A BIT OF THIS, A BIT OF THAT
Thoughts on a rentrée ratée, nostalgia, too much internet and the therapeutic powers of touching grass.
I’ve been getting into a conspiracy theory lately. No, not the one about Tylenol and autism. The one about the world ending in 2020 and all of us being dead and in Hell without even knowing it ever since. Sometimes there’s just no other explanation when you keep waking up, completely devoid of energy, to ever-increasingly stupid news and meaninglessness, even when you’ve made up your mind to be all peppy and rise and grind and go for it this academic year like a good little capitalistic minion.
Maybe it’s social media. Too much constant access to current events, disturbing news and demented individuals. Our minds were not designed for this. I was hanging out the other day in London with two friends who lived through the Alexander McQueen / John Galliano era of fashion. They were talking about the industry in the 90s, a time at which all I knew about fashion was to admire Nick Knight’s pictures of Yamamoto collections in an issue of The Face or American Vogue I would find in Madrid as a tween. I know that for some mysterious reason nostalgia is frowned upon (even though we as a culture are constantly indulging in it), but I don’t care. As I listened to their stories, I missed that time.
Right on cue, as if the algorithm had read my thoughts, Instagram served me with this take on 80s nostalgia. As I looked at that AI-generated gang of lilywhite 80s teenagers aggressively saying “yo” and wearing hoodies, I thought I was gonna lose my lunch. Maybe I do understand why nostalgia is frowned upon, after all.
AI. My God I loathe it. I hate everything about it. The overhype. The way it’s being crammed down our throats like we are geese about to be turned into foie gras. The economic bubble I keep expecting to burst but it still just won’t. The way its overlords keep telling us it spells the end of all of our careers, our livelihoods, and democracy, but not to worry, because in exchange we can get AI boyfriends who won’t challenge our worldviews and we won’t have to look for recipes online or in books. Who wouldn’t want that tradeoff, even if it comes with a side of AI-induced psychosis. I hate the way it has given rise to the ugliest aesthetics the human species has ever known. And I hate the way whenever I voice these concerns, a small part of me thinks I sound as delulu as Norma Desmond deploring talkies and sitting alone in the dark rewatching silent films ad infinitum.
And so of course a reporter working on a piece about AI in fashion for a certain UK magazine had to get in touch this week for a few quotes, “to counter all the fear mongering about its role in the industry”. As I write this, I’m procrastinating on my answers to his questions because I have no idea what to say that doesn’t make me sound like a massive hater and luddite and, well, me.
You know what, I’m thinking it’s only the Internet that has ruined my rentrée, with its productivity fixation and its clean girls and its myriad hot takes. Whenever I’ve gone out and touched grass - and I’ve done a lot of that this month - I’ve felt pretty good about the rentrée. I’ve spent time with friends. I’ve been reading Kafka’s Amerika, a surprising, at times hilarious unfinished book that feels as Chaplinesque as Kafkaesque. I’ve seen the Edward Burra retrospective at Tate Britain, and you should too if you get the chance because his paintings of 1920s and 30s cafés in France, New York and Spain will change your life (unfortunately I left London before the Marie Antoinette and Blitz exhibits went live, let me know how they are if you’ve seen them). I’ve seen a burlesque show. I’ve gotten into bodypump, which is brutal and I would never have tried had my friend Bea not dragged me to class and my friend Anna not been the instructor. I’ve been hanging in lots of terraces comparing coffee brews.
Bref. All this to say maybe it’s our over reliance on online life that is making us a little crazy and depressed? Have you been feeling like that too? Can I be current and stay with it and at the same time salvage my mental health? Would it really be the end of the world if I didn’t know where Julia Fox was last night and what everyone is joking about on Twitter? What if I installed one of those things that curtail my access to social media on my phone? Has anyone tried that?
Wait, was that stomach-churning 80s AI video just a little bit right? Were we really happier and more intelligent before we all had smartphones?
Why can’t I remember?