Why are we in our ‘era’ era?
It started harmlessly enough.
Before the Taylor Swift tour, 'eras' were a way for popstars to reinvent themselves and stay relevant to changing trends. Then it trickled down to us, like Andy’s lumpy blue sweater.
Way back in 2020, TikTok’s popularity went supernova in the West. Cooped up in our homes, starved for entertainment and human contact, we self soothed through its infinite scroll. When other social media apps started co-opting its addictive specs, it made the internet feel like a casino, without clocks or windows. Gradually, it collapsed time.
Most people I speak to still feel the age they were before lockdown. IRL time was suspended, but on the internet it moved faster than ever. So it’s no surprise that we have taken to carving it up ourselves, and dividing our lives into eras.
Announcing that you are in your '[insert here] era' says, This is who I am; this is who I want to be; this is how I see myself and how I want you to see me – but without actually having to say any of that. That would be cringe.
But the time aspect of eras – defining a specific period in your life by something transient and on-trend – is significant. Like the invention of rolling news, social media’s transition to always-on entertainment requires constant newness to keep the content flowing. And for users broadcasting themselves 24/7, they are the product. They need to seem new – to reinvent themselves as often as fast fashion brands rushing products to the proverbial shelves.
The counterweight to our obsession with newness is a strong desire for “reliable markers of passing time”. We’ve never been more in love with the seasons, for one – unequivocal proof of time passing, even if we spent eight hours scrolling and aren’t sure what day it is.
Each season is marked by fanfare, renewed aesthetics and moodboards. It’s not just our wardrobe. Home decor gets seasonal updates. The warmest September on record didn’t stop us queuing up for our Pumpkin Spiced Lattes, sweating in our plaid shirts. Faithfully, the PSL puts a flag in the sand of our year – something we can’t count on in our chronically online, day-to-day lives.
As long as the social media wheel keeps spinning and the content keeps flowing, it will feed the anxious perception that time is slipping through our fingers. And though time is, famously, out of our control, fabricating ways to divvy up our life into aesthetic little boxes traps us in the same cycle of reinvention.
Most of us will live many lives. But if we can come up for air for a moment, we'll see that a thousand eras lived on TikTok isn't the same thing, and treating your life as a product doesn't necessarily give it value. But hey, if sipping Starbies in your cosy-autumn-gym-girl-era-fit staves off the fear of death for a minute, who am I to judge?