ManicWorld Magazine

Toronto Is Presented As Imaginary In Order To Make Us Believe The Rest is Real

“From time to time, I find I’ve lost some need
That was urgent to myself, I do believe” – New Order, Temptation

I wanted to make art that spoke to my generation. I’m part of the post-gentrified generation; born a little after the ‘end of history’. I’ve never experienced urban living in a time when housing was considered a human right, as opposed to a luxury for the most privileged or lucky. All my generation knows is how to be against things. We’re anti-racist, anti-patriarchy, anti-capitalism, even anti-imperialists, but then what? We are removed from any culture of community of authentic community solidarity. Instead, we have all our individual mental health crises that manifest into our self-diagnosed ADHD. Just an endless black hole of critique until our consciousness is nothing more but a grey liquid post-modern soup. We washed it down with a line of freshly crushed Adderall.

I came of age in a post-gentrified Toronto. I have glimpses of memories of the city before sameness took over, but nothing substantial. I can remember old video rental stores and Ethiopian resultants from my childhood, but nothing with clarity. I’m from a generation that knows nothing but depression and austerity. None of us can imagine a world beyond hyper-individualistic neoliberalism. We cannot even dream of a world after capitalism. We even have trouble imagining seeing the end of constructing the Eglinton LRT. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. Maybe it’s just the Toronto sass in me that makes me pessimistic, but I honestly feel as if Toronto has robbed all of us of our creativity. There’s a reason why we nicknamed it “Hogtown” because we’re a city of pigs. 

This is a city where everyone has to take SSRIs just to get by. Young or old, rich or poor, every race and sexuality is on some sort of wacky prescription. You can tell because of the way people look at one another here, medicated folks got this particular wild glare in their eyes. Every pedestrian on the streets has it, and I sure know I have it after popping a high dosage of Zoloft each morning; that surreal anti-depressant stare.

In this day and age, you could go up to anyone and ask them what their deal diagnosis is, and they’d respond, “ADHD”, “PTSD”, “social anxiety”, “autism”, or “depression” without any hesitation. Every old man at the bar here has a story about how they struggled with focusing as a child, only to grow up into adults who struggled with abusing substances. That begs the question, what even is mental illness if everyone is insane now? Where have all the neurotypicals gone? Does being ‘normal’ even exist in this city? Toronto has either become a large social experiment in mass psychosis, or we’re just all honest about the human condition and no longer wish to
uphold this mythical facade of normality. 

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to Toronto. I’m just too fucked up in the brain to live anywhere else. My people are here, the neurodivergent citizens of Toronto. I can walk up to any weirdo at the gym, or the dive bar, and I know exactly just how to strict up a conversation with them. I’m fluent in that language.

I remember once going to see my therapist. I started seeing him after one particular bad depressive episode, a situation that left me rotting in my bed for three days. He had his little therapist office in the East End on Coxwell ave, above a greasy Shawarma shop. It’s near the main hospital building. I asked him directly what was wrong with me. I asked if there was anything uniquely traumatic about my experiences. I wanted to know if my upbringing or teenage years had wrapped my brain beyond repair. Was there any cure available for my chronically negative ‘Holden Caulfield’–like attitude? He replied in a calm tone, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just from Toronto.” When I asked if that was a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing, he mindfully explained, “It’s neither. It’s simply something that exists. Your history is your own personal history. Whatever mess the past is, it’s still authentically yours. And that’s something that nobody can ever take away from you. Your memories being too nobody else but you.”

At the end of the day, I guess I truly do love my city. I guess I do love my generation as well. I can be a cynical critic, but my judgments come from a place of love. I love that feeling you get when you take that perfect photo of Toronto’s skyline with a film camera, especially if it’s during sunset! I genuinely love going out to parties and hearing the people play their sound clouds over the speakers, you know? The kind with the self-made trap beats. Only this generation of Toronto man’s would be so bombastic to share that so publicly with everyone, and with great pride too.

Despite all of Toronto’s flaws, I’m still in awe that this city exists. A place that has embraced multiculturalism, and it fills me with joy whenever I see the city’s diversity reflected onto all of its unique neighbourhoods across the urban-scape. It wasn’t hallowed out by white suburban flight like so many cities across North America in the 70s. Nor does it struggle with an urge to assimilate everything into the dominant culture, the way Montreal does. This is still the city of Jane Jacobs and a hub of radical grassroots activism. As stressed, corporate, sassy, and narcissist of a place as we are, I put my foot down whenever anyone accuses us of nihilism. No, it’s not that, it’s something else. We may exist in a metropolis where we cannot dream, but we’re still naively hopeful. The neighbourhoods here have hope.

Should I apologize for being young? Should I apologize for being a pretentious gentrifying normie? Should I apologize for being from Toronto? Should I apologize for being born in the global north into a relatively politically stable society? Should I apologize for not always sorting my plastics in the blue recycling bin? I feel like the answer to all of these questions would be, ‘Yes!’. Only, I’m not exactly sure I know why. Hopefully, someday I’ll figure it out. 

I’m proud to be a part of a generation of hot-headed crazies who so desperately wanted to rebel but didn’t know what to rebel against. Because we hadn’t yet formed any sense of informed political consciousness. We were old enough to know that we should fight for what was right, but still too naively young to know what ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ really were. Always a little too trigger-happy to call out anything ‘problematic’. Plus, we never had any institutional power to create any real changes (at least for now…). We just knew that we had voices that needed to be heard, and damn it, let them hear our roar.