Monday, 12 May 2025

404: Identity Not Found

I am just surprised by the world today

a world where a person in his flesh and bones,

conversations and insecurities,

baring it all,

isn’t a true identity.


But the moment he says his name —

a name that can be fed

into the data-lusting capitalist belly

of a search engine —

he’s suddenly “real.”


Like the blood wasn’t real until Googled.

Like the pain didn’t count

without a hyperlink.

Like the art didn’t breathe

until metadata confirmed

you’re someone.


We are now creatures

of algorithms and indexed sins —

fragments of browser histories

more alive online

than we ever were in person.


You can bleed out on stage,

weep into microphones,

scream poetry so loud

it could crack silence into sonnets,

but until they can spell-check your name,

you’re just a placeholder —

“Anonymous” in italics.


And now,

we are all just usernames

pretending to be people —

QR-coded confessions,

barcoded beings

waiting to be verified

by the same algorithms

that wouldn’t survive five minutes

inside our unsaved drafts of grief.


Because in this world,

you don’t exist

until someone can CTRL+F your very existence

and hit enter

on a name

that doesn’t flinch when searched —

not the face, not the voice,

not the trembling truths you left on stage —

just a name.

A clickable name.

And if it doesn’t autocomplete,

neither do you.

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