All of my column ideas these days start with getting mad about something I see on TikTok, and this one is no different.
2.6 million views and thousands of supportive comments on this TikTok about not knowing what to say when people (presumably men on dates) ask you, a Normal Woman, what your hobbies are. The video graciously provides a list of “Girl Hobbies” you can supply which include “grabbing a lil treat,” “hot girl walk,” “social media investigative work,” and “shopping.” Another one (pretty funny, probably ironic) with a similar view count proudly puts a claim on the sole two hobbies of “coffee shops” and “blocking motherfuckers who pissed me off.”
Why are these women gleefully romanticizing their banality? Perhaps because if they didn’t, they would have to admit to the lack of color in their lives. Not to say the above activities are inherently insipid—I literally do all of them, constantly. Especially shopping. But I do other stuff too!!!!! Is that… unusual? Am I the weird one? (I mean, I know I am. But.)
Searching “no hobbies” on TikTok brings up a deluge of similar videos, all from women. Some videos are proud, others are anxious, wondering if they’re “NPCs” because of their lack of concrete interests.
Now, I really, really want to believe that every single person on this planet has the ability to find one or more things they are genuinely passionate about, things outside the realm of work or the self-care consumer industrial complex (which many of the women in the above videos claim as their main pastimes).
However, I do have to acknowledge based on undeniable evidence that there is a bell curve of “interestingness” amongst human beings, and that the majority of people have a lower carrying capacity for enthusiasm than little-old-outlier me and my hyperfixated internet friends. Fine! But regardless, one of my most closely-held long-term goals in life is to communicate to others, in whatever way I can, the ability to find those things. At the very least, the act of looking has the important potential to make one’s life better.
The “no hobbies girl” phenomenon, and the failure, proud or otherwise, of the affected women to develop a defined cultural identity is, I believe, a matter of taste. The societal structures of taste defined in the 1960s by the work of Bordieu, dependent as they were on the existence of boundaries between high and low culture, and the legitimization of culture from the top down, have for the most part been dissolved by the Internet, in favor of a democratic digital amateurism. Where does that leave us, and our ability to develop personal taste? Perhaps “no hobbies girl” being a TikTok thing in the first place is a self-fulfilling prophecy, signifying that those who spend a lot of time on the app are suffering communally from the type of ennui which drains you of any desire or ability to differentiate yourself.
This seems like a sensible explanation. The very state of having niche interests is penalized by that thrice-damned lowest-common-denominator app. Nobody wants to watch my TikToks about Antarctic exploration, to my great sadness. But I am able and willing to continue on my eccentric path in spite of the difficulties; I may be relatively unusual in that. Probably if you’re reading this you are too.
Writer Kyle Chayka, in conversation with Ezra Klein on an excellent episode of Klein’s podcast last week (h/t Matthew Jordan), hit the nail on the head in a discussion of how algorithms are threatening personal taste, touching on concepts like the responsibility of curation and global coffeeshop culture. I wish I could copy-paste the entire transcript—please, listen to the whole thing, it’s fantastic, like all of Chayka’s writing—I can’t wait to get my hands on his new book about algorithmic culture.
He says:
[S]carcity is often what creates meaning. When you’re surrounded by infinite possibilities, when you know around the next corner is another video that might be funnier or more to your liking, you’re never going to sit with the thing that’s in front of you. You’re never going to be forced to have the patience, or the fortitude maybe, or the kind of willpower to fight through something and figure out if you truly like it or not.
Whereas, I think fighting that generic quality and figuring out at least one thing that brings you joy and you’re passionate about and that makes that change happen in your brain makes you have this encounter that you never expected. That’s the only thing that’s worth doing in life, kind of.
“You’re never going to sit with the thing that’s in front of you.” As culture becomes more ambient, as Chayka puts it, we are less willing to permit even the possibility of difficulty, struggle, or discomfort into our cultural lives. We lose our willpower; we lose our attention, sacrificing it on the altar of the algorithm for the monkey’s-paw blessing of never having to be bored.
Boredom, according to historian of the concept Patricia Meyer Spacks, hardly existed prior to the Enlightenment, which in the late 18th century brought about secularization, individualism, and the idea that people had a right to pursue happiness—to say nothing of the parallel invention of leisure, as a distinct cultural concept to oppose work.
Following onto this genealogy, Spacks identified, for the 20th century, two types of boredom: productive boredom, along the lines of meditation, and then on the other hand “the tedium of required activity” which leaves no room for creativity.
The 21st century has effectively abolished both types of boredom in favor of the endless digital hedonic treadmill, where everything is interesting—so nothing is. Without “the signal [boredom] offers of disharmony between self and environment,” as Spacks frames it, who can tell that anything is wrong at all? Nothing is wrong, surely, with having so little interest in the world that your lifestyle can be distilled down into a series of mundane and generic “girl hobbies” which occupy every moment not already taken up by work, television, exercise, and TikTok?
Okay, sorry, I’m getting it out of my system. Really, it’s not the phenomenon that bothers me so much as the pride in it, the grinning acceptance of it. My feminism is one with a central pillar of Let’s All Try To Be A Little More Interesting, Girls, Shall We?
Spack quotes Walter Benjamin: "If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.” Algorithmic systems and ambient culture, rustling and rustling away endlessly, not only strip us of the ability and desire to make judgments of taste, but they threaten to strip the experience of taste itself of its appeal altogether. Far too much work!
Oddly, some girl hobbies seem to do quite well on TikTok. BookTok, for one, but anything and everything DIY seems to do fine, whether it’s home decor or sewing.
(I personally don’t use TikTok, but I know there’s some overlap with these topics on YouTube.)
I don’t know why history would do worse than popular literature, but maybe it’s the relative nuance not lending itself to punchy impact. (The lack of a product for sale probably doesn’t help, either.) Hence, I guess, podcasts and YouTube being more conducive?
Also, of course, as you mention, the TikTok algorithm does seem to be less geared towards particularly niche subtopics. Maybe that’s just the cost of aggressively algorithmic feeds.
This was amazing and fascinating--i had no idea about this tiktok trend. thank you for linking the boredom PDF!