friends’ hobbies
I have to say something pretentious for a minute….
I am disappointed when a friend gets a new interest and I think it happened organically, but then a while later I find out it was because of a social media trend.
Of course you have to get inspired somewhere, and many of us have started something due to seeing it online or knowing someone who does that hobby already, so this isn’t about copying or being unoriginal. It’s just about where the seed is from and how it was planted.
Like journaling for example. I think it’s great if you see a friend into journaling and start doing it too, or you yourself one day think you want a place to document your life and be creative in, so you pick out the supplies and get started. You may peek at YT videos and Pinterest boards for some inspo.
But when it’s just because it’s currently a trend on TikTok and every second video is about it, it feels like it was forced in you, upon you, to feel like you belong. You buy the things others in the videos have. You design the pages like they do, or how the people on Pinterest do it. You take their prompts.
There’s almost no customization because you weren’t just inspired to do something and then found your way to do it, you were just receptive to the idea you were being sold, and now you’re performing it for a while until the next thing comes along.
Like wow, I thought you had a need, a yearning, a drive to do something, an urge to make it your own. I thought passion for something spilled out of you. I thought you were so full of feelings and ideas that you needed this.
But you only like it because you were made to. You do it because it’s the next thing to trend to combat brainrot, right after the personal curriculums and all. And to show everyone you belong to this group of people, you have the journal cover that combines multiple journals that everyone in the videos has.
It kinda turns this sweet moment between humans (being happy for your friend, sharing that with them, loving to see them find something they like to do) into something capitalistic, algorithmic and cold for me. Performative.
It’s not about who did it first or who is a real journal-er or artist or whatever. If you do it, you count, you are real, you are valid, no matter if you only do it for TikTok.
It just makes me see that hobby exploration of yours differently. This opportunity to connect and feel like your friend is on a journey into something and you get a peek of who they are at their core (very intimate) suddenly has brands and influencers written over it.
The pages are often done performatively too. I get overexplaining some stuff to make sure that you still understand it when you read it 5+ years later, so that’s not what I mean.
I mean writing stuff down you clearly would not need to remember. Like, I am not writing down that I love (franchise) or (hobby) or (topic) and why; I could understand if it’s something temporary, so you can look back and think wow, I was really into chai and mechanical keyboards in 2025, but for like… core things? Things you have always and will always like?
The way I detect it is: It doesn’t read like an interesting exploration of an aspect of it, or an opinion, or other thoughts on it, it just reads like a website bio where you describe yourself to others and explain why you like the thing you have always liked.
I know this focuses on journaling, but can be anything, really. I have experienced it with other things, too.
I know I know, let your friends explore, be happy for them, what does it matter, etc etc I do! But it cheapens the experience for me! I just simply love seeing people go down a (positive) rabbit hole because they randomly thought of something or saw something out in the wild and now feel struck by lightning, needing to find out more fast.