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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Daily content throughout the day.

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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