Here we stand at the “nowness” of this thing we call the Internet. A digital refuge. An oasis of calm. A school of art. A profound and elemental place of being where we might better understand ourselves.
Although this is something we rarely think about, Chris Campanioni explores it with zest in this experimental hybrid book of poetry and prose. If this book were a meme, it’s template would be The Expanding Brain (panels of images that convey increasing intelligence and consciousness through images of larger brains). Each word stimulates your brainwaves to the point of absurdity but not in a pretentious way.
It’s identity flirts with the genre of memoir whilst also maintaining a safe enough distance that allows the reader to see themselves in the iridescent text that fills a daunting 550 pages. That number shouldn’t scare you though. Consider it a Netflix binge for the mind. Commit to it.
The Internet Is For Real is Chris Campanioni’s most radical book so far. Released back in March of 2019, it stood apart from his more traditional works like Death of Art and Going, but maintained the genesis that made Chris the online sensation he is today. He is post-capitalist, post-internet, and beyond post-modern.
He is a genuine futurist that examines how pop culture steers the soul. Whether he does this through his online presence, his literature, or PANK magazine, he is constantly reflecting on the symbiotic relationship between our emotions and the internet.
We’d be lying to ourselves if we haven’t all done that at some point. Whether it be looking back at old Tumblr posts during the sad boi hours or trying to develop our online “brand”, our state of being is forever attached to how we see ourselves in that scope. Though we are constantly moving forward and jumping ship to new social media platforms to quell our restless minds, we leave behind digital footprints that will outlive us all.
It sounds almost obsolete and hurts the soul to dwell on it. How can we have chosen such precarious ways to connect and discover our true identities? It wouldn’t be a review of mine if I Didn’t bring in my own personal emotions on the subject.
This novel isn’t just a memoir for Chris. It’s a memoir for us all. A sense of longing and brief rushes of serotonin that keep the loop going. Our minds aren’t in the traditional space anymore. Mine isn’t at least.
When Chris goes from poetry to prose, to just a series of X’s on the pages of this book my brain immediately clicks. This is who I am. A tangled mess of heartbreak and social media and mental illness propelling myself forward. The pages taken up by X’s aren’t filler. They’re the blank feelings that stirs us at night to check Twitter for hours while watching Netflix in the background.
This book was handed to me almost a year ago but it took a worldwide pandemic to truly allow me to connect and understand where Chris is going. Three readings and several months apart I finally understood that Chris was not on the fringe of things with such a hypnotic novel that differs from almost anything I have read so far.
He is the standard. This book is just a mere year ahead of its time. The entirety of this world is spending months in quarantine doing the things that he describes. Feeling the strange lack of connection. Minds hopping from place to place. Looking back at simpler times and wondering when or if things will return to normal.
We’re taking refuge in cyberspace and writing in a way that no longer makes sense. Perhaps it’s because nothing in this world no longer makes any sense. Little things disappear in a flash but the thoughts that Chris shares are here forever.
I never give true detail to the books that I review because that would be too easy. Instead I focus on the abstract and the idea of reading something perhaps bigger than yourself. If that doesn’t work, focus on the fact that there’s really not much else we can do in these endless corona times. We’ve done our political duty and voted. We’ve worn our masks and stayed away from crowded spaces. Now we need to seek solace in words that make us feel less alone. Productivity is not something we should focus on right now. Experience something visceral instead.
As a society, we now need to find ways that might connect us together, and provide catharsis. In a world as small as the tiny lit community it almost feels impossible that a writer could deliver on a feeling like that. Chris calls into question national belonging as we should all do. Where we end up from here is a mystery. But The Internet Is For Real is reason.
Millennials will love it because it is the song of our generation and Gen Z will now finally get it. After years of adolescence, they have now faced the isolation that Millennials have been through for so many years. We’re here to embrace Gen Z, so that they can enjoy the kind of writing that has kept us Millennials sane and will understand it in a way that other generations can’t. We no longer are that different from each other and in Chris’s writing we can connect our frantic feelings in a way that we never could’ve guessed. Read this book. You won’t regret it. In the end all you have to lose is time, and what is that when the world stands frozen in it.
You can buy The Internet Is For Real online from C&R Press or Amazon.