Life Within the Simulacrum is a featured column focusing on technology & social media, travel & literature.

BY DALLAS ATHENT

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Recently I was assembling my portfolio. One of the magazines I regularly write for re-routed their archive and I panicked — I couldn’t find one of the best articles I’ve ever written in my life on their website anymore. So what did I do?

I Googled it.

“Philippe Avignant At Large Magazine Dallas Athent”

That should do it. And it did. There was the link, floating around in space. Even though I couldn’t find a way to it anywhere on their website, it still existed. I was still a person. But then I had to ask if anyone would ever find this article again. It’s quite possible only a few people before it’s gone forever. And ironically, if anyone does search “Philippe Avignant At Large Magazine Dallas Athent” to get directly to it they’ll likely now come to this article instead.

Growing up, I read magazines. If I was lucky I saved up enough money as a teenager to head into New York City and go to St. Marks where I’d find random zines and lit mags. I still have copies of those magazines today. Sometimes this still happens. I travel from city to city and always come across publications I never heard of and am happy to pick up.

But this kind of discovery now happens more frequently in the internet. We’re publishing more than ever. It’s so easy. Throw up a Tumblr, buy a .com and make it happen. Take submissions through Submittable. Share Google docs. It costs next to nothing. It can be done by your phone on the go and on the computer. It can be shared on social media for free. People share a link. Maybe some people click it and discover a new website. They then save said website, or follow it. Maybe they read more. Maybe they don’t.

But once all of these websites can no longer be maintained, and we find 404 errors, it’s like we never really wrote anything at all. What happens when the Editor of some online mag moves to Europe moves and lets the publishing trickle out? What if somebody just forgets to renew a GoDaddy URL? What happens in 100 years when historians are studying the art of today? Will all of our archives fade into oblivion?

The answer is — of course they will. Even things that are printed fade over time. Pages deteriorate with age. Things are thrown out. Nothing is permanent. We are flecks of dust in time and all we have is this moment. This is what the internet reminds me of. The internet is forever until it’s not. We are published writers until we aren’t. Links or it didn’t happen. But when something is in print, at least you can hold it in your hand. You can pinch yourself and then commit to checking out the rest of the book or magazine to read more, instead of xing out of a tab you may never revisit.

The act of sharing articles, essays and poetry has become more important than the literature itself. We share, therefore we are. If you’re not being published, you’re not doing anything.

So I have to ask, if the internet goes down, who am I? I honestly don’t know anymore. Even this essay is starting not to make sense. But that may not even matter because it could just become a random link that I have to Google one day to prove I wrote for PANK. The point is things are on the internet, and the internet isn’t real so I can’t measure what that means when life is lived in the flesh.

But at least I can share this link and prove I’m a writer, right?

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Dallas Athent is a writer and artist. She is the author of THEIA MANIA, a book of poems with art by Maria Pavlovska. Her work, both literary and artistic has been published or profiled in BUST Magazine, Buzzfeed Community, VIDA Reports From The Field, At Large Magazine, PACKET Bi-Weekly, YES Poetry!, Luna Luna Magazine, Bedford + Bowery, Gothamist, Brooklyn Based, and more. She’s a board member of Nomadic Press. She lives in The Bronx with her adopted pets.