Relatability Fatigue
Have I ever had an original experience?
Thoughts on life, friendship, and thought processes in the Internet age.
I imagine that I’m strolling through a fantasy marketplace. I pass under the entrance sign. There are tapestries and paintings from all over the world hanging from the walls. Artisinal lights with lamps in every color fill the space ahead. The air is filled with the heady scent of perfumes and food from all over the lands. The space teems with people and it’s exhillerating. There are merchants standing in the walkway, trying to show me their wares as I meander through. I come here to observe and be entertained, and there are always lots of new and exciting things to find.
Then there’s a shiver that runs down my spine as a woman comes forward with a shiny silver tray with lots of trinkets. She looks so well put-together and her lipstick is a stunning shade of ruby red.
“Would you like to try some ADHD tips for women who got diagnosed later in life?” she says. I smile politely and walk on.
The next stall is filled with pens, paper, and tomes upon tomes stacked from floor to ceiling. An man with the lines of wisdom on his face comes forward, offering me a book.
“Writers who want to be independent authors are loving this book! It’s got all the steps you need to publish on your own and get rich off of it!” The sides of his mouth practically touch his ears with his grin, it’s quite alarming.
“No, that’s alright, thank you.” I try to look into the shop at all the other books.
“Or, there’s ways to monetize your newsletter!”He holds up a massive tome called, “Marketing and Monetization for the Solopreneur.”
Shaking my head, I hurry on my way to an alcove where I can find some peace. Pausing, I take a deep breath. Normally this place isn’t so pushy and the air isn’t so stuffy. I peek around the corner, feeling bored and wanting something new.
A young woman around my age approaches me. She looks so similar to me, it’s shocking. Her eyes glitter as if she knows a secret I don’t. “Are you the oldest daughter of your family?” Her smile seems kind, but condescending, almost as if she pities me.
“Yes…” I reply apprehensively, unsure of where this is going.
“How’s your depression, anxiety, control issues, and need to take care of everyone important in your life going?”
“E-excuse me?” I stutter.
“Oh, and did you also leave your healthcare job after you went to therapy?”
I bolt for the exit.
Does this sound familiar? I struggle with feeling like everyone around me has the exact same memories I do. Small niche stories are being shared on the internet every day and I feel like I can relate to almost all of them. Then I look at the comments and it’s filled with thousands of other people asking the same thing:
Is nothing in my life an original experience?
Seriously, thousands of other people claim to relate to the smallest things that I never thought anyone would ever understand.
“I’ve sent out hundreds of resumes and have been looking for a job for years. I’m overqualified, and no one will hire me.”
“I haven’t changed my toenail polish in months, but I can’t keep my nail polish on my fingers pretty for more than one day!”
“I miss staring at the ceiling and finding pictures in the texture and coming up with stories for them.”
“It’s just me and my scab on the back of my head from itchy shampoo against the world.” (gross, but, seriously, why do so many of us experience this?”
“I’ve just been rotting in bed doom scrolling on the internet for hours, and I haven’t gotten anything done today.”
I love Ron Swanson more and more every day.
It's why I named my cat after him.
I’m calling it, “Relatability Fatigue,” because I’m just so tired of EVERYTHING being relatable and it feels similar to empathy fatigue.
I’ve been finding myself thinking, “I don’t care that you experienced the same thing I did. Is there nothing unique in the world? I’m desperate to experience something else!”
My social media feeds keep running in circles, showing me the same types of videos, or even the exact same videos that I had watched not an hour earlier. Was there seriously nothing new?
It left me to wonder: Have I run out of everything on the internet?
Obviously not, but it sure does feel that way sometimes.
I spoke with my sister about this, and asked her if she was experiencing the same thing. She said she wasn’t. Maybe it’s a millennial vs gen z thing? Maybe she’s just not noticing it
However, she wisely said, “it’s probably just capitalism, Beth.”
Which struck a chord in my brain.
A lot of these people have all of these problems…. and all of them come with a solution to YOUR problem! How convenient!
I remember what feels like the golden age of the internet from 2010-2018(ish) where you could hide in the comments of a random Reddit thread, Tumblr page, or YouTube video. It was easy to get lost and see what amazing creators there were and find your little corner of the world because it felt like no one in your personal life understood you. You could find and research the most people doing things you’d never encountered before. It felt like the internet wanted you to learn and discover the world.
Then around the late 2010s everything shifted, literally with the pandemic, but also on the internet. Brands and influencers took over the internet, the algorithms changed, and gone is the sense of novelty. Everything must revolve around the viewer. The easiest way to do that? Be relatable.
Show the people exactly what they want to see: themselves.
It’s created these little vacuums where all you’re exposed to on the internet is exactly what you want to hear, surrounded by people just like you, and pitting people on the opposite camp against you to get you infuriated. All so you can spend more time on the apps, spending more money and attention, and put more money in the pockets of businesses and billionaires
And truthfully, I’ve grown quite tired of everyone pandering to me. I miss being able to find stories randomly that have nothing to do with me. Is it odd to say I miss being an observer on the internet, and I don’t want to be “seen” anymore
Let me be fair. I want to be, and I am, seen by the people I love and who love me. However, I don’t need or want to be seen by companies who just want me to spend my money. It just feels increasingly harder to find humans who share just to share and don’t have an ulterior motive.
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All of this to say, in this process of healing, now that my anxiety is practically gone, and my depression and CPTSD are more than manageable, I feel like I’ve woken up and realized that my world is all about me, and I don’t like it.
As mentioned in previous blogs, I’m realizing that the old ways I lived my life, wallowing in the depths of the internet and letting things happen to me, are no longer serving me.
I need a solution.
Now, of course, there is one easy way to do this! It’s quite simple!
I must stop being so selfish, and focus on other people! I must log-off the internet and technology forever, go outside and meet people, connect deeply with them, be lifelong friends, serve my community, never think about myself again, go off-grid, homestead, and my problems are solved!
It’s a full circle moment!
(Hi anxiety spiral, I see you there.)
Truthfully, those things aren’t realistic. I can’t discredit the benefits the internet provides just because there are cons. The internet is a necessity now for most people, and it’s not something that can just go away.
I also notice that my go-to for feeling selfish tends to be “denying my selfish desires 100% and focusing on others.” However, I’d be doing it to make myself feel better, not to actually help people. I’m a firm believer that helping people needs to be a long-term, relationship-driven endeavor.
Help is not just a band-aid or a dosage that you can prescribe for immediate relief (on both sides). If the reason you’re helping people is for you, it’s not really helping people. It also makes whoever you’re helping a tool for your relief, instead of a person.
Additionally, I can’t afford to just disappear. I have responsibilities, and it would cost money to start homesteading, and I quite like having modern amenities.
I mean, I wouldn’t be this ridiculous, but you get the gist.
Not to mention, my business relies on the internet and I love what I do!
(If you’re looking for an editor, click here.)
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As far as connection goes, I live at least 1,500 miles away from many of the people I care about. 3 years ago, my husband and I packed up and moved from the West Coast to Oklahoma (I’m still not sure I can believe we did that.) I am so blessed to connect with my people who live across continents and oceans within seconds, and it’s not something I’m willing to give up.
I often think about people who moved away before cell phones. It would be so difficult to feel connected without texting or Facetime, right? But then there were people who moved before landlines who had to write. And then people who moved before the post office, etc.
I’ll daydream that we moved out here during a time where writing letters was the only way to find out news back home. Or I’ll think about if the news were given only over the radio. How different life would be…
Ah the good old days...
Side Note: It’s amazing to me how over the decades and centuries, humankind has found increasingly easier ways to connect with people far away. Our need for human connection is clearly a motivator to progression. I’m just blown away by our innovation and perseverance.
So, instead of running away or burying my head in the sand and continuing on as normal, I’m going to choose to look at Relatability Fatigue in a different way. I can approach it with curiosity. Instead of being irritated by the algorithms on the internet, I can connect more with the people around me and find new things to learn about. I can still appreciate the internet for what it is without quitting cold turkey or being consumed by it.
In this trek of the jungle to figure out who I am after healing, I’m remembering I love learning about history and observing how people move in life now.
What does integrating that into my life look like? I want to find new stories, new things that excite me, and to find a way to observe the world again without getting sucked into the endless void with no way out.
I’m going to find the people whose voices I want to hear. I want to gain wisdom and knowledge about things that excite me and challenge myself to learn the things that I’m scared to. I want to take in as much as I can about the world.
In this “waking up” I’m becoming increasingly aware that time is short. I’ll try not to bore you or give you the ick with the over-told realization of “I only have one life to live!”
So, if you need me, I’ll be deep diving on podcasts, youtube videos and random corners of the internet about things that interest me and writing about it.
I’ll also be working on floral designs, editing, and being a maid of honor for my cousin next week!! (I’m so excited!)
Adventure Log
Chapter 2:
The photography endeavor continues and expands into capturing my floral design. I’ve started to photograph my new designs and I’m very pleased with how they’ve turned out.
The designs below were inspired by the feeling of reading a Victorian Gothic Novel. The autumn colors really hit home for me, and I had to play!
One of my friends called it Jayne Eyre-esque and I’m floored with such a high compliment.
Stay tuned for more book and movie inspired floral designs!
