all this uproar over spaghetti

how to stop letting losers live rent-free in your head

as a prolific and unreserved user of the internet—i’ve had my share of moments where i was put on a pedestal, alongside moments where that same crowd tried to drag me to the worst corners of my mind.

if you think i’m kidding, imagine a world where you’re subjected to 2 weeks of death threats, targeted harassment, and multiple fallouts over posting a photo of a donut that happened to be in the vicinity of a kpop superstar. this is a real thing that happened to me. i have a list of equally ridiculous incidents over my 2 decades of being online.

i’m not trying to convince you to feel pity for me, but rather to point out the absurd and extreme corners of the internet that not everyone has the honor of experiencing.

in pop terms: in case you missed it, gabbriette posted a video of her fondling some pasta at a grammys afterparty and feeding it to a friend pop culture aficionado and creative genius terry o’connor, and the internet went wild. in a grand shitstorm of misogyny, purity culture, and deeply unchecked self-resentment, the masses took this opportunity to attack her character and the rest of the table and turn a simple goofy video into something far more sinister.

so what does it all mean for you and me, dear reader?? even if your own personal dramas don’t play out on a PopCrave scale, i’m sure there have been moments in your life where people have used you as gossip fodder, spreading screenshots and the like around their group chats or openly mocking you on not-so-“private” social media accounts.

how do you evict these people from your head and carry on with your day without ruminating yourself into a black hole of self-doubt?

reframing it is the best i can offer:

• if they’re laughing at you, it’s because they can’t look away. do you think lady gaga would’ve sat and dwelled on all the people who thought she was nuts when she first stepped into the limelight? they were transfixed for better or worse, and i think we all know how history will look back on her legacy.

• people don’t keep tabs on someone they don’t see as relevant. your brain might try to convince you you’re just an easy target, but the truth is they’re the ones obsessed. if they really cared about the action and not the person, they’d be attacking the man across the table for playing with the pasta too. (no shade to lorde’s producer)

• if you only remember they exist when they try to take a stab at you, your mere existence has way more power over them than they have over you. their constant checking in and watching and gossiping means they’re in a parasocial relationship with you. how endearing.

• you’re just living your life to the fullest and expressing yourself without holding back, something that they could never dream of. who’s gonna be happier? the person taking a risk and doing things or the ones huddled together trying to find their own self-worth by tearing someone else’s down?

those are a collection of thoughts that seem to sometimes work to shut off the bad part of my brain that wants to hyperfixate on the noise, so i hope at least one of these ideas resonates with you. writing this all down and hitting publish is another stepping stone towards shaking off the demons. we’ll never be free of them, but if we stop feeding them our energy, they won’t be quite as loud.

i hope you keep doing things for yourself without paying any attention to the approval of others. and when in doubt, think about gabbriette and her pasta and how meaningless all that noise is in the grand scheme of things. if they could find fault in something that trivial, surely there’s no point in worrying if you’ve done anything to justify some baseless hate you may receive.

or, as lorde would say… let ‘em talk.