Lain met me at a strange time in my life. This is always the case for newcomers, as long as she finds you and not the other way around.
Serial Experiments Lain is a cultural icon for good reason. It becomes increasingly a horror piece the more fragmented our online personas become, the more they bleed into the real world, and the less that all of this feels unusual. I don't think it was entirely a deliberate choice from the creators, which makes it all the more interesting.
I'm not going to bother describing the plot or its metaphors. There's hundreds of YouTube videos and online articles that can do that far better than I could. There's a few elements of the show that have stuck themselves into my brain far more than the over-memed one-liners, or the aesthetic vibe pics of Lain that have since gained a life of their own.
.
This show adores the use of silence. It permeates everything. There more you hide from your own thoughts, the worse this sensation picks at you. Lain happily takes advantage of this, throwing overly bright lights at you, or otherwise just uncomfortable situations. The more your ears search for a distraction, the more they pick up a faint buzzing, that infiltrates almost every scene of this show. The Wired, both physical cables and metaphysical thoughts, is always with you.
You cannot escape the phone in your pocket. Not since it became the only way you could hear from your friend. How would you find them otherwise?
Lain's descent into silence should instil fear in you. It's born out of discomfort with herself, that she can only exist as her true self in the Wired. You can do everything there, and nothing here. When the Wired begins to mesh with reality, Lain finds herself phasing out, watching her digital self take over, watching in muted terror as the fake-smile Lain walks away with her life.
I've felt it myself, when the digital me can say things that physical me can't. When either form can't manage it, it's a different kind of dread. Either serves the same purpose, pushing you away from others and into a blank space where you topple at the slightest push.
It might be a strange comparison, but I like to think of this section in a similar vein to what happens in Steins;Gate - a watershed moment that brings all your conceptions and mistakes crashing down upon you.
Here's the scene that brings all of these thoughts together. It still hurts to watch, and probably always will.
In Lain's case, with everything else lost, what keeps her final shred of sanity intact is connection. Her love with Alice is one of my favourites in media because of how simple it is. I see it in my friendships, my partnerships. A fragile touch of contact is enough to keep Lain real, even at her worst. The tiniest touch, even in silence, means the world to me.
There are multiple Alices in my life and in yours. We are nothing without them.
I don't really have any closing thoughts. The above has been a jumble in my mind that only became clearer once I was able to push my life forward. It will likely mean something different to me in the future. In a still-novel joy, I look forward to it.
