What it's like to live online in 2024

When "consumer" is your identity on the internet, the content begins to melt

Here’s one for the time capsule: Being online in 2024 has totally fried my brain. I came across this TikTok that artistically frames the experience:

@heidsbeckerIts giving in my brainrot overconsumption coded slam poet era

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It’s kind of tough for me to rewatch, but in doing so, I’m attempting to capture in words the uneasy, shameful feeling my reflecting, future self experiences every time she looks back on how I spend my time. It’s a specific type of brainrot by which I’m afflicted. While I’m not pressing “buy” on most of the products that hurl themselves at me on social, I am way too often captivated by an ad or influencer telling me I need something.

It happens many, many times throughout the day. Just this morning I saw an electric flosser (lol) that promises to massage my gums and keep heart disease at bay, and I spent a couple of minutes on the account page trying to learn more about the benefits and functions of said flosser. I couldn’t get much info, and any desire I’d initially felt waned every second I scanned for any real substance about the product.

Did I *win* by moving on from the flosser? I can pat my own back for not buying, but I am consuming. I read and watch content about things to buy all day long — hello, collagen face mask you’re supposed to sleep in, built-in bra tank top (somehow this is a new idea?), chargeable shower scrubber that haunts my waking dreams — and it’s become unavoidable.

Much has been written about the infiltration of TikTok Shop — someone is selling something in every other video I scroll past — but more than a trend, it feels to me that this is our current culture (or am I depressed?). Window-shopping, browsing, buying, consumerism — it has always been part of my life, but this moment feels way different, and inescapable since all of my working hours are spent on a device.

Online shopping was sold as convenience, something to give you back your time so you could focus on what’s important. Today, online shopping has evolved into a time suck: There’s comparing brands, reading reviews, finding discount codes, saving to Pinterest, uncovering dupes, looking for it on secondhand sites…. there are so many more actions in which you can participate before even making a purchase. I’ve gone through these marathon-long processes for the most mundane products, like a squeegee to use in my shower? A laundry detergent with a natural scent that lingers? All of it makes me hate it here (in my brain).

Some of the time I dedicate to shopping emerges from the desire not to waste: I don’t want to buy something faulty, or something that won’t last.

I also don’t want to waste my money (in this economy?!). I want to make sure what I’m buying is the absolute *best* version of something. I have already googled “best deodorant” and “best non-stick pan” this week, and I know everybody else does this, too: It’s why all these dumb ass “best” lists are published again and again and again. (BTW, I even wrote a “best” list about non-stick pans and I still googled it looking for someone else’s recommendation. That is FUCKED.)

The endless options online (let’s talk about the millions of different sellers on Amazon some other time) lead me to dig even deeper into reviews and reddit threads and time-a-wasted: What if the sponge isn’t sponging? What if the linen trousers aren’t good on my body type? What if I throw my laptop into the Hudson River?

One answer to all of this misery is to get offline. I love that idea. Let me know how to get there, and I’ll follow.