BY MAX SASSAMAN
Editor’s Note: And We thank you too, Max. Keep up the good work! AT
The Viral Menace is no singular entity, it is all of us. We are all that strung-out, decaying creature. We were before the pandemic and may remain to be after. We are trying to stand tall in the midst of utter chaos and uncertain conditions. Are we faring well? That depends on who you may ask. Having been through the hellscape of 2020 which is now bleeding into 2021, it is easy to associate “viral” with both its infectious and digitally-oriented connotations. As time passes, the two meanings are beginning to coincide.
The pandemic has unleashed unprecedented conditions upon us – conditions that, through time, have become normalized whether that be sitting behind a laptop for eight hours in pajamas with coffee in-hand, Clorox wiping your space from ceiling to floor, or even dissociating from regular social conventions. Moreover, recalling specific memories and experiences within the pandemic seems like an oxymoron to me. With each passing day, events and conversations blur together creating a foggy, non-linear sequence of events. You see, to me, the pandemic is the experience and everything else we use to fill our days with are simply byproducts of a foreign situation.
Despite the vague tapestry I have painted regarding the pandemic, those aforementioned byproducts are what lead me back to human nature resembling the Viral Menace. Naturally, we want to connect more so now than ever, to let others know that they are not alone in this. No harm in that. However, our obsessive-compulsive habits with letting our voices be heard online has created more public discord now than ever. In what should be an ideally harmless space for humans to coexist, social media and online discourse have revealed our seemingly inherent need for the upper hand.
The pandemic’s all-encompassing nature proves none of us are immune to external circumstances of these proportions. So, now that there is somewhat of a level ground for people to appreciate, stark differences about almost anything on earth are surfacing – just for the sake of argument. We all contribute to this. While “viral” is a double entendre in this case, our digital activity is literally infecting our consciousness as a people. Hatred, discrepancies, and misinformation soak in our brains and get squeezed out into our actions which have proven volatile.
Nowadays, when opposition exists in discourse, the tendency is to eradicate said opposition, instead of trying to understand it. Difference in opinion should exist in modern society. The troubling element to this, though, is that our differences are becoming so severely polar and any semblance of a middle ground is evaporating. People like to blame society for influencing them to think a certain way when, in reality, we all have a role to play in our localized and popular culture. With moral and ethical lines being drawn everyday, choosing a side seems to be the only safe option. However, we must reject this line of thinking or else the essence of empathy and compassion are rendered futile.
We have created a monster – a Viral Menace, indeed – taking what was once meant to connect us, but now using it as a tool to divide. How is this mass state of anxiety and antagonism supposed to remedy itself? I suppose that is a simple yet complicated question.
You know, after a first glance, my initial thought about the vibrant, splattered red beneath the Menace was that it symbolized destruction as if the Menace was weathering a battleground only to be the last standing – everything else collapsing under its reign. Although it has appeared to outlast, its maniacal, corroding expression leads me to surmise that the Viral Menace itself has the awareness to realize it, too, shall fall one day.
Perhaps that is looking at the glass as half-empty.
Maybe, in fact, it is the Menace that is being destroyed instead of its surroundings. Just maybe, it knows it can no longer sustain itself when its surroundings quit supplying sustenance. With a final plea for help as it sinks, no helping hand is in sight to rescue this cancerous creature.
Each and every solution to our problems must start with us looking inward to contemplate the unhealthy and infectious reality we have created. We cannot continue to fuel the fire of negativity and disparity. If no concentrated efforts prevail and people decide they are content with the commotion of modern life, we might as well continue to serve as the Viral Menace. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it should be that we are all subject to physical and mental infection of epic proportions.
