I’ve recently been sent two things (a letter & a poem) about living thru pandemics that purport to have been written during historical pandemics, & it’s evident that they’re recent composition (which a quick google search confirms). /1

It’s entirely understandable that people are craving the consolation of the past. Voices that say “I lived through this. I did exactly what you’re doing now, & to be isolated while waiting out the plague is not foreign to the human experience.” /2

But it still unnerves me. There are so many true accounts out there. But that is not what a lot of us want. A lot of us want to hear the past spoken in our own voice. We need to be able to “relate” to it. And then someone provides just that, and that’s what goes viral. /3

I’m trying not to make too much hay of the idea of virality here because I know it’s on the nose. But it’s not great bc of all the other ideas that get smuggled into a forgery. /4

One I was recently sent concludes w the consolation that humans staying at home will help heal the earth. That’s...not the lesson I think we should be taking from this. /5

Just to conclude this train of thought: if you encounter or are sent something abt a pandemic that purports to have been written, say, 100 or 200 years ago, check to see if it really was. And if it wasn’t, tell the person who sent it to you or posted it on social media. /6

It can seem obnoxious or like a pain in the ass, but counterfeiting history is a dangerous way to make an argument abt the present. And the last thing we need right now is a poem purporting to be from the 19C that sees an environmental silver lining in pandemic. /7