Video summary
Freya India opens her discussion by highlighting how social media has fundamentally altered modern relationships, turning them into what one commentator described as a "brand collaboration" between two personal entities. She critiques the trend of "soft launching" or fully revealing partners on platforms like Instagram, noting that this practice reduces intimate human connections to mere product placements for an audience. The speaker illustrates this normalization with anecdotes from her travels in Bali, where she observed couples obsessing over lighting and angles rather than enjoying their time together. In these scenarios, the boyfriend becomes a prop used by his partner to generate content, raising questions about whether such moments are genuine memories or performances designed solely for online validation. The conversation delves into how this behavior has become ingrained in young women who grew up during the rise of influencer culture. Freya argues that many ordinary people now operate with an "influencer mindset," constantly evaluating their lives through a lens of potential social media content, even when no one is watching. This shift suggests that individuals have internalized the obligations of professional creators as personal habits, making it difficult to conceive of living without documenting every moment for digital consumption. The speaker notes that this phenomenon extends beyond simple memory-keeping; some young people genuinely go on holidays or enter relationships specifically to generate content, effectively outsourcing their sense of experience and validation to an algorithmic audience rather than engaging with the present reality around them. A significant portion of the dialogue addresses the root causes behind these behaviors, linking them directly to family breakdowns and a lack of traditional community structures. Freya points out that over half of children in the UK do not live with both parents by age fourteen, leading to a profound sense of abandonment and loneliness among Generation Z. Without stable families or local neighborhoods providing guidance and belonging, many young people turn to online communities like Reddit forums or TikTok for emotional support. This reliance on digital spaces exacerbates feelings of isolation, as individuals seek connection from strangers who offer validation that they cannot find in their fractured real-world environments. The speaker connects this pervasive sense of abandonment to specific psychological traits often observed in Gen Z, such as hyper-sensitivity to criticism and low self-esteem, which align with attachment theory regarding those who have experienced early separation or trauma. She suggests that the "narcissistic" or selfish behaviors frequently mocked by older generations are actually survival mechanisms for people trying to fill a void left by absent parents and non-existent communities. Furthermore, she notes the decline in religious affiliation among this demographic removes another layer of belonging, leaving young people feeling untethered from anything larger than themselves. Consequently, they spend excessive time on screens seeking reassurance that their existence matters, inadvertently reinforcing the very behaviors that contribute to their feelings of inadequacy and disconnection.
Read the full video transcript
I guess even relationships have been
infected by social media. The boyfriends
of Instagram trend has been around for a
while but uh has maybe escalated. Well,
have you seen like I read an article the
other day made me want to kill myself.
It was about it was about like soft
launching your boyfriend on Instagram.
Please tell me more. So, it's about
telling girls, so this young woman
wondering how should you announce to
your followers, like not influencers,
like I'm talking ordinary young women,
how should you announce your boyfriend?
Should you do a soft launch where it's
just like his arm or should you do like
a full reveal and it's like, but it's
kind of messed up because it's like this
is like introducing a brand deal or
something. Um, like literally viewing
our partners like products. M like yeah,
how do we how does this play in the
optics of public life? Someone said to
me the other day, oh, they commented on
my Substack article like a relationship
is now just a brand collaboration like
two personal brands coming together.
Wow, that's good. And then posting it
online. That's really good. Yeah.
Soft launching. Well, I've I've seen
people talk about the hard launch, which
is just a couple photo that happens out
of nowhere. Yeah. Well, so you have all
of that. You have like how do you manage
the relationship on social media, but
then you also have how social media
affects the relationship. So like the
boyfriends of Instagram thing like it's
kind of funny that boyfriends, you know,
when you see like a guy literally on the
floor trying to get a good angle of the
guy. There was a I went to Gilly Tea in
uh Bali. It's one of these little
islands about 5 years
ago and there's a famous beach club
that's got a swing. sort of out in the
water and it's gorgeous. The sun sets
because it's so close to the equator.
The sun sets in the summer at 6:30 p.m.
and in the winter at 6 PM. It's like 12
hours of daylight and it just sh wobbles
a little bit like that. Mhm. And
this this girl wanted to get a photo of
her on the swing, but she wanted to
catch the sort of sun bouncing off the
top of the water. Yeah. And I remember
thinking like watching this guy and she
was saying, "No, no, no. You need to get
lower. You need to like get sort of
lower down, closer to the water." this
dude's sort of chest to shoulder to neck
to fet. And by this time it's C. It's
the C. So it's not being gentle with
him. So he's like trying to take this
photo. The phone's out of the water.
He's getting splashed. I remember
thinking like that really better be
wifey because that's a big ask. Well,
also I I just always think who is it for
if your boyfriend is right there? Like
it it does get to the point where you're
like posing in a bikini and your
boyfriend's taking the pictures of you.
It's like, is this for Instagram?
Because I don't I don't know. It just
it's it's such a strange thing that's
become so normalized. It's a little bit
of an indicator. I mean, unless this is
your new album cover or whatever for
your po slam poetry or some that
you do, there is a little bit of like
surely the person that you're trying to
impress the most is yeah, the one that's
taking the photo. So, what does the
photo need to be taken for? Unless it's
very private collection. But it's it's
become so normalized that like when I
wrote about boyfriends of Instagram,
people were replying like, "Oh, but you
know, I'm trying to get memories and
stuff." Uh, and like I had a picture in
it. Yeah. There was a picture of like
three girls in bikinis and three guys
all on the same beach all taking
pictures of their girlfriend. And people
were defending it like, "Oh, they're
allowed to have memories." Like, what? A
memory of you in a
bikini? Like, but I actually I don't
think they're lying. I think that's just
how normalized it's become. It's like,
well, obviously if you go to the beach,
you do a photo shoot. Um, and I always
try and express that to people like you
think of an influencer and how her
income depends on taking pictures and
everywhere she goes, she has to get
content. Um, ordinary women think like
that now. Most people have it in the
back of their mind, I should be getting
a social media picture or this is a good
moment or this landscape would get
really good clicks. Like that's how they
think. Um, and I I don't think some
older people realize that young girls
are behaving and thinking like their
influencers
all the time. Is that an aspirational
thing? Is that just that the power users
of Instagram and Tik Tok behave like
that because it's their job, which means
that the people who are not they they
have none of the same obligations feel
like they should behave in the same way
or is there something more going this
aspirational? Is this that people hope
maybe I get picked up by a modeling
agency? I think a part of it is that,
but I think another part is it they
started doing this when their brains
were forming as young girl. They started
capturing their life as they went and
they don't think they can conceive of
just living and existing. I really think
it's that ingrained of like their entire
childhood was having a child childhood
but also performing and marketing and
managing it all at the same time. Um,
and then like when you try and get out
of it, like when I deleted Instagram
years ago, uh, that lingering was still
in my head of like maybe I should share
this online or maybe this could be a
good photo opportunity. And it's it's
really hard to not to kind of unwire
that. And now if I go to an event and I
don't take a picture, young women I'm
friends with will be kind of confused.
Like I say, I've been on holiday and I
have no evidence of it. It's confusing
to them because that suspicious about
whether or not you actually went on the
holiday. It's kind of weird. Um, and I
think there are genuinely young people
who go on holiday to get pictures who
even get in relationships for the photos
and who are quietly living their life
for Instagram
in ways that people don't realize has
become that intense.
What do you make of the contribution of
family breakdown to this? Of that you
mentioned before about that sort of lack
of guidance, people looking for a little
bit of guidance. Um maybe filling the
void with entertainment that typically
would have been taken up by family. What
what role does family breakdown have
here? I think it's linked to what I was
saying about yeah looking for
relationship guidance. It's like um
well, you look at something like mental
health Tik Tok um people are sharing
like their really deep trauma and
turmoil and problems. Um and you can't
help but look at it and think, are you
close to your family? Like this is the
kind of thing that you talk about with
your family. It's what your family is
there for. And now you're telling
strangers on TikTok. Um, and then you
look at the statistics of the amount of
Gen Z who aren't living with both their
mother and father. I think it's I think
in the UK it's over half of children by
14 don't live with their mom and dad.
Um, and so they don't have a feeling of
belonging at home and then you stretch
that out to they don't have any sense of
community. Their community is a Reddit
forum or Instagram. Like I growing up
had no sense of what a local community
is or like neighbors knowing each other.
It's just is really foreign to me. And I
think a lot of Gen Z, they don't have a
conception of it beyond like an online
community or like the LGBT community or
something that is the limit of community
they know. So their family falls apart.
There's nothing really to catch them.
There's no neighborhood of adults who
are there. Um then you add that they're
becoming less religious. So they don't
feel that they belong to anything bigger
than that. They have no faith in
anything bigger.
Um and so the feeling of loneliness is
just so intense. Um, and I was writing
recently about how I think that actually
one of the biggest drivers of behavior
we see among Gen Z is this abandonment
fear and feeling um because their
families fell apart because they don't
have community because they don't belong
to anything bigger um they feel
constantly alone and if you look at the
kind of symptoms of abandonment if you
look at like attachment theory like real
attachment theory not the Tik Toks but
the like Mary Answorth study and
everything. Um, it shows like people who
are abandoned, they're really hyper
sensitive to criticism. They have very
low body image and self-esteem. Um, all
of the kind of caricature of Gen Z, all
of the traits are like to do with this
feeling of not belonging anywhere. Um,
so not not to say that it explains
everything, but I think families
breaking down and not having a sense of
belonging really messes people up. And I
think a lot of Gen Z are kind of
carrying that around and then looking
for it in places. So they're obviously
they're going to spend hours on TikTok
where people are talking to them and
talking about their problems because
they don't have anything resembling that
in real life. Um and so yeah, I think a
lot of the things we kind of laugh at
young people for as being kind of
narcissistic and um I guess selfish and
kind of we cringe at them having these
crazy screen times. It's like what else
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