Annotations
I’m someone that writes about decentering yourself from the algorithm. Because that’s what it is: the algorithm. I don’t hate my phone, I do hate the algorithm sometimes. I don’t hate social media, I hate that I don’t see the people I follow and that it doesn’t seem to end.
The idea of an analog bag started to appear last year. If you were unfamiliar with this term, this is generally a tote bag or large(r) bag that is filled with things to stop you from doom scrolling, and being on your phone.
If this isn’t supposed to be brought with you places then I guess I can understand it more. This would be a bag full of things for you to do instead of looking at your phone, but wouldn’t that just be a hobby?
But even if you are the most boring person in the world who is creating an analog bag right now because you scroll too much, that’s not gonna save you. The people making these don’t use them, they’re either selling you something or just trying to make content.
Having a brick is something that is a known status symbol, as people generally photograph their brick and talk about it, but it’s not because the item is expensive, it’s what it represents—being able to step away from your phone and lock it for hours at a time, having a life outside the algorithm and having the money to fund it
As I scrolled through these videos tagged no-scroll, they were full of junk. Sometimes they would be people going out and doing stuff, but it would always require items. Buy this magazine, buy this pen, buy this notebook, buy this tote bag, buy this ticket to my friendship meet up event, buy this craft project link in my bio, buy buy buy.
I couldn’t find one video where someone just went to the park all day. Or someone just went for a walk, went shopping at a small business and shared about it, went to a community event that maybe helped others or was actually a place to meet people.
The quiet part that no one is talking about with this analog conversation is exactly that. I thought when analog was becoming a trend, that maybe people would also talk about how everyone is taking pictures of each other and every corporation knows everything about you. Maybe that’s why people wanna be more analog? You’ll still be watched by others, but at least your phone won’t be.
A child born today will never experience a world in which there is any reason to believe that realistic images, video, or audio represent reality, or that a person wrote the words that they read.
But this analog trend will not save you from that. You’re still gonna be on your phone, when you’re not on your phone and it’s bricked you are doing a set round of things so that you can share about it (maybe).