The Social Media Trap

No one needs another piece about why social media can be toxic. But for fashion journalists and social media “commentators" – people whose material is generally found in the fleeting trends of TikTok, emerging designers on Instagram and discourse on Twitter – is it really an option to step back? Read on - not for an actual solution, just an articulate rant.

For a while, I’ve been trying to pry my brain away from the deadly grip of social media algorithms and the combative nature of online interactions. The upside is slightly improved mental health, I guess. The downside is it impacts my material as a fashion journalist. This extremely niche issue is one that has been on my mind recently. How am I supposed to protect my mental state and already-rotten attention span when I want to write about pop culture? When trends are born on TikTok, how does a fashion writer make a living offline?

The necessary yet toxic relationship between social media and creatives has been discussed before. Artists need to put their work out there to be seen. But constant comparison to your peers whose careers and social lives always seem better than yours is unhealthy. Remedies include using these apps only to post your work, and then logging off. But for fashion and culture writers, social media is not just the end-point to promote your work, it is also part of your essential hefty media diet.

It’s fuel for your stories. Where some journalists travel to far-flung places to report on war and politics, us “soft” journalists trawl through social media hoping to spot a new pattern, trend, movement or discourse. (Then try to apply a narrative to it, offer up some reasons why it’s happening which often relates to the dire state of the world. Whether that’s post-pandemic life. Cost of living crisis. Impending climate collapse. Nuclear war. Complete destruction.) All this, with a few quotes from experts, and you have a nice think piece or trend story with a hot - or lukewarm - take.

Being chronically online as a fashion writer or cultural critic seems more and more non-negotiable. I can’t tell whether we’ve made the shift from late 00s to early 2010s yet. Scene kid raccoon hair but also the return of Tumblr aesthetics and the pro-ana sentiment that it sheltered. (I’ve seen the “Skinny is back” articles.) Then there’s irony layered upon irony, with Minion backpacks at raves and T-shirts sporting slogans that belong on early Facebook memes. (Oh, the innocence of those memes in hindsight. So simple compared to the memes which require layers of understanding of what is ironic and what isn’t, because we’re all so jaded that being earnest (i.e. not ironic) is hilarious.) 

To be honest, all these references are probably already dated. Which is a weird feeling for me, accepting that I’m getting out of touch at 23, since social media has been an integral part of my life since early, depressed teenhood. Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram. (You’ve probably come here from good old @fatannawintour on Instagram, which in itself is a genre of username that flourished on Tumblr. Think uglymiumiu, pimpleprada, skinnydior…) And yes, I’ve dipped my toe into TikTok, downloading it when bored and jobless, having friends send funny videos to help improve my algorithm. But I never stayed on it long enough for the perfectly-curated For You page to actually bloom. Thank God, since I already get sucked into Instagram reels and YouTube shorts enough as it is, and they’re the methadone to TikTok’s heroin.

I had to stop being chronically online for the sake of my sanity. But, annoyingly, I was a better cultural observer, at the cost of my mental and retina health. I was in a frequent state of irritation from reading arguments and shitty takes - and sometimes partaking myself, embarrassingly. And I know social media is what you make of it, so a part of it is definitely self-inflicted, but it doesn’t help that with social interaction online, we sometimes don’t see people as people but as ideological opponents.

So, what to do? Honestly, I have no answer. Like all writers, I just want material. While also trying to avoid deep-frying my brain more than I already have.