The Age of The ‘New’
By Talisha, July 1, 2019
Read time: 3 Mins
Being born in the age of convenience has its perks.
I was born in the year 2001. To many that may only seem like a few short years ago, but to me, I’ve only spent 18 years on this planet so far. This is all I’ve ever known.
I was born into a world with cell phones and television, with the internet and social media, by the time I reached high school all my friends had a smart phone. None of this is bad in itself, technology is advancing and so are we, but I feel I have now reached the age where I am (truly) becoming aware of how the world really works. And no, I don’t mean ‘adult’ things like taxes and budgeting, I mean the real shit, human nature, the standards we set for ourselves as women (especially young women), the standards men in the past have set for women. But most of all, I’m becoming innately aware that I am currently living in the most rapidly changing period in history so far.
We are making these insane advances in technology, in modern medicine, in every way you can think of it feels like everything is becoming ‘new’. Yet, I feel like we are going backwards in every way possible. We have all of this incredible technology, we have the internet to connect us to people everywhere in the world, yet my generation feels the most lonely at times.
We keep advancing, we are constantly trying to optimise ourselves and our lives. But for who? For the validation we get from likes on the internet? There’s always something ‘NEW’. The new iPhone, the new beauty product, the new brand, the new pair of yeezys, no matter what the fuck it is. Everything is just new. And better, always better. And it doesn’t stop, it just gets faster and better and newer, and millions of people just sit, waiting for the release of the next new thing, and it’s all we can think about, things, stuff, shit. It’s become less about buying things that make us happy and feel good and more about keeping up with the current trend. And if you aren’t relevant? Then kiss yourself worth goodbye.
We have become this hive mind, and I fear that we are slowly going to stop having our own individual and meaningful thoughts, that our opinions will be based on the opinions of others, or what a big corporation is wanting us to think. And the worst part? I think we aren’t even going to notice it when it happens. Everything is progressing at a rate that is unfathomable, our brains cannot even physically comprehend how fast technology is changing. So, I sit here in 2019 and I am scared, I’m scared because we are in this age of Instagram influencers and iPhones, the age of convenience, the age of the next ‘new’ thing we can get our hands on. Is this all at the fault of 14-year-old kids online? No, of course it isn’t, it is the fault of companies that know how and when to exploit said children, and anyone of any age really, to buy shit they don’t even need.
We are becoming slaves to this concept that you need material things to be happy, that you need a new phone every year or the new $95 foundation to keep up with the other kids. Brands have become less about catering to the masses and giving the people what they want, and more about brainwashing. If your favourite brand puts out a new shoe and all of your friends are wearing them, your favourite celebrity is wearing them, then you’re gonna want them, right? If all the girls from school get a new $200 brush set from Sephora we just all HAVE to get it too, right?
