A Sentimental Transaction
What price do we pay for vulnerability?
In its 2023 report, Spotify found that Gen Z’s listening habits are motivated by mood. “Sad” was the most searched term for Gen Z listeners on Spotify globally. The uptick in sad playlists on Spotify is just one of many factors that not only inherently normalize the feelings of a larger society, but provide the cultural indicators of a larger reality. An entire generation is sad, hopeless, and elegiac.
In America, sadness has become an overreaching contagion. It is no longer a circumstantial factor, but a pollutant affecting the cultural consciousness of an entire generation.
I often find myself observing how friends, and friends of friends, interact with one another. We move listlessly. Not exactly ourselves. Dull and lethargic. Despite the backdrop of technological innovation and culturally-defining factors, my generation is boring. We’re recycling trends, watching sequels, wearing and buying the same things, etc, etc. There is a lack of interest overcoming us all, one at a time. It has infected us to the point of generational identification – we are characterized, motivated, and defined by disinterest, mostly, because of the mechanisms within our society.
In an English class last year, I remember sitting across from my professor while he was critiquing our work and lecturing us on writing as a study rather than a craft. We were supposed to be reading up on linguistics, observing the changes in our lexicon, and making notes on our theories of how we talked and wrote the way we did. Halfway through his lecture, I came to a startling realization. I had lost all my substance. I flipped through my journal entries, the brief, yet vague, notes I made in class, and turned to all the tweets I had bookmarked on X (formerly, Twitter).
Everything was boring. Lifeless. I couldn’t remember when it changed.
Once you see it, you can't unsee it. We lack substance and depth. It’s everywhere, in everything. We’re using terms like ‘low-maintenance friendships’ and watching the rise of the identity-debilitating ‘Situationship™’. Our relationships with one another and with ourselves have become devoid of the very things meant to make them important facets of our lives.
However, it wasn’t until recently that I realized we’re not merely looking at a set of generational factors. We're looking at factors that will likely alter the course of our futures, beyond just our generation. In The Future of Almost Everything, Patrick Dixon says, “If we wish to explore the future, we need to look at how people are likely to feel… as well as what they will think. The single word that will drive the future is emotion.”
So where did our substance go? Despite being perceived as one of the most empathetic and emotional generations, we lack an essence that is turning our world grey, with us at the center, stuck in an endless void of dissatisfaction.
My theory: it’s just capitalism.
THE POWER OF THE INTERNET / WHAT CAN’T BE EXPLOITED?
I remember the first time I came across the internet. I was nine and only focused on playing games on my computer. I only knew of the existence of three websites, Gamespost.com, Youtube.com, and GirlsGoGames.com. Back then, the internet was merely the home of all my favorite things.
In middle school, I welcomed myself into the sphere of social media. I created a Snapchat account, added all my friends on Instagram, and was warped into what was once the world of Musical.ly. The older I got, the more I collided with communities online. I had online friends who I would talk to about books, music, and my favorite artists.
In 2019, I ran a very busy Twitter account dedicated to BTS. In that space, I fell in love with literature, music composition, and journalism. I still have the same Twitter account, but there is a noticeable difference in interaction.
A new wave of K-pop fans have integrated into the space. But, it’s not quite the same. For one, the feeling of community is lacking entirely. Additionally, the same profundity that once existed in online spaces made up of thousands of differing voices has seemingly disappeared. Thousands of new fans have entered the space, and yet it feels emptier than ever. Why is it – and how did it come to be – that in only a few short years, the internet has become a vacuum of hollow and depthless junk instead of a growing, abundant, digital world of people?
It’s because it’s not made up of people anymore. Dead internet theory aside, we do not behave and interact like humans anymore.
Advertising’s good fortunes on the internet have been only a round of good news to the handful of companies that dominate the global digital advertising economy. The industry’s success, which is rooted in virtual restraint, the erosion of privacy, autonomy, and security has impacted democratic society greatly. What some fail to realize is that our world online lies directly at the intersection of technology, marketing, politics, and capitalism as a whole.
And what has the internet become? Pretty much everything.
A surveillance theatre has enmeshed into our lives – or rather, a cultural panopticon.
A panopticon is a prison design created in the 18th century. The original design was a circular building with cells around the outside wall and a central tower of guards. This was meant to monitor as many prisoners as possible with as few guards, and simultaneously, meant to make prisoners modify their behavior to avoid punishment. The key element in this design relied on an inbuilt system of control.
Much like within the panopticon, we are being observed at a high propensity. Singular companies can now control the nervous system of commercial monitoring within the World Wide Web. The data collection infrastructure has been a feat of economic engineering, mainly because of the sheer power it has been allowed to accumulate, but the power it wields on society is immeasurable, and we are beginning to see the effects come to light.
In contemporary society, surveillance practices not only monitor individuals but create a performative display of power, creating an atmosphere of constant observation, which can subtly influence the way people behave. It can mean encouraging self-monitoring behaviors or adjusting the way we present ourselves to others throughout online posts, which can be seen by employers, potential partners, etc.
Notably, algorithms have a hand in the internet consumption that shapes our larger society.
Proof of funneled echo chambers and associated misinformation is one notable implication, but the algorithm creates larger societal impacts, and much of it is by design. When data controls what you see and how you see it, the content it pushes out or redirects toward each user can drastically change how you view the world.
The ways in which we consume content have been hijacked, and these sources are usually advertising-motivated companies. We are becoming trapped in an increasingly shifting commodified digital world. Everything is up for sale, including embarrassment.
In the communication system within the internet, we have turned towards it to interact with others, and in turn, it has changed how we interact. One of the largest indicators of this transaction is within emotional interactions.
In a capitalistic society, emotions have become commodities, bought and sold in the larger market. From the entertainment industry to consumer psychology, the manipulation and management of human emotions has become normal.
The manipulation of our emotions has a large psychological impact. Advertisers directly generate content meant to make us believe we could be happier, livelier, or more content. The subtle power of these continuously expanding norms reprograms our minds. We begin to see the world through this view – what can make me happier? More lively? More powerful? More rich? Heartbreak, sadness, and grief become unrealistic concepts warped by the utopian idea of permanent happiness or an ideal world that looks like everything we want it to be.
One example can be seen with online dating coaches. Shera Seven is an American YouTuber and dating coach and she has been known to promote advice for women. She has been described as “nihilistic” or “Machiavellian” in the ways she approaches advice on leveling up one’s lifestyle.
Many users who have come across her content are more susceptible to easily digesting the content she creates. The amount of seconds spent watching her videos can drive the algorithm to give you more. Before you know it, you are digesting her content into the stomach, letting it fester into your consciousness. Maybe you didn’t intend it to, but the algorithm continues to choose as we would; changing the information that can influence us significantly, and our perspective on the world at large.
Have you ever sat back and considered that you’ve been viewing the entire world inaccurately? What if you have been?
Shera Seven isn’t the only one pushing this kind of content. A more prominent example can be seen with male-dominated content focused on lifestyle as well, and created for male audiences. The online content these creators – and others like them – make can be massively distinct, but the effect is the same: they are changing who we are, within and outside of online spaces.
At the center of our consumerism-driven society is the normalcy of emotional alienation, chronic dissatisfaction, emotional dependence, and loss of authenticity in interpersonal relationships.
The larger effect is simple: emotions are becoming overrated.
In the dark artifices of our capitalistic empire, we make constitutive choices that alienate us from ourselves, and the rest of the world. In other words, the interaction between emotions and capitalism has generated a new type of individual whose identity and behavior are strongly influenced by emotional experiences that live in the online environment dominated by consumption, overexploitation, and facilitated algorithms.
Americans are alone – unprecedentedly alone – and the way our internet world functions only exacerbates this. We are trapped in a world of mirrors, frozen under mechanisms beyond our control, and benefitting from those mechanisms all the same.
THE PRICE WE PAY
Capitalism is a prison we all get affected by. In several ways, every aspect of our life has become commodified. The ways in which we view ourselves, others and our environment have been directly influenced by this rigid prison. These superficial and transactional social mechanisms have influenced our behaviors outside of the internet.
Capitalism teaches us to consume each other; and to look at one another as commodities. A vulnerable/not vulnerable binary has been constructed. Even choosing vulnerability seems fruitless, at times, as it is becoming normal for it to be sold, sometimes as a concept.
For example, the rise of situationships.
Situationships are romantic or sexual relationships that are not considered formal or established. People come together when there is a lack of clarity and spend time together, developing physical or emotional intimacy, all under minimal commitment.
Situationships are the sweetest, warmest, trap you’ll ever be caught in.
They may not be a bad thing, but they produce notable effects, especially the more normalized they become. These romantic “entanglements” have a tendency to treat relationships as temporary or transactional. It’s selfish, at times, because it leads many to “consume” people without fully investing in deep connection. It encourages personal gain, and ambiguity, and oftentimes creates the illusion of “options.”
“Low-maintenance friendships” are another significant example. Many sociopolitical factors can be attributed to these societal interactions. For instance, time constraints due to higher time spent working in labor, personal preferences, and alienation. Due to these, and many other factors, people are becoming less and less involved with their friends.
Depth is contractual. Online, people admit that they can’t comprehend how people owe each other anything. People expect a return on investment from the time they spend with others, and overall, these changing ideas make it hard to build meaningful friendships.
We push towards alienation in pursuit of achievement. We assume interpersonal interaction comes with a return that can be measured, applied, or quantified. There is a constant scramble to receive more than we give; to earn more than we might deserve. Entitlement is in capitalism and it surrounds us at every turn.
Our relationships, after all, are reflections of the world we want to live in and the world we currently encompass.
William C. Anderson has written it the best: “A world free from vulturous, capitalistic exchanges would lead to better relationships. [...] To end capitalism, we have to end capitalism both within and around us. When we liberate our relationships from patterns of thought that replicate the inequalities built into our social systems, a great love can exist that gives us a new feeling of freedom.”
CONCLUSION
Some acknowledgements:
I am writing this as a person in America, who was born in America, and who has lived under American capitalism. I speak from this standpoint. I encourage people from other parts of the world to conduct their analysis of capitalism in relation to emotional culture based on their geographical regions because I truly think it matters in this discussion. Ultimately, though, I am writing from my perspective in America specifically to speak to Americans.
Empathy coexisting with our political status quo is an entirely different essay. In this one, I try to argue about emotional behavior congruent with Gen Z and the time period since loneliness became declared an epidemic, or a public health concern in 2023. I was concerned with demographic trends from 2020-2024, primarily.
I never wrote this intending to spread a political agenda or idea. I am not trying to convince you to change your politics, and I am not trying to convince you to believe my politics. I am merely trying to offer a critical observation of a pattern I’ve seen throughout my society in recent years.
At the time of writing the main chunk of this essay, I was still attempting to predict what our future might look like. I was hopeful for what it could be. I am finishing this post-election, and I have decided to end this essay in a different way than I had intended.
I have read through this, over and over again, with one question in mind: What now? What does our future look like?
We are alarmingly emotionally apathetic, surrounded by mechanisms that are equally as disconnected. Parts of my life have become fragmented in the last four years – some parts more than others – and those fragments are glimmering under the light now. They’ve become so apparent that I am unable to avoid them. I have no choice but to look. Watching the news, watching the world, and looking at anything around us is now becoming harder. Scarier. But we have no other choice, we must look.
Sources (and articles)!
Anderson, William C. “Cutting Capitalism out of Our Relationships.” Truthout, 23 Apr. 2018
Bell, Don. “We Built a Surveillance State. What Now?” POGO, 20 Aug. 2024
Camp, Emma. “Young People Have a Weird New Approach to Relationships and Sex. No One—Not Even Them—Likes What’s Happening.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 17 Nov. 2024
Crain, Matthew . “How Capitalism—Not a Few Bad Actors—Destroyed the Internet.” Boston Review, 3 Aug. 2022
Gioia, Ted. “Why Is Music Getting Sadder?” Honest-Broker.com, The Honest Broker, 10 Sept. 2023
McNeal, Bria. “I Asked a Music Psychologist Why Gen Z Loves Sad Songs.” Esquire, 1 Sept. 2023
Shahrier, Shibly, et al. “Social Value Orientation and Capitalism in Societies.” PLOS ONE, vol. 11, no. 10, 28 Oct. 2016, p. e0165067,