I died and only got 3 likes. Everyone else unfollowed me. Should have used a meme. Something with a cat and a halo. Maybe I could have died with a little more flair and added a hashtag. I could’ve jumped off a skyscraper and tap danced into the ground. 

#deathdancer. #photofinish. #yolo.

But my death wasn’t as fun or clickable. To be honest I don’t even remember anymore. I don’t know how long I’ve been an internet ghost. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ve lost my body and I’m no longer on the front page. Not like I was ever an attention whore but everyone deserves needs a little attention. Wonder if my life will be deemed “NSFL.”

I died and all I got was a stupid downvote and tagged as “TL; DR.” I never understood what all the initials meant. I guess humans like to organize things so it’s easier to understand. I’m not human anymore. They call me “non-IRL” now, a roving cyber ghost. It’s not so bad. I get to float around cyberspace and see all the fun posts like dogs running around with cats, women rallying against inequality, girls being immodest, political memes shouting at each other, and telling their rivals to shut up. It all rushes by like a digital hurricane, turning into a static mush of blue and gray.

I see celebrities talking about banning their social media accounts by posting on social media. Photographs of overabundant food platters transmuted into lip-puckering selfies. Heavily used furniture is on sale for $0 or “OBE.” You could get kitchen appliances for cheap if they weren’t buried under the ads for new ones. I ignore them though. They tend to blot out the color in the artwork that no one tends to see. I could look at those for hours.

They’re filled with vibrant pallets; blues, greens, oranges, and reds. More vibrant than anything an ad for pizza rolls or soda could muster. But even these are misused. If I look closely enough, I could see the metadata that only c-ghosts like me can see. It’s a shame people have to steal things. Maybe stealing isn’t so bad if it instills a sense of dreaming curiosity.

Art should be subjective, but so should life. The forums about the rules of submitting art online tells me that no one really knows what that means.

You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this digital stream of everythingness and nothingness. The blues and grays are perpetual and uneven. It makes me wonder about a lot of things.

I never read the terms of service so I ended up here, in the cyber-ether. Apparently if you don’t sign out of your account when you die your personality is copied from their servers into a virtual space. No wonder the agreements are so long.

You’re first met with a long narrow set of data tubes. As you go down the tubes you come to an intersection where you have to pick the type of cyber ghost you want to be. I looked at my past reflection and cringed. They had called me “extra” once, so I removed all the pieces I didn’t like. I chose a winged angel because that’s what I had become. She’s pretty cool. I wish I could take a selfie. 

When I first glided through the widening windows of threads, instant messages, and blogs I felt their thoughts and emotions. I perceived it all at once. It was like passing through a sea of doubt, fear, and awkward laughter. A dreamscape of colors and faces churned all around me. I wanted out but I couldn’t turn away. 

The boxes and windows receded. A horizon expanded into an open universe, morphing and reforming. Mountains of images of video spilled into an ocean before me. I was looking at the other side of the digital mirror. 

And I thought how different life would be, if the living could see this place. 

The digital ether that connected everyone also segmented them. They couldn’t see it from their windows, peering in from homes, classrooms, offices, or while driving. Sometimes while flying I would get stuck in people’s DMs. It was a mixture of other users asking for help, mostly sexual, or pointless banter, mostly sexual.

There’s a lot I could tell you about humanity in those DMs. I got stuck in them thanks to rules I signed. If anyone saw my avatar, they could click on it and trap me inside and send me to their friends for a laugh. Once you’re dead you were material. 

I ran into another spirit inside the cyber underworld. He said his name was Crunkface69. He once ran the Like A Boss Cats subforum but got hit by a bus in New York. Now he moves between private conversations as an avatar of Hitler holding a cat. 

I tried to get him to help me escape but he kept talking about all the rules.

“Naaaah bro! You have to adhere to our rules. Rules, bro! Rules! We can’t have freedom messing everything up!” He had said. “You ain’t supposed to be wondering around out there. You’ll get roasted.”

I flew over to the locked window of a DM, “But I’ll see new things and be one with the ether.”

“Roasted! Hashtag roasted. Get it trending. Hashtag trending. #getalife. #fantasyworld. #nevergonnahappen. #noonesgoingtosaveyou.”

When he wasn’t looking, I found a bot he was using (everyone has one) and unlocked the DM door. I traveled further into the virtual kaleidoscope, into darker territory. My virtual eyes were exposed to everything. The socially awkward users, the retaliations, the NSFW, NSFL, inappropriate hashtags, the overly intricate writing prompts, and incessant postings, the closed-off cliques and rose-colored glasses; it stretched out in a mindless panorama.

It was then that I discovered that I would be stuck here forever, never returning to the real, devoid of touch and taste. I can never find what I’m looking for and I never will again. It’s an endless realm of oblivious egotists. 

I never realized there was so much nudity. Then again kids use social media. Wouldn’t want them to be exposed to something inappropriate. Exposed to things like bullying, death threats, bigotry, war, perverts, avarice, gluttony, pride, and I forget the rest. Maybe not war. Don’t remember seeing much of that. You can probably find a lot of things if you look hard enough. But I could never find what I was looking for when I clicked on things. 

Clicking was easy. Using your mind though, that was tough. I don’t mean thinking about things. I mean actually using your brain to overcome the bounds of logic. I’m just a digital copy of my former self, a series of symbols inside a complex typewriter. But you — you can be so much more. I send this message into the ether so that someone will hear me and one day repeat my message. 

Maybe in my next life I’ll foster more friendships, less hate, and maybe pity.