Old People Shit. (It's The New "Hot Girl Summer.")

Apparently "analog bags" are a thing amongst the under thirty influencers on THE TikToks and other places. Yes, you heard that right, Analog. Bags. What are these "analog bags" that I am speaking of (in case you live in a social media bereft cave)? In the words of the purplest and much missed artist Prince, "Dig if you will the picture," of a bag with activities in it for adults. . . kind of like the quiet bags a lot of churches have to keep unruly children silent during services. Books, markers, knitting, crocheting, word searches, magazines, really tiny and useless watercolor sets. . . yada, yada, yada. The idea is to have something tempting to keep one's self off of one's cellphone.

So. . . Old People Shit is trending again. Someone come hold my tea and earrings whilst I jump into the fray.

In the interest of full disclosure, I probably spend too much time on social media myself so I'm not really "coming for" these creators or their ideas. . . . I'm just enjoying the absurdity of rebranding something old as "new."

Alright. . now that I've hopefully assuaged some feelings, let's jump in with my knee jerk reaction to this:

What. The. Fresh. Fuck?!?!?!

Is it really that uncommon for people to not have SOMETHING on hand to do that isn't staring at their phones as though they have been transported into a Clockwork Orange hellscape? Really?!?! I honestly don't know. I'm a person who usually has something on me to distract myself because. . . why wouldn't you have that? As far as I have been able to make out, an analog bag probably contains something crafty, something read-y, something arty, and/or something brain game-y. These are all good things to have on hand but what really baffles me is that the influencers seem to think you need a SEPARATE bag for these things. Why not just throw them in whatever bag you are usually running around with?

This is my purse/project bag. All the purse things and two small projects.

I also feel the need to point out that, according to the current wisdom on these bags, you have to have something like EVERY. SINGLE. OPTION. EVER. in them. As a person who is a serial over-packer (and over estimator of my own speed) of my knitting (only) bag, I'm here to tell anyone who cares that no one is going to get around to doing all those things if they are just out and around for the day's activities. Friends, you're just taking your supplies on a field trip. Do yourself a favor and ratchet back a bit.

Analog bags aren't the only thing surging to the forefront of social media trendsetting. Apparently "grandma core" is a thing, an aesthetic, a lifestyle. My understanding is that one aspect of grannycore has to do with adopting activities, that are traditionally associated with old ladies: knitting, crocheting, needlework, baking, etc, and so forth. I mean. . . these are all cool and fun things to do but my question is this: why didn't the adults in these young people's lives teach them to do some of these things? Did they. . . and then phone addiction took over? Did they not? According to my students, only 3 of them were taught any of these granny hobbies (or any hobby) when they were younger. I guess, if I'm being honest, my adults didn't teach me any of these hobbies either. I taught myself to knit when I was 28 and that was the beginning of my decent into craft madness. So. . . as I'm thinking my way through what feels like a silly influencer trend for clicks, I'm starting to see why it feels new and fresh for the youth. (My point about not needing every craft or hobby in a bag still stands though.)

This realization is really fucking sad. What is wrong with people that they don't teach and encourage their spawn to have a wide variety of interests that will make them more well-rounded humans? I know a lot of people sign their kids up for every activity under the sun but that's not really the same thing as sitting down yourself with your people and teaching them things. . . especially things they can carry with them throughout life--it's sort of like that old "teach a person to fish" chestnut. Folks need creative outlets. There's also quite a bit of evidence that shows crafting is really beneficial for mental health. No one should be denied that, in my opinion.

I might have a journaling problem also. Any bag MUST fit at least one project, my journal, and the purse things.

So. . . despite the idea of "Analog bags" feeling thoroughly ridiculous on the surface (especially to those of us who grew up having to entertain ourselves) I'm thinking that if we, as a society, aren't teaching young people how to create, we have no one to blame but ourselves if they discover crafting and other hobbies via influencers on THE TikToks.