I went onto Threads the app a few months back and I still don’t really use it. When I signed up and had an account a notification popped up for me and it was this derogatory comment with sexual undertones. I thought it was aimed at me so I was ready to roast this guy and was pretty annoyed because it was like the guy was trying to stand over me and be nasty. So I investigated only to find the comment was for a young woman who was probably 18 or 19. I wasn’t following her and I looked at her profile and it was not porn but she had suggestive stuff and was pretty derogatory toward herself and what she wanted from the opposite sex. 

I didn’t really get her profile because I thought, is she a sex worker or a local hood rat fishing for attention? It reminded me of KRS1’s album ‘Sex and Violence’ from the 90s in that they went hand in hand. If that was directed at me there would have been trouble because men don’t want to be dominated by other men in heterosexual cases mostly. This young woman just seemed to act like she was a piece of meat and the men were not much different. I just got out of there and thought about the implications. People for example commit suicide at one of the highest rates in the world in Australia.

It is a competitive culture and I feel it thrives on a scarcity mindset. I normally describe the culture as a shit culture only that people can become shitting machines in that there is little self worth or self understanding. That sounds derogatory too right, but hear me out. What do you value? People talk about values and at times it’s a great justification for wars but what people fail to value is themselves first and foremost. Supposedly to attain self value you need something outside yourself. Achievements, goals, certificates whatever. Yet I have asked this question many times on my blog, why can’t you just be you?

Maybe you want to be a piece of meat and treated like one? Maybe you don’t want to feel more important than your physical body and you want to be the prize pig? What does it matter really but its the society we are in now that drives people to suicide. It might be mental illness, addiction, any number of things and you could say there are people who want to help you. Yet it is next to impossible to help yourself. I remember grappling with the suffocating subtext of the society I was growing up in as a teenager. People will say oh it’s just angst and all teenagers are like that. It’s the society, not you.

Yet people need to change within and respect themselves. They need to grow, not just compete. It isn’t just western cultures but nearly all cultures but it is important to remember that you are not just a piece of meat or a money making machine. You have to value yourself. You are one of a kind and there is more to life than just tits, arses and dicks. Or is there? Is it just the lowest base groans and moans of humanity and everything else is just a diversion? People claim to have choices and then you hear someone say they made that choice but then there is the old ‘have’ and ‘have nots’ claptrap. Do you want to have self mastery, self understanding? Do you want to value yourself?

At the end of the day I don’t care what you do, what you think, what you believe in but I am not joining in the trash machine that grinds people into dust. People make out like having a job is meaningless for example but you only gain meaning within yourself, then whatever you do naturally is valuable. I did illegal graffiti for over twenty years and eventually as my sense of self grew from being active and engaged in the world around me I realised how important I am. I realised my skill set is important even though I don’t monetise it. My creativity is important because I make it important. I value the simple things in life and I manage my affairs. I am not reckless and hope people can realise their own power which is inside you not outside you.