrocketed, we grinded atop the thighs of boys and men too old for us. Once, I was sure that a man had a dildo stuffed down his pant leg where I rubbed myself up and down its shaft. His head was shaved; his jeans too tight and acid washed. Not bad, he said in my ear as I dismounted and walked away, my hair stringy and dripping sweat. The nightclub was an old theatre with the seats ripped out and the floor was sticky with cheap beer and cranberry juice. Hired photographers took pictures of the local scene and posted them to the earliest versions of social media where we clambered to be noticed, showcasing our sparkly new identities and pearly white smiles and deep V-necks, then searched online to see if our photos had made the cut the next day.
I was most often hungover, bored, waiting for the night to fall so that something deep within me could awaken. The news, current events, the real world—none of these things mattered. I was enamored with our youth, our lust, with the dark, deep sleep we fell into after running home from bars barefoot—chunky wedges held in one fist by the straps slapping against my forearm. I believed in nothing, and in that sense of nihilism, all I had were my hedonistic impulses. I fucked people I wouldn’t be able to place in a line-up the next day, went home with people I wasn’t attracted to, did things I didn’t want to do. I let myself sift through people’s fingers and hoped for the best—called it feminism and freedom—but I didn’t know how to say no to anyone. I wasn’t making choices for myself. I was living a life curated by mass marketing and Hollywood delirium. I was such an easy target, easily manipulated, eager to please, afraid of being seen negatively, willing to label traumatic experiences as a crazy night. The stories we tell hold the power to keep us alive—or bring upon our annihilation—depending on point of view.
When you grow up in the middle of nowhere, you think everyone is living a wilder, fuller life than you, so you overcompensate for the perceived inadequacies of living somewhere no one has ever heard of without pausing to wonder if it was actually a blessing. Instead of developing a counterculture focused on progressive politics, peace, and togetherness, we were fed reality television and a false sense of hope to become almost famous. The representation of women in popular culture and reality TV was a performance put on by hired “actors” or daughters of nepotism to appear dumb and slutty. Was this liberation? Was this the beauty that the pill and Plan B afforded us? To fuck without fear of procreation? To fuck without transaction or romance? To learn that to be progressive was to be wild and talk in a baby voice? I had no interest in these shows, but the culture created there leached into the real world through forms of cultural appropriation and exploitation. I still see the aftereffects happening to some women I know, a rejection of self for a character they deem more desirable and interesting. It wouldn’t be until over a decade later that the masks would fall, that we would hear the real voice of a reality star and learn that she wasn’t so dumb after all. That she had created a persona for the benefit of ratings and entertainment and sold it as authenticity. What is the self? Are we all just embodying projected personalities we see on screen? What does it mean when we latch onto specific characteristics? How much choice do we have in who we become?
Middle America was brainwashed into wanting to flee their lives and families, leave their small towns, stop focusing on community—believing that we had to go out into the “real world” to make it, baby. That was the only thing that mattered—leaving. This false narrative is still being sold today. The more that people leave for bigger cities in more expensive states, the more their small towns would wither. Almost everyone I grew up with has moved away from our hometown, including me. Instead of inheriting or opening businesses, building communities, investing in where we came from, we chose to “find ourselves” and “follow our dreams”. Instead of focusing on the collective, making city politics more progressive, lobbying for a better future, we chose to run away. Instead of being the voice of change, we chose to forgo our voices altogether and follow the same capitalist vision of the one percent. We chose to fund bigger cities and other states with our tax dollars and our time and energy. In this way, small businesses are at risk of failing and bigger corporations will continue to thrive. When progressive people move away from swing states to established blue ones, their homes lose those votes and their states become more conservative. We are tipping the scales ourselves—looking at each other in bewilderment—wondering how we got here.
Then there was the flood. Images of children hanged and burned. Videos of planes falling from the sky. Rage bait posted with an endless stream of comments and reaction videos that create more hate and division. A constant onslaught of negativity aimed toward one’s deepest insecurities so that we feel worthless and incapable of joy or change or love—so that we feel that everything is hopeless and that maybe the end is near. We perpetuate our realities. Humans are a collective. What is normalized becomes normal. Our outlook, our point of view, changes our perceived truth. Not much is hidden anymore but we sit back and accept what is given in complacency. We get distracted by misleading headlines and don’t take the time to read further, dig deeper. We can ask our phone anything—hope for the right answer—and I do. We praise false idols. We expect happiness and fulfillment and validation from posting on social media and watching clips and reels and writing out our thoughts and throwing them into the void. I crave a time that never existed. My attention span has been whittled down to nothing. Rarely can I watch a full reel—I continuously flip my thumb for the next video, the next photo, wait for the dopamine to hit, for the serotonin to save me, wait for a laugh, a sob, maybe rage—wait for anything at all. Isn’t that what the fairy tales here taught us? That if we’re good, if we’re beautiful, if we’re submissive—something will come—something will save us.
Courtney Ebert graduated from the NEOMFA program through Cleveland State University. She has work published in Atticus Review and Surely.