Let’s Do More Gatekeeping
When I was young, I went through an obsessive Greek mythology phase. Like most 10-year-olds, the series of Percy Jackson had me in a nonstop chokehold. While there are so many Greek gods and goddesses intertwined throughout the series, there was always one goddess that stood out to me the most. Not because of her powers or her romance-driven lore, but because of her quiet and non-traditional lifestyle.
Hestia, the second eldest of the 12 Olympians, was the goddess of the hearth and home. She chose a much different future for herself compared to her 11 siblings– tending the sacred fire, maintaining a stable, independent life, and choosing to hold her power in silence.
Today, the idea of Hestia and her lifestyle is radical. In an age where everything is posted, promoted, and shared, it feels almost subversive to think of a life where everything about it is kept quiet. But it really shouldn’t be this way.
Social Media has ruined originality to the point where it is nearly impossible to find something original anymore. The Stanley Cup? Sold out – there is a fist fight in the target line over it. The best hole-in-the-wall restaurant in San Francisco? Booked out for the next three months – good luck getting in unless you know the owner. The smallest secret beach on Kauai, just big enough for one family? There are 15 people squished into the sand with a line of cars searching for parking. Absolutely nothing is a secret anymore.
Now, I am in no way saying that it's wrong for people to want to try new places, experience niche things. But when the entire internet is given access to something that is so personal and unique, how is anything supposed to remain original? Shouldn’t there still be even a little bit of gatekeeping these days?
I am saying we need to do more gatekeeping. Not the kind where someone asks what hair product you’ve used and you lie and say something random – the kind where we live a quiet, peaceful lifestyle, not constantly boasting and posting about where we are, who we are with, and what we are doing.
Nothing in this life is meant to be overdone. Nothing is made to be so public. There is so much value in peace, and peace comes from the quiet. Not only that, but there is so much value in doing things on your own, without the eyes of others watching. Finding new places, trying out new products, stumbling across a new restaurant, all of those experiences have so much value, even more so when discovered on your own.
Some of my most favorite items in my possession, and most favorite places I have been, I discovered by myself and it made them so much more valuable to me to know that there weren't millions of other people sharing that exact same memory or that exact same thing.
Sometimes, I must admit, it is so lovely to have other people around when you find something special. Nothing can replace the feeling of knowing that what you remembered and loved so much was loved by so many other people too. But there are just some things that are never supposed to be too public, or else they will just get recycled through generations and more and more unappreciated as time goes on.
Take Birkenstocks for example– the perfect comfort level, shape and mobility level that we all appreciate in a sandal, were completely overused and misinterpreted to the point where they were seen as basic, and a staple to the VSCO Girl trend of 2018-19. I love Birkenstock and will always stand by them, but I will never get over the fact that for so long they were seen as a meme of an internet trend.
The internet has practically ruined originality and uniqueness, and as a solution, I believe that we need to do more gatekeeping. While I am no longer 10 years old, glued to the Percy Jackson series, I still know one thing to be true. And that is that Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, was happier and more at peace than every single person in that story, because she held her pride in silence. She kept her life quiet. She never boasted, gloated or shouted, and it always saved her in the end.
So let's all take note of that, and let's do more gatekeeping.