More on the “Analog Bag”
You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Aren’t all bags analog bags?” You would be correct! Nowadays, however, we’re usually throwing our smartphones, tablets, and laptops in our dusty old totes. In a recent turn of events, this crowns our bags as “digital,” I guess.
We’re living in a near-completely digitized world. Most of us rely on Google Maps more than our own sense of cardinal direction. People born and raised in urban cities have stopped learning to use public transit without the aid of the expensive portable computer that lives in their pocket. In many social circles, nights out on the town exist solely for the perfect Instagram grid flick. Long walks are now for a TikTok step challenge to get views. This all happened very fast, and boomers, Gen Xers, millennials, and even Gen Z are realizing just how far we’ve fallen from community and connection.
In an attempt to disconnect, there has been an uptick of select TikTok users spreading the idea of “analog bags.” The idea is to throw analog activities in a purse or tote whenever you leave the house, so you’re not tempted to doom-scroll on your smartphone. Throw that one book you swore you’d start reading last year, but never had the pleasure of uploading your completion to Goodreads. Your knitting project isn’t going to knit itself, so throw a skein or two of yarn and your trusted knitting needles if you have a long train ride ahead. The analog sentiment is all fine and dandy in theory, but if you look into the content “analog bag” influencers are posting to TikTok, you start to notice holes in their argument for an analog world. The first hole is that they’re posting it to TikTok, and the second is that they’re promoting hyper-consumption.
“Analog bag” criticism is complicated because we should be cheering those who choose to remove themselves from the social media fabric. After all, digitization is the new normal, so weird buzzwords like “analog bag” should be expected. We can’t pretend that there isn’t a new villain with skin in the game: overconsumption.
Performative Flip Phones
The people want what they can’t have, it’s true. The iconic pink Razor flip phone of yesteryear has been doing numbers on present-day smartphone users. Probably because they’re too young to remember the “quirks” that made flip phones so undesirable once the BlackBerry was released. Nostalgia has rewritten the history of those pesky little flip phones with keys that made texting a single sentence take 40 seconds on a good day, and it’s interesting to observe. Oh, how the times have changed!
The anti-smartphone movement would have greater standing in societal discourse if it weren’t for those people who claim to use them but post online—with their smartphones—about using them. Not to be nitpicky, but doesn’t that defeat the purpose? Sure, spreading the word about a more analog lifestyle is a good thing, but when so-called flip phone users cannot practice what they preach, are these analog practices truly based in reality?
At best, flip phones nowadays should be labeled as accessories, not phone replacements. TikTok user @skzzolno popularized the concept of leaving your smartphone at home to be present when out with friends, but she doesn’t completely forfeit her right to use a smartphone to post on social media. She’s just one example, though. Many users post about their flip phones, and it’s clear their usage stems from aesthetic wants or a yearning for nostalgia. They’re directly contributing to overconsumption, doubly so if they’re posting about how they purchased an old iPhone 5 on eBay to use as their “digicam.”
The Antithesis of “Unplugging” is Posting and Promoting
A common defense of these practices is the burning question: “What happened to whimsy?”
When you’re unintentionally promoting excessive consumerism and subsequently posting about it online, the concept of “analog bags” and flip phone usage becomes hypocritical and, quite frankly, moot. Posting online about how you’re offline refutes a lot of the points so-called “unplugged” users are trying to argue. We’re all too into our tech, there’s no denying that. There could be a better way to go about unplugging, and the way forward probably has less to do with purchasing materials for six different hobbies and more to do with actually talking to one another. After all, that’s what this little thing called life is all about. If you’re looking for a better way to spend your time, consider starting small with things you already own, and for once, leave your social media followers out of it! Everyone loves a little mystery from time to time…
Thumbnail courtesy of peanut.bttt on TikTok
