Patreon Post: California Ghosts

The Fisher Queen fished her parents out of the sea one evening. The waves were flat as paint, stretching out toward the horizon. Dead fish curled drying on the sand, scenting the air. It was the dog days of summer, windless. Far out past the sand bar, the sea shaded green, then brown.

She felt one of them lip the bait and the tender fumbling as they pushed it back and forth, mouthing it in inquiry. Then they both struck on the double hook, a rush as sudden as a punch, and the tip of the pole dipped in acquiescence to the water.

She pulled them in using long slow pulls, bringing the rod’s tip back towards her shoulder, reeling in swiftly as it lowered again towards the horizon.

She remembered scraps of childhood as she reeled. Hanging upside from the jungle gym, feeling her head throb with onrushing blood while a cat stalked by in the unmown grass, tail high and stiff. Sneaking off to be with a boyfriend for the weekend, her mother finding out, shouting at her. College graduation, their heads among the crowd. Calling her in her first apartment to make sure she was okay, didn’t need anything. Her father’s funeral, her mother’s only a few weeks later, like a swan than has lost its mate, and so lies down to die.

Now they were fish, as long and muscular as sharks, but toothless, living on plankton and the spawn of crustaceans. Now they thought slower, deeper thoughts than when they were human, and if they included thoughts of the Fisher Queen, they betrayed no sign of it.

She waded hip deep into the tepid water, holding a North Carolina summer’s heat still here in the final days of the season. The fish came to her, floated alongside her legs. She bent to each one in turn to coax away the hook piercing their lips. But free, the fish remained there, their scaly sides rasping along her legs. They were all muscle ““ she could feel it when they flexed a tail in over to stay in place.

She rested her fingers on their brows and let them move in tiny, hypnotic circles. The fish floated in the water. She could see their great golden eyes underneath the surface, staring up at her.

Recently I’ve been mulling over implementing a new policy with my social media practices. I’m thinking about calling a moratorium on likes and check-ins, pins and stumbles.

On the one hand — and this is certainly how the marketers eying all those tasty bits of data would like you to think of it — you are engaging in social expression, you are singing to the world with your own individual song made up of pop culture references and color preferences. You are bonding with that cousin in Colorado, that sister-in-law of a friend, or even your bff. You are finding the gems of the Internet and sharing them. For me as a writer, I’m (or at least I hope I am) continuing to build and deepen my fan base, so they’ll buy my books.

But the other hand is more sinister. You’re providing marketers with your data, telling them how to most effectively sell to you, letting them know what images, what songs, what memes have resonance for you. Talk about the ultimate consumer survey – this one’s as long and exhaustive as you care to make it. Everyone who uses Gmail (and I’m one of them) has more than once been spooked at how the ad in the sidebar seems to target exactly what you’re thinking of with a precision worthy of a Twilight Zone episode. Imagine if every ad getting served to you is precisely tailored to convince you that you need that particular thneed.

This worries me. We are imperfect creatures, our brains are easily tricked, and subliminal tricks can be played upon us. Oxytocin makes us more trusting, advertising surrounds us on an unquestioned daily basis, and we are, after all, predictable and manipulable creatures.

Or what would a game tweaked to our individual quirks be like? (I envision something for myself filled with Amazons, talking animals, an assortment of literary figures ranging from Geoffrey Chaucer to James Tiptree Jr., and pop culture references to children’s cartoons from the late sixties to early 70s.) Such a game, perhaps one formulated with by then automated algorithms of gripping narrative construction, would be awesome.

And on that sinister hand again, it would be so addictive. I say that as someone who gave at least three night a week to D&D all through my high school years, as a WoW player since the beta, as someone who laid a decade and a half of work on the altar of the entity known as Armageddon MUD, which has eaten lives, grades, careers, friendships, and even marriages over the course of its existence. The thought of a game more addictive than that terrifies me.

So while I’m not quite so worried about my data getting used nowadays, I do have concerns about the future and how my data footprint may someday be used. So what are strategies for dealing with this concern? None seem perfect, but three spring to mind.

1. I can stop using these networks. I’m reluctant to do that, because I enjoy the experience. I like looking at Pinterest pins and seeing all the pretty colors. I like being able to see what my friends are up and who’s got new stuff out that I can help promote.
2. I can introduce bad data into the mix. I can introduce some contradictory things in there, like saying I like licorice or Mitt Romney. Tracking that seems odd, but I’m capable of it, much like the friend who periodically buys items he doesn’t need with his shopping Advantage card, just to screw with the machine minds.
3. I can use networks with a persona. I can figure out my alternate Cat Rambo. We all do this to some extent already – no one showcases all of their bad selves online except for the truly narcissistic and deluded.

So what to do? I guess the first step is realizing there’s a problem. What do you think, am I just being paranoid and should break out my tinfoil hat or begin preserving my precious bodily fluids from contamination? Or is this something we should all be thinking about?

(And if I die under mysterious circumstances in the next couple weeks, it only confirms the corporate assassins exist…)

Enjoy this musing on social media for writers and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.