(Knoxville, TN) Before the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent stay-at-home order, self-proclaimed introvert and blogger, Addison D'Aubry posted on social media several times a week about her aversion to face-to-face interaction. "All I need are books and my cats," she tweeted on February 27th. "Anything else is just too much. TOO MUCH."
As the state's lockdown, still partially in effect, enters its seventh week, D'Aubry's social media presence has undergone a strange evolution, one echoed by many of her peers.
"FINALLY! No one can stop me from finishing my Etsy store!" she posted on March 31st, the first day of Tennessee's state-mandated shutdown. Over the course of the next several days, the twenty-nine year-old Theater Arts teacher seemed to be making progress toward this goal, posting pictures several times a day of her transferring pages of the Harry Potter series into calligraphy on coffee-stained parchment, which she planned to sell as wall art.
As the days dragged on, the posts turned their attention toward her cats, Neville and Niffler. First, on April 10th, she expressed adoration for the duo with a picture of the cats reclining on her desk. "Awwww, I can't be upset with these two for stopping my work!"
On March 12th, she tweeted a video link of the black and white cat, Neville, pawing at her while she tried to transcribe a page from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with a caption, "No mama! Pay attention to meeeeeee!"
The same day, she posted text only on Facebook, writing, "Niffler has destroyed all of today's work. *Facepalm*"
After receiving no preorders for pages from her favorite book series for the third week in a row, D'Aubry took the store down and posted on Instagram that she was finally going to start doing daily yoga classes and was looking forward to having the time to meditate without people "fussing at her." From there, the posts take on darker and darker tones.
On April 13th, D'Aubry tweeted, "I don't think I like meditation. Sometimes, the quiet is creepy."
On April 15th, D'Aubry posted, "All right. Time to learn the uke. I've had one for long enough."
Three hours later, on the same day, she posted an Instagram video of her making plans for a fire escape garden. The very next day, she wrote about having met some very nice people at Lowe's, who complimented her on her improvised face mask, made from Doctor Who fabric. "People at Lowe's get me," she said on her blog. "I am totally a garden girl."
On April 17th, a video was posted and then taken down an hour later of Neville and Niffler sniffing around what remained of some ferns that D'Aubry had planted on her fire escape. From behind the camera, she can be heard, howling, "Why guys!? Why!?"
By April 21st, D'Aubry's blog rambles on about the coming success of her Etsy store, without any sort of reference to her having taken it down previously. At the end of the day's post, there are fifteen identical video boxes of Robbie Coltrane, playing Hagrid in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," proclaiming, "You're a wizard, Harry!"
Then, there is a ten day, complete social media blackout.
An enigmatic tweet, dated May 2nd, simply reads, "I understand."
A veritable fusillade of tweets follows, with references to the "Plandemic" Youtube video and its scientific veracity.
May 3rd, "It's amazing that we've been blind for so long."
May 3rd, forty-five minutes later, "My parents don't get it. How can they have drank the Kool-aid?"
May 3rd, ten minutes later, "I cannot believe this. It's just too much. Are we really just sheep?"
May 3rd, an hour later, "I need to wake up the world with this. It's time. We are the heroes of our own destinys [sic]"
May 4th, " Star Wars day guys. Don't buy into what the Empire is selling!"
May 5th, "Margaritas at noon! Fuck yes! Kitties and I are signing [sic] on the rooftop!"
May 7th, "My neighbors don't own me! I'll play Pussy Riot as loud as I want. WE THE PEOPLE!!!"
May 10th, "Joining my brothers and sisters at the captial! [sic] We will not be controlled!"
May 11th, "I think my human form is just a shell."
May 12th, "People are being really unfair to President Trump. He did NOT say to drink blech. [sic] He was talking about how to SCIENTIFICALLY have a DOCTOR put antiseptic into your body. They actually do this, people. It's called science."
May 13th, "You don't know where I've been or where I am going to."
May 15th, "I yam what i yam. Niffler ate my nose."
Afterwards, there are fifty-four tweets on May 15th, none of which contain a single comprehensible, syntactically correct sentence.
On May 16th, there is a video of D'Aubry saying something incomprehensible that appears to end with the words, "Carole Baskin."
May 16th, two hours later, "THEY CANNOT SAY THAT YOU ARE NOT IN QUARANTINE IF YOU ARE NOT WEARING CLOTHES!"
D'Aubry is currently being held in custody of the Knox County Police Department for indecent exposure and resisting arrest. Her only comment to the press was, "finally, I can be by myself without all of those ghosts in my apartment."
No comments:
Post a Comment