I am scrolling through my Instagram “Explore page” and a stream of anthropomorphised, disturbingly muscular cats shimmy across my screen. On Facebook, I am subjected to a procession of animated girls who are inexplicably covered in slime. As soon as I open the TikTok app, chimpanzees fused with bananas, dancing cappuccinos and sharks wearing trainers spin into view, with a fast-paced, garbled Italian monologue in the background.
On every platform, the nonsensical, uncanny, witless content that’s become known as “AI slop” contaminates my feed. And I am forced to wonder: why am I doing this? What is the point in consuming this content? I feel neither inspired nor informed, entertained nor assisted by this machine-made crap.
Social media has long lost its social element. Instagram prioritises video Reels (the sloppier the better) over posts from people you’re following. Posting used to be fun: first take a nice picture of yourself, or your friends, or an iced latte. Then slap a sepia filter over it, post it and bask in the 30 likes you’d inevitably receive from your family and close friends. Now, posting is an hour-long task of careful curation, as you must choose 10-20 pictures that “truly” capture your vibe. The very purpose of Instagram—posting and sharing pictures with friends—is now a joyless, thankless chore, performed to serve an algorithm that favours slop over actual social content.
I, personally, can’t be bothered. There’s only so much slop one person can consume.
More young people are withdrawing from social media and seeking out more nourishing ways to spend their free time. In fact, the Financial Times recently suggested that “social media has passed its peak”, with daily social media usage down 10 per cent in developed markets (to an average of two hours 20 minutes per day). This is the first significant decrease since 2014.
Gen Z are reacting to their frustration with social media with a whole new trend: “Analogue inspo.” Amongst the slop, I see increasing numbers of videos suggesting we should “live like it’s the mid-00s” by going for coffee with friends, reading magazines in the morning instead of scrolling our phones, and opting for puzzle-books over apps. One of the most common forms of “analogue inspo” is the “Analog bag” trend, for which creators post videos of their handbags brimming with non-digital items like notepads, knitting needles or film cameras.
You may roll your eyes at the idea of an analogue bag (isn’t that just a bag?), and the irony of consuming “analogue content” digitally is not lost on me. But the idea of leaving the house without one’s smartphone, or indulging in activities like photography, drawing or knitting, is revolutionary to my generation. Our inclination is to fill every five-minute wait for the bus, 20-minute tube journey, or even two-minute bathroom break with scrolling on our phone. Our hands are in dire need of something better to do.
While “analogue inspo” may seem like another TikTok fad, I think it’s a breath of fresh air. It’s a much-needed outlet for the hobby-less, the bored and the young people whose grip on reality has been loosened by over-reliance on ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI.
I plan to embrace the trend wholeheartedly: from the media I consume to the way I socialise. Let’s normalise picking up the latest edition of this magazine from your local newsagent and reading it with your morning coffee—instead of getting your news from a 30-minute morning doomscroll. Let’s start borrowing books from our local libraries and setting up our friends on dates, instead of relying on apps to do the matchmaking.
My most radical plan is to cancel my Netflix subscription and devote myself to building a DVD collection. I salivate at the very idea of loaning a DVD to a friend (and not constantly bouncing authentication codes between myself and my partner so we can access each other’s streaming services). We are so committed to going analogue this year that my partner and I are competing to log the lowest screentime. At the end of the month, we’ll review our daily averages and dinner will be on whoever loses. So, if you need me, send me a message by carrier pigeon. I’ll reply when I’ve finished my crochet project.
