Self-Conditioned Anachronism? It's better than TikTok

Mariah Loves Earth, Ba-da-bug-dum, 2024. 

Sometimes I'll get so into a book that when I look up I can't help but think, "This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife." (All jokes aside, The Talking Heads were spot on with Once in a Lifetime.) My ecstasy is getting so entranced in a good 80s fiction by a writer like Jay McInerney or Tom Wolfe that once I look up I truly do feel conflicted about what I am faced with. I'm not even an 80s baby and I tend to idealize the time period. Isolated slow-moving information, no e-mail, angsty independently brewing subcultures, and amazing movies. Except, it isn't just the 80s that I idealize, it's any time period pre-TikTok, pre-COVID-19, pre-Trump, pre-2008 financial crisis, pre-Facebook, pre-9/11. A time period in which I did not yet exist. 

Being born on the tail-end of the Millenials and the cusp of Gen-Z I find that I don't quite fit into either cohort. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed I can recall playing the computer game Bugdom (2000) in kindergarten on those blocky white box computers. I'm too young to remember 9/11, though I have heard the story about how I ran and got my Dad because the news interrupted my cartoons. I had an iPod touch in junior high and then an iPhone by high school. But I also spent my youth playing hide-and-go-seek with the neighbourhood kids, calling my friends on a corded house-phone, playing four square, and walking to school with friends. I don't get lip-filler, I've never aspired to be an influencer, I had to google who Ice Spice was, and I've never downloaded TikTok. I recall when most ads were unrelatable, but oftentimes hilarious, TV commericals that could be muted. I'm still old enough to have nostalgia about a youth that did not contain social media. 

It's strange being a twenty-something during a time period that has become seemingly more myopic, dystopic, and catastrophic as time has gone on. It appears that moral division is at an all-time high and a basic shared vision of reality at an all-time low. (Of course, this could be the far-reaching, ever-present, digital news worming itself into my brain, but I think this is how many of us feel.)  A friend, from a different generation, once said "the only absolute is absolute subjectivity." Even though I graduated university during a global pandemic I do not believe it alone evoked my feelings of melancholy. Don't get me wrong, I would consider myself a very happy person, but I yearn for a collective culture that does not feel so fragmented and so capitalistic. My experience is my own, and I recognize that digitalization has brought us all deeper into our niches, but I do believe we can all still relate. 

I recently came upon a personal blog from 2008 and it evoked that deep-seeded nostalgia for a bygone era. Although I adore pre-Y2K literature, and opinions, I heartily enjoy almost all-things pre-2010. The blog led me to a flickr account, the go-to photo platform prior to Instagram, that contained pictures of young adults jump posing for the camera in front of scenic backgrounds wearing wide waist-belts, skinny jeans, and horizontally striped body-hugging quarter-length sleeved shirts. Their expressions were authentically candid and they were not rehearsed to appear-so. Taking photos was about capturing memories, and people did not care so much about how they appeared to others. The photographees knew that the same people who were viewing the photos were the same people that they met up with in everyday life. 

It brought back memories of walking around the mall because there wasn't much to do, taking silly photos in photo booths, and gossiping with friends about the cute guy who worked at West49. It felt refreshing to meet new people because each person was a mystery that you could only uncode through discussion. There is something utterly dull about someone having a curated portfolio that immediately tells you about who they think you should think that they are. It feels like one day everyone woke up and thought, "Know what? I want others to take me seriously. So I am going to be a serious person." I for one liked smiling in photos. But maybe the desire to appear more serious reflects the overall cynicism of the times? I think we used to be more interesting before we cared about self-image.  

I've decided that it is time to stop being taken so seriously. I'm not a serious person. (Even though at times, I must admit, I attempt to write like one.) I'm still silly. I'm a grown adult and I still like to dance around when I'm happy. I sing songs with gibberish lyrics. I like to dress in chaotic colours and patterns. Go treasure hunting at thrift stores. I feel sad when I feel distant from a friend. And happy when I have a really good chat with one. I am human and I am flawed. I always floss twice a day, and I do choose to binge low-sugar dark chocolate, but I also love rewatching cheesy 00s TV shows. These things don't make me special and I believe that many of you likely behave in the same way. In a curated world, I believe that it is time that we all choose to become a little more unfiltered.