In Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, the main character, Richard, says, ‘I am nothing if not obsessive’. This, I’ve realised, has been more true of my life than I had imagined.
Growing up introverted, with books, movies, and the internet as my main sources of entertainment (and more pathetically, perhaps, even friendship), I went through phases where I loved things enough for them to consume me, before finding others to take their place. I lived not unlike an addict, always waiting for the next hit. All of this, ultimately, was an escape from, and also, a bridge to a range of things—school, friends, my own lack of self-esteem. This is precisely why this project was absolutely mortifying to work on, because in hindsight, all of this is terribly embarrassing. It makes me cringe and never want to think about the past again. It reminds me of a line from Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘One Need Not be a Chamber—to be Haunted’, where she puts it better than I ever could—“Ourself—behind Ourself—Concealed— / Should startle—most—”.
With this photo feature, I revisit these past selves in chambers of their own. The idea was to show them inhabiting spaces that my present self now occupies. They linger in my hostel room, follow me as I study or sing karaoke with my friends. I spent a lot of time trying to stuff them away in a cupboard in the back of my mind, but I see them still in a lot of things I do and I have tried to depict that through pairs of images. Each obsession comes in pairs, a past self contrasted with the present. The images of the past are warm-toned in comparison to the ones in the present. The latter are meant to feel like a return to reality, much less romantic than what I dreamed certain things would be like.
My first obsession was with One Direction. It began a year before the band broke up, and lasted, though somewhat in the background, for three more years. I knew everything about them, all the trivia, everything about my personal favourite band member, (whom I also thought I would legitimately meet one day in the future). I had never loved anything so intensely at that point.
Now, I only think about them when my roommate makes a reference only someone who was once in the fandom would get, or convinces me to sing their songs at 3 in the morning because we’re bored and can’t sleep.
The following two images aim to capture both this obsession and what life is like now. To put it as simply as possible: I no longer live in my room, and have actual human friends.
Killjoy
As One Direction was in its death throes, I found the Emo Holy Trinity. One of the beautiful (but also horrifying) things about growing up on the internet is just finding things. I would learn new things every day, even if it was discovering that there was something called an ‘emo’ and there were three bands that seemed to capture the feeling of being one better than the others. After that, I only listened to My Chemical Romance, Panic! At The Disco, and Fall Out Boy. I found more music like theirs. I started dressing in black t-shirts and black skinny jeans (which I ripped myself), and yearned for a loose red and black plaid shirt to go with it. I brushed my hair out, forcing a side part to look like a fringe. I found the Ramones and riot grrrl, and felt the urge to rage against the machine by cutting my hair with red Faber-Castell scissors.
I still dress like that sometimes, and I love the same music. It’s painful to think about the things I did, but I get just as excited when MCR say they are coming back and announce a concert out of nowhere. My relationship to myself and how I look has changed since then; I like to think I am a little more comfortable in myself. Maybe this isn’t fully a ghost yet. I wanted the photos, especially of the past selves, to reflect the time and the ideas they are from. I wanted them to be as over bright or gritty or cold-toned and grunge-y like they were in 2014-15-16, mimicking the photos I saw online.
‘a sycophantic, prophetic, Socratic junkie wannabe’
It was a seamless transition into what’s called the ‘Tumblr-girl’ phase, considering how I came to live on the internet by that point. I got into new music—Arctic Monkeys and The 1975, which were quintessential parts of the aesthetic. Grunge and neon were the new cool: cold tones, noise, denim skirts and fishnet tights. I didn’t have any of this growing up, but this is what I wanted to look like. I, too, wanted to wear my hair in space buns, and skateboard. I wasn’t like other girls, and hated the world. Like other teenagers on the internet, I came to romanticise this angst, and it took a while to let that go.
Even if those feelings—anger, sadness, confusion—come back (though not with the same intensity as they do to a 15 year old), my experience of them is obviously different. The aim of these images is seeing this shift towards normalcy. Nothing is as intense as it was when I was fifteen. We are all exactly like other girls.
‘I want that trophy, so dance good’
While I have wanted to write ever since I can remember, writing for film and theatre was something I hadn’t considered until I took ICSE drama in 9th standard. The idea of someone behind the screen, writing the movies I loved, opened up a whole new world.
I watched YouTube videos on screenwriting, I made a list of all the classics I just had to watch. One day, I thought, I’d be ‘discovered’, too. Like Tarantino, I thought I could learn everything by spending nearly every waking moment watching. I began writing screenplays I would never finish, but at least I was writing.
Behind all the romance was a block that would last four years. I couldn’t write a thing, despite all the movies I watched and the books I read. I am definitely more jaded than I used to be, which is probably for the better. I’ve learned, for one, that maybe I don’t just want to write, but be more involved in how a film is made to look, in how its shot, and cut at the end. In a way, I miss the optimism I had before, because what’s taken its place is an almost crippling fear of having lost so much time and of starting a project.
‘I am nothing if not obsessive’
I was still on the internet, which meant that a new obsession was not very far off. Like (almost) every postcolonial subject at some point, I have romanticised and wanted to go to Oxford my whole life, and a new aesthetic—whose foundations were rich white kids, and the dreamy spires of a university campus—fit the bill. I had a reason to study now; maybe I could have this life, too. Like most people on Tumblr, I misinterpreted Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I, too, wanted a group of literary friends, to go to salons, to quote classic literature at people. It didn’t help that, at the time, I had friends with the same obsession. We listened to Bach now (or we pretended to), and watched Hamlet on YouTube—all its versions, especially the ‘alas, poor Yorick’ monologues, until we had it by heart.
Maybe I am still a little pretentious. I love niche esoteric things no one has heard of and I keep them to myself so they feel like they’re mine alone. But I’m also disillusioned. University took the shine away: I stopped talking about books I loved, mostly because there was no one I could share them with in the same way as before. I love the humanities, but I don’t like interacting with them in this somewhat elitist, insulated way. But then again, can I really escape this? I can’t think about this media the same way anymore, or romanticise exclusivity like I did before. I have also had to come to terms with the fact that I don’t always enjoy academic work. What was once fulfilling in the beginning grew dreary, and often seeps into my creative writing, which I have to work hard to avoid.
Conclusion
I would love to forget these parts of myself. It kills me to know that the people I have known will remember me by these versions of myself. It bothers me that these selves did not think about what they were doing. They didn’t question things back then, didn’t get out of the house enough, could have been kinder people. It bothers me that they don’t match the idea of what I think I should have been like, what I am like now, and what I want to be.
My obsessions have faded over the years, and I don’t think they’re coming back. While I still get excited by the new things I learn or find, it’s not with the same intensity as before. I don’t know how to feel about that. I am a better person now (hopefully) and more normal than these quirky, ‘I’m not like other girls’, selves I have to now accept. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that maybe I do miss that all-consuming obsession with things sometimes, even though I know I did stupid things and did not think about what I was doing nearly enough. I was having fun, and I had people to share that with, in a way that I cannot do now because it just doesn’t feel the same.
Maybe I will have to contend with these feelings for longer. This project has been a stab at dealing with them instead of pretending they don’t exist. Maybe one day I won’t be so mortified and will finally let this go. For now, though, this is more than I expected to be able to do.
DoubleSpeak 