Instagramlet (Get Thee to Unpluggery)

To Tweet, or not to Tweet – that is the question;

Whether ‘tis nobler off the line to suffer

The stings and harrows of outrageous comments,

Or to type reams against a sea of trollers

And by opposing end them. To like, re-tweet –

No more; and by Delete to say we end

The headache and the thousand cyber shocks

The web is host to. ‘Tis a disconnection

Desperately to be wished. To post, to Tweet –

To Tweet, perchance to SCREAM. Ay, there’s the rub.

For in that Tweet of wrath, what screams may come

When we have rattled off our mental bile,

Must give us pause. There’s the Reply

That makes calamity of logged-in life.

For who would bear the links and shames online,

Th’obsessives wrong, the proud men’s humble-brag,

The pangs of tagged old loves, the trolls irate,

The insolence of hotheads, and the spurns

Of posts that merit few if any Likes…

When he himself might peace and quiet make

With a broke modem? Who would Facebook bear –

To gloss and Status-hype a weary life –

But for the dread of what is off the net:

The un-updated country, from whose road

No traveler checks in or ‘Grams their meal,

And makes us rather live those lives we have

Than share with followers we know not of?

Thus, consciousness makes cowards of us all,

And thus the natural glue of real connection

Is cybered o’er with hash-tagged bytes of thought,

And intercourses of points rich and cogent

Eggplant and poop emojis turn awry

And lose their satisfaction.