B
ack when I used to be not
happy, I constantly held
within myself a great
unease.
On
campus, the
sun-emoji
seemed
to
shine on every person’s keyboard
except that of my own cracked,
glass perimeter. None of my food
emojis looked very appetizing,
not even the shish-kabob with
the three unidentified blobs of
color poked high upon its pointy,
wooden spear. The former joy I
received from the alien emoji, in
what seems like another lifetime
now, had seemingly vanished
forever. (Please, don’t inquire as
to why I found it so joyful.)
No, I must maintain. I’m not
one to sulk. And I believe that I
didn’t and still haven’t.
Believe me, I have tried for-
ever and ever to find a way to be
happy. To breach a new, more
profound platform for my iden-
tity: one that made me feel tin-
gly and confident all at the same
time, like I was regularly mixing
the spice of life into my 50-cent
ramen from Costco. If I knew
how to properly identify an exis-
tential crisis, I might go as far
as to say I was amid one: a very
cloudy one indeed.
Oh, the things I’d try. I
remember
following
around
campus tours intended for pro-
spective freshmen for hours on
end. Whole days. I thought they
must know something about who
I am. They must know some-
thing about why I’m here. If one
feels one might be doing college
wrong, wouldn’t it make sense
to go back to the beginning?
Wouldn’t it be logical? Oh but
logic, that dirty game. That dirty
trick the devil pulls out of the
bag last, the one he keeps in the
deeper pocket inside of the bag.
Almost like “Temptation Incep-
tion.” Starring Leo as Jesus.
Of course, it didn’t help. All
I learned was that the UGLi is
not just called the UGLi because
it sort of resembles some faux-
acronym. It actually once used
to be ugly. As one might expect,
I tried very hard to force an ana-
logical comparison of the trans-
formation from ugly to beautiful
on my own story of my soul, but
in the end, it seemed a B-inter-
jection at best. I couldn’t get
over the fact that I was already
beautiful. Beauty and unhappi-
ness aren’t mutually exclusive
are they? In agony, I looked into
the mirror and screamed my
favorite line from Hamlet in my
practiced English accent, “Death
Hath become thee,” and then I
moved on.
What else did I do?
I played a lot of pool at the
bar and at the Union. I thought
about angles and math. What
was my angle? Did happiness
have a formula? What if it’s just
some hard equation written on a
chalkboard in a classroom made
for ghosts? I didn’t have time to
answer these daring questions
because something quite out of
the ordinary happened.
One day, a random num-
ber texted me a shooting star
emoji with a caption that said,
“Make a wish, beautiful bae. and
sleep tight.”
I didn’t care that I had
received someone else’s digital
goodnight kiss. I acted quickly,
and you already know what I
wished for.
My wish came true in the
form of a Facebook notification.
It said, “Friend X has just joined
InstaGram.
Download
Insta-
Gram to view all of your friends
v. cool pictures!”
I did just that. I am not too
dumb to see God dumping out
the Devil’s bag of tricks next
to the ravine and stomping on
them while she does it. I, indeed,
helped her stomp and then I
moved on to collect my reward.
Now you can find me @Spark-
manCashAut. I don’t know how
to use filters yet, but you bet-
ter believe it’s a learning pro-
cess that I couldn’t be happier
to be processing. I’m an Insta-
Machine. You can keep track of
my every move when I throw a
Chess Party now. You’ll see that
pita kabob from Pita Kabob and
that lobster bisque from Le Dog
right before I eat it. You’ll know
when I’m falling asleep on the
couch at the University’s stu-
dent-run radio station, WCBN, at
4 a.m. We’ll cherish the moment
together.
No, I don’t think I’ve actually
found THE secret to happiness,
but isn’t it enough that I’ve found
a new, completely absorbing dig-
ital media to distract me enough
from all the pain and poverty
and injustice in the world? You
guys can keep running the rat
race. I’m going to chill with this
cheese for a minute. Yes, cheese
is a pun here. At the moment, I’m
ordering Friend X to smile wide
before I take a snapshot of her
and post it for my loyal 32 follow-
ers, #NoFilter.
To those who say that I’m late
to the Insta-party, I’d like you
to notice that I’m actually just
showing up Insta-fashionably-
late. Can’t you tell by the Arizona
State hoodie that I’m wearing by
that bonfire? Yes, I have style for
days.
What are the other perks,
you ask, of now running the
Instagram game? For one, now
I don’t need to actually look
at my friends. I can just take a
picture of them and continue to
gaze into my phone like we’re
long lost lovers. A bonus being
that my phone-version of them
doesn’t get upset with me when
I take a break from being enticed
by their existence to see if any-
one has liked my most recent
Facebook status or to see if that
one magazine had accepted my
fiction submission. They hadn’t,
but it was okay because I could
immediately take a picture of
something new and get inspired
all over again. Someone needs to
write a fictional accompaniment
to the Ants Mural on Maynard
Street. When I’m Instafamous,
I can’t help but wonder: Why
couldn’t it be me?
— Elijah Sparkman can be
reached at esspa@umich.edu.
5
Thursday, July 30, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com OPINION
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BETHANY LEHMAN | VIEWPOINT
I am 18 years old. I am a female.
I am a student, a writer, a fighter,
an observer. I struggle with vanity.
I struggle with self-acceptance. I
struggle to be more forgiving, more
generous and more knowledgeable
tomorrow than I am today. I am
a feminist.
Never has a statement elicited as
negative a response as the last one.
I believe in equal rights for all
people, and I believe that women are
more disadvantaged than their male
counterparts politically, economi-
cally and socially. I do not see fair-
ness or equality in a society that has
not had a female president or when
only 24 of the Fortune 500 CEOS are
female, yet women make up more
than half of the population. I see a
society that forces both women and
men into outdated, unfair, tradition-
al gender roles, or coerces people to
adopt traditional characteristics or
stereotypes
of their gen-
der regard-
less of their
individual
desires. I see
how
these
traditional
roles
hurt
both
gen-
ders deeply.
I see how
these
roles
hurt women
— who are historically seen as less
powerful than men or treated as
men’s property — the most.
I am a feminist because I do
not want to rely on anyone but
myself for my own success or fail-
ure. I need feminism because I
should not make less money than
my male counterparts, or be told I
am “bossy” for having an idea or a
“bitch” for having an opinion. I am
a feminist because every human
deserves the same opportunities to
succeed, prosper and live a life of
their own choosing.
I am a feminist because it gave
me the power to recover from an
eating disorder — to finally see
myself as more than my female
body. Feminism showed me how
wrong it was to believe I was only
as good as my looks or the men that
would date me. Feminism taught
me I was more valuable than I had
been treating myself.
I am a feminist because inequal-
ity breeds violence, and I walk in
fear when I walk alone. I need fem-
inism because rape culture is my
culture, and will be the inherited
culture of my children one day.
I am a feminist because I believe
that I have worth, that I have a
voice that deserves to be heard. I
have worthwhile contributions to
make to society and should not be
limited by my sex to certain occu-
pations or positions in society.
I am a feminist, yet I cannot
explain feminism perfectly because
I am not perfect. Every action of
every feminist is not a grand state-
ment on feminism. I am a feminist-
human. I have done things that do
not
sup-
port
my
egalitar-
ian
and
feminist
values. I
am
sure
I will err
again
in
the
future. I
apologize
now
for
my short-
comings and hope I learn from
every mistake.
I am a feminist because I want
my future daughter to grow up
believing in herself and her abil-
ity to choose the role she wants in
society, be it a stay-at-home mother
or a molecular engineer. Or both. I
am a feminist because I do not want
my son to feel that he is weak when
he expresses kindness or sensitiv-
ity. I am a feminist because I want
tomorrow to be better than today.
I am a feminist at a time when
feminism is a bad word. I am a femi-
nist anyway.
Bethany Lehman is a rising LSA
sophomore.
Insta-happiness
ELIJAH
SPARKMAN
The f word
“I am a feminist because it gave
me the power to recover from an
eating disorder — to finally see
myself as more than my female
body.”
WANT TO SHARE YOUR VIEWS? WANT TO
WRITE A COLUMN? YOU’RE IN LUCK!
APPLICATIONS COME OUT SOON.
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