I am tired of scrolling

The social media algorithms finally broke us. How we got here and where we will be going.

“skinny jeans are out”
“you have to show your socks”
“this is how you achieve glass skin”
“you are beautiful just the way you are”
“oatmeal is bad for you”
“just eat intuitively and you will be fine”

This is what I hear and see when I open social media. And I am tired!

People tell me what to wear, how to wear it, what to eat and not to eat, and to constantly work on myself. Most of these posts are brand deals, and if they aren’t, I am sure as hell being shown an ad in between them.

And it is no longer just Instagram that makes me feel this way. TikTok, the crazy app that gave us a feeling of community and belonging during the pandemic turned into a weird influencer shopping channel that runs 24/7.

I didn’t notice this change straight away. Not the change of social media itself, and certainly not the change within myself.

Until I got a really bad haircut and drove home crying.

What does my bad haircut have to do with the cultural shift of social media, you might ask? It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as you say.

Clothes are my frenemy

Clothes and I always had a difficult relationship. I was raised by a shopaholic, and I witnessed the birth of social media in my late teens. I feel like I was doomed from the start. If I didn’t follow a trend right away, I was worried that I would not fit in. So I chased a trend and worried the entire time.

But I managed to overcome this fear in my 20s when I lived far away from my hometown and I was finally “allowed” to be me and to experiment. Back then, influencer culture was still in its infancy. It was an inspiration, it was fun. People were themselves, tried on different styles, and shared them with the world. It gave me the courage to be who I am as well.

Somehow, I thought this was still true to this day. While I never really was into fashion, I thought I’d found my style. Something I am comfortable with. But then social media subtly told me otherwise.

“Skinny jeans are out! Don’t wear them anymore.”

In the past, every post was an inspiration. Today, every scroll teaches me something new. Every influencer is explaining to me, what’s on trend, how it works, and how to copy it. And where to buy it (let’s not forget the most important part of it all)!

Like: “Skinny jeans are out!”

Ok?! As an elder millennial, I live in skinny jeans. For the past decade, I have worn nothing but skinny jeans. But the influencers are telling me. So I listened and tried on some wide-leg jeans.

I hated them. No shoe would work with them, it made me look even shorter and it just looked odd.

I bought them anyway.

And then, I never wore them. Not once did they make me feel like me. But the influencers kept persisting that we are not, by any means, allowed, to ever, wear skinny jeans again.

I tried them again, multiple times, but every time I ended up putting my skinny jeans back on. “My out-of-trend skinny jean”, I thought to myself. That moment stuck with me, it kind of hurt.

Then, my v-neck shirts were losing their color. It was time for some new ones. But at the store, I had a bit of a breakdown.

I was presented with either cropped shirts or extremely oversized ones. The same styles I’ve seen the influencers pair the wide-leg jeans with. I tried both styles on. Oversized was better than cropped, so I went with those.

I paired them with my wide-leg jeans. Thinking, I finally did everything right.

I looked like a tent. I could not leave the house like that.

So I put my washed-out v-neck shirt and my skinny jeans back on. And I hated how I Iooked. I felt like an outcast like I did not fit in with “the girls”.

This process repeated itself for months. With different styles, different rules, and different influencer laws. Until a few weeks ago, when I went to my hairdresser.

I got the cut I always get, but I did make the mistake of telling her to “cut off a bit more this time”. My hair grew so long over the winter, I wanted this haircut to be “worth it”.

And oh boy, she did make it “worth it”. My hair was the shortest it’s ever been. And it was my own damn fault. I asked for it. I couldn’t complain to her now.

I cried the entire drive home.

And then cried some more in front of the mirror at home, after unsuccessfully trying to style my hair the usual way.

And something inside me finally snapped.

I told my husband, with tears in my eyes, how unhappy I was with the way I looked. How all my clothes are wrong and ugly.

I said: “At least my hairstyle now too, matches the overall vibe.”

I felt like my teenage self again, but not the fun times. The worst times: When I thought I was the ugly duckling. The girl that was bullied for reading a book in math class, because I already knew everything the teacher talked about. I felt like the girl hiding in a corner in the changing room because somehow only half my body had gotten the memo that we needed to look like a woman now.

That poor man was so out of his comfort zone and looked like a deer in headlights. But he did the only thing that he knew made me happy: he cooked me a nice dinner and told me that I am the most beautiful woman no matter what I wear. And he gave me a glass of wine, which helped too.

That evening was my breaking point. I didn’t fully realize it until a few days later when I had fully processed the reason for my breakdown.

Who told me that my clothes were ugly?

Social media influencers did. Kind of.

And why do I trust them with that much of my own mental state?

Because influencers used to be the authentic voice in a sea of advertisements.

I think the crucial part needed to understand this, is that I grew up with influencers. With authentic ones. The real people who started to talk about make-up on YouTube because they were passionate about it. And I listened because it was nice to hear someone give a genuine review about a product. Influencers used to be the people we went to for “shopping advice”. We trusted their judgment because they built their community through genuine and authentic content.

But that is not the case anymore. Influencing is a multi-billion dollar business and the majority of posts are paid for opportunities.

Even more, many influencers start with the intention to make a lot of money and skip the community-building part altogether.

But somehow I still trusted them, because they were influencers. They are different from the advertisements in a magazine. Right?

But they are not. Not anymore.

“Wear this, not that.” So we all look the same.

Not only did many influencers abandon their community building in favor of paid promotions. They also lost the plot of fashion and beauty altogether. Because trends are no longer trends (plural), it feels like there is one trend (singular) and it is promoted like this universal rule everyone needs to follow. And I fell right into that trap.

Somehow, influencing stripped away the diversity of fashion. Social media used to be this diverse place, full of inspiration. It was a place to experiment, now it is all very formulaic. No individuality required.

And the algorithms celebrate it.

But how did we get here? How did authentic and passionate reviews, become a constant promotion that looks the same as millions of others?

The history of social media: an analysis

The beginning

Pre-internet, a time that many don’t remember (I do, and yes I use an eye cream), we were marketed to in only a few places: Big ads in busy streets, on public transport and its relevant stations, newspapers, and magazines, and TV and radio. Sounds like a lot, but you were able to escape it.

Then the internet happened and opened up the possibility to market to everyone all the time, 24/7.

That, to me, is the reason influencing became a thing. (And ironically, it is the same place we are in again, but more on that later.)

People wanted to know how a product really is. They needed an honest review, not a paid one. That is what influencers did back in the mid-2000s. They held their make-up in the camera, waiting for the camera to focus and auto-adjust its settings, swatched it on their hand, and chatted to us about the product. It was casual, like talking to a friend. Those were amazing times, in my opinion. The market was new, not overly saturated. I think the word “influencer” wasn’t even a thing back then. It was just honest, authentic, easy.

And then the brands realized they could pay those influencers to put their product in front of the camera. And it worked, big time. The times of authentic recommendation and community building are what made the influencer economy a multi-billion dollar business.

At first, they didn’t even need to tell us it was a paid-for deal, the laws didn’t exist back then. So we continued to trust them. Because we always had.

Over time, the brand deals got bigger and bigger, and the OG influencers we grew up with got richer. Some followers found it inspirational, while others couldn’t relate anymore. And that debate, whether an influencer is relatable or not, continues to this day.

The algorithms

What truly changed the game for everyone was the social media algorithms. Gone were the days of an actual timeline as an Instagram feed. Now we are all victim to the algorithm gods, hoping it shows us content we actually like.

In the beginning, it kind of was ok, but it put people in boxes, in a niche. You liked a cool post about art? Nice, now we show you all the artist’s accounts.

Once the algorithm puts you in a niche, you are part of that niche, end of discussion. That’s what makes social media such a great place for marketers, it puts your target audience in one room. You can throw ads at them 24/7, hide behind a trusted influencer, and your product sales will skyrocket.

And it also became the advice to “make it” on Instagram. “Pick a niche”, “niche down”, and “focus on your thing”. But that is not how real people work. We are interested in more than one thing, we are not just this one niche a random algorithm assigned us to. We are random and chaotic individuals. And that’s what Instagram (to this day) fails to understand. It still tries to put us in a box, one that you can never escape from.

Then came TikTok, an app so crazy and chaotic - like real people. The reason for its success: authenticity. But it wasn’t fun for long, only a few years later, and we have TikTok shop, plus influencer advertising 24/7. It turned the app into a shopping channel real quick.

Unsplash, by Annie Spratt

The disconnect

And now, people are slowly getting tired of it. I see it everywhere. More and more headlines pop up these days about how people have left social media altogether, how they left Instagram, how they stopped posting, and how they want to be less online.

I think the algorithms finally broke us.

We are put into a box we can’t escape from and are marketed to for every second we spend online. They take our hard-earned money to buy the pieces we need to fit in and after all that trouble, we are stripped of our individuality and look and feel the same as everyone else.

And then we have statements from Instagram themselves. How your followers don’t matter anymore, and how it is all about views and engagement. Reactions to this have been mostly negative, as it clearly struck a chord with people. The consensus seems to be that Instagram is focusing on quick growth and “going viral” and ignoring community building and sustainable growth.

The audience is tired, and the creators are getting tired too. Creators are annoyed by the ever-changing rules of the algorithms. They are tired that their content is not shown to their followers. The audience is so tired that they barely see the content they want to see anymore. But instead, they are marketed to 24/7, by people they don’t even follow.

A true disconnect.

Now, slowly, people are leaving the platforms. Or simply stop posting.

But who is left on the platform: influencers who feed the marketing machine, some people who aren’t yet tired of it, angry people, and bots.

It is only a matter of time until this system breaks down completely. And then what? What happens to all the influencers? Will we start again, like we did in the mid-2000s? But where?

The future

I can already see it with some accounts. They grow slowly, you only find them by luck - or in a completely different place. You find them through Pinterest, google, or an actual print magazine, through a friend, etc. - the point is: you will find a good creator through recommendations, through community. And that is where I think we will go - or where some of us already are.

That’s why I think substack has grown as much as it has recently. People are looking for places with honest connections, authenticity, a place for sustainable growth and community.

While I don’t necessarily think that the time of large followings will be over, I do think that community building will be at the heart of it again.

Influencers will have to actually build trust with their audience and genuinely care about them and the niche they are in. The content will be more long-form, especially written and the majority of it will happen away from social media platforms.

The social platforms will not go anywhere, but they will stop being the main source of inspiration for most people. It will be the place to go to get ideas and to find out where to go next for the actual content.

Some creators are already doing that. They provide inspiration through recommendations. By showing us articles they found inspiring, magazines that are worth subscribing to, or photographers and artists that enrich their lives.

Others are looking back. To the past. Nostalgia is having its true moment right now. From someone purchasing the entire back catalog of the Martha Stewart Living Magazine to people talking about Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and using her outfits as inspiration for their fashion choices today.

And that is exactly how I approached my fashion dilemma, the crisis that inspired this article. I went through my entire Pinterest history and looked for people’s outfits that I consistently saved over the years. I also looked through old articles in fashion magazines to find celebrities that to this day have a great sense of style that fits my overall vibe. The journey of that resulted in a piece about timeless fashion icons, and how I am trying to become exactly like them: by being 100% myself.

XOXO
Annika