The surreal nature of an online "presence"

I’m at a lookout point on holiday in Hvar and I see a lady slowly approaching me.

So slowly that I instantly worry something is wrong. It’s a natural instinct when you’re Sri Lankan to assume the worst then work backwards from there. Is it possible I have a bomb strapped to myself and failed to notice? I am weighing this possibility when she politely says I’m so sorry to bother you, are you the comedian Sashi Perera? I just had to say hi, I watch all your videos!

My mind boggles at being recognised over 14,000 kms from my home.

Meeting new friends in Hvar

It happens again at the Melbourne airport. I’m curled up on a chair at the gate reading a book, waiting to board the flight. I see a lady with two kids approaching out of the corner of my eye. I wonder how I have wronged them. Excuse me - are you the comedian Sashi Perera? Oh my god! I send your videos to my friends all the time, can I take a photo? 

meeting new friends at the airport

It starts to happen over and over again. Wandering around the Australian Open I’m stopped by a lady from Geelong - having lunch at a cafe, it’s a man from Adelaide - on a tram ride home it’s a lady from Botswana - having dinner at a restaurant its a Chilean waitress who says my jokes make her feel seen and sends over free food.

To round it off, my husband Charlie recently started a new project at a new workplace. He was hours into his first day, in the middle of his induction, when someone walking past said, Oh my god, it’s Sashi Perera’s husband. 

I don’t know what to do in these situations because it’s hard to grasp the reality of having an online “presence”. I’m not “famous” - I’m not on your television or your radio, no paparazzi chase my car and there are no magazines wondering if I’m too fat or too thin or too sad about being too fat or too thin. 

Yes I’m a comedian about to do my second solo show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and yes I’m then taking that show across Australia and Europe. But heaps of people do that, right? 

Yes I have 200k followers across social media - but what does that even mean? What is the reality of this figure? If the capacity of the Melbourne Cricket Ground - lovingly known as the G - is 100k, are there really two Gs worth of humans watching my jokes? Surely this is a bogus figure.  

I’m a regular person who works a stable table 9-5. The scale of my online presence runs completely at odds with anything I know and understand. I try to message back everyone who messages me - whether it’s about anti depressants, racoon jizz or miscarriages. People troll me as if there’s a team handling all the lovely feedback. Surely the unhinged replies that Charlie often tries to discourage me from sending indicate that it’s really just me?

none of my responses scream “there is a professional in control”

At the end of the day, the extent of my interaction with the virtual world is me typing into a black rectangle and reading what’s written back to me. The real-world interactions with people who follow me make this more tangible, tethering the internet back to my every day reality. But the fleeting nature of these interactions always leave me feeling - odd. 

I love saying hi, having a chat and taking a photo - though my imposter syndrome makes me feel unworthy of the attention. 

The odd feeling comes from having the rules of relationships flipped on me for the first time. For most of my life, relationships were a two way street - if they run only one way, one party is a bit of a shit person. In a good relationship, you should know, and care about, the same amount of information about each other and be there for important moments. 

Now I’m in a space where I’m so deeply supported by so many when I put my work out there. But it’s physically impossible to get to know everyone and support them in the same way - sometimes it's hard to remember names because I’m meeting so many people in one day. They know so much about me and I know so little about them - someone I’m grateful to, for watching what I’m putting out in the world, relating to it and saying hi.

Extrapolate this to meeting whole groups of people at a time - it’s my nightmare, not because I don’t want to talk but because I want to talk too much and there’s never enough time. After a recent show, a group of Sri Lankan guys stayed to say hi after the show - they went to karaoke after and it was all I could do to not invite myself along to try to get to know them better.

I forced myself to reflect on this instinct because it’s something I need to examine and learn to navigate before the tour starts later this year. I think the real issue is my constant, deep-seated need to know people: What are you up to, what are your hopes and dreams, can I follow your socials and support you, do you always feel like every second brings you closer to death, let’s be friends forever, is this too needy, oh God. 

I need to make peace with not knowing the answers to these questions, mostly because it would seriously freak some people out to answer these in the course of a ten minute conversation.

I’m (slowly) coming to terms that it’s enough for me to appreciate that people are watching, and to tell them that. I had a very comforting conversation with a friend who teaches dance. It sounds rather obvious but she is there to teach dance. The students are great but they are not her friends nor do they expect to be. They come for the class and return to their world, happy to have danced. They don’t expect her to support them in return for class attendance.

While I learn to navigate this oddity, please always say hi if you see me in 3D and please don’t get freaked out if I seem desperate to know too much about you then forget your name. 

At some point, I’ll also accept that I can’t keep waking up hours before work to spend time responding to messages. For the moment though - the whole point of starting all this was connection - if I can’t do that, what on earth is the point? 

Big hugs

Sashi