I spent my middle school years without a phone. I had an iPod. There’s not much difference but back then a phone and iPod seemed a world apart. (An iPod cannot use cellular data, so you can’t use it without wifi. iPods also can’t make phone calls.) I remember the biggest (most shaming) difference was that on the back of the iPod, iPod was engraved in large letters. Whenever I used my iPod around people I used my fingers to cover that humiliating logo. I always tried to avoid facetimes and phone calls, because my iPod couldn’t handle that. Instead I used snapchat ring and other apps to voice communicate. It wasn’t all that bad until someone found out I had an iPod. I’d make a series of pre-calculated lies about why I had a “temporary” iPod. (I did think for a while that my iPod was a temporary device, but after a while I realized my parents didn’t have enough money to buy me a phone.) I dished out rapid b.s.: “Oh, this is a phone, just an older one” or “I broke my phone, I’m just using it for a little, it’s not even mine.” Anything to escape from the shaming conversation before getting roasted.
I remember one time I was at a concert and I was on my iPod wasting time before a performance, and a friend asked me what kind of phone I had. I told him one of the iPhones. He asked if he could see it. I quickly and harshly said “No!” My secret had made me prone to lash out. And that just made me feel creepier. The kid wondered aloud, “Why do all the kids with phones never let me use theirs” as he walked away. I was always worried people would find out the thing I called my phone was actually an iPod. It was even worse when I had to reveal I had an iPod to people I’d already lied to. A sheepish look would cross my face and my eyes would search the floor as I admitted the truth. Everyone mocked me for having an iPod. My friends made fun of me (not meanly), my enemies made fun of me (mean-heartedly), and people I didn’t talk to made fun of me (bandwagonly).
Though, in truth, nobody really cared except me. Once someone noticed, after a few seconds of “mortification” the observer would move on. But I didn’t really take that in, and I stayed locked in anticipatory fear of my next truth-telling (or lying) ordeal. I felt my self-respect deteriorate whenever I lied but I seemed compelled to keep my not-so-secret. Now, I realize I should’ve just told everyone straight-up I had an iPod. But I was truly worried that no girls would like me if I couldn’t call them. I thought I wouldn’t stay part of my friend group if I couldn’t facetime (we never did). I thought if I didn’t play ios games I would miss out on the current trend. All my preoccupations seem trivial, given what truly deprived kids confront. But back then I hated when after school I would eat with school mates and everyone would pull out their phones. I’d feel like the kid who had asked me to use my iPod. I’d retreat into myself until someone asked “wanna see a meme?” Or “where’s your phone?” I’d reply with a practiced lie that I’d left it at home. It was a like a drill, a drill that wore down my self-respect.
Having an iPod really wasn’t that bad. I made one of my closest friends on late night snapchat convos and with my iPod I was able to document the best trip I have ever taken. On my shitty iPod camera I was able to memorialize beautiful familial moments in my mom’s home country, Senegal. I went there two summers ago with my mom who hadn’t been home for ten years. As soon as my mom and I got out of the airport in the capital city Dakar we drove straight to her hometown, Kaolak, where we surprised my Grandmother Mom Aida (in Wolof, the language of most Senegalese, mom means grandma). I didn’t really have an idea of what my grandmother looked like since I hadn’t met her in so long. So it was really cool to finally see her as a person, not as a voice on the phone. (She’s quite skinny, but she still seems strong.) The first two days at my grandmother’s house were really conflicting, I was happy to be with my grandmother, my half-cousin, Nambakaye–a younger girl who was sweet and helpful–and my gracious great aunt. But I was feeling a heavy homesickness. As the days flowed on, Kaolack and its people continued to grow on me. I don’t know if I grew on folks there, but the relatives became enthralled with my iPod. I taught my half-cousin how to play iPod games and she really enjoyed them. She loved one of the ten songs I had access too. But my iPod also attracted strangers. On one of my days in Kaolack my iPod got stolen. A bunch of neighbors helped me get it back. First they tracked down the car where I’d left it. Then they found the kid who’d taken it. I remember the moment I realized my iPod was gone… I was freaking out, even though I hated the damn thing I knew I needed it. I was grateful to get it back and the change-up made me consider the leg up I had on the kid who stole my iPod. He had lied to his family, to the people who had helped me and myself. His deceit and desperation for a (locked) iPod made me feel sad for him but also made me more conscious of my own self-pity. When I saw him trying to cover himself, I saw…myself. I was ashamed for both of us. Maybe I’m making too much of this sense of identification, but it seems like a deeply African moment. Shame isn’t an emotion that gets too much play in America but in Africa everyone knows it might be just around the corner.
Back to my world. At home in America I’d been locked in my own “prison” of disadvantage, complaining to my parents all the time about not having a phone. I didn’t take time to consider their sadness that they couldn’t satisfy the wants of their son. I realized the scales of disadvantage between me and the kid were completely different. (That’s not to say that the people of Senegal don’t have anything up on us. Our screened out society can’t match the sense of solidarity in Senegal–that community that banded together to help a stranger find his missing device.) I hadn’t imagined what other kids were missing (or how it might shape their lives), I was too absorbed in my “own.” In Africa I didn’t suddenly see my troubles about my iPod were trivial, but I began to get some distance on them (and myself).
Not that I needed to go all the way to Senegal to learn about my relative privilege. There were other kids who didn’t have phones in my school and it wasn’t always about how rich your parents were. But there was one kid, V’shon, who was definitely not well off; he always came to school in the same clothes, and was teased because he always wore particularly ugly shoes. Like me, he didn’t have a phone. V’shon came to my old school in 4th grade–the same year I did–but we came out in 8th grade in opposite positions. I had a really tight friend group and I was at ease with the popular kids while he was an outcast, shunned and lonely. While we both struggled with not having phones, I’m reminded now he was actually better than me at hiding the fact he didn’t have one. On the other hand since he didn’t have even an iPod he couldn’t be part of the social media scene. But he was determined to get attention anyway. I think that’s why he did outrageous things, like pulling down his pants at recess. As a young kid I didn’t think through why he seemed mad for attention or why he must have felt so isolated. I’m still not sure his need for attention was driven entirely by his desire to make up for being excluded from the phone culture of my old school (and new school) but, as a member of that culture now, if I could talk to him I’d tell him he didn’t miss much.
I feel seriously embarrassed about my phone fakery. Other than not having one, there was nothing else that made me believe I was needy. That was more than enough, though, to get me twisted. I didn’t want people to think I was not as well off as them so I lied. Anyone who’s surrounded by people who have (and have more) stuff is pressured to have an envious side. I reacted to mine by lying but others react with anger or resign themselves to themselves. Such responses seem better than mine. Though I don’t want to end on a note of auto-criticism. Or it’s just all about me all over again. What’s really awful is that the half-virtual, half-real community cultivated by phone-culture seems to be founded on exclusion. Maybe most kids in American can get online, but I’m stuck on that kid in Africa. My stranger/brother/liar over there where there are millions and millions offline…