They say my generation is wasting our lives watching mindless entertainment. But I think things are worse than that. We are now turning our lives into mindless entertainment. Not just consuming slop, but becoming it.
We have been posting about our lives for a long time. But now I notice something else, something more than a compulsion to capture and share moments. I see people turning into TV characters, their memories into episodes, themselves into entertainment. We have become the meaningless content, swiped past and scrolled through. Experiences, relationships, even our own children, are cheapened, packaged, churned out for others to consume. For some of us growing older has become a series of episodes to release: first the proposal, then the wedding, followed by house tours, pregnancy reveals, every milestone and update, on and on, forever. We exist to entertain each other.
For influencers, of course, this is their career. They turn their lives into TV series. We have trailers and teasers. We have cliffhangers, season finales, reminders to “tune in next week!” We have stock characters and cameos. Cult followings and conventions. Running gags and cold opens. Theme songs and end credits. Christmas specials and cross-over episodes. Press tours and plot twists. Spin-off shows and sneak peeks; bloopers and “behind-the-scenes.”
I see people turning into TV characters, their memories into episodes, themselves into entertainment. We have become the meaningless content, swiped past and scrolled through.
They market their memories, too. Previously on…COMING UP…Proposal now available on all platforms! Help us search for our new home! (*emotional*). Watch the wedding Part 1 and Part 2! “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the podcast you’ve been waiting for,” declares one couple, flashing upcoming scenes like a film trailer. “IT’S FINALLY HERE…OUR BIGGEST EPISODE YET … IT’S ... THE … WEDDING.”
Then come the content babies. Babies as props; babies for clicks. I used to tell myself this wasn’t true but I have this horrible feeling now that some couples are having children for views. Out of one pregnancy you get all this content: finding out, telling friends and family, going to scans, monthly, even weekly bumpdates, the gender reveal, name hints, name reveal, babymoon, baby shower, nursery tour, pack my hospital bag with me—and that’s all before birth. EARLY ACCESS to the NEW BABY for paying subscribers!. Baby number two dropping soon! 51 HOURS OF UNMEDICATED LABOR streaming live on YouTube (“hope you enjoyed!”)
But the best episodes, of course, are the worst days. EXPLOSIVE arguments exclusively on YouTube. THE SCARIEST NIGHT OF OUR LIVES available now. Stay tuned for the divorce. Link in bio to the breakup announcement. Arguments are interrupted by ad breaks; breakdowns are brought to you by BetterHelp. Emotional meltdowns are hit episodes; a family falling apart is a series on Amazon Prime. We always talk about the freedom of alternative media, that ordinary people are finally in control, forgetting that we accidentally cast ourselves as characters, that we are the actors now, that the show must go on. This is the career everyone wants; the one that never ends.
I worry about young people imitating these influencers. The disappointment they are setting themselves up for: when life gets low ratings, if the new season flops. This is the trade. By inviting strangers to watch, you not only welcome praise and adoration but critics too — ready to review the show, comment on the character development, poke holes in the plot, follow the franchise. Your baby belongs to us now; your marriage competes on the market. Sell yourself like a product and get treated like one. And the worst part is that these influencers think their views go up because people care, because they finally matter, forgetting they have declared themselves entertainment.
Marketing your memories also desecrates them. You hand over your hope, your hurt, your life to be consumed, reducing it to reality TV. Your precious memories are my mindless entertainment. Your trauma becomes my background noise. Your life-shattering divorce my slop. Your children my characters; your pain my distraction; your feelings my filler episodes. I will swipe past your birth video when I get bored. I will downvote your divorce if it isn’t entertaining enough. Your life is what I clean my kitchen to, what I kill time with. And if you fail to entertain me, fine, I will scroll for another life to consume.
It will never be enough either. You can’t excitedly share the beginning of your relationship but not explain why you broke up. Where’s he gone? What happened to that storyline? You can’t change your opinions or interests; that’s out of character. You can’t disappear for a while; you’ll be behind schedule. You are ours; the audience you owe everything to. Influencers invite us in and then can’t get us out. And when we get bored, well, the customer is always right. Stage some drama, start a rumour, parade your child, plan a plot twist. Something, anything, so we don’t change the channel.
And then there’s the worst thought. How long would these couples last without the cameras? How would these families feel if the internet shut down, if they had to compliment and compromise and sacrifice without the validation of strangers? Would they know how? Without comments and clapping emojis? Can they live without it anymore — adulthood without applause? I fear some young people only understand these things — marriage, parenthood, obligations to others — as transactions. We can go through the pain of giving birth and sacrifice of raising children so long as it is captured, recorded, shared, so long as we get likes, comments, praise. Otherwise why? Doing it for nothing? It’s the same feeling as dressing up and not getting a good Instagram pic; it all seems worthless, pointless unless it is posted. Why look good without getting a selfie; why go out without uploading a Story? Why commit. Why have children. Why do anything that cannot be exchanged on the market. We are products and so if we cannot sell what is the point. We were raised on recognition, a generation sustained by likes and attention and advertising ourselves, and without it we are nothing.
We tell ourselves this is for memories. Sentimental, some say. So sentimental that children won’t read their parents’ love letters or dust off polaroids from the attic, but scroll through their parents’ Instagram posts, watch their YouTube Shorts and TikTok pranks, skip past mummy’s sponsorships. They will have clickbait to comfort them, nostalgia for Stories and Reels, fond memories of AI thumbnails. No, every day I am becoming more convinced that this is the furthest thing from sentimental, this marketing of memories. That the couples who barely remember their engagement, when it was, what they said, have something far more human than those who orchestrated the whole thing, rehearsed it, recorded it, set up a background, put on a soulless display for strangers.
Our precious memories are my mindless entertainment. Your trauma becomes my background noise. Your life-shattering divorce my slop. Your life is what I clean my kitchen to, what I kill time with. And if you fail to entertain me, fine, I will scroll for another life to consume.
And that we should want the opposite. I want I love you said when we are the only two people in the world to witness it, the words intruded by nothing and nobody, so clumsy they can’t be captioned or subtitled. I want the pregnancy revealed in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed in the bathroom, holding hands instead of iPhones, looking into each other’s eyes instead of a lens. I want the gender reveal whispered without cannons and confetti and cameras; to give birth without thumbnails thought up from hospital beds, or retakes and rehearsals in delivery rooms. And when I have children I want them to listen to my memories, to hear my stories, as I use my own words to tell them what it was like, where we were, how I felt, not hand them a phone so they can scroll through my Instagram.
We look back with horror at previous generations, that they didn’t celebrate enough, couldn’t capture the moment, have no memories to scroll through. But I will reserve my horror for what we are doing. That partners are being chosen, boyfriends are getting down on one knee, babies are being born, not out of love or devotion or human instinct, but because views are down. Ratings are dropping. Storylines are needed. The audience is getting impatient.
We know how this show ends, though. The same as every other. Someday this generation, these influencers, will discover with dread what every celebrity and contestant and cast member has realized before them. That after offering everything up, every inch of their lives, every finite moment on this Earth, it does not matter how much they stage, how much they rehearse, how much they trade, how long they leave the cameras rolling, we will always wonder, eventually, what else is on?
Beautifully written and compelling, as always. I am convinced that a major step in the right direction would be a law forbidding adults to post pictures and videos of minors on public platforms. Children especially have no understanding of what it means to be exposed this way, whereas teenagers might not fully grasp the risks involved. I know child actors have existed for a long time, but acting (which is regulated under labor laws) and having your private life filmed for entertainment are two very different things. I find it terrifying that these adults who obviously have a distorted notion of boundaries are encouraged by monetary incentive to deny their kids the basic human right of privacy, sometimes from the moment they are born.
Ah, “What else is on?” Is the last line of The Truman Show. I couldn’t agree more. I’m a 30 year teacher. These poor kids- their entire lives are a performance. Every thing captured instead of enjoyed.