Essay on identity, authorship, and the emergence of the social media artist
Introduction
Written in the early years of Instagram—before I was even on the platform or could have imagined that I would one day have five million followers—The Ona Generation explored a new type of artist emerging online: one who uses her own image as medium, platform as gallery, and attention as distribution.
What looked like provocation at the time now reads as an early description of what we call the creator economy. In this system, identity, performance, and authorship collapse, marking a shift from artists making work to people becoming the work.
The essay came at a turning point in my own practice. Prior to writing it, I was experimenting with multiple online personas—different “Onas” distributed across platforms. While writing the text, I began to reimagine my online presence as one primary figure, which later developed into Ona Artist: a celebrity-as-art-practice that used social media fame itself as artistic material.
the essay
How a new ageless, auto-erotic, DIY, multi-personified online generation is changing the world one share at a time.
By Ona
I am naming a generation, and I am naming it after myself, which I named after the generation, which I named in order to name myself after it, making it me and I we, for I am Ona, and we are the Ona Generation (OnaGen). At the root of the OnaGen is the propagation of online “onas,” which is slang for persona. An ona is a virtual profile or presence through which a person seeks to share, sell, or hook up online. Each person may have one or more onas, and they may operate in concert or separately, depending on the person’s overall goals. To put it another way, OnaGen doesn’t have alter egos, they have multi egos, aka onas. It is the virtual actions of these ona(s) that give the OnaGen its unique qualities.
The first quality emerges from the connotations of its name: Ona. The word sonically echoes the imperative to own (get it now!) and Japanese for woman (onna), semantically references singularity (Latin), and, of course, O stands for orgasm, but its true etymology forms the word “onanism,” which means masturbation and coitus interruptus. The latter have their origin in the Old Testament story of Onan, who, when ordered by law to impregnate his dead brother’s wife, instead “spilled his semen on the ground…so that he would not give offspring to his brother” (Genesis 38:9).
It is in this double meaning of the word Onanism that we get our first glimpse at the nature of the OnaGen. What do masturbation and coitus interruptus have to do with each other? In common parlance, one means isolated self-pleasuring, the other an interruption of coupling. But if you look at the terms historically, one sees that they are the same thing in that “seed is spilled.” And while the puritanical/paternal past has looked down on such spillage, it is to the OnaGen pure liberation.
In the Christian tradition, which values sex only as impregnation, masturbation is a sin and induces shame. To the OnaGen, masturbation is sexual freedom and induces celebration. Women on the pill having sex, men wearing condoms during sex, men and women masturbating via the web, it’s all onanism, and it’s all good. Just as birth control has liberated men and women from sex condemning them to unwanted pregnancy, so has the Internet come to serve as birth control, as the over-supply of desire finds an outlet through cyber sex, as well as a sexual play space for women where virtual distance prevents violence and eroticism can be safely explored. It is sensual freedom that stands in direct opposition to the many social variants of Hildale, Utah.
While the word “generation” has been used in the past to reference a group of people born within the same parameter of years, OnaGen is ageless, for, as K-Hole says, generational linearity is gone. Youth is not age. Youth is freedom, and freedom is OnaGen, as it utilizes whatever age serves its (or their) distributive ambitions.
A look at one of OnaGen’s premier platforms – Facebook – gives a further glimpse into the qualities of this emerging group. Every FB profile is an ona that is used by its root person for specific purposes. The ona is not the person any more than the performance is the performer. Through the mechanisms of FB, the person uses the ona to share, like, and debate whatever furthers that ona’s microcelebrity. This mini Broadway show is created through incremental status updates, which plays on both status as in “state of being” and “power over another.” And, of course, this conveniently references the “status” games that are always present between sex partners. For in the end it is all a way to “stay in touch.” But what is one actually touching, and who’s doing the touching? Onas are touching each other in their onanistic way, which is a positive feedback cycle in a feel good space in which everyone’s mutually masturbating. When you like someone’s contribution, you like what they do with a thumbs up, the symbol of onanism, which is both phallus and hand, the thing you touch when you touch another, when really you’re just touching yourself.
As onas accumulate, it is a constant balancing act to keep them in concert, working together toward one’s ultimate online objectives. Some onas openly recognize other onas, while some onas hide the fact that they have partner onas, as they blend into each other in varying degrees given the parameters of their individual platforms and ambitions. One ona is friendly on Facebook, one is nasty on Reddit, one is chatty on Etsy, one is raunchy on Twitter, and one is salacious on Tinder.
An OnaGen example highlights this dance. Take Doug, a 38 year old single father of three who works at a software firm in Boston. He has one dating profile on OKCupid that accentuates his sexual side, one on Nerve that highlights his intellectual interests, he uses his FB account to keep in touch with friends, post photos of his kids, and announce posts to his tech blog, his LinkedIn account to professionally network, his Twitter account to make biting comments on current affairs, and his Skype ID to chat with cam girls. Different onas link to different onas, and some onas don’t link to any onas, let alone mention that they are owned by someone named Doug. All the web’s a potential stage for Doug’s onas, all working in sync to bring more joy and power into his life.
Another core quality of the OnaGen is its embrace of the DIY aesthetic and economy. While some OnaGens are simply looking to be popular among their friends, some are seeking 1 million hits or likes of fame, utilizing the software that comes pre-installed on their laptops and the sharing platforms that continue to multiply exponentially to do everything it used to take hundreds to do. The most entrepreneurial are a mix of artist, producer, engineer, graphic designer, marketing director, distributor, even audience (via manufactured hits and likes) in the service of their “self as career” or personal branding in an attempt to be “popular.” As A.O. Scott says, “digital amateurism also sells itself as an alternative route to professional riches. Competitive reality television, Kickstarter campaigns and cooperative self-publishing ventures offer the lure of fame and fortune accomplished without the usual middlemen. The idea that everyone can be an artist — making stuff that can be shared, traded or sold to a self-selecting audience of fellow creators — sits awkwardly alongside the self-contradictory dream that everyone can be a star.” Each of us is now all we need to try to be what we want.
And while one doesn’t have to self-identify as an artist, politician or entrepreneur to be OnaGen, being OnaGen necessarily involves many of the activities heretofore specialized in by artists and entrepreneurs, such as acts of self-representation, political advocacy, fundraising, self-promotion and self-distribution. If the business of America is business, then, as L Magazine recently announced, business is art, and OnaGens see no difference between them because in their world there is none.
Trying to make money is doing art is being yourself. Each of us is a corporation and a creative spirit: “As far as the business world is concerned, the convergence between the two worlds and the reduction of the tension between Art and Business can be attributed to the increased influence of service activities in the economy” (Eve Chiapello). Servicing ourselves, we service others.
While OnaGens collaborate with each other, they don’t do it in the old sense of the term. When two masturbators collaborate, it’s called a circle jerk. Social networking is circle jerking. Net art shows are circle jerking. Link trading is circle jerking. And sure, maybe everyone’s in it for themselves, but if someone can help them get off while also getting off, then all the better and everyone’s cool, which is cool. What are you doing when you browse your Facebook or Twitter feed? Looking for someone to play with themselves with you as well as you play with yourself.
The coitus interruptus side of the word onanism shines a light on an essence of the Internet not much discussed: the web is a giant coitus bomb. Instead of rubbing our genitals together, we click on each other through channels of light, simultaneously touching ourselves while not touching someone else while touching someone else as they appear in their present ona which is hopefully exactly like us in that it’s us touching ourselves. Coitus interruptus is the new mathematical optimization.
The OnaGen is both strongly capitalist and strongly anti-capitalist. It acts upon and believes in the principles of self-determination, the right to get rich, market freedoms, and DIY ventures. But at the same time, it often shuns what has long been at the root of capitalism – institutionalized capital. In the past, starting a business meant getting a loan from a bank or partnering with an established industry organization in order to acquire the means of production in the hopes of making a profit and coming to eventually own and grow those means. But for OnaGen, the means of production come pre-installed on their computers, freely accessibly via the web, and often in the form of mere marketing, promoting, and networking, all of which primarily require investments in smarts and time. In a sense, OnaGen is a way to live communistically within capitalism: we’re all in this together, we all start with the same thing, and we all make it by sharing – but, of course, a small few of us win the game big.
The change in thinking that the OnaGen represents is that the self is not diluted, but magnified, by having multiple onas and operating in the cloud. Think of an ona as the ultimate expression of selfhood, in that the person becomes a corporation, managing various subsidiaries that may or may not advertise the fact that they all exist under a parent company. Much as Fritos and Quaker Oats don’t have PepsiCo on their labels, OnaGens often keep their onas separate in order to maximize their contribution to their overall self-worth, though if co-branding proves beneficial, this occurs too. To the older generations, Belle Knox, the Duke porn star, was an ethical contradiction. To the OnaGen, she’s just a woman with two very co-beneficial onas serving the brand that is Belle Knox.
The economic reality in which the OnaGen emerged is the turmoil in the stable status of the middle class, yet the struggle of the middle class is in fact the parturition of the “medium class,” of which OnaGens form the avant garde. The medium class is anyone representing themselves or their onas virtually. Yes, some are trying to make a living online, but even if you’re not peddling your wares via the web, the OnaGen’s professional success is more and more linked with their onas’ profiles in different milieus. And this goes for an OnaGen who has one ona or multiple onas.
The onas are the medium class as much as they operate in the medium. In painting, the medium is the substance with which the pigments are mixed so they spread and take on different textures. In photography, the medium is the imprintable substance. On the web, Medium.com is a publish-anything ona storm. Of course, most don’t look at a painting or a photograph or a website and says “great medium!” Similarly, the medium class is simply there to be a mixture that spreads the onanistic colors that vector its fantasies. The OnaGen exists in itself, in a medium, in a masturbatory frenzy, being what it’s in, surrounding itself, manifesting itself, being only itself, freelancing ad orgasm, which only creates more media and mixes in with everything else in an overall wash of wonder and weirdness.
As artist Amalia Ulman says, “because there is an electronic economy of looking good, nowadays, people’s online presence almost turns all work into sex-work.” Indeed, at the center of the OnaGen is the online auto-erotic promotion/sex work that is now the occupation and recreation of choice for more and more members of the medium class. All OnaGens are masturbating sex workers, since their primary economic/personal mission is to appear “some kind of sexy” so their “frands” (friends/fans) will share, like or buy whatever they’re showing, which culminates in their revitalization and re-fixation on the task of seeking satisfaction; i.e., every ona is just a sexy cache designed to lure in potential frands or customers to satisfy the onanistic urge for money, attention, and/or release.
It’s important to note that the core of OnaGen is not “narcissism,” it’s auto-eroticism. While narcissism as it is commonly understood involves vanity and egotism seeking gratification through self-adoring activities, thus emanating from an internal drive, OnaGen is a situational ethic (dis)engendered out of the self-distributive realities of the web. The OnaGen is too disembodied to be narcissistic, yet far more self-satisfying than narcissism can ever be since OnaGens distribute themselves into multiple onas, all making love to each other, all channeling back the fruits of their masturbatory endeavours to their human HQ. To put it another way, OnaGen is narcissism in a four-dimensional mirror scape that is also the body standing before and behind the mirror.
The “onna” (woman in Japanese) in ona references the fact that the web is a fertile ground for female empowerment. While it offers men an unparalleled opportunity for sexual interaction, due to the lack of physical proximity between the sexes, which has historically been so problematic for women, a woman has control over what happens and can start or end the exchange on her own terms. Further, as mentioned above, not only does the web serve as a contraceptive and masturbatory…i.e. non-impregnating….safe sex fest, it is also inherently a female performance space. Certainly, men might still be predominant in the maintenance and profits of the primary web infrastructure/companies, but as a place, a world, a space, the web is womanly in presentation, or, as Avenue Q says, the Internet is for porn (i.e. the commercialized intercourse of onas). But none of this would be possible without the safety net that the Internet has provided women, who are now paid by groveling male devotees huge sums to perform online. The matriarchy is upon us, and its onas are bursting from the bejeweled cubbies of LiveJasmin.com.
Due to the hyper-sexuality of the Internet and the constant presentation of the female ideal and exaggerative sexual exploits, the women of the OnaGen, unlike generations past, are less obsessed by inter-gender competition and more comfortable with each other expressing themselves erotically. In fact, the entire OnaGen, men and women, are largely pro-sex, pro-sex work, and pro-sexual expression. With some exceptions, the world of the OnaGen is a sexual utopia in which onas are supporting and encouraging each other to be sexual in whatever way they wish, largely because this sexual festival supports the masturbatory revelry.
To understand the OnaGen way of being, think back to a moment when you’ve heard someone describe a performance as “masturbatory.” What did they mean? They meant the performer seemed more intent on satisfying themselves than the audience, more intent on showing how smart and beautiful they were than actually being what they are, more intent on sharing something somewhat tmi about themselves than verifying something irl about the world. Could there be a more perfect description of your online ona cluster?
The OnaGen lives in a virtual bubble. Everything outside the tools of onanistic self-satisfaction have become nostalgic novelties or useless obstructions – books, toys, decorations, nature. The OnaGen spend all day posting pictures of their cats, babies, food, witty poster memes, sexy selfies and weird photos, which serve as their virtual genitals, getting stroked and liked and spread around. For something to be shared, people just need to say “OMG that’s totally me,” and they share it, because it’s another orgasmic manifestation of themselves via a projected fantasy, i.e. masturbation.
OnaGen also has no real style as onas represent differently to fit into different e-nvirons. Biological and fashion markers are simply performative trawling nets for optimal capture. The dream of being forever young has given way to the surreality of being ageless. As the Dairy Queens says, “drag queens never reveal their age.” We’re all queens now, vogueing in cyber drag.
But what about all that political action online, all that humanism, caring, and activism in the name of justice and change? Absolutely. Many onas are about social justice, though we must admit that many of them are carried out by people who are sitting in a chair in their pajamas or at the office, typing, clicking, and advocating, not actually getting active in the real world. There is something of the masturbatory in a one-click letter to your senator begging him to stop the next pipeline as you suck oil-generated energy into your irreplaceable, beloved silicon slot machine of self-gratifying experiences. So, yes, OnaGens are activists, but in a new and fairly masturbatory way.
Surveillance is one of the most important issues of the OnaGen because if surveillance runs rampant, the privacy of the onas is jeopardized. The root person may be exposed as the one behind some ona, or ethically conflicting onas may be linked. The high school teacher with the FB page that proudly shares her student’s achievements with their parents might be exposed as the stripper with the seductive selfies on Instagram and raunchy tweets on Twitter. But, of course, OnaGens also realize that some onas are pedophiles or terrorists, so some surveillance is needed. The balance must always be struck, and how to strike it is a major source of conversation and angst amidst OnaGens.
The parameters of the virtual platforms themselves force an onanistic lifestyle: Facebook allows a huge base of friends but does not allow nudity and discourages friending of people you don’t actually know in real life. The Instagram app forces you to upload photos from your phone and will not allow nudity. The Twitter app allows for multi-account sign in, but one needs to be careful about where one does what. In other words, as each platform seeks to distinguish itself from the others, its rules force the creation of distinct onas able to operate in each one, resulting in a literal partitioning of the self into onas optimized to exploit the niches created by comparative advantages in a competitive market. And, of course, one is best to not break the rules or step out of bounds, because ostracism is the death of the ona.
Central to the OnaGen is the incessant joyous gripe-fest over true individuality with all its overtones of privilege, exclusiveness, and actual sexuality. As @crowley_wolf has said, “the Internet now exists simply to voyeuristically hate-read all of the ways everyone else in the world has been blessed.” This too stems from the essentially masturbatory nature of the OnaGen. The residual guilt of masturbation constantly produces rage from an anonymous, self-built cage, in which a disembodied ona tries to be like, while totally despising, something they often know very little about yet have no end of opinions regarding. What is a comments section but a massive mutual masturbation party?
Everything an OnaGen experiences comes to them through filters that assure their very reality is already masturbatory. They read only what their select frands post to them; the only information they receive about the world’s opportunities come from algorithms that are generated from their past choices; they get notices from potential suitors and send messages to select targets, both of which emerged out of profiles that they crafted to only attract their vision for themselves. The web is the protocol of self-arousal.
According to the “Culture Track” study by the New York firm LaPlaca Cohen of “attitudes and behaviors among U.S. cultural audiences,” anyone in the Millennial, Gen X, Boomers, and Pre-War age groups are: over-stimulated, hyper-connected, over-committed, promiscuous, cynical, and self-focused. In other words, thanks to the web, these generational groups mean nothing, because we’re all OnaGens now. The report called such people “restless, curious and culturally promiscuous.” All this from the comfort of your computer, self-pleasuring the day away, writing, and then reading five times – in a flush of self-love and autarchic victory – each snarky comment or passionate post from one of your rebellious, very serious onas.
Working against the utopian nature of the OnaGen is the primary concern running under everything: how to keep this pleasure fest going while not destroying or letting descend into turmoil what’s outside the web. This is at the root of the OnaGen’s deep concern with the environment and with social issues such as racism, classism, and sexism. It is all very well-meaning, but of course it’s done in the service of making sure the conditions of massive mutual masturbation last into the unforeseeable future.
Fluffing yourself up. Creating to sell. Self-producing. Attracting frands, strokers or buyers. Spilling your concern seed. Checking your newsfeed. Changing your profile photo. Tweeting your most recent clever notion. Sharing your selfies. Posting non-stop your ranting political grievances. Updating your status. Taking tests to find out what you are. Staring at yourself as you Skype with another. Commiserating with fellow forum dwellers over unreal threats. Chatting with your favorite cam girl. Self-publishing. Doing it yourself. Living your fantasies. Brutalizing from a safe distance. Onas self-satisfying thru voyeuristic engagement with a multiplicity of onas, getting off all the time, all alone, all together. The auto-erotic lifestyle. The Ona Generation.
