MY ADDICTION TO FOMO
parties, raves and festivals on socials: forever feeding my fear of missing out
You’d think as I’ve gotten older I would be less susceptible to something like the fear of missing out. But the rise of social media, with its never-ending images of people near and far connoting class distinctions and cultural cache, makes fomo an insidious addiction that’s tough to beat.
The algorithm (that obviously loves me and is only responding to my curated wishes) reliably floods my feed with a steady stream of instant dopamine hits: parties on boats off the coast of some small hard to reach European island, dimly lit warehouses of bumping bodies dressed in black sporting grinning faces and dilated pupils hidden under matrix style sunglasses; each picture or video capturing peak moments from contented ravers, party-goers, and Djs, all with effervescent captions brimming with positive vibes:
“Thank you Panaroma bar for having me!”
“Ushuaia, you were lit!”
“Two weeks later and I’m still buzzing from Horst festival. The most incredible family. Can’t wait for next year.”
Before you come for me, dear reader, I am well aware that I contribute to the problem. I too spend an allotted amount of time tweaking my own photos, adding the appropriate filters and background music in hopes of garnering a multitude of floating hearts that pop and fizz like champagne.
My addiction is a layered mess: I’m addicted to judging other people’s photos while simultaneously longing to be a part of the fun, and I equally crave that my own images of coffees dates along the canal or videos of DJ drops at 4am cause fomo-inducing envy from friends and followers.
Back when I lived in New York, I kind of had my fomo under control, mainly because I was just too tired from hustling for rent money to muster up the required energy to even care. There were just too many parties, too many happenings every single evening that it felt like an impossibility to be every where and be everything all at once. In New York City, sometimes the act of walking to work in the morning, and surviving the subway ride home was enough of an event.
But now this intersection of location, media, (and what? boredom? privilege?) has re-awoken this desire to be in hip places and dance in dark spaces. Here in Amsterdam, I lie in bed, doom scrolling all the parties in Holland that are happening at the same time, constantly wondering how is it even conceivable that so many people come here to have a good time? While journalists like Shawn Reynaldo writing about the demise of global festivals, why does it feel like the opposite in the Netherlands? And with this seemingly over saturation of festivals, and skyrocketing festival prices, I can’t help but wonder: who are all these young people who can afford this lifestyle? On the one hand, there’s a part of me that believes in the sense of community and collective euphoria these festivals and club nights tend promote though their media content. Yet my dark-sidedness creeps up on me and feels the sting of a subtle sense of othering.
I guess in the end, it’s not really a fear but a frustration. It’s a lingering annoyance that part of my “missing out” is due to the fact that I can’t really afford to “opt-in.”
Final note: the writer of this piece would like to acknowledge that as of right now, he still suffers from fomo at various degrees of intensity. While on occasion he finds himself too busy to even care what other people are doing or where they’re partying, his rotted, addicted brain still scrolls incessantly, longing to be part of the many who rave on boats on the Mediterranean, or dance in dark factories scheduled for demolition.