The Ultimate Act of Self Care Isn’t Contained in a Carton of Almond Milk or a Yoga Mat
The text came at an easy enough moment to respond to:
“Can we talk? [Narcisstic Opportunistic Online Bully] texted me.”
NOOB was someone I had dealt with in my waning days in Chicago, and I had lost the fight. Her M.O. was to find someone in the tiny community of storytellers in Chicago who was doing well, single that person out, start an online smear campaign (of course, using her race and gender as a sticking point), and hammer away until that person fought back. As soon as the melee was afoot, she immediately went into victim mode, and enlisted sycophants to mob up on that person.
So many in the “community” were terrified she’d pick on them, so when she’d pick someone else, they’d lay low.
I called. After hearing the same story I’d witnessed in Chicago, personally, and from afar, I weighed in:
“Do you really care what she thinks of you? Are you interested in jumping into a protracted petty game that only ends up by focusing attention on her? Or are you more interested in simply ignoring her completely and going about the very real work for the art you’re doing?”
My advice distilled: ignore her and walk away. No communication and no responses via social. (NOOB’d only screenshot anything sent and post it online with a few choice edits.) Pretend she doesn’t exist. Like Trump, the only way she wins is if you give her the attention she craves.
The NOOB isn’t unique. There are plenty who need people to care what they think, whose narcissism combined with crippling insecurity manifests into a manipulation of those around them for validation. We all crawl toward validation and recognition. We all preen and cajole to receive affirmation. The NOOB just weaponizes our desire for it, spins it on its axis in order to receive her own grotesque version of it for herself.
That validation we crave? That’s the problem, not the NOOB.
In our hyperbolic anxiety circa 2020, exacerbated by the existence of a horror show in the White House, increasingly precarious climate situations, and a virus shooting out of the filthiest Petri dish on the overpopulated planet, the marketing of self care has gone into hyperdrive.
It doesn’t seem to be sufficient to merely get some sleep, some exercise, eat a bit better, read books, avoid toxic relationships, and retard the online fighting about politics to practice this self care. Like so many other aspects of our lives, unless we advertise our insistence upon taking care of ourselves publicly, in order to receive some of that tasty affirmation from strangers whom we know in cyberspace, it feels hollow.
No one just loses weight anymore. They “overshare” by posting their running stats and body image selfies. Taking a break on social media or from the news practically requires the online announcement of such or it didn’t happen. Absent that digital pat on the head, quitting smoking or taking a break from alcohol seems meaningless.
Five billion people, all looking to stave off the dread of existence among seven billion people, relying on the opinions of 300 people to determine their own self worth. The most pernicious thing Facebook ever foisted upon us was that fucking thumbs up icon and we, knowing how awful that crutch of approval fucked with us in grade school and high school, stuff it in our gaping mouths like the Flamin’ Hot Cheet-Os Lizzo subsists on.*
*BTW - Lizzo couldn’t care less if I live or die so that shitty fat shaming comment means less than nothing to her, I’m guessing.
Removing the burden of the opinions of others is absolutely the very best step in self care you can do.
In the earliest days of WNEP Theater, I spent a lot of time, money, and effort to make sure that no one left the company. One year prior, after a year and a half wherein the members got burned out, I bought the company from my partners and watched everyone quit. My goal became almost singular in avoidance of that happening again.
It became a truly thankless task — the harder I tried to please them, the more they wanted. I was burning myself out. My mom, on the phone one day, asked me “Why are you trying so hard to please people who don’t seem to care about you?”
My mom is almost always right.
