Pokémon GO: how Evolving Pokémon is Devolving us

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Last night, I joined my sister and her partner on a journey through the urban jungle that is Melbourne, looking for additional great spots to discover and catch Pokémon in Pokémon GO. Since it has become most everyone's pastime, in order to feel somewhat of a human connection I have been left with no choice but to bribe fellow persons to spend time with me via luring them into an augmented world. Since joining the sheeple, I have noticed that the only form of 'social time' I have acquired is when we communicate to one another about the spotting of new Pokémon, as well as the locations of the Pokéstops that sit closest to one another so as to spawn more and more of these digital creatures. Ultimately, all form of communication has been used within and for the purpose of excelling within the game, especially when it comes to adventuring to the nearest junk food distributors to re-energize and to leave behind human waste.

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But through partaking in this newfound madness, I have found that my need to observe has overcome my need to play, which has lead me to witness firsthand the decay of socializing and of basic human function. Because my endeavors mainly take place on evenings, I have been staring in awe at multiple strangers' faces, aglow with their phone screens, necks strained as heads are bowed in subservience to technological advancements. It is a worrying sight. It is moreso worrying that I have spent so much time seated in the same position with my head down. And to what gain? I am yet to feel fulfilled. If anything, the game is for one minute of pleasure and a lifetime of pain because we have found ways to deter its initial partial objective, which is to explore the world around us, by sitting in a car and driving to locations and waiting for Pokémon to come to us. Despite the obvious mental and physical health concerns, however, my primary concern is that players are spending more time playing the game than considering a creation of their very own. That is the very niche of what it is like to follow rather than lead.

The only people who have impressed me are those who are finding and using special source codes to hack the game in order to spawn their own creatures and discover the game's limitations. Users who perform this are showing a higher level of thinking, one that manipulates an already-made platform so as to render it unique. Another set of impressive people who have revealed themselves in lieu of those who follow are those using the game to commit crimes. In both circumstances, we observe that offenders are ones who divulge from the original intended path that the game was primarily created for. My central argument is that divulging from a set task, divulging from the main activities of the status quo is beneficial for one.

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No. I am not condoning illegal actions, rather I am condoning actions that do not leave one to follow, rather to lead. An instance of this within a game occurs in Garry's Mod, a sandbox physics game based on the idea of a literal sandbox: the aim of the game is to create a variant of the game itself by tweaking the virtual world so as to make it your own. As its website states, 'there aren't any objectives - you can't lose, and you definitely can't win'. Firstly, the game boasts the lack of competition. Objective is based on what the player sees fit, and therefore leaves the player in a realm of safety from outside pressures. Here, one is free to perform without the constraints of set goals, maintaining the feeling that anything is possible. And anything is indeed possible, as the game reaches far to the nether regions of each budding player's creativity. It is a collaborative experience, teeming with opportunities to be discovered.

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Pokémon GO, in juxtaposition, is based on the premise that you 'gotta catch 'em all', or in the avant garde premise, 'capture as many Pokémon as you can' - but if you as well as millions of others indeed catch them all, then what? Yes, if each of your Pokémon reach the maximum combat levels and you conquer gyms and you catch legendary Pokémon then all you are doing is competing with millions of others with the same objectives, thus making the game painfully repetitive and not at all rewarding. One, in Pokémon GO, only panders to the game's initial objective, straying away from the utter fact that one is constantly repeating motions, duplicating actions and reciprocating two mutual feelings: loss or defeat. Conquering is somewhat impossible for you cannot conquer something designed to leave you scrambling for more. It is in this sense that the game is indeed totalitarian. One is subservient to Niantic and the motives that have framed the most downloaded app in a first week ever.

If anything, the inflation of virtual reality that is Pokémon GO is deflating our sense of humanity. We are struggling to collect little forms of data in order to evolve them into new forms of data and in turn, are devolving ourselves, devolving from our advances. This is surely something to add to our sense of lack of purpose, lack of raisons d'etre, and soon we will reach a new low; though, hopefully the new low will be reached with our dignity, and not with our degenerating postures.

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Pokémon GO: the hunt for Pikachu: a narration by David Attenborough*

A hunched back, an aching neck, legs overworked, both hands grasping the smartphone, eyes glued to its phone screen and all attention waiting on a single beep or a change of pixels, the human is on the prowl for more Pokémon. This human, mind you, has scarcely found initiative to leave its habitat prior to this. It had no reason to leave the comforting glows of its television or computer screen, after just having gotten over the glow on its phone screen. First, Netflix, and now Pokémon GO.

Armed with two portable phone chargers, some in-game incense and Pokéballs, the human makes the call to fellow humans. Together, they enter its automobile and drive at 30mph through its neighbourhood, careful, the driver too, not to miss any Pokémon on their way, and also mindful to cheat the Pokémon egg hatching system. Humans are cunning creatures, outsmarting the smartest of devices in order to exploit what they offer for what seems to be no benefit. At the end of each hunt, each human comes home empty handed, but with a digital archive full of animated rarities. Outside of the vehicle, many other humans can be seen glued to their phones, embarking on yet another day's journey, their young also joining them on their own phones, as offspring so little as just three years old have also joined the journey to be the very best, like no one ever was.

Today, after having spent almost an entire week on their phones, this group of humans is after one particular Pokémon: the ever so elusive Pikachu. This short yellow rodent, stubby in stature, is thunderingly charismatic. Armed with a cute looking face, do not let it fool you for innocence. Stored in its seemingly innocent reddened cheeks are thunderbolts, ready to strike out and smelter any who step in its path. If that's not enough to scare you, perhaps its five tiny fingers at the end of its short arms will. Like Australia's dropbear, the Pikachu has the capability to, in quite a cute manner, erratically claw at you. Luckily, we have sedated one today for the purpose of showing you its features up close. We found it gnawing on a powerline, and my team managed to catch it before a hoard of Poké-trainers rolled in. They are standing by now for its release. What you cannot see, photographed below, is the minute after this photograph was taken, wherein it blasted me to near death after its sedative wore off. You also cannot see its thunder-bolt shaped tail, which follows it swiftly wherever it goes. But what you can see is its tiny little ears, with a black tip on their ends. A mighty creature, so delicate in features. 

After releasing it, we headed back to our campsite behind the field where multiple Pikachu sightings have taken place. This may have to do with the multitude of lures that have been used by avid Poké-trainers. The group of humans observed earlier mumbled harsh nothings to one another. It looks as though they are having an argument. "I'll uninstall, you all better do the same because I don't think either of us will catch one unless we start over!" one screamed. The others seemed to have follow suit. According to our cameraman across the field, he heard them saying something about creating new email addresses and accounts to start this process, a process that has only recently been discovered. This process states that if you abandon all starter creatures over five times, a Pikachu will appear. The humans separated. We followed their ringleader, watching him leave behind several starter Pokémon.

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Surely enough, after abandoning Squirtle, Bulbasaur and Charmander five times, the human spotted the Pikachu we caught earlier. Unbeknownst to him, in a few minutes, this field will be teeming with them. But in order to allow him to retain his dignity, and to keep our camera crew safe, we chose not to notify him, and instead, watched him burn off all the calories months of Netflix binging have added to him. The human leapt up in delight with his mouth agape, and screamed, "I GOT HIM, I GOT HIM!"

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The humans he came with quickly gathered around him, trying to look at his phone screen. He held it up; a modern day Lion King, and shook. "Throw it!" some yelled. "Quick!" 

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The Pikachu, after having thought that its first encounter with these abhorrent humans would be its last, stared in horror as it began to count down its final minutes of freedom. It thought to flee, but it was programmed, once found in the game, to withstand the throwing of three Pokéballs before fleeing. Unable to turn itself away from the group of frighteningly excited humans, it turned towards it potential captor, and decided that the only thing left to do, since this was not a formal Pokémon battle, was fight off his Pokéballs.

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And surely enough, it did. The human threw the first Pokéball, and Pikachu swiftly tapped it away. "Shit!" he exclaimed. Another human said to it, "try again! Quick!" Pikachu almost had no time to evade the second, but did just in time. It frowned, and put itself in an attacking stance in order to try to intimidate the humans. But it was outnumbered, and more wannabe explorers joined its human rival, throwing bits and pieces of advice. One bit of advice stood out, "Use a Razz Berry!"

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The human complied. He threw a Razz Berry in front of Pikachu. Pikachu hesitated for a while, and then went for the bait. Just as he did, the human decided to throw the third and possibly his last Pokéball with a twist. He placed his finger on the screen, waved the Pokéball in a circular motion, and it leapt up in the augmented air. He threw a curveball. "GREAT" his phone flashed at him. 

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Pikachu panicked. His world turned a bright white and then a deep, velvety red. He was trapped inside the Pokéball. He strained. He wriggled. He punched its inner walls and screamed and even thunderbolts, it appears, could not help him. He cried out in surrender. One of my cameramen shed a few tears. This is a sad moment for all digitalised creatures. 

The Pikachu was then registered to the human's Pokédex. "Good work, bro!" "Well done!" "Awesome!" the humans cheered. As hastily as they were to find and capture a Pikachu, so too were they haste in leaving, and moving on to capture yet another. Pokémon all over the world now seem to be in danger of being ensnared in a Pokéball, forever indebted to a life of digital servitude towards humans who too are ensnared in the augmented reality joining the lives of Pokémon and humans alike. 

And in the mere flick of a finger, in a mere miss, in a mere additional flick, in a few mere pieces of advice and a mere  third try, Pikachu too seemed to be just a mere Pikachu to all present onlookers. The once elusive and highly desired Pokémon became just another Pokémon, and soon this game will be just another game. 


*not actually narrated nor transcribed from any narration by David Attenborough. This entire article is completely fictional and hypothetical. Read in the style of David Attenborough's voice to achieve full effect. 

Pokémon GO: augmented economy

Since 1995, kids and kids at heart all over the world have wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was. Armed with Gameboys, Pokéballs and trading cables, young wannabe Pokémasters ventured through pixels of fields of wild Pokémon, hoping to indeed catch them all. As technology developed and new consoles began to take place of the old, Pokémon continued to live on yet lost its state of prominence.

What started as an April Fool's prank named Pokémon Challenge back on the 31st of March in 2014 (see video below), Pokémon GO has most literally taken over the world, both enhancing it and making it weirder. The team at Niantic found a way to merge what we love with what we do all day whilst retaining our sense of mobility. People of the twenty-first century are seldom seen without their mobile phones, and seldom seen away from other technological devices, and are, in turn, lacking movement, lacking exercise and lacking an exposure of the sun - not to mention the lack of a social life, or a physical social life at that. The developers of Pokémon GO, Saturo Iwata, Tsunekazu Ishihara and Tatsuo Nomura have collectively found a way to merge the lack of these human needs into one technological hybrid monster, attracting clusters of fanatics and non-fanatics alike. The three have combined the concept of Pokémon, the use of mobile phone interfaces, along with Google Maps to create a cyber world that nestles neatly into our real life world, allowing users to immerse themselves in a reality that incorporates the realities of their friends and other users, as well as the cyber-reality of several pixelated beings which humans, for some reason, wish to have in their polarised possession.

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If there is one thing I have noticed about the new digital craze that is Pokémon GO, it's that these lucky developers have found a successful way to reel in augmented reality into our realities without yet harnessing other popular digital crazes, such as virtual reality (VR). Since its release, Nintendo's stock value has increased. This economic combustion of an app has brought increases that Nintendo have not acquired since 1983, adding a whopping 7.5 billion dollars to its shares, and has been acquiring a daily revenue of 1.6 million dollars. But what does that mean to us, the people who have been sucked into this virtual world? Well, nothing. Yes, you Aussie, New Zealander or American, can shrug it off, because all you did was jump onto your app store, whether you are an iPhone or Android user, and downloaded this eccentric app for free. Who cares, though, right? It's Pokémon and it's awesome and it's yours at the touch of a screen.

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It may be hard to believe, but Pokémon GO has even defeated the popularity of social networking monsters Tinder and Twitter, based on recent figures. It seems that chasing and collecting imaginary monsters is more popular than chasing our lives and goals and building our relationships with other people. While this game allows you to be social and to leave the house, it also ensnares you in a world that merely represents your own. 

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But I hold mixed feelings about Pokémon GO. While it annoys me that people choose to invest in the abandonment of reality, it still utilises an aspect of reality. People are lacking creativity because of thriving as far as the creative bar that Niantic has raised instead of creating their own modes of existence, however some people are already finding ways to add to this digital jungle. It seems, though, that ultimately, people are veering further and further away from being human and redirecting their journeying towards partaking in a uniform robotic monotonous society. I mean, isn't that what capitalism is all about? This is another example of the nerdy sector of the bourgeoise luring in the nerdy proletariats, but on a far greater scale. Don't be fooled by the so-called 'benefits' an augmented reality has to offer, because at the loss of allowed monthly mobile data, at the stopping of wifi and at the death of your mobile phone battery, you will come to realise that you have not at all actually progressed, and that your digital accolades actually amount to nothing at all. Really, what are you getting out of this, apart from a bout of procrastination from whatever it is that you have put on hold? I wonder what Karl Marx would think of Pokémon GO. 

Pokémon GO.
Capitalism GO.
Humanity GONE.

Orlando Shootings

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Hearing about the death of Christina Grimmie due to a shooting pained me late last week, but little did I know of the additional pain I would feel thereafter.

When I found out about the Orlando Shooting I could not compute what my eyes and ears collaboratively were exposed to. I sat there absolutely dumbfounded on the sofa, planning minutes earlier to change out of my bedroom attire and leave the house for some headspace. But I could not perform either task. I was watching a live news coverage of the shootings that had been broadcasted for two hours and counting, right after having watched Interstellar again. That movie had altered my mindset in terms of the hyperreal, however reality caught up with me and smacked me in the head. I left the sofa, and curled up in bed.

Beneath my bedsheets I found somewhat of a solace. I fell into a deep sleep that lasted for about five hours. I woke up just as the sun began to set. I came to the conclusion that I no longer think it is a matter of gun control. I think it is a matter of self control. I think of it like this: I have my driver's license, as do most of the people in the world. I have never, however, driven above the speed limit. I have never 'hooned' or driven dangerously so as to harm myself or other road users. That is a choice I have consciously made. When I hear of other road users who have succumbed to death or injury due to their conscious decisions to drive menacingly, I do not pity them. I only pity those who they have harmed. That is the same dynamic of pity that I bring to this terrible massacre. 

And thus the same thing goes with gun control. I have been an admirer of guns ever since I have played my first video game. Do not take that out of context, though. I simply love their form and structure and love the thrill of shooting - having said that, I have only shot one gun and that was in a legal gun shooting range in Queensland, Australia. The gun was wired down to the surrounding metal structures and could only be aimed at the target. If the case were where no structure was holding the gun, that is how I would have gone about shooting the gun too, precisely at an inanimate target. And I am sure of that, despite what feelings I would have felt on any given day where I would hold hypothetical gun. That is because I am consciously aware that I do not wish harm upon other beings, whether they were human or otherwise. I have a strong moral compass and that ensures that I retain my sense of humanity.

I think the problem is that some people do not have this. Some people do not have some sort of mental blocking capability wherein they will kick a dog, trip a toddler over, throw someone's ball onto the traintracks with no hesitation whatsoever. There will exist those people who have no ability to control their moralities. And that is what I fear. It is these people who do not see their wrongdoings, because they have no sense of wrongdoings in the first place, or their sense of wrongdoings do not align with the status quo's sense of wrongdoings. I cannot, thus, attest the fault of guns to this situation. Yes, certain guns should not be made readily available in said amount of time, however I would have purchased the gun he had used just to possess it as the aesthetically pleasing object that I see. Omar Mateen, however, had other motives.

We should thus focus our energies on what it is that causes certain people to think and act in this way. Perhaps this focusing would prove preventative of future violent outbursts. Perhaps we can save lives. I know for a fact that bullying can be damaging to an individual. I have been through things in my childhood that I refuse to talk about because they are still with me to this day. I remember every detail and no matter how old I get I am quite certain that they will remain vivid in my mind. And that is detrimental. Some days I cannot face anyone, I isolate myself and hide away. It is how I cope. Unfortunately, others do not cope in the same way I do. Our coping mechanisms are dynamic. They are ever changing, and unpredictable. Something cathartic for someone may not be cathartic to society, but it is nonetheless cathartic. We are then faced with two problems: the former being the fact that bullying is still prominent and sticks to one for a lifetime, and the latter being the mental aftermath of the bullying and the seeking of catharsis. 

The issue of 'the other' is brought up thus. Calling people 'weird' or seeing them as 'the other' is an early form of this problem. You are different. You do not belong, they taunt at a young age. And so the misfits rise and are shot down just enough for them to shoot others down - literally. Take the Columbine shooters, or Elliot Rodger. Perhaps Mateen had the same underlying motive: to bring himself some sort of catharsis. I have read news reports that allege that Mateen was gay, and that he was on multiple gay dating sites,and had actually hung out at Pulse nightclub several times, so perhaps he indeed was and could not accept the fact that he was. He thus saw it as viable to shoot people who were out and proud; yes, society sees this as unacceptable but a troubled mind may see it as the only option. Perhaps he felt emasculated in his being gay as opposed to what his religion preferred, which was the case (mildly) with Rodger. But nobody will know this because this is information that probably will never want to leave the subconscious. What if we could access this information? What if we actually had areas in our society where people felt safe enough to relieve themselves of their innermost burdens?

I brought this conversation up earlier at the dinner table. I said, "we can get guns here too" when my parents claimed that this was different. "No!" my father exclaimed. "not those guns. We can't get guns that fire that fast."  Whatever guns one can or cannot acquire is regardless of what I am trying to say; it is self control that is above all. This, I suppose, aligns with the argument revolving around pitbulls, that they are a dangerous breed: it is not the breed, but the owner. 

Be not prejudiced. Let the media do that because it's what it does best.

Instead, be human. Be understanding. Be welcoming. Help one another. You never know who is mentally hurting, and for what reason. Seek that misfit. Give them a feeling of belonging. Who knows, maybe you can be a preventative substance in this concoction of terror.

I will end this post with a poem I wrote when I was angered by the news of the shooting:

When man turneth his eyes to a gun we weep

When man turneth his eyes through a gun we weep

When man turneth his gun to an animal we weep

When man turneth his gun to his own species we weep

When man turneth his gun to himself we weep

Do not turneth with the gun but with humanity

What Ronda Rousey's Suicidal Thoughts mean to Regular People

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 "Winning all the time 

isn't what's best for everybody. [...]

 Maybe I had to be that example of 

picking myself up off the floor 

for everyone. 

Maybe that's what I'm meant for".

Ronda Rousey: the very embodiment of the word 'motivation' for most people, arguably until her first loss to competitor Holly Holm at the UFC 193 on November 15, 2015.

I remember being extremely saddened by the fact that I could not acquire tickets to attend UFC 193, particularly considering it took place in my hometown, and that my favorite fighter, Ronda Rousey, would be headlining the main fight. I was ecstatic to think that I could witness the most powerful female at the time clash against another professional fighter and presumably win, cementing her rights to be blatantly outgoing and excessively motivated, and her rights to be boastful. However I missed the ability to attend said event, and had to wait until after the match to hear the predicted results.

But to my surprise, and mind you it was not a surprise that I went through alone, I was notified that such a figure of power and determination had lost. I had to watch the painful replay of her loss myself to believe what I had heard. And watching the knockout at that moment, I saw not only a 50 pound kick to the head, but I saw the closure of a fixated and hardened mind. I saw the bringing down of both a figure of force and supremacy. And I had lost interest in Ronda immediately. She had advertised herself as a beastly winner, fulfilling promises and proving herself true each time. She became a figure of truth, a figure which instilled hope in me: if I could not achieve what I wanted in life, it was okay, because I had the chance to live my achievements through her achievements. She made possible the realm of dreams, and merging of dreams with reality. She made me feel as though motivation and my mind could coexist in harmony.

Video: The highlights of UFC 193 - Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm.

And as shallow and selfish as that sounds, it all fell and withered away with her in the duration of that fight. But I had not known the actual impact of that fight until today, February the 17th, 2016. I watched daytime television for the first time in months, flicking uncomfortably through unappealing shows until I settled into watching The Ellen Degeneres Show. Usually my television set, upon the hit of the information button, would show me a synopsis of the show, and that synopsis would contain a list of guests. That list would determine whether or not I would continue watching it. It no longer contains that, and I had to sit through it if I were to find out who was featured on the show. And so I did.

I had not expected myself to experience the first interview Ronda Rousey was to partake in after her loss, discussing her loss. I thought nothing of it. I sat there staring but not focussing at what was being said. The figure of power who had inflated herself into a blimp-sized figure of mass destruction had deflated, and meant nothing to me. I could no longer seek her interviews for motivation. I was disheartened. And then something strange happened. Something, prior to this, that had scarcely taken place for the viewing of the public. Ronda began to cry. I could not determine how an already deflated ego could deflate some more, however it did, and what occurred stunned me.

Ronda transformed from a regular fighter into a symbol of utter power, to a hollowed and distasteful person of fame, then to a regular human being. Ronda rendered herself, again to my surprise, even more fragile than she was when she lost her fight. She no longer partook in a fight against another human, rather a fight within herself. Ronda exposed at the very moments documented below, how real it is to be human. She expressed the dangers of the cognition of existentialism, as well as expressing her victimisation due to this cognition:

"I was in the medical room, down in the corner and I was like, what am I anymore if I'm not this? I was literally sitting there thinking about killing myself and in that exact second I'm like, I'm nothing, I'm like, what do I do anymore? No one gives a sh*t about me anymore".

Ronda has shown that she is aware of her impact on the world and its peoples. She has displayed her understanding of herself and what she means to her existence, as well as the existence of others. In fact, her existence is defined by others. This is the very denotation of existentialism: to exist and to know of your existence and to be able to distinguish your existence from the existence of others. When one is cognitive of their sense of existentialism, one continuously attempts to live at the expectations contained within their existence. Once one is removed from these expectations, one is lost and rendered fragile.

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Ronda's fragility comforts us. This is why her interview has received a positive response. Humans respond to the fragility of others with a sense of empathy. Empathy is the breeding ground of relation. Through Ronda's fragility, we feel as though we can relate to her, and instead of being the display of strength, she has now turned into the display of the very notion of the existence of a human: to try, to fail, to admit, and to rise above and try again.

Another element which makes Ronda seemingly human and less of a machine is her dependence on another being: Travis Browne. Travis is for Ronda what she was to us when she was headstrong and sure of herself. She became plastered all over the media, she who was for the first time a realistic figure that we not only look up to, but rely on. We are merely a group of ants working for the queen ant that is capitalism, and as slaves we look to strength, preferably the visual kind, so as to let it enter our eyes and fill our sous with the hopes of a better tomorrow. She was the possessor of an ideal mind, and ideal mindset and an ideal way to approach the execution of all hurdles life places before us:

"I looked up and I saw my man, Travis. [He] was standing there and I just looked up at him and I was just like, I need to have his babies. I need to stay alive. [...] I was meant to have him when I was at my lowest".

However bad her knockout, both literal and figurative (in terms of her deflation), Ronda has scattered herself into a pile of ashes, proclaimed her loss of self, and from that proclamation picked herself up, pieced herself together and has risen into a fiery phoenix of motivation, this time with bigger and brighter flames, forcing onlookers to squint and those with their backs turned hold fast to their napes as her flames scorch their ignorance and impartiality. And again we look, but this time after having regained her trust because of her fragility, we do not look up at her, we look up to her. And she recognises that, hence reaffirming her self-efficacy due to her newly transformed sense of motivation:

"I really do believe that I'm still undefeated because being defeated is a choice; everybody has losses in their life but I choose to always be undefeated".

"Good for you", replied Ellen, slapping her hand down on her armchair.

No, Ellen. Good for us. Good for us.

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Valentine's Day 2016: a Cynical Approach

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Yes, it's that time of the year again, the time when a single day is allocated to commemorate the annual repeating of a singular group of actions and behaviours that are favored by the status quo and even more favored by all abiders of capitalism, in particular florists, chocolatiers, gift cardists and condom factory owners: Valentine's Day. 

It is worthy to note that Valentine's Day is, in one essence, based on the romanticising of St Valentine of Rome who performed weddings for those forbidden to marry -  perhaps, then, love is an act of rebellion, in which its instigators practice careful vigilance by nurturing a concept of human ownership. And this ownership should be showered with gifts to pardon it from being what it is. Either that, or you may take Valentine's Day in the style of Chaucer, who believed that on this day, "euery bryd comyth there to chese his make." Perhaps he is the most right in the acquisition of the meaning of Valentine's Day, as his belief pertains to the beliefs of millions who think they too are mating birds. 

When one takes to pondering the very existence of something, it is natural for one to turn to Google, and gently push their mouse far enough to land on Google's yearning search bar. One then would type a search term, and find themselves honing in on one particular hit, and that is said search term's coexisting Wikipedia page. One then investigates this human phenomenon through Wikipedia, so as to elicit a most brief and basic form of meaning, a form of comprehending, somewhat, its existence. This particular one will indeed be one, as this one person sits alone on the eve of this crazed couple's conundrum of a celebration and reviews its very continuance. And it is this one who is cynical about varied things. One cannot blame this one, for I represent this one. And I know I am not alone:

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And so this turns me into an inquisitor of sorts, fumbling through technological lands in order to make sense of my reality, similar to the digital expeditions younger people go on wherein they ponder: if I send them this certain photograph of me, will they feel compelled to be attracted to me? Will this image remain for their eyes only? Will they too return an image wherein their appendage is bearing and will I be pleased with this? Of course, the answer is no to all of the above. However these younger people partake in this nonsense regardless, harbouring acts of self-exploitation masked as inquisition in order to feel as though they are a part of 21st century society. My inquisition differs, however, in that rather than being an instigator in this self-explorative mess, I am an observer, as are most people who have asked Google the questions above; the many ones.

As the observer, I am thus also deemed the representer of an inquisitive sort, and as a representer of this one, I am a little alarmed at, before viewing the common search queries related to this day, I came across Google's special celebratory logo, which I think is a terrible misrepresentation of the holiday itself:

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Upon closer inspection, I have gathered the following thoughts about the above placed logo:

• Why is the heart so dully colored?
• What does the tissue box represent in this illustration?
• What does the roll of tissue paper represent in this illustration?
• What is the relationship between illustrated tissue box and tissue roll?
• Why is one inanimate object handing another inanimate object an inanimate object?

I then came to the conclusion that Google defines Valentine's Day as a day where two emotionally pained entities can feel better when offered a red box marketed as a human heart (disfigured) to represent love, as said red box contains, upon visiting my mind's database and inferences revolving around said object, many pieces of well-made and well-flavored chocolates. This conclusion then lead me to other questions:

• Why is chocolate being represented as something that makes one feel good when it, in excessive consumption, which is, I must add, meant to be done so by the singular individual who receives this red box, proves detrimental to that one?
• Why does the tissue roll look relieved to be offered said chocolate?
• Could Google be implying that unhealthy eating habits should be encouraged?

Maybe Google's little illustration is inferring that love is manipulation: you are sad, I bought you this, you are now entitled to, on my behalf, feel better, so please eat those chocolates and smile.

I have conjured a better arrangement of Google's visual mise en scène, one that I think better fits:

In my rendition of this arrangement, I have shown the manipulation that Valentine's Day offers all complying customers, wherein the box of chocolates is acting as the sympathiser: here, take something that you will actually use, something that when used will benefit you, as I, a member of the inanimate and overly gifted objects, pity you and your race for choosing to provide me as a token of affection. If you really cared about one another, you would offer each other my friend, the Celery Stick. But make use of Tissue, here, for Tissue is soft and Tissue will embrace Tears and Tissue will attempt to make you look less miserable than you currently do - in all honesty, however, human, I too would be this miserable had I needed to express my affection with inanimate objects on a singular day.

But do not take my cynicism in its entirety; by all means, if you are feeling amorous, go forth and be fruitful in your execution of love. I have felt amorous before. I have known love. I have dwelled in its caves and fallen drunk on its alcohol-infused hormones that danced in my mind and clouded my clarity. I know the importance of pleasing one's lover so as not to loosen the tethering mechanism holding the two in place. However keep in mind that this patronising should occur more frequently than an assigned day. Keep your human happy and purchase severely overpriced luxuries on multiple days. 

Or perhaps take the day to treat yourself with the kindness you deserve. Do not wait for another to add validity and essence to your existence. Lather yourself with inanimate objects. Write down reasons as to why you matter. Avoid the costly and harrowing traps that 'love' sets. Be not ensnared. Perhaps it is a good thing that you are free and alone. Perhaps it is as good for your mind as it is your bank account. Perhaps this is the time for you to obtain distinctness in terms of who you are and what you are doing with yourself. Perhaps one is better than two. Do not let capitalism dictate your thoughts. Do not fall into the trap of nurturing a concept of celebrated human ownership. Just let Charles Bukowski explain:

"Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality", source

I align strongly with Bukowski. And so should you. Before you partake in any idea that capitalism sees fit, just think, what would Bukowski say?

For those of you with partners, I commend you. Celebrate your heart's cleansing, but hold tight to your money. I hold the inability to keep a partner as I believe that the only beings who should be caged are those who can break free: I am neither cunning nor manipulative. I am naive, and I am free. 

Happy Another-Calender-Day-Wherein-You-Must-Carry-On-Breathing-Either-Alone-Or-Alongside-Someone-Else-But-By-All-Means-Please-Breathe-Longer-By-Not-Purchasing-Exessively-Overpriced-Chocolates-Sold-In-An-Anatomically-Inaccurate-Box Day.

source