Botoxalips Now, by Good Citizen

Curious “beauty” standards, online swiping digital vapors, and the end of amore.

How could I compete with their love for themselves?

— Every lover of every “influencer”

To love the statistics of a heart button is to love deeply, with a now socially nourished and fiscally rewarded soul-crushing narcissism that has become so deeply entrenched in the world that not putting all of one’s energy into seeking the artificially fleeting admiration of others will soon probably render a diagnosis of schizophrenia or autism.

For nearly two decades, hearts have been everything.

When the idea of Amore moved online the predictable transformation of digital vapors worked its diminishing magic with disconnect and despair. Heightened expectations through transitory fantasies from behind a protective veil of distance and asymmetry dispelled the need to think and react to a moment, in the only manner non-sociopaths can—honestly.

Vapid pretense and performance took center stage distancing those expectations further from reality as the truth of individuals became buried by the impressions they sought to convey. Earned trust, which was once built by past human interactions over time turned into faith.