Audio Transcription:
To hear some beats to relax/study to,
I invoke Lofi girl.
In a mythic time of human/cyborg symbiosis,
she and I are one.
By the grace of her beats,
I can achieve my best self.
In return for her generosity,
I bestow her creator with engagement and views.
When my productivity is low and I can’t bear to look at another email,
Lofi girl absolves me of my shame.
The synthetic crackle of her virtual radio is transmitted through underwater pipes and electromagnetic currents.
Pipes and currents encircle and constrict the earth,
as the synthetic crackle reaches my laptop.
The crackle reaches my laptop,
and I have been at my desk for 4 hours.
My back curves over the desk,
I am immobilised like a serpent in a trance.
The pops and clicks of the playlist snap and yank at me,
smoothly, vacuously, low fidelity.
An Outlook notification cuts through the crackle,
but Lofi girl is unperturbed.
She is calm,
and so is her cat.
I feel I must answer the email now,
as Lofi girl commands serene productivity.
Click, clack, whoosh, crackle,
“I hope this email finds you well!”
I look up for her approval,
but Lofi girl never turns to look at me.
I only know what she looks like from the side,
though she carries many faces like a matron goddess.
A likeness of her is dressed in a cloak and robe,
waving a wand.
In another facsimile,
she basks in the blazing sunlight of the southern hemisphere.
An Aegean island, inside a landlocked territory, a papal state, a video game,
space –
Lofi girl is everywhere,
know that she is there even when you can’t see her.
Lofi girl is omnipresent,
as she permeates through minimised tabs on desktops.
Her digital devotees whisper to each other,
synchronously, under her watchful eye.
The crackles affirm, and they believe,
that there are always positive things to come.
They keep toiling away inside lumbering word processors,
burning the midnight oil at the tabernacle of the chatbox.
Lofi girl is thus a saviour of the listless,
of those who will declare that they will never procrastinate again.
I will never procrastinate again,
I will seek refuge under the perpetual playlist of Lofi girl.
I will not turn off her lofi hip hop radio,
and the music will echo through the speakers for millenia.
The music will be mellow and harmless,
it will cure me of indolence, I will work forever unperturbed.
Another notification, this time it is Gmail,
I have over 10,000 unread emails.
My right wrist hurts as I click the notification away,
and ask for mercy from Lofi girl.
Have mercy, oh cybernetic patron saint of work and procrastination,
I am tired and my eyes are so dry.
The playlist can be listened to on YouTube.
Words and Header Image by İdil Galip
İdil Galip is a writer and researcher from Turkey. She is the secular pontifex of memes and a reverend of smart 2.0 tarots. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.
