Logging Off

You decide to post. But the enormity of your task — to support Daniella and avoid a protracted debate — intimidates you. You strategize. You reread the entire argument. Maybe there is no way to avoid antagonizing someone. You write a horribly long comment. It sounds too serious, which might read as angry, which is deeply uncool.

In the end you post something very small and tentative:

chaparral I don’t mind the posts. I’m not sure why cypress_31 is so upset and so threatened by them and they’re pretty relevant when discussing foraging, the environment, nature, etc.

Pretty sure Indigenous displacement and removal from the land is just a historical fact lol

The ‘lol’ is key: you are a cool and calm person, just writing a casual comment before going about your evening. You don’t care what anyone thinks! You are totally unbothered by the internet! So unbothered you won’t punctuate your sentences!

You feel sick to your stomach. You close your laptop because you’re afraid of reading any responses.

The next day, you have three unexpected meetings and a huge amount of work. But at 8 PM you leave the office and are suddenly, forcibly alone with your thoughts. You are afraid of logging on.

But when you get home and check the thread, it’s all very anticlimactic. No one else has posted after you. A number of people have added some reactions to your post—mostly in support. You got the last word on the topic, which feels equivalent to victory on a discussion forum.

You are so relieved that Daniella’s text comes as a surprise: I can’t stand the people on the forum. God! Saying that I was engaging in personal attacks when cypress was the one who started it. And then, as an afterthought: Thanks for your comment.

But I thought it ended well, you respond. Didn’t it?

You watch her texts come in, line after line, filling up your screen.

It’s very obvious that the whole thing seemed irrelevant to people. Not worth talking about. They act like it’s this inexplicable, historical accident that we live here and others have been pushed to the margins. An ambiguous, distant tragedy that’s completely irrelevant to our lives today, strolling through the forest and seeing how small and impoverished it becomes every year.

And if all I’m doing is posting on a forum of ten thousand strangers about Indigenous erasure—then what? I write these performative, pointless comments and wallow in guilt, and everything stays the same.

You don’t know how to respond. Everything you can say feels inadequate. You put your phone down and make dinner, feeling restless. At midnight, your phone buzzes.

I know, very dramatic—but I need a break from posting. I thought these were my people. Maybe they’re not.

You want to dissuade her, but it feels like crossing a boundary. So you say nothing.

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