Found objects

That little saying has always annoyed me. It's a comfortable answer for people who don't fear violence or discrimination in their "real" lives as a result of having desires, identities and presentations that don't fit society's vision of what's acceptable. For those who don’t, the internet isn't simply a place to do and see things, but a lifeline -- the only space where they feel safe enough to actually interface with aspects to themselves that they know would be violently policed in their "real" lives. Those of us who do happen to fit into society's vision of what's acceptable can conceive of no legitimate reason people might do something so stupid as download a porn app that will leave no trail on their browsing history, for example, or some other threat model originating not from malicious hackers or the surveillance state, but from people in their "real" lives, looking over their shoulders. Those of us whose desires and identities fit the mold don't have this problem; as a result, we don't see our own privilege. We don't see how for many, the internet has functioned as a powerful avenue for expression, exploration and community. We don't understand that an app -- which, as a third-party app, isn't tied to a user's Play account and can be installed and uninstalled as needed, thus appearing to leave no trail -- can seem like a much better solution than surfing Tumblr or engaging in the seemingly riskier act of inputting "dangerous" words on a keyboard that belongs solely to us and offers no plausible deniability. Increasingly, however, as more of life moves online, even the most privileged of us will be unable to see that tenet as feasible. I only wish we had understood it sooner, and not because we eventually saw past our smugness and discovered that we had been living in a glass house all along. 

Photo by Sergey Popoff.