That sticky feeling of excess after a string of holidays where you didn't hold back. The state of being filled to the brim with everything you usually consume only in small doses: food, family, alcohol, social interaction. Every indulgence is followed by a hangover. Excess breeds aversion. And it isn't a pleasant feeling: to be overloaded. It drains your energy. All you want is to shed everything, to become stripped back again, unburdened. A longing for simplicity emerges.
That's exactly how I feel right now about the overabundance of digital products. I open Spotify, scroll through the app, and before long all I can see is a blur of endless options. I decide to watch a movie on Netflix, but never actually do, because I'm so overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices that I lose interest almost instantly. I no longer see any meaning, and above all, any value, in the content that's served up to me day after day. And I know that I'm contributing to it myself by producing content, too.
I've become numb to consumerism. Not even Instagram's perfectly tailored recommendations tempt me anymore. The handbags that fit my style exactly. The trousers I've been dreaming about - there they are, within arm's reach. All I have to do is click "buy," and they're mine. But I don't want to click anymore, because the joy is gone.
My attention is exhausted. My desire to buy has been defeated. My pleasure in consumption has disappeared. All these misdirected incentives aimed at me make me feel sick. To borrow an image from The Meaning of Life, I've reached the wafer-thin mint that finally pushes me over the edge. I can't take any more. My nervous system, after years of relentless temptation, lies completely exposed. I, the one who has been hungry my whole life, have lost my appetite. And that's terrifying.
On Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, the fastest-growing channels are the ones preaching the simple life: tradwives, tiny-house evangelists, sourdough enthusiasts, minimalists, free-birthers, simplify your life-gurus. A global audience remains glued to their screens while a multi-billion-dollar industry relentlessly pumps more products into these supposedly simple worlds. Pseudo-simplicity has become the backdrop for overstimulated users who really just want to pull the plug - but have no idea how.
Going offline isn't the answer either. That's simply not how life works anymore. We're on our devices all day because we use them to pay, to order things, to identify ourselves - and, incidentally, to communicate. And as we switch constantly between all these functions, our attention is monetized to the fullest. Updates arrive from every direction. Likes. Tiny distractions. Before you know it, you're right back in the worlds you wanted to escape from in the first place.
I'm trapped in the candy shop. Voluntarily held captive in a sticky-sweet world, when all I really want is a slice of bread with butter. How do I get out?
The German band Wir sind Helden comes to mind with their song Die Reklamation: "My teeth against your tame revolution, visions against total television. I'm trading it all in - I don't want this anymore, I want my life back!" That's where I am now. I want to return the whole system. Come and pick me up from the ball pit. Let me leave. I want to ache for music again, for a particular book. I want to long for something until I can finally hold it in my hands. I want to feel genuine desire again.
In his dystopian novel Brave New World, published in 1932, Aldous Huxley imagined a society in which people are permanently stimulated and perpetually satisfied. He showed that the tragedy of abundance is that we can have everything and yet no longer truly want anything. Huxley feared a world overflowing with information and entertainment, where everything that really matters would simply disappear beneath the noise. Hasn't that world already arrived?
Anyone chased for hours by algorithms through the colorful landscapes of digital platforms, trapped in endless loops of entertainment, has less time and less energy for political action. Those who remain busy buying and consuming are more likely to stay comfortably within the system than people who define their own goals. Inner growth arises from longing, from ambition, from ideals. It is in the distance between what is and what could be that movement begins.
And that distance is disappearing. We would like to move, but our feet are stuck to the floor of the candy shop.