Is cyber celibacy the analogue resistance we’ve been searching for?
Building your own library isn’t the same as building yourself
The resurgence of physical media has become undeniable. In 2021, I discarded my CD player because it broke, and even though I momentarily mourned my 5-item CD collection—mainly comprised of unreturned library and thrifted albums—I since, nevertheless, have happily been on the streaming bandwagon, using a mix of Spotify and smaller, more ethical platforms to listen to my music. However, in 2021, I didn’t realize that owning a CD player would someday, in the near post-pandemic future, become more than just a device. It would become a suggestive personality trait, a performance, and a much deeper yet flawed resistance to our generation’s growing disillusionment with corporatized technologies and the slow death of ownership.
The resurgence of physical media is undeniable. My Instagram regularly feeds me content of people going to libraries, making zines at the park, printing their photographs and social media feeds curating impressive if not obsessive wall-to-ceiling CD and DVD collections, reading magazines (again), and even making the ultimate switch to flip phones and other forms of analog communication and entertainment. Beyond physical media, there’s also smaller changes to how we consume our digital ecosystem and the safety of our online presence: in the last few months, I’ve deleted unused accounts that I didn’t know I even had, gave Meta a good scrub (by disabling location services and limiting my data sharing), started using alternative browsing alternatives, and began using temporary emails.
But in all likeliness, if you’re anything like, going digitally celibate or having an ascetic online footprint is not an option all the time. In 2026, a conscious digital presence isn’t about perfection. I still use ChatGPT to help me research or think of title ideas for essays. I still overshare on apps and let them steal my data. I accidentally had my home address on the resume I uploaded to my public LinkedIn account for months. I’ve been scammed twice, lost $5,000, and had to reopen financial accounts countless times. I still bank with TD even though they have a documented track-record of financing fossil fuel expansion, especially on unceded Indigenous territories. Changing isn’t about perfection. It’s just about…change and intention, however slow and flawed. No such world exists where I will be printing out my Instagram feed or not be looking forward to a two-hour session of forgettable doomscrolling after a long winter’s day. My brain cells can go suck it.
But the physical media trend is more than just a material switch or mere digital cleanse. In my view, our material lives shape behaviour and ideas. Or does behaviour and ideas shape our material lives? This isn’t a lesson in dialectical materialism. Ultimately, I think the popularity of physical media comes as a response to three intersecting realities of modern living: the death of ownership by streaming, a resistance to brain-rot content and hyper-consumption, and the urgency of slowing down and intentionality in a world that implicitly rewards burnout and grind culture.
For me, there’s a particular thrill to discovering new art through browsing a vinyl shop while in a long, caffeine-fuelled fever: the thrill of a complete lack of predictability. You simply don’t know what you’re going to find. You might stumble across a gem of a lifetime. Or not.
I love summers in Toronto when I can just walk down a particularly unremarkable street only to be blown away by the graffiti or even the hand-painted lettering on window signs (a rarity nowadays). Who painted this mural? When and why is it here? What’s the artist’s story? If you’re anything like me, walking into a bookstore (not Indigo or Chapters, please) is simmering with the possibility of striking up a conversation with a stranger or even exchanging book-centered small talk with the cashier. To collect CDs with the prospect of passing them down to my future nibblings is simply delightful.
If you think this all sounds too romantic, then, you’re right. But that’s exactly what physical media represents for us: it signals a shift in what we’re able to appreciate and observe in our daily lives. By slowing down and de-algorithmizing our consumption and curation of art, our experiences have more substance to them. In response to cultural nostalgia, physical media and tangible keepsakes resists algorithmic curation by privileging intentionality and chance encounters over recommendations that feel fine-tuned and optimized but ultimately lack a human touch.
Has the sub-culture become mass culture?
Amidst all this fervor of recapturing a memory for a time long gone or for resisting brain-rot, is the physical media movement reproducing the same over-consumption and frailty it claims to resist? TikTok Shop now sells CD players and other vintage items that signal Y2K aesthetics. At the heart of the analog movement, so to speak, is the irony of it becoming a trend. People (I’ve fallen victim to this) have flocked to their local thrift stores to buy a bunch of CDs all at once or using online stores to purchase niche items that signal nostalgia.
The inescapable irony of physical media is that it’s devolving into just another trend that encourages over-consumption of certain items simply on the basis that they are tangible, perpetuating the illusion of intent and slow curation. I think if this continues, physical media will be just another trend corporations can manipulate to steal our money and attention spans.
Of course, I can easily point the finger at capitalism, but beyond that, I think, at least for me, physical media cannot be a replacement for the world of digital media. Digital media will always be more efficient, convenient, and interactive, and if I go in with the mindset of desiring the same dopamine hit or reach of my physical media library as I do my digital one, I will always be disappointed.
Another reason why I see an inherent tension with physical media is that, due to its rising trendiness, engaging in offline activities and analog items has become almost an accessory to a certain personality; in trying to keep up with the hype of it, the physical media trend blurs the lines between what’s authentic and what’s performance. This isn’t to say that human nature isn’t performative; the very truth of existing means being witnessed by others. For some, it’s survival. For others, its belonging and access to social or cultural capital. However, if we start engaging with physical media by mimicking how we consume digital media, then analog items and behaviours become less about resisting the drudgery of capitalism or slowing down, and more about impressing a certain gaze.
The ironic trendification of analog ultimately stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what analog truly is. Sure, it can be about monitoring our digital lives, reading more, crafting zines, and consuming art physically. But it can also be about nourishing experiences rather than just consuming an object with the secret hope that someone finds us cool.
For me, even though I will never fully transition or even half-transition into the analog lifestyle all the cool, niche girlies on Instagram flaunt, I will use my public libraries more, slow down by spending more time at the park than at the bar, cooking more for myself than eating out, giving myself free hair cuts, and sharing resources with my friends and community. True analog lifestyle is a state of mind where slowness, vulnerability, reciprocity, and appreciation are packaged (no pun intended) into messy yet real experiences.
Analog resistance looks different for everyone.
Opinion Editor (Volume 51); Associate Opinion Editor (Volume 50) — Mashiyat (Mash) is a third-year student studying Neuroscience and Professional Writing and Communication (PWC). As this year’s Opinion Editor, Mash hopes to use her writing, editorial, and leadership skills in supporting student journalism in the essential role it plays in fostering intellectual freedom and artistic expression on campuses. When she’s not writing or slaving away at school, Mash uses her free time cooking cultural dishes, striking up conversations with strangers, and being anxious about her nebulous career plans. You can connect with Mash on her LinkedIn.