going dark: at the intersection of style, algorithms, and digital pacifiers

in the age of AI, the new punk is old school

~**~this post cuts off in email so read in browser or app~**~

I couldn’t help but wonder… What am I, a fashion blogger, supposed to do when I’m no longer interested in fashion?!¹

I could continue to drone on about “minimalism,” “underconsumption-core,” and “sustainability.”

But traversing my metaphorical style graph seems much more fun:

you might interpret each directed edge (arrow) to mean “begets/inspires desire for”

Okay, maybe I exaggerated. I’m clearly still interested in fashion— just not in the way that social media and the algorithm prefer.

Aha! New hypothesis? Anti-algorithmic fashion is the next link in the punk —> grunge —> indie sleaze chain.

F*ck establishments! (except the algorithm is the establishment)

Screw the man! (except the man is Chat GPT²)

A crash course in style rebellion

Punk emerged in the ‘70s as a raw, aggressive reaction to mainstream culture— think ripped clothes, DIY, and rejection of authority.

Born out of Seattle, Grunge took that disillusionment into the ‘90s, trading punk’s speed for apathetic cool. It was anti-glam, anti-capitalist, and full of existential dread.

Indie Sleaze followed in the late aughts like a messier and more online younger sibling. It was defined by Tumblr, partying, and American Apparel irony.

—

Some people say that trends cycle. For example, all three of these aesthetics feature flannel and well-worn denim. And so does my present day style graph. However, anti-algorithmic fashion is inherently not just the algorithmically-favored “return of Indie Sleaze.”

It’s also not just the return of punk or grunge. I’m not trying to make a statement. But I’m also not trying to not make a statement.

I’m just tired.

I’m tired of consuming social media—trends—alcohol—Spotify’s sh*tty, sponsored, repetitive DJ X and daylist recs—dopamine and the subsequent lack thereof from the whiplash heartbreak of dating in the digital age.

I feel consumption’s direct correlation with my mental health. The more time I spend shopping, swiping, and scrolling, the more stressed and depressed I feel.

A brief personal anecdote

After a girls’ night in and a few drinks, I couldn’t fall asleep. My thoughts were running endless 400m loops around my brain like I was back at high school track practice. It was a nightmare— except I was still awake!

My exhausted, 12 a.m. self decided to: 1) pick at my cuticles, and 2) check my phone. I replaced one endless loop with another— from iMessage to Instagram to Hinge and back again, as if anything would change with another lap. As if running would remedy the virtual gut punch of my boy-of-the-month updating his Hinge profile.

Luckily, at almost 25, I know one thing for certain: nothing good happens after 12 a.m.³

src: HIMYM

Around 1 a.m., I finally got my sh*t together. I put the phone (and my cuticles) down and decided that I did not need to remove said boy-of-the-month on Instagram to establish a (false) sense of control.

—

I woke up with renewed determination. I looked my angry clown kitty phone case in the eyes and scowled right back at her:

Normally, I’d get up and grab my phone to scan for urgent texts, check the weather, and put on some music. Instead, I looked up the weather on my laptop. Then, I tried to convince Alexa to play Follow Your Arrow by Kacey Musgraves.

Unfortunately, Alexa is connected to my dad’s Spotify account. So every time I was about to ~~make lots of noise~~ and ~~kiss lots of boys~~ the song would cut to cool jazz.

I pictured my dad trying to listen to his 1940s existentialist jazz saturday morning daylist, befuddled by the periodic interruptions. He must not have been in the mood to ~~roll up a joint~~ on a Saturday at 8 am…

Without looking, I stuffed my phone into my tote and strut over to the coffee shop.

Egads!

I’d usually order on the app… What was I to do? Wait in line and puke up the words “small iced salted caramel latte— yes 2% milk is fine” to a real person?!

Alas, I used the opportunity to confront my fears of ordering from my boy-of-last-month barista (he wasn’t even there).

I spent the next hour sipping my latte, ignoring my phone, and planning my esoteric return to analog. Maybe, if boys could only contact me via carrier pigeon and calling card, they’d actually try and court me…

I could tell I was onto something from my constant sense of dread. It felt like when you know you’ve forgotten something but can’t remember what— and that looking at my phone might remind me.

u kno the vibes

Watch out… Don’t fall into the Walden Pond trap!

Unfortunately for the carrier pigeon economy, I came to my senses.

I don’t want to be beholden to tech, but I don’t want to be scared of it either.

I’d turned my phone into Schrodinger’s box, inside, the answer to an age old question: does he like me back?

And I needed to be okay with a dead f*cking cat.

There’s a delicate balance between setting boundaries and learning to absorb a punch. On one end of the spectrum? Losing yourself. On the other? Isolation.

When you go offline, you cede agency. You exchange one echo chamber for another, where lack of information primes you for manipulation⁴.

Yet, sometimes you need to protect your peace.

In 2025, fast fashion and reverse image search make new trends instantly accessible. And for god’s sake, why can I see which reels my boy-of-the-month has liked?!

Sanity requires more self-restraint than ever.

Or, have we always found unhealthy ways to emotionally regulate? To self-soothe via consumption?

In the past it was TV. Or drinking. It was the pacifier I suckled on until much too old. It could be avoidance or constant reassurance seeking. Nail-biting or skin-picking. Or even building a log cabin alone in the woods of rural Massachusetts.

Anything to ease the discomfort of existing.

So what can you do?

Mind the gap!

I don’t have all the answers, but my best guess? It’s about the space— the pause— between impulse and action. It’s not about escaping escapism (which itself is a paradox), it’s about asking “why?”

Before you pick up your phone, check your texts, swipe through Hinge, ghost someone, doom-scroll, or buy that Zara top, ask yourself, “why?”⁵

In Not Another Low Buy, I argued that diets (both fashion and food-wise) are unsustainable. Consistent success boils down to motivation and intention.

“you’re smart and complex. Work with that, not against it. Rethink your commitment to simple, impersonal prescriptions.”

- me

This logic applies to tech too. Notice your behaviors and emotions and make adjustments accordingly.

For example, my laptop is on permanent do not disturb. And when I found a workaround (checking to see if the little number icon on iMessage had gone up), I got rid of it.

bye b*tch

But discipline doesn’t have to feel like a chore. It can be fun. You just have to reframe things in a way that works for you.

Personally? I love puzzles. So I made my life into one.

Don’t forget about edge cases!

When I weaned myself off the internet, I had to get more curious about people IRL⁶. Instead of searching “spring 2025 trends” on Pinterest, or letting TikTok spoon-feed me ideas, I ask everyone I run into questions about what they’re doing and wearing and buying and using and why.

And while I’m still absorbing information, it’s slower. And my cultural connectedness has changed.

I’ve definitely misused the term crashing out.

And I had no clue WTF Parke⁷ was… I thought our local private school, Francis W. Parker Elementary, had started selling merch.

While I may be one degree further away from the IT trend, my overall network is more dense, i.e., it has more edges. And edges— are narratives— or stories of change.⁸

OTOH⁹, if you focused only on trends, like “the return of indie sleaze,” you might miss the forest for the trees: going against the grain in a digital age.

My style vertices via virtual zine

Now that we’ve got our story, let’s hone in on the nodes of this style network and break down the layers in my anti-establishment fashion model:

because a picture’s worth a thousand words— and a zine is more punk than pure word vomit

Tell me, what is my life?

Maybe it would’ve been easier to grow up during 90’s grunge— before social media and dating apps and TikTok shop. But isn’t it cooler to say you crossed all these paths— and then chose to forge your own?

I talked about weaponizing authenticity on Hinge. That’s step 1.

Steps 2-99 are all the ways in which you choose to stay authentic while dating— or on any journey.

I may crash out, but at least I’ll feel morally superior cuz I refuse to lead people on or ghost.

—

I’d love to fit everything in a box, and tie it up with a bow. I want an answer.

I wanna be online or offline. Loved or not. I want an algorithm that tells me when to have hope and when to call it quits (step 100 is to break from the while loop).

But while I can frame my style philosophy as a directed graph, and Hinge can employ the Gale-Shapley matching algorithm, real life and real people are grayer and scarier than a math problem. We don’t exist inside a box, and there is no right answer to living.

Two roads diverged in a random forest…

Punk. Grunge. Indie Sleaze. At their core, each of these aesthetics is about questioning the mainstream and taking the road less traveled.

Yet, adopting such an aesthetic is not just about looking different. In the 90’s, we’d call that being a poser. And in the 2010’s? A pick me.

You don’t have to paint yourself black just to stand out from the other sheep. However, you should construct the contours of your own world with intention.

Frost¹⁰ was wrong. It wasn’t that the path was less traveled— it was that he followed his arrow. That’s what has made all the difference.

1. Other than philosophize about my dating life and lose subscribers.

2. I’d normally refer to GPT with “she/her” pronouns, given her wisdom, patience, and occasional delusional tendencies.

3. This is from How I Met Your Mother’s Nothing Good Happens After 2 a.m.— except I live in Chicago, not New York, so 2 has been swapped for a more responsible 12.

4. see: Unplugging Is Not The Solution You Want and Against Waldenponding

5. Though I’d argue the answer matters less than simply having asked the question.

6. IRL = in real life

7. girl be so fr rn 😬

@lindseyhyams@Parke isn't just another brand, it’s a definitely building something DIFFERENT @chelsea parke you’re doing a GREAT JOB 🩷🍫 (what’s everybody getting tuesday!?) #BrandStrategy #Parke #marketing #parkemockneck #chelseaparke #parkesweatshirt #parkevday

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8. see: The META Trending Trends: 02025

9. OTOH = on the other hand

10. see: Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken