i hate how analog feels like a buzzword now. i think what initially started as a conversation about how much of our time and energy we give to being online, and if we're even being intentional about it (since these apps are designed to manipulate our sense of control), has been turning into "here's what you can BUY to participate in not being offline! analog bag!" and then you just get typical influencer tactics that makes it all feel like a performance of consumption. thats how you get fast fashion rapid consumption mindset, still treating things as disposable, but feeling better about it because you've thrifted all these things. we're still operating under capitalism brainrot. instead of thinking of things you need to purchase to fill the void of being on that damn phone, i think the answer lies in interrogating why you've been on the damn phone so much. is it to fill social voids? creative energy? thirst for education? answering questions like that will lead you into your OWN version of an "Analog" life and actually reconnect you to tangible things. and having better digital hygiene and treating technology like tools. otherwise youre just being influenced to buy more shit. im trying not to sound snobby of this. but i also think some of the criticism of these trendy "being offline" posting yet posting about it on social media sounds kind of like that one "yet you participate in society" comic. like yeah we should be critical of when people are being performative and trying to sell us something, but in some ways i think the shift to want to not be chronically online anymore becoming "trendy" actually says a lot about what we want collectively. and i think to just write all of it off as hypocritical and performative makes me wonder do any of yall actually want to be better LOL

like sorry but if a band had been the most important thing in your life for so long and all the members were alive and happy and in love with the world again decades after they thought they’d be dead in a venue parking lot somewhere and they were reaching out to you from across oceans and telling you you’re not in this alone you never were and you never will be and don’t be afraid to keep on living and the sun was pouring in through your open window and you were feeling the most profound sense of community you’ve ever experienced then you would probably be a little fucking deranged too

If I can’t turn this into something beautiful than why the fuck did it happen