I,
for one, never open ‘shared memories’ on social media. The idea of a machine
managing how I remember is insulting, ludicrous, disturbing, [deleted]. I stare
at the invitation to a ‘shared memory’ with suspicion, suspicion redoubled each
time new ones confront me on screen. I prefer the memories I have already, of
friends and acquaintances the computer pretends to know something about. The
computer is a stranger. It is a difficult and unpleasant and unholy stranger at
such moments. My wish is that this offensive interloper would lope off to
another table at the internet café and bloody well mind it’s own [deleted]
business. This creep wants to hand around pictures of me having a good time with
people it doesn’t know about anymore than it knows me. Is it any of its business
to be [deleted] flashing these pictures about the place for anyone to make
comments about? It has no way of distinguishing a boundary. Its own memory
seems incapable of separating the living from the dead. Do I even need to be
reminded of this ‘shared memory’, which could inspire unhappiness as much as
its intention, hey-ho happiness? This stranger in my life lacks emotional
intelligence. No one can get close. I doubt if assistance from sentient humans
will help this [deleted] useless maze of electronics with emotions, now or anytime
in the future. Sometimes I wonder what ‘shared memory’ the stranger tempts me with
in this impersonal, unholy way. But it doesn’t matter, because clicking its [deleted]
link is the last thing on my mind. I’m already thinking my own memories of this
friend or acquaintance, real in my own mind, where I can think about them in every
direction time has to offer. Fondness is a word. I will not be locked into this
stranger’s version of me. Yet every time, as I communicate to my friends and acquaintances
bless them!, I add more information to this monster, information it’s
programmed to return to sender in ‘shared memories’. I begin to wonder what
kind of relationship I have got myself into. This was not what I had in mind
when I logged in to this arrangement, enticing as it was to socialise remotely,
daily pictures thrown in. No warning then about entering into a false
friendship with an algorithmic accident of the age. Anyway, a mirage. Because,
after all, reality is preferable. The reality of flesh and blood people reading
this rarified rant, people like you, friendly reader of rants. The illusion of
a ‘shared memory’, what does it share? Like dreams or reflections in a mirror,
I must consciously differentiate these ‘shared memories’ from the immediate and
pleasant and holy memories of my own mind. Though even these are internal
images and not the people I speak to, eat with, play with, embrace and kiss
even, depending on who they are. Thank you for your time.
