I recently came across an interesting trend called the "Analog Bag" that was making the rounds on TikTok.

Influencers, mostly female, would display their bag along with all of the "analog" paraphernalia they carry in it to stay offline instead of scroll on their phone.

At first I was happy to hear that getting offline is gaining traction on shortform platforms, but my hopes were shortlived.

It turns out most of these videos are focused on the aesthetic of the offline lifestyle, not the lifestyle itself.

A lot of the videos are people showing off all of the analog products they bought and pointing people toward affiliate links to generate revenue for their content.

I've seen a similar trend that's more male-dominated on YouTube where people are buying dumbphones that cost $600, luxury watches to tell time offline, and "minimalist" word-processors that are meant to provide distraction-free writing spaces that cost more than an entry-level laptop.

If you only had an $800 word processor and a bag full of 90's-era technology you could finally focus, or so the promise goes.

The common thread between this type of content is that the products are what matter.

While the intention behind buying analog products to get offline more is good, these videos miss the point of the analog movement altogether.

Cal Newport's book Digitial Minimalism was released in 2019 and in it he tried to articulate a philosophy of technology use to help people reclaim their time and attention.

In a nutshell, digital minimalism is a philosophy to live by where you only use digital tools that directly support your values and happily miss out on the rest.

He based this idea on the older Minimalism movement that believed less can be more. That movement encouraged people to stop buying so much stuff and start making better use of the things they already had. It was a movement of anti-consumerism that eventually became commercialized into an aesthetic, one that influencers started to capitalize on to sell people more and more stuff.

Unfortunately, these video trends seem to be pointing toward the same consumerist behaviors overtaking the offline movement.

A $600 dumbphone doesn't turn you into a digital minimalist; regulating your relationship with your phone in support of your values does.

But that's more complicated that buying the gadget. That requires knowing what your values are, monitoring your phone habits, and creating intentional space between you and your devices.

All that simply doesn't translate well in a social media landscape that lacks nuance. It's simpler to say, "This Analog Bag fixed my brain."

The bag doesn't do anything. Writing in your journal, reading books, hanging out with friends, going for walks, challenging yourself to learn new skills, exploring the city, petting your dog, cooking without headphones in, embracing uncertainty, deeply contemplating what you want out of this life–that's what fixes your brain.

Living an intentional lifestyle has everything to do with living life and nothing to do with stuff.

I still think the movement toward analog and offline are a net positive, even if some of the influencers are capitalizing on the consumerist in us all.

Nobody is safe from clever marketing and psycology hacking, but the odds are you already have everything you need.

Prompt: When was a time you bought the stuff instead of doing the thing?

I'll go first.

When I first had the idea to start a YouTube channel I fell for the consumer trap.

I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube promoting all the gear and gadgets that would get me the look I desired. I bought an expensive camera, new lenses, lights, filters, microphones and tripods–all of it before I ever filmed a single video.

So here I was with debt and a bunch of gear I didn't even know how to use with a fiancé asking some legimate questions about what my plans were.

I spent the next year doing everything BUT make videos. I was too scared and the pressure to perform after spending all of that money was getting to me.

It was only after returning home from my honeymoon, and a lot of journaling sessions while traveling, that I lowered the bar enough to get started.

I put aside the idea of using all of the fancy lights and gear I had bought and simply turned on the camera to talk about something on my mind.

If I could go back I would still buy a decent microphone and skip the rest of the stuff. My phone camera would've done the job just fine.

It was only after making a few videos did I start to develop a need for more tools, but at that point I was doing the thing, not buying the stuff to signal I'm the type of person who does the thing.

There's a big difference.