The Internet, & the Industry of Intimacy

It’s no shock to hear that people nowadays are becoming more isolated. Recent studies have shown this, people are more lonely, having fewer relationships, less sex, especially younger people. I’m certain it’s no coincidence, that this dip in the quality of our social lives and well-being has arrived at the same time as the peek commercialization of intimacy. It’s not just porn, no, though that’s the most obvious of these profitable industries. A significant amount of online content is centered on filling this gap, from para-social relationships with youtubers, tiktokers, whoever, to the theatre of intimacy, with touch, whispers, and care of ASMR, a genre which has exploded and become saturated since the pandemic. I think we are a touch-starved generation, and content becomes more easily available than real relationships which take effort and courage to build. There’s also such a gratuitous amount o content available, that consumption becomes it’s own type of investment, in our real time, affection, and money. I wonder if every success story under capitalism comes from a vulnerability. But then the question also becomes of the chicken and the egg, whcih came first: did the internet manufacture the issue it is now proposing to solve?