Becoming egirl like I’m becoming sick. I am diseased now. My Instagram mutual sends me a screenshot of an online profile. An account with a girl name saying it’s from British Columbia. @floatingon02, but the profile picture is not of @floatingon02, the profile picture is of me. Me in my room with my cross hanging above my head. I thought I looked cute, but now I think I look like an idea. Every day, thousands - maybe millions - of girls get online and they assume the position. Their reality is Lily Rose Depp wearing wired headphones, Bella Hadid taking crying selfie, Paris Hilton mugshot, actress from Possession flailing arms, Natalie Portman Black Swan, Nicole Kidman underwear Eyes Wide Shut, Dasha Redscare body check, waif coquette trad sweet bunny rabbit dog puppy kitten this is who you’re being mean to when you’re being mean to me by the way, this is me this is me me AF I’m just a girl, I'm like if a girl got hit by a car and kept walking like nothing happened I have never been cool in person and online isn't that much different. If you knew me, you wouldn't like me, but nobody knows me now, anymore, ever I am just your profile picture. I am being questioned if I sell content, if I sell nudes, if I'm submissive, if I’ve ever done sex work and if I haven't, would I do it right now? I can make an Amazon wishlist right now I can make 30 dollars if I show you 50 angles of my ass right now but please make sure it’s just right and taken just for him and oh my god It’s so fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The internet made me stay home from school, then it made me move to New York, then it made me feel really crazy, then it made me really mad every day ever since. Sometimes my stalker schizo burner account glitches and all the Instagram stories from people I hate reappear and I pretend my brain is wiped clean, Hallelujah. Like I haven’t seen anything that’s ever hurt me. But I tap on the little highlighted circles again and again and again, Amen. I can't help it, I love turning around, like if Orpheus was a girl. I'm like if Sisyphus was a girl. If he was pushing buttons instead of pushing boulders. Now Elon Musk allows you to see all the profiles that blocked you, but you can't interact with them anymore. Look but don't touch. It makes me feel like I'm in a digital jail cell clanging on the bars with a tiny tin can at you. I can see that you hate me from the way you block me, I can see that you resent me from the way you subtweet me, but all I ever did was try to understand. Turn the other cheek. Let you tear me apart. Have you pass through me. If you keep editing an image, the quality will degrade. Are my pixels forever? Now there’s artifacting, compression, there’s a filter on this I can tell, she doesn’t actually look like that, I’ve seen her in person and she’s ugly, she’s older, she’s bigger, she’s stealing egirl valor and she’s not actually very tapped in I'm really into this idea of becoming just a figment of your imagination. I'm really into this idea of having a few pictures of myself proliferate the online sphere, flooding the online market, only to one day just leave it all behind. Rug pull my entire aura and cash out quick. Get what I want when I get the fuck out. Remember that girl? Sort of. She's not online anymore. She deleted her accounts. She's maybe finally alive. But I still see her, and it’s like a haunting. Ghosting the frame, there’s no machine she hasn’t touched. There’s no eyes she hasn’t seen scrolling. No search results found. No search results found. No search results found. No more password attempts left. Sometimes she is just a profile picture for somebody else to be now, She is somebody else to be now. The greatest act of love you can give is letting go. I wanna let myself go. I wanna let you have me. I’m clean, I’m pure, I’m waiting. I'm in a little circle where I can stay forever and it feels so good. I love you alive girl I love you the internet and I love you the world.
Maddy Van Buren is online every single day. Please subscribe to her substack publication Tortured Girls Being Miserable and then please also follow her on Instagram @maddyvanburen