The Noise Is the Point

On fashion, consumption, and how to trust yourself in the chaos.

I work in fashion. I work in content creation. I understand how trends are built, how urgency is manufactured, how emotional manipulation gets packaged as inspiration. I know exactly how the game is played.

And still—I get overwhelmed.

That should tell you something.

Because this isn’t just about being “online too much” or needing a digital detox. It’s more complicated than that.

We often turn to social media because we’re already burned out. I know I do. Scrolling feels like a break, a way to zone out for a minute—but instead of helping us decompress, it quietly winds us up.

And when I start to feel bad about myself—about how I look, how I dress, what I own—it’s almost never just about the post I’m looking at. There’s always something else going on in the background of real life. Something tender. Something tired. Something raw.

And the system knows that.

The swirl of content, chaos, and contradiction we’re swimming in? It’s working exactly as intended. The strategy is simple: keep us too distracted to think clearly, too breathless to pause, too anxious to feel content.

We’re living in a world where breaking news breaks every five minutes. And fashion and beauty? They’ve plugged right into that cultural storm.

So we scroll.

And with every scroll, the message gets louder:

Buy this. Ditch that. This is in. That’s cringey.

But it’s not just about clothes anymore.

Sometimes it’s about keeping up.
Looking like you know.
Performing relevance.
Proving you still belong.

But honestly, it’s not always about women feeling less than.
It’s more subtle than that.

It’s the quiet, internal shrug: “Okay... maybe?”
It’s the creeping assumption that we don’t know. That we’re out of touch. That we must have missed something.

So we second-guess.
We defer.
We abandon our instincts for the promise of fitting in, or keeping up, or not getting it “wrong.”

And the messaging? It’s nonstop—and impossible to reconcile:

Be minimal, but also stay current.
Be body positive, but also dress to "flatter."
Be smart with money, but invest in this $700 shoe.

It’s rage-baiting.
It’s trend-chasing.
It’s emotional manipulation dressed up as empowerment.