Last few months, my algorithm has been feeding me content about one particular conversation and at first I thought it was hyper specific to me, but as it continued to fill my feed day in and day out, especially on YouTube, I started to realize wait, I think this is actually a bigger cultural conversation that's happening in general and it piqued my interest, and This particular conversation is the conversation around being offline.
I can't tell you how many video essays I've watched about how being offline is the new cool, the new status symbol.
Why I ditched my phone and got a flip phone.
Well, I guess that's still a phone.
Why I ditched my smartphone to get a flip phone.
Why I started listening to music on my old iPod, how I picked up analog hobbies after iPhone addiction, and so on and so forth.
This seems to be the cultural conversation of the moment, right now being offline which, on the surface level, is wonderful.
For years I've been talking about how we all gotta get offline a little, but not that that's an original idea.
I've just been chiming into a larger conversation that's been starting to build, especially with like psychologists and stuff online who are, like the phone's really bad, be careful.
And I think, because I have a job on social media, Perhaps I became sensitized to the negative side effects of internet usage maybe a little bit sooner and more extremely than more casual internet users right,
But I've been saying this.
I've been saying this.
I've been feeling this.
And it seems now that everyone else is too.
I don't think there's anyone on the planet right now who's like, I love being on social media.
I love posting pictures.
I love consuming content.
I love dating apps.
I love shopping online.
Like everyone seems to be exhausted and sick of it.
And I find it to be really interesting.
And so today I thought we would dig in to this cultural conversation about being offline.
It being the new hot, cool thing, but also it being a necessity for mental health at this point.
Because I think we've all been pushed to our limit.
And I don't know what's going to happen.
And no one does.
And that's kind of what I want to get into today.
You know, like what's going to happen?
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Now back to the episode.
To start, let's dig into the conversation that's happening.
Now listen, I'm not a journalist, okay?
I just jotted down some vague notes about what I've been seeing people saying about.
You know the sort of trend of going offline.
Some of these points are from video essays, some are from articles.
I really went far and wide and just tried to encapsulate the conversation as a whole into my notes.
Did I do that?
Probably not.
Probably not, because it's a big conversation and a lot of people are talking about it and it's very overwhelming, but I tried to gather the general idea.
The first point of conversation is less people are posting on social media.
Now, according to the internet, this is because number one feeds are filled with influencers and ads rather than friends, which makes it less appealing to post.
Number two, engagement is down for people posting casually.
The algorithm isn't showing us our friends, which makes us feel embarrassed to post and not get a lot of likes, because it's not like.
If you're just a casual social media user and you post, you're gonna get pushed into the algorithm and go viral, unless you do something that makes you go viral, which is kind of uncommon.
There's a science to going viral in a way that everybody's trying to master who wants to go viral.
And so if you just post a casual, normal video, that doesn't really make sense for a broad audience.
Perhaps it's for a smaller audience your friends and your family that's not going to get a lot of engagement.
And chances are it won't even get engagement from your friends or family either, because platforms nowadays are prioritizing explore pages for you, pages content from strangers that are algorithmically chosen for you based on your interests, rather than showing you friends and family and people that you intentionally follow.
And so it seems that there's this issue where people who don't want to be influencers are don't feel inspired to post anymore because their friends and family aren't even engaging with it.
They're not even seeing it half the time.
On top of that, it's really not appealing for a person who doesn't want to be an influencer to post on a platform that seems to be overwhelmed by very curated influencers.
Polished ads.
It doesn't feel like an inviting platform to post casual content on, because it feels very built up.
It feels very um, doesn't feel casual, feels very what's the word?
Like yeah, it feels very commercial and and that's not an inviting energy to like post a family photo from thanksgiving.
It's like that feels weird when everyone else seemingly is posting about being on a brand trip in bali And they're getting a lot of likes.
And that comparison doesn't feel good either.
But our feeds are very explore page driven now in a way where we're seeing a lot of.
I mean listen, I'm talking about this as though I'm not one of the people posting like.
I am a public figure posting on the internet, not in a casual way, it's my job.
I'm not speaking from experience here.
I'm speaking from, I guess, my experience reading these articles about people's opinions and their feelings coming from a different perspective.
Like this is not my perspective.
Another reason why people aren't posting as much on social media is because they're fatigued.
It's exhausting to document everything perfectly and post it online.
It's tiring.
When social media apps first became sort of popular and mainstream, back in like I don't know what was it?
2015 maybe?
That's my memory, but I don't know.
No one was thinking about what they were posting.
It was so casual, it was so chill.
You could just be doing something and then take a picture of it randomly and post it.
I remember one of my first Instagram posts was a picture of a bag of Cheez-Its.
I remember it so vividly.
I was like eating Cheez-Its and I was like, yum.
And I just posted a picture of the Cheez-Its.
I mean, mind you, I was a kid, but still that was the energy of social media back in the day.
It was like, I'm just going to post whatever the fuck I want.
And now because we've gotten to a point where we can monetize content.
Well, not only monetize content, but also our social media pages have become sort of an extension of our personality.
And it's sort of like our profile for life.
You know, if you meet someone in person, chances are you're going to go home and stalk them on social media to find out more about them.
So it's become not only this thing that we can, some of us can profit off of, which makes it inevitably more refined.
Brands tend to like refined content, right?
But also we want to put our best foot forward on social media because we know that people are looking and they are judging us as a person based on that.
That pressure has caused a lot of people to not want to post anymore because, it's like you know, unless you're an influencer and you're actually making money from it, it's like I can't deal with the pressure to create my online avatar, as my dad calls it.
My dad and I discuss the state of the internet constantly.
It's exhausting to perfectly curate your online avatar.
And I think a lot of people can't deal with that pressure.
Don't feel like anything's worthy of being posted.
They're like, oh, what's worthy of, you know, being a part of my online identity.
It's just overwhelming.
But I think too, also documenting everything's exhausting.
Taking photos of everything, posting photos of everything is exhausting.
Listen, it's my job to post photos on the internet and to be present on the internet as a personality.
And I've experienced a fatigue of like, I can't post like I used to.
When I was a kid, I used to post everything.
I would take photos of everything and post everything.
And I got to a point where that experience was taking me away from my real life and exhausting me, burning me up.
I know it sounds ridiculous because it's like, Emma, it's kind of your job in some ways.
Yes, but even still, I was like, I can't handle it emotionally.
I'm not living in the real world.
As much as this is my job and I love this is my job, I have to have boundaries because it's ruining my quality of life.
So I think there's sort of a 360 fatigue around posting on social media.
Everything about it is exhausting and that's driving people away.
There's sort of this growing feeling of like Is it kind of cringe to post about yourself all the time on the internet?
We're all kind of feeling like is this really like out of touch and narcissistic to be posting glamorous content all the time?
I have this moral dilemma all the time.
Like, you know, if you scroll my Instagram, it's a bunch of photos of me.
I like to think it's like, but look at my outfit or like, look at my outfit.
I do think that there's this growing feeling of it being sort of cringe to post about yourself all the time on the internet.
It's now become more cool to have like a few Instagram posts and to be sort of more mysterious.
Posting every single thing that you're doing on your story every day isn't considered cool anymore.
It's considered a bit... narcissistic, a bit self-centered, and maybe even a bit desperate.
And that's interesting because at one point it was the cool thing to post about all the cool things that you're doing on the internet all the time.
And now everyone's like, ooh, I don't know.
I also think too, posting ourselves on the internet all the time sort of caused some narcissistic traits in us as a society that maybe we wouldn't have had otherwise.
And that's not healthy.
Being focused on yourself is not healthy.
It makes you unhappy.
Most of us are the most happy when we're putting our energy outward into the world.
Don't get me wrong.
We do need to put energy into ourselves as well.
But I think too much of anything is a bad thing.
And being hyper-focused on ourselves, how we're viewed by others, how we look to others, how we seem to others.
It's just that energy would be better spent outward towards the world.
You know what I'm saying?
The energy that we should be putting towards ourselves is focusing on bettering ourselves as an individual, as a human being, focusing on self-acceptance, focusing on self-forgiveness, focusing on our shortcomings and how we can improve on those.
And that's not as appealing on social media.
How do you I mean, I guess some people do capitalize off of that or not even necessarily capitalize off of that, but show themselves in that way?
Like I'm somebody who's focused on self-improvement and this and that.
But the second that you start posting about something like that on the internet, it becomes less about what you're really doing.
And it becomes more about how it seems to others.
You know what I'm saying?
And then that begs the question, is it even genuine?
Are you even working on yourself for you?
Or are you just doing it to sort of project this version of yourself to others?
Are you doing this to perform or are you doing this for you?
And I have to ask myself that all the time because I'm on the internet.
I'm posting... podcast episodes about my personal self-improvement journey all the time.
And I have to ask myself, am I just like, is this genuine?
And it is, I think, unless I'm fucking losing it.
But, you know, it's something I have to really pay close attention to, because I want to make sure that I'm on this journey to bettering myself in a genuine way, in a real world way first, and on the internet, second.
And then, last but not least, I think a lot of people are kind of done posting on social media because of privacy concerns.
You know, we all used to post everything we were doing all the time.
I used to post YouTube vlogs all the time of my daily routine.
This is the grocery store I go to.
This is the place I get my nails done.
I had to stop doing that because I realized, wait, this is not safe.
It's not safe for people to know the places that I frequent.
That is a genuine privacy concern.
And that's been something that I've struggled with.
Here's my personal opinion on people posting less on social media.
I think now that almost all of us have experienced posting on social media, right?
We've all pretty much experienced it.
You know, even our grandparents experienced have posted on social media at this point.
It's almost a universal experience.
I think one thing that has been sort of exposed to all of us is what the reality is of posting ourselves on social media.
Now we know the process of capturing artsy photos, capturing photos that make us seem a certain way finding the right lighting, how many photos it takes to get the right one.
So now when we scroll on social media, we know the effort that went into posting content, posting photos,
Also, we know what the reality is of posting every single step of our day on our Instagram stories, on TikTok.
We know what that process is like, either because we've done it or because we've had a friend or a family member or somebody around us who does that.
And we know that How dark that is.
The veil has been lifted.
I feel like first, with social media, it's almost like we were all kind of fooling each other into thinking that it was this effortless thing.
And now we all know that it's not.
And I think that has made it cringe.
That's why I think now it's cool to not post on social media.
We all know how vapid it is to constantly be posting.
We know that it takes people away from their real lives.
We know that it's a narcissistic trait.
And so I think it's kind of a turnoff now when we see people who are posting a lot and that's making us not want to post as much.
I also have to wonder too if, now that social media is so flooded by sort of influencer content that is lucrative for the poster, it's now seemingly sort of pointless for someone who doesn't want to be an influencer to post because they're like.
This is the type of content that is being pushed on the platforms.
This is the kind of content that's actually getting engagement.
This is actually a job for some people.
Why would I post for free?
I wonder if some people are like, I'm not going to post for free.
Why would I put effort into all this to share with my friends and family, when they're not even going to see it and I'm not making any money from it?
So what the fuck?
I'm out.
I have to wonder if that's happening too.
And to build on the influencer of it all, now that we've been so overexposed to influencers.
And again, I'm a public figure.
I don't like to call myself an influencer, because I just don't like the word, but I'm talking about myself here.
People are so sick of influencers.
People are so repulsed by influencers at this point.
People hate influencers.
They hate them.
Some people hate me.
You know, it's like.
This is the point that we've gotten to, because we've all been so overexposed to influencers.
The thing is, when normal people become famous and there's no media training, there's maybe a lack of a team who can help guide how to manage everything.
It gets messy.
Influencers will do things or say things that make people angry, either because it's out of touch or it's not truthful.
And this has happened time and time again, over and over again, to the point now where everybody hates influencers.
And what do influencers do?
They post a lot.
And I think, because there's this feeling of frustration with influencers and what they do is post a lot, a lot of people are like I don't want to be like an influencer, so I'm not going to post.
I have to wonder if that's another thing that's going on.
And last but not least, I think anytime something becomes trendy and posting a lot was trendy for a long time it's going to go out of style.
The pendulum has just swung.
Skinny jeans are trendy, really trendy, and then they're not for a few years.
It's just like there's a chance that posting a lot on social media will become a trend again.
It's totally possible.
The pendulum could swap, go, swing, swing.
That's the word.
It could swing the other way again in like five, 10 years, who knows?
Okay, moving on to another sort of segment of the conversation about being offline.
It seems that the negative side effects of consuming social media have gotten to the point where they're actually really driving people away.
I feel like there was this period for a while where everyone knew that being on social media especially, was impacting their brains in a negative way, but it was so addictive that it was like fuck it.
I feel like that was kind of the general experience where it was like we all know it's bad, but it's kind of like a necessary evil.
You got to be on social media.
You got to.
Otherwise, do you even exist?
But then I think the negative effects got so negative that a mass group of people were like wait, a can't handle this anymore.
It's becoming a severe issue.
I think we all know why social media is bad for the brain.
It's overstimulating, which causes anxiety.
It inspires comparison, which causes depression.
It's like if you see people doing fun stuff and you're not doing fun stuff, it can make you feel like does fun even exist for me?
It seems like everyone's having more fun than me.
It feels like everyone has a better life than me.
I can never compare to all of this.
And that causes existential dread and depression.
It also gives the illusion of being social, but in reality you're not.
You're alone and you're scrolling on your phone, and being lonely is not good for us as social animals.
It's also really hard to create boundaries with the internet and, more specifically, social media, because it's so addictive.
If you want to get off social media, if you want to quit the addiction, A lot of times you're gonna have to go cold turkey.
You're gonna have to delete the app.
You're gonna have to cleanse.
You know, I've had to take extreme measures in my life.
I have two phones, one phone that has only healthy stuff on it that I take with me every day.
And then one that has the unhealthy stuff on it, the social media, the this and the that.
And I keep it at home, you know, and I don't go on it unless I have something to post or, you know, every once in a while I wanna stalk someone.
Like, hey, what's that person been up to?
And then every once in a while I'll get sucked in and we'll start scrolling, but I really try not to because it's so bad.
I think we're also now all aware of how wasteful spending time on social media is.
It's such a waste of time.
And time really flies when you're scrolling, it does.
Next thing you know it's been two hours.
Two hours when you could have been doing literally anything else.
And I think we've all sort of realized that pretty much anything is a better use of time than scrolling on social media.
Watching TV is a better use of time.
Watching movies is a better use of time.
I think we're all coming to the conclusion that scrolling on social media is a waste of time and there's no way of justifying it.
It's just a waste of time.
Does that mean we can't enjoy it every once in a while?
You know, enjoy it for like 15, 20 minutes a day?
Like, that's totally fine.
But the problem is that it's too addictive to just do it for 20 minutes a day.
And I think we're all becoming aware of that and we're like wait a minute, I can't be wasting my life scrolling.
And also it seems that a lot of people are just sick of being sold to by influencers in ads.
Social media, now more than ever, is filled with influencers selling things, paid ads popping up in the feed.
There's so much incentive to like buy in a way that's frustrating and off-putting.
And a lot of people are sick of that, sick of feeling sold to all the time.
My personal opinion is that in the beginning, we all over consumed social media because we didn't know any better.
This is all really new.
We didn't know it was going to hurt us.
We didn't know it was bad for our brains.
We didn't know it was going to become an addiction.
We didn't realize it was causing us anxiety and depression.
There was no information.
We didn't know.
It was new.
We were the guinea pigs.
And then we realized all together, all at once, how harmful it can be.
And then we pushed through that for a little bit.
And then eventually we got to the point we're at now where it's like, wait a minute.
No, this is like really bad.
We're all feeling really anxious and really depressed. and really bad about ourselves.
And I think this was inevitable.
And I think it's actually a really good thing.
Us reaching our breaking point and being like wait, we actually have to.
As a species, we have to take control of this situation and really put some boundaries in place.
Like we have to, because it's at this point, life or death, you know?
And so now we're sort of recalibrating.
I think as a society we're recalibrating and figuring out how to use social media long-term in a way that's not destroying our wellbeing.
And I'm not necessarily sure we're going to be able to successfully find that balance.
You know, the balance might end up being that some people are just They can't control the addiction and they will just be indefinitely addicted to the internet.
And then the other half of people will be like, I can't handle it.
I have to have boundaries, which either means, like only going on social media once or twice a week, or maybe it's just quitting altogether.
I'm not sure what the recalibration will look like.
Maybe it's laws will get put in place where it's like these companies need to make these platforms less addictive.
Not anytime soon, probably, but like that's possible.
Maybe that's already happening.
I don't know.
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Now back to the episode.
The next part of this conversation is that digital minimalism is trending.
Now, what's digital minimalism?
Well, according to the Internet, digital minimalism is a philosophy of intentional technology use, focusing your online time on a few carefully chosen activities that strongly support your values, while happily letting go of everything else, aiming to reduce distractions and improve well-being.
Sounds gorgeous, honestly.
You know, this is something that I've participated in without the buzzword attached.
I mean, I did this out of necessity.
But the mere fact that there's like a buzzword attached, digital minimalism, makes me worry.
That this is less of a genuine necessity thing and it's more of just a trend in itself, which I hope isn't the case, because I think this is a really healthy concept.
And perhaps we're just at a point where everything needs to be packaged with a pretty bow on top for it to be able to be comprehended properly on the internet.
We need buzzwords like this to be able to discuss things easily.
And so perhaps that's it.
But alarm bells are ringing in my head where I'm like.
I hope that this is something that really people do adopt in a way that's genuine and not just sort of a trendy buzzword.
Like I'm a digital minimalist now.
And then it's like becomes sort of this performance rather than an actual genuine movement.
In theory, I think it's a really great concept.
Some of the more extreme ways that people are participating in digital minimalism, outside of just deleting social media apps, for example, is replacing their smartphone with a dumb phone, you know, a flip phone, a shitty phone that you can't go on the internet with.
Another thing people are doing buying iPods, buying old iPods, downloading music the old fashioned way, instead of being fed music in the algorithm.
You know, they're searching for music themselves and buying it and choosing to put it on their iPod.
There's also apparently been an uptick in offline hobbies and activities like pottery reading, making art, crocheting.
You know things with hands.
It's also become trendy and cool again to appreciate and utilize analog forms of media books, as I just mentioned reading, but books like physical paperback books, vinyl records, all of these things are trending.
Offline activities, things that can be done by hand, that can be enjoyed tangibly.
And I think this is all wonderful.
I mean, my personal opinion is that this is like the best case scenario.
What a great thing that we're all realizing that being on social media too much is toxic.
It's ruining our quality of life.
And so we're going back to tangible activities.
We're taking extreme measures at times, getting a flip phone.
We're getting there by whatever means necessary.
It's that much of a priority for us as a culture right now.
And I think that's a beautiful thing.
However, I do think in reality, it might not be so perfect, so idyllic, right?
This sounds amazing, but I have some concerns.
I mean, I think two things are happening at once.
There's actually a portion of people participating in this sort of digital minimalism trend that are doing it out of necessity, wanting to better themselves and their life.
And I also think there's a portion of people participating in this because it's a trend.
And I think the reason why we're so aware that everybody is doing this right is because it's being posted online, ironically.
I switched from a smartphone to a flip phone, but then they're like posting about it on social media that they did that.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Or like getting into offline activities and then posting that on social media, which doesn't that just defeat the whole purpose?
So that rings alarm bells in my head where I'm like I think a decent portion of people participating in this trend are just participating in literally a trend.
Things that are supposed to be as authentic, as pure as can be have become trends in themselves.
For example, the concept of having personal style has become a trend.
And sort of Microtrends have formed that are perceived as having personal style, but they're actually just trends.
The concept of having personal style has become a trend, to the point where now you can recognize someone who is following this trend of having personal style.
It's mainly from what I've viewed as being funky sort of maximalism, almost like layering a bunch of stuff, Having a bunch of charms hanging off your bag.
You know that's perceived as personal style, but that's actually just a trend.
Oh my God, it's so complicated.
Same thing goes though for like digital minimalism is supposed to be not posting anything at all.
But then people are posting about the fact that they're a digital minimalist.
It's like, how can you be a digital minimalist?
If you're posting online.
Now, I'm not trying to be the digital minimalism police, but I'm just questioning the validity of the movement in a way, because it's like is this just a trend too?
Take the internet out of this.
Is this just a trend that makes you seem cool and offline? to your peers.
Like if you're walking around scrolling on your iPod, that's a conversation starter.
People are going to be like, wait, you have an iPod?
If you're walking around with your flip phone, talking on your flip phone, people are going to be like no way.
That's so cool.
They're so offline.
They're so analog.
Even though I wouldn't say a flip phone or an iPod is necessarily analog.
That's one step above.
But Yeah, like how much of this is sort of to seem cool to our peers, to seem offline to our peers, because the reality is technology, especially the technology in smartphones, is actually so helpful.
I don't see the point in taking a perfectly good iPhone and getting a flip phone.
Personally, it doesn't make sense to me.
I think you can just delete all of the toxic apps off of your iPhone and then use your perfectly good iPhone.
It seems like an extreme measure.
We all have the iPhone for the most part.
Why are you switching to the flip phone if not for aesthetics?
Why are you switching to the flip phone if not to like make a statement?
But also too, why make your life that much harder?
Listen, I'm not saying I'm right.
I'm just asking questions.
I'm just stating an argument, you know?
A smartphone being able to text comfortably, being able to call easily, having settings like so that if you're somewhere where you don't have reception but you have Wi-Fi, you can turn on Wi-Fi calling.
All of these things are amazing advances in technology that I think we should take advantage of, because they're not actually toxic.
They're benefiting our lives and our ability to communicate and keep ourselves even safe at times.
Maps being able to map and have a GPS in your phone at all times.
That's an amazing piece of technology.
I'm sorry, I don't need to be the hero and print out MapQuest.
I'm good.
I'm good i don't need to do that.
Why would i do that?
Being able to like be on the on the run and be able to like answer an email if i really need to or, you know, work on the go, like to some people that's not appealing, it's not work-life balance.
But i like to be able to get work done while i'm doing something else, because it actually allows me to like go get my nails done but then be working while i'm getting my nails done.
You know what i mean multitask and i appreciate that.
So i mean listen.
This is why i'm not getting a flip phone, because i don't necessarily believe that that's the answer.
I think a lot of people are gonna get flip phones now and do that for a little bit and then get sick of it and then throw them away and then it was ultimately wasteful.
But you know what, if it's all on the journey to healthy boundaries with the internet, i will not shame anyone.
I'm just questioning some elements of this trend.
And the same thing goes for like the iPod, right?
It's like, but you already have a smartphone.
You can download music to your smartphone, I think.
Can't you?
I would imagine you can.
You know, there's still iTunes, right?
I don't know.
Does iTunes even still exist?
I actually don't know.
I've never checked.
I'm going on my phone to check.
Can you?
Oh, the app.
Does it work?
Oh, no.
Yeah, you can.
Yeah, you can go on iTunes and buy stuff.
So like, why do you need an iPod?
See.
To me it feels performative, but some people really love it and they find that it like helps them connect to their music more.
And you know what?
I imagine it would do that.
I just think.
I think that there's a happy medium that actually is going to be a long term solution, which is like don't download social media apps.
Just don't have them on your phone.
Turn your phone on.
Do not disturb if you don't like being bombarded by work texts or e-mails.
Yeah, turn off your email notifications.
Like, I don't know.
I think that there's ways to do it where you can balance taking advantage of modern technology.
That actually helps me explore the real world.
There are ways that my phone, my smartphone, helps me actually exist in the real world in a more intimate way, like I'm the type of person where if I was maybe in an area, perhaps because I had an appointment and then afterwards I had free time if I didn't have my phone to like look up oh, vintage shops in my area or coffee shops in my area I'd probably just go home because they'd be like I don't know where to go.
I understand this feeling of smartphone rebellion.
I get it, and i also understand the desire, as human beings, to want to project a version of ourselves to people, whether that's online or that's in real life, walking around with your ipod in your, in your flip phone.
I get it.
I get it and i'm not judging, but i just question its validity in a time where we're so obsessed with how we're perceived by others.
I think we probably always have been that way.
I think it's human nature, but i think it's like almost become an art form for us at this point.
I personally have gone through phases in my life where I've been obsessed with curating my personality for everyone else's consumption.
I still to this day, in certain ways, especially with fashion, I think for me present myself in a certain way, because I want to be perceived a certain way.
I don't know.
I think extreme measures tend to be appealing, but they don't tend to last.
But maybe I'm wrong and maybe for some people it'll really stick and it'll become a new lifestyle and maybe at a certain point we'll get to.
You know, we'll get to a point where it's like 40 of people have flip phones.
Like who knows?
I imagine more of a rebel, more of like the artsy sort of kids who maybe never even really were scrolling that much to begin with.
They maybe didn't even have that bad of an internet addiction, but it's like the type of kid to rebel.
That's what it feels like more so than somebody who actually has an issue with internet addiction.
I think those people are so addicted.
There's no way they're gonna go from having their iPhone with Google Maps or Apple Maps to going to having a flip phone.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm stereotyping here, but I'm just trying to make sense of it all.
Okay, moving on.
Another part of this conversation is about how the algorithm is ruining individuality.
And I noticed it when I found this song on Spotify.
I got fed this song.
And it had very few streams, right?
And it became my favorite song.
I felt special because I was like, I found this song.
This is...
This is a song I found and not a lot of people are listening to it.
And I feel like I discovered this gem.
I go on Instagram a month after falling in love with this song to find that someone that I know used this song on their Instagram.
And I was like, wait, they know this song too?
And then that happened again.
And I was like, what's going on here?
I was like, I really thought I found two hidden gems.
And now, coincidentally, people that I know are finding that music.
And I was like, I thought I was unique for this and I'm not.
Now...
This is a whole rabbit hole that I'm not in the mood to go down right now.
It's like there's so many questions to ask.
Does somehow the algorithm know that we know each other and they're feeding us the same music?
Do I just have the same music taste as this person?
And maybe it's a particular music taste.
And coincidentally, we got served the same music because there's only so much music out there.
And it's like we just have discovered the same things.
And maybe we wouldn't have known that in the past prior to the internet.
So we're just seeing overlap that we wouldn't have seen before.
It's a whole thing.
I'm honestly exhausted just thinking about it.
This sort of planted a seed in my head.
And then as I was researching this episode, I saw that this was a big part of the conversation.
It seems to be that the issue is we're all consuming the same viral content that follows the same viral formulas, which is homogenizing culture in this sector of our entertainment.
Like the entertainment that we consume on social media is very homogenous.
A topic will go viral and then next thing we know our whole feeds are about that topic.
A song will go viral and the next thing we know, every TikTok is using that song.
It's leading us to this point where we're all just consuming the same content about the same stuff all the time.
But beyond that, when we're not consuming mass viral content, even when we're consuming more curated content for us, We rely on the algorithm to feed our interests to us.
New music, new clothing trends, new topics to be interested in.
A lot of us are not doing the research for ourselves anymore.
Going to the library and picking up a fashion book and, you know, looking through it and trying to figure out what feels like us and what doesn't.
Or going to the library and... Why am I talking about the library?
But, you know...
Going to the library and walking through the aisles and having all of these options, of all these different topics, and having to ask ourselves what we're interested in.
It's being fed to us.
I think the main issue is our interests being fed to us.
Like we think that we have our own sense of personal style and this and that.
But it's like when you really break it down, my Pinterest knows me.
That's an algorithm.
That's feeding me more things that they think I'll like.
YouTube Shorts is feeding me content that they think, like my YouTube homepage is feeding me things that they think I'd like.
It's feeding me instead of me having to go out there and make decisions.
Choose what I'm interested in.
But I will say though that the media has always, since its inception, homogenized culture.
I would say probably even more so prior to the internet, when it was just like television and there were only a handful of stations and there was only a handful of like fashion magazines that you could pick clothes from.
Like that feels even more homogenized.
I actually think, if anything, we probably have a stronger sense of individuality because you can dig into any niche on the internet and your algorithm will pick up on it and start feeding you more of that.
I think we have more access than ever to different styles and aesthetics and music.
And I feel like now I mean listen, I wasn't alive during the 70s, the 80s, but I would imagine that now there's more niches, like you're more likely to have an interesting conversation about fashion or music or movies because, even though there's still things that take over the zeitgeist, it's so much easier to dig into a niche.
You can go on Spotify, find an artist you like and go down a rabbit hole, listen to a recommended artist from there, from there, from there, and then you find something that's really unique to you.
That was much harder before, I would imagine.
It's also become more widely accepted to have a unique sense of style or a more niche sense of style.
Now that we've been exposed to so many different aesthetics and stuff like that on the Internet, a lot of us feel more emboldened to just be ourselves.
So I don't know.
I think the algorithm feeding us stuff is a double edged sword.
Right.
On one hand, it might be sort of giving us a false sense of individuality.
But also, I don't know.
I don't know.
I just don't know about this one.
Perhaps prior to the internet, you'd participate in mass culture in ways that felt true to you.
And then in order to find your individual self, you had to go out there into the world and seek it.
Whereas now it's being fed to us. and when inevitably when you go out and you seek it you're gonna develop your personality in a way that only you can because you're out there in the world figuring shit out trying on clothes reading books and you're having to make those decisions which is inevitably going to create a more unique combination of traits and interests in a person whereas like In algorithms feeding you stereotypical things that you would be interested in, which is creating a false sense of individuality.
You think you're unique, but really it's just like you're just being fed the same kind of content that everybody else that's interested in the stuff that you're interested in is consuming.
But I feel like we're all more complicated than that.
I just don't know that that's really what's happening, but that's the opinion of some.
I feel like there's always a ceiling to our interests.
Whether you're scrolling on Pinterest or you're in the library.
There's only so many books in the library and there's only so many pins on Pinterest.
And even if you're at the library, there's always gonna be books on display that you might be drawn to before you're walking the aisles for hours and hours trying to find something.
You know what I'm saying?
Do I think that the algorithm is ruining individuality?
I actually might argue no.
I actually think it might be making us more individual than when we all were just consuming mass media.
I don't know, that's my opinion though.
You all know that I'm against the internet or not against the internet, but you all know my negative feelings towards the internet.
I've expressed them time and time again, but I don't resonate with this.
I just don't.
Do.
I think that you're always better off going into the real world and doing things in the real world.
Yes.
However, I really enjoy using the internet to find fashion, music, ideas.
Like I enjoy it.
And I actually don't think that that's necessarily negative.
I think it's one of the most positive things you can do on the internet.
You know, I've discovered music that I never would have discovered going down rabbit holes on Spotify.
I'm not just saying that because this is a Spotify podcast.
It's genuinely true.
Okay, next.
Let's discuss online dating because this is a part of the conversation.
Now, I've never been on a dating app.
I can't go on a dating app because I'm a public figure.
I could go on like there's like one Raya.
I'm not going on that.
I'm good.
I just don't.
I've never.
If I wasn't a public figure, I would make a hinge.
Fuck it.
Sure.
This is this is the day and age that we live in.
I'd make a hinge and I'd probably have a lot of fun doing it, you know.
But because I'm a public figure I can't.
And it's like weird if I were to go on one of the more like oh, this is for public figures to date, like Raya.
It's like I don't necessarily want a curated dating experience like that.
That's like weird to me.
So I just stay off.
However, I do know a lot of people who have been on dating apps.
I've listened to a lot of the discourse around dating apps.
I'm aware of the conversation happening, but I can't speak from experience.
Seems what the people are saying is that number one it's mentally exhausting to virtually interact with so many people, especially when attempts to connect are often unsuccessful due to rejection or bad behavior from others.
Lots of bad behavior on dating apps people lying about themselves, ghosting one another, being on there with bad intentions, like just wanting to like hook up once and then ghost.
Like it's just.
It's exhausting to small talk with so many different people and have it lead to nowhere for the most part.
That's really disheartening and exhausting.
And a lot of people are tired.
A lot of people have also said that it feels very surface level and empty.
You're judging based on pictures and brief info and playing the app kind of like a game rather than it feeling rooted in humanity and connection, which is what I think we all deep down want.
We want romance.
We want love.
We want a good story.
We don't want it to feel like a surface level.
Oh, I found this person hot and I hearted them, and then we went on a date and then we had sex and then now we're dating.
It's like, oh.
What about like a buildup?
What about?
You know?
I think a lot of people crave that buildup and that's sort of lost at times on the dating apps.
Everyone on a dating app wants to date for the most part, unless they chose, like I, want to make friends option.
But like, who does that?
Maybe some people, but yeah, it feels empty.
It lacks magic for a lot of people.
Even though I've met quite a few couples that I've met on Hinge and had success or other apps.
I guess Hinge is kind of the cool one right now with the kids.
But the other issue too, is that people become addicted to the apps.
You know whether it's The rush of matching with somebody, the rush of the small talk in the beginning, the rush of the first date.
People become addicted to like hooking up using the app.
And last but not least, it can be a safety risk.
Who the fuck are you dealing with?
You don't know who you're dealing with.
It's scary.
Dating apps can be a little scary.
I mean, I do think that a lot of the dating apps have improved their safety measures.
And I think that's great.
And also, too, you know, even when you meet somebody in person, it's...
You never know who you're meeting.
It is always kind of scary in that way.
But I think on the internet, there's this risk for like a setup, right?
At least in person, you know who you're talking to.
You can get a gauge off of their energy.
You can't do that over the phone.
I don't know.
My personal feeling on dating apps is that I think dating if you're somebody who wants to find a life partner, I think dating by whatever means necessary is absolutely fair.
Dating is hard.
You're looking for a needle in a haystack.
And to explore all options, dating apps, dating in person, mutual friends...
Why not?
I don't see why not.
I used to be more anti-dating app.
I was like, it's so like transactional.
So this is that.
And that's what a lot of people are saying nowadays.
But I think having a casual, passive relationship with dating apps, being like, you know what?
I go on there every once in a while and I'm not like relying on it, but I just dabble here and there.
I think that's totally fine and healthy.
With boundaries, I think dating apps can be totally fine.
However, at the same time, I think going out into the world is always going to be a better option.
And so I think, as long as both are happening simultaneously dating in the real world and online I don't see why not.
But I just think that dating in real life is inevitably going to be a.
At least in real life you have a fun time in the real world, regardless of if you end up connecting with somebody.
Whereas when you're on a dating app, if you don't match with anybody, if you don't plan any dates with anybody, you get disappointed.
Whereas at least when you go out, you get something else out of it beyond just connecting with somebody.
You know, like if you go to a bar, You might not, you know, meet someone you have a crush on, but at least you'll be social with people.
You'll laugh with people.
You'll be around people.
You know what I mean?
I don't know.
As I've been single lately, my thing has been like I'm just going to put myself out there into the world as much as possible, be outside as much as possible, be in environments with other people as much as possible and just see who comes my way.
You never know.
And trust me, people do come your way.
It's so weird when you...
Set that intention of like, I'm just gonna put myself out there into the world with an open energy and see what comes my way.
You end up talking to people you wouldn't expect that you'd talk to.
You end up Maybe having a little flirt with somebody you wouldn't expect to have had a little flirt with.
I think that should always be the number one priority when it comes to dating, and dating apps can be something.
It's maybe like a little novelty on the side, but the problem is online dating has become people's main form of dating and i think that's why it's caused so much unhappiness and frustration and discouragement.
Okay, and the last piece of this conversation that we're going to touch on today, because i i'm honestly like my brain's exploding.
It's such a big conversation and i barely even scratched the surface with this episode.
It's become a status symbol to be offline.
Now, this is interesting to me because I feel like, in order for something to be a status symbol nowadays, doesn't it have to be posted online.
But the argument is that people who are successful don't need to promote themselves or share what they're doing online.
And, on top of that, wealthy people have more money for experiences that they can experience rather than going on their phone.
I could see this for sure.
I
However, I have to wonder if it's more of a status symbol to seem offline by posting about activities every once in a while.
Maybe posting less, but posting about activities that show hey look, I'm offline.
Is that the status symbol or is it genuinely like deleting the apps?
I don't think it's that, because I think nowadays, in order for something to be a status symbol, other people need to know about it in a really vivid way on the internet.
Otherwise, it's not even happening.
Do you know what I'm saying?
I think actually being offline isn't a status symbol because then no one knows about it.
So how is it a status symbol?
Nowadays, status is very heavily dictated by our online presence, our digital avatar again, as my dad calls it, like our profiles what it shows about us.
So is truly being offline a status symbol?
I wouldn't say all the way.
I still think you have to post a little bit about what you're doing in order for it to be a status symbol, but you have to post like you're offline.
Post about hobbies and activities that you're doing in the real world.
My challenge with this is like to an extent you know, I see where people are coming from with this that it's sort of a status symbol, to be like look, I'm on vacation.
I'm on a hike.
I'm, you know, doing this and that.
I just went to my cousin's wedding and posting on Instagram like every two months.
I don't really think of it as a status symbol though, because I really think it's something anyone can do.
I feel like this segment of the conversation is weird because people are saying that being off of your phone, being entertained off your phone is expensive and stuff like that.
I don't agree.
There are so many things that you can do in the real world off your phone for free.
And maybe I'm missing something.
I vaguely think I heard somebody talking about you know how, in order to have the energy to have say, hobbies or to participate in activities outside of work, you know that's a privilege and that's a status symbol.
And that rings more true.
You know, I think at the end of the day, people who work really hard are really exhausted and they just want to scroll on their phone and do something mindless.
Understandably so.
I feel that way at the end of the day.
And, you know, some people would argue I have the easiest job in the world.
And I feel that way at the end of my workday where I'm like, holy fuck, I just want to like rot.
I've heard some people argue that it's like well, if you're very successful, you don't have to work as hard.
Thus, you can spend your extra time participating in hobbies and things like that.
So I don't know.
I'm lost.
I'm lost on that.
To wrap up this episode, I have some rapid fire predictions of what I think is going to come, of this moment in time where, all of a sudden, we're like wait, we don't fuck with the internet like we used to.
This is where I personally think things are going, where I have sort of slightly started to observe things going.
This is what I think. rapid fire.
Let's go.
Number one.
Social media platforms will become more like YouTube, where most people just consume content and don't actually post themselves.
Prediction number two, social media usage will go down and reach an equilibrium of sorts.
We were using it so heavily for so many years.
I think we are going to come down to a more realistic level that will remain for a while.
I explained that earlier.
I think it'll be like not everyone's going to be chronically online like it's been up until this point.
It'll It'll level out.
Number three I think a decent portion of people will quit social media for good, including a lot of influencers, but there will always be content creators and people consuming the content, just maybe less.
Prediction number four I think the iPod and flip phone trend is simply a trend and will die quickly.
People will go back to their smartphones, but perhaps delete the toxic apps when they get back.
At best,
Prediction number five I think people will continue to participate in offline hobbies if their interests are genuine, being a net positive with this trend, but those who are doing it in a performative way will stop once it's not trendy to post about it anymore.
Fiction number six, I think offline dating will become more popular again.
Hanging out in third spaces, going to cafes, shopping at flea markets, chatting it up with random people.
I think that's going to be more popular in the years to come.
I don't think nightlife is the move, though.
I think it's more like cafe culture, group classes, things like that.
And I've just been hearing about clubs closing for the last few years.
And I just feel like for whatever reason, we're not into it anymore.
Also been hearing about Gen Z not drinking as much.
It just seems like that's not Gen Z's vibe.
And last but not least, I think there will be a surge in offline art that feels mysterious in the sense that they don't have a social media presence in very high quality.
Indie bands, indie movies, actors will delete all of the posts off their Instagram.
I think there'll be this movement in art towards letting the art speak for itself and having the artist be more mysterious.
I think there's going to be an uptick in that sort of vibe and feel.
And that's it.
I could really talk about this all day, but it's been already like an hour and a half.
Like I have to shut the fuck up.
I'm really curious to see where this all goes.
But I think the overarching theme is that I think we're going in the right direction.
I think this mass awareness is ultimately a net positive.
And I really just pray for the healing of our society.
Like I think the internet has fucked us up so bad.
And I think it's made us all far more unhappy and far more nihilistic and depressed and anxious and paranoid.
And it's sad and it's really, really sad.
And I just truly.
I want everybody to enjoy the real world again, maybe together, maybe in our lifetime.
We can all figure it out together if we work together.
But in the meantime, a lot of people are buying stuff on TikTok shop.
You know what I mean?
And that's where we're at.
We'll see.
Time will tell.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.
I know I didn't say anything new.
Like I really just kind of regurgitated the conversation I've seen and given brief little bits of my opinion, but I hope that you enjoyed it anyway.
Anything Goes, new episodes every Thursday and Sunday.
Although actually, next Sunday is the last Sunday episode of Anything Goes indefinitely.
I'm going down to one a week, Thursdays only.
Quality over quantity, 2026.
I think less is more in 2026 and I want more time to make different types of content for the internet, not just the podcast.
I think doing two episodes a week has really made it hard for me to make YouTube videos, make other things.
It's because I just put so much time into this, which I love doing, but I think I want to diversify.
There'll be the same amount of content from me, just dispersed in different platforms, so have no fear.
But anyway...
So new episodes every Thursday, I guess, starting in the new year.
Available anywhere you stream podcasts, on social media at Anything Goes.
I'm on social media at Emma Chamberlain and my coffee company is in the world and on the internet at Chamberlain Coffee.
I love you all.
I appreciate you all.
And I will talk to you in a few days.
Also, if you listen to this the day it came out, Merry Christmas.
Okay, talk to you later.
Love you and bye.
