The Art of Permanence

 "Once on the internet, always on the internet" 

This is a saying as old as time that I wish I had learned about and understood sooner. When I was a kid, I was head over heels for trying to gain internet fame. Like completely obssessed. So I made an account called "epic.noob_gaming" on tiktok, where I would post roblox content daily. I would spend a lot of time on these videos, They were quite random, varying from comedy to videos about how I felt sad about something that happened in my life. The videos did alright; some would get a couple thousand views and some would get like 20. However, not being educated aobut the seriousness of the internet, I also made a couple dark videos, jokes regarding serious events I would rather not say. Of course it I regret it, and I think it was really dumb that I would even attempt at content creation. In fact, looking back at it now, everything about it was mega corny. I would literally edit my roblox avatar doing dances to some trendy songs at the time, and people would praise me in the comments about how good it was (I'm not sure why they did because the videos were hot buttcheeks). 

Okay, I kind of ranted for too long, but you get the idea. I didn't understand the idea that what I posted to the internet would be permanent. In AP Lang this week, we read Videotapes. Seeing the article for the first time, I was instantly reminded of my old tiktok account. The girl, who happened to videotape the murder at the wrong place and the wrong time, captured that moment, forever to be seen by the public. While making dancing videos about a roblox character isn't merely as serious as capturing a person's death, our situations converge on one idea, the idea that your actions are permanent. Even this blog that I am writing is permanent. If I were to delete this blog, the words on this page will be remembered by those who read it (i mean not really i guess since they'll forget, but i wanna sound sophisticated so shut up), always in the back of their head to be randomly remembered.

This photo is not from my tiktok account, I just couldn't find any fitting photo for this blog so I had to work with this one

That's why I think permanence can be both dangerous and beautiful. You can either capture the horrifying events of a memory, like the man getting shot in the car, or capture the gorgeous content of dancing blocks in a kids' game. As the school year is coming to an end, so will AP Language and these blogs. At first, I was skeptical of the idea of having to write a blog every week.  It sounded exhausting, and to be completely honest, I thought that my time could've been spent doing something much more valuable. My opinion has changed now, though. Blogs have been the highlight of this class for me, and frankly, been one of the things that make this class memorable. I'm glad that we were required to write blogs becuase I got the opportunity to express my feelings and talk about the class in a casual demeanor through silly blogs and topics like this one. 

The blogs that I wrote will stay on the internet, and Mrs. Valentino's google docs forever, perhaps never to be opened again, or maybe to be re=read by an older Jayden Paik. The tiktok account that I made will also be on the internet forever (not really cus I got freakin banned, the bad videos finally caught up to me), perhaps to be rewatched or laughed at for it's ridiculous content. Who knows. That's the art of permanence.