Everything is replaceable, even your own feelings

I'm sick of the word 'rebrand'.

I’ll just jump right into this piece because I don’t have the time for needless introductions. Say the strap on your purse ripped, or maybe your precious heel snapped off after a ravenous drunk night. What do you do?

My father and I were walking home from the airport this evening, it was windy and wet, I had no time to prepare myself for the weather. As we stepped foot back into my apartment, he noticed the small zipper of his backpack stuck on some loose fabric. After tugging and pulling, it snapped off because the backpack was almost thirty years old (seriously). Besides that zipper, the bag was almost in mint condition, but the broken zipper rendered it useless.

“Guess it’s time for a new one” I said while pouring water

“New one?” he was baffled “It’s a good bag, look how long it stood. Just a broken zipper, I’ll fix it”

Now, that sounds like a very reasonable interaction right? But why was my instant reaction to replace the bag altogether, and his to fix it? Because we come from entirely different generations.

My father grew up in a time where things were built to last until your dying days. My Ikea nightstand is seeing it’s last days even though it barely lasted 5 years, while my grandmother’s bed (1970 king sized) is almost completely unscathed. He was immune to the consumerism worm instilled in me. Companies build things to last long enough to be good, but short enough to profit when you come back in to replace them. Your Apple phone is great, for now. Until the new model comes out and time goes on before your model starts acting funky. Then you have no choice but to get a new one.

Companies would put the ‘fixing’ value scarcely close to the ‘brand new’ value. You walk into the Apple store with a broken screen and watch as they nudge that price up until it feels almost ridiculous to fix this old one when you can buy something brand new.

Everything now feels like a new is always better ad. Nobody is walking around with a broken heel looking for a cobbler. You get a brand-new pair delivered the next morning.

How does the consumer worm affect everything else?

That part was to establish the obvious: we live in a consumer world where we are constantly chasing that high of a brand-new thing. We are keeping capitalism rich while getting poor. But there’s more to it than that.

Over the past few weeks, especially since New Year’s, I’ve seen a bizarre number of videos about reinventing yourself. Changing completely. Looking unrecognisable. Glowing up. Reaching your best physical potential. Rebranding. Starting new.

99% of these videos get engagement and prey on viewers who feel detached from who they are or ones unsatisfied with their own selves. It’s almost cruel to think that we are now becoming a society that is teaching people they can simply erase themselves rather than teaching them how to find themselves to begin with. The new and improved model, completely start fresh. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with expanding or exploring new ways to express yourself, changing your appearance or even ‘reinventing’ yourself. But it feels like everyone is being reinvented into the same person. Why does your rebrand feel…fake? It’s all for the perfect digital version of who you are. People aren’t even rebranding themselves, they’re rebranding their perceptions. Re-establishing the way viewers and others see them, on the inside though, nothing is fucking different.

Look at the way our generation sees relationships. Your friend did something you didn’t like? Get a new one. He didn’t respond the way you liked? Ghost him. Your boyfriend was a little rude? Breakup and sleep with someone else.

Everyone wants casual because casual is easier to swap out. Nobody wants anything real because how do you find something real twice? How can I get rid of this real chemistry when I want a new one? Let’s have sex, be neutral until it feels agonizing, then we can find someone else..someone new. Give me a hit of dopamine!

Our relationships with people are now extremely fragile due to this fucking worm. The reason I have few friends that last me years is because I understand that they won’t always be the best versions of themselves. They’ll get busy, mean, they might have an off night and lash out. You need to learn to fix your relationships instead of swapping them out when you feel something broken or when the high is gone. The way these videos have deluded a group of people into thinking everyone is replaceable is building the most dysfunctional generation we’ve ever witnessed. Believe it or not, you are meant to fight over things with your friends and you are meant to tell them you didn’t like their behaviours. You cannot keep swapping everyone out in your life like an endless algorithm.

If I had cut off some of my best friends over a disagreement or two, it would’ve never grown into years of friendship. I feel the same way about relationships and love. I don’t like the idea of giving up on a relationship worth pursuing. I’m not talking about deeply deal-breaker issues, so just think of it like a small bump in the road. Putting an end to it when I can’t tolerate a minor flaw feels so weak. Not pursuing something over a minor setback is stupid to me. I can easily swap this boyfriend out for the next one, but if it stood the test of time and only the zipper is broken. Why wouldn’t I fix it? Why wouldn’t I give it a go?

I was talking to one of my cousins not that long ago about his Hinge date. He went out with her twice, everything until the second date was consistent and respectful. There was no reason for him to bail on the third date. When I asked why he wouldn’t pursue her anymore, he said “I met someone else”.

So, I asked, “who do you like more?”

He said, “I liked her more, but the new girl is kinda fun”

He didn’t pursue her long enough to decide whether they worked or not, he pursued her long enough to lose the excitement of a brand-new unboxing. If dating apps truly matched people up with intention, they’d lose their entire business because nobody would need them anymore. And why would a company want to go bankrupt? Singles who cannot find someone are the most lucrative sector to drain. Take advantage of their loneliness, charge them with false hope of finding somebody, and build an algorithm that reassures them that the grass is always greener. That if this didn’t workout, you’ll have more to swipe on.

You might get on the train of cutting everyone off, but I hate to break it to you, you aren’t supposed to have the smoothest sailing all the time. Stop letting people fool you. Stop letting these ‘advice’ videos trick you into thinking your standards will be met without any effort. If you love someone enough, you can let them know what they did wrong, and give them the time to fix it. Fix your fucking zippers people.