“So tell me about yourself.”

“I am not defined by ‘the self’ of which this physical matrix temporarily accommodates my corporeal being.”

Introducing: My Digital Proxy

For years I have been engineering my perfectly postured digital proxy: MadelyneRoses. She shows up on my Instagram feed unblemished, unbothered, and completely unknowable. She looks like a doll, dresses like one too. She’s provocative…an attention seeker…an artist…a poser. She’s desperate to please, quick to detach, unreachable and untenable. A completely perfect stranger.

Being misunderstood has always been a deeply serious concern of mine. In order to cope, I send my optimized digital proxy to traverse the ruling psychic battleground of public scrutiny. While I stay deeply folded within the trenches of my own private life, she is in no man’s land catching strays. It’s a perfect set up: I cannot be misunderstood if I am unknowable. I cannot be judged if the object of which you’re judging is a concept of my own design. The object has no feelings. The object exists only if I am online to anthropomorphize it. If I can control every nanoscopic detail of my online persona, I will be immune to the confrontation of my own defects. If I am perfect, I am free.

My AI Avatar Cloned Herself!

I grapple with the idea of a “digital twin:” is there really any difference between an AI avatar erected from the petri dish of my pixelated DNA and the “real” me that has been carefully selected, strategically augmented, plucked and preened by the intuitive and democratized factune app? If I have already accepted that my online self is a host for which my parasitic desires, fantasies, ambitions, and immaterial aspirations burrow, then have I effectively resigned my physical reality from my digital one? Have I gone so far to let my digital proxy engineer a life of her own, vulnerable to the perils and delights of this human experiment? Is she human? Is she real? Is she even me anymore? Could she one day create a digital proxy of herself, and would I have the right to be angry about it?

If I already feel so detached from my digital proxy, would it really be so bad to dispatch a fully AI rendered version of myself? Will that completely destroy the illusion of authenticity? Is there a line to toe? Will I be relatable anymore? Will I have extinguished the mirage of labor concerning my brutal beauty regiment or my fascistic approach to body and wellness? Would you believe me? Do you believe me now?

I agree that an AI version of myself threatens the necessary friction of relatability. If you knew my online self was rendered, it would sterilize the imperfect spaces that facilitate “connection:” ugliness, silliness, irony, humor…even if my current persona is void of all of those things. My physical yet digitized body absorbs the possibility of all of it.

Joblessness, poverty, addiction, psychosis. An AI replica lacks the context of its performative humanness. No trauma, no bad genetics, no family dysfunction to relate to. No heartbreak, no maladaptive tendencies, no sociopathy or pathologies. No bruising, oozing, blisters, or internal scarring. No infertility, no cancerous outgrowths, no childhood scars. No tongues tied, no rejection letters, no miscarriages, or abortions. No feelings of revenge, malaise, pleasure, or discontent. She’s always content. She’s always on. Plugged in, juiced up, and ready to shake her ass on the world stage.

She doesn’t falter, stumble, or misconstrue her words. She’s fabulous, self contained, mysterious, a billboard for your most extreme projections. She synthesizes and extrapolates your views and likes and reactions as empirical datapoints, later reconciled in the greater marketing plan of her “life.” She mutates based on what performs. She’s flexible, adaptable, covert, and discerning. Or is she? She’s an object. She does not feel. She does not think. She computes, compresses, and converts. She’s your dream girl, she’s your worst enemy. She’s secretive, pathological, insufferable, and pointless.

The Extreme Self: Age of You Paperback – 17 Jun. 2021 by Shumon Basar (Author), Douglas Coupland (Author), Hans Ulrich Obrist (Author)

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The reality is, it’s all the same. If what I feel is a radical departure from what I perform online, there’s a moral objective I have to reckon with: do I continue to operate my socials as tactical espionage, or do I destroy them altogether? AI replica or not, the person who is on display will be objectified against my better judgement. Do I save her or do I destroy her?

For those proposing a middle ground to the “log on / log off” conundrum, I counter-argue its impossibility. A middle ground isn’t some heedless suggestion to “be more real” or “stop caring so much.” It isn’t an Opal subscription or the temporary “dumbification” of smart phone capabilities via new techno-blockers (who else panic purchased a BRICK?).

A middle ground would look much more similar to the Truman Show: surveilled by a third party, broadcasted to the world with the implicit motivation to entertain WITHOUT our consent. Or even worse: the manipulation of our abandoned data to be squeezed into test tubes, monitored as they culture and bloom, and exploited once they evolve into a mosaic imitation of what we once were. You either control your digital proxy or kill her dead. Or else, the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Peter Thiels of the world will decide your fate for you.

No matter our interjections, our online selves will always be subject to assessment. No matter the intentions, the carousal housing twenty of the most intimate and “real” moments of our life are still designed by the hesitant scroll of our curatorial mind. I am actively manufacturing the version of you I wish to exist as I devour the digital proxy you present. There’s no escape. There’s no relief. There is no difference. So what now?

My Digital Proxy Must Die.

I can scrupulously geolocate every memory of discomfort having been mistaken for my digital proxy. Don’t you know that’s not me? I’ve had many wild accusations tossed me way: promiscuous, high maintenance, rich, or “taken care of.” I’ve also been uncomfortably idolotrized, mostly by the men I date, and subsequently “humbled” based on qualifications I never claimed in the first place. I’ve equally received praise I felt I did not deserve. I’ve made a fool of myself confusing my public self with my digital self with my private self. It’s a maddening shroud. In the words of Frou Frou, “sometimes I’ll have you know, it’s all insane.”

Providing a steady drip of nutrients to my digital proxy feels sensible…almost essential in this modern landscape. I conveniently own a business selling the literal clothing off my back, complicating the otherwise clear solution to my existential woes: log off. How do I file a motion of stipulated divorce with my digital twin? I wish to extricate myself and return home, but still benefit from the objectification of my body double. After all: sex sells, mormonism sells, mystery sells, humor sells, irony sells, hatred sells, rage sells, performative intellect sells…you can’t make a sale if you aren’t online.

So I am left to cope. If my therapist tells me I am NOT defined by my feelings, my friends say I am NOT defined my past, my doctor says I am NOT defined by the number on the scale…I must not be defined by my career, or my taste in men, or my social media presence either. Maybe I should start by being a bit more vulnerable IRL. Or maybe I should simply disappear without a trace. Let me ask my digital twin what she thinks.