Like most people with a phone and an internet connection, I am riddled with TikTok brain rot. My mind used to be a useless repository of second World War Leaving Certificate facts and Angelina Jolie’s kids’ names, but now all that’s going on up there is short bursts of remixed music and viral catchphrases.
But there’s one thing our Gen Z overlords on TikTok have got right, and that’s the trend of posting “propaganda” they “won’t fall for”. These are things, actions or concepts they won’t be engaging with now they’ve experienced the truth of them. Like training for a half marathon, multi-day hen or stag parties, participating in organised religion or buying the Aldi reformer pilates machine.
I see them, and would like to raise them. Here’s a list of things I know will disappoint me but keep on doing because I’m a true believer that maybe this time, things will be different. This is the propaganda I know I will fall for. Time and time again.
Booking a 6am flight to go on holidays
I am quite good with money. I know exactly how to spend it all
Flying Ryanair, smoking on holiday and other things I’ll keep doing even though I shouldn’t
Brianna Parkins: I envy Irish childhoods and the special confidence Irish children seem to have
‘I am Alan f***ing Sugar’: I marvel at my business acumen on DoneDeal
My mother was right. Nothing good happens at 4am. Especially not dragging my arse out of bed on my first day of sanctioned rest and relaxation to get to the airport. The predawn hours are not for shuffling in a queue for the bag drop. They’re for much more healthy and worthwhile pursuits like staring at the ceiling in a state of existential dread because you’re trying to sleep but your brain has the pressing need to remind you of the time you called the teacher “Mam” in school.
You always forget something. Everyone is narky. Relationships are hanging by a thread. There are no giddy preflight pints. There’s an air of gritted determination to just get on the plane so you can go back to sleep to the relaxing sensation of a child kicking the back of your chair. You despair at the future of the human race when stuck behind a person who failed to comprehend that you can’t bring a 1 litre bottle of shampoo in carry-on luggage. It’s the worst way to begin your hard-won week off. But when I see that the 6am flight is €200 cheaper, it wipes my memory clean like a good, thick name-brand kitchen roll. “I know it’s early but we’ll be able to make the most of our first day there!” I exclaim. Even though that same first day will be in effect ruined by being tired, sweating into leggings because it’s too early to check into your room yet, and trying to nap on a plastic sun lounger until you feel like a fit member of society.
Flying Ryanair
We’ve all said “never again” but like the emotionally unavailable bad boy we dated in our 20s, Ryanair knows we’ll come crawling back. Flight late? Got diverted to Kyrgyzstan on your way to Malaga with no refund? Called the customer complaints line but it was just pre-recorded fart noises and a stranger telling you “it was a €19.90 flight, cop on to yourself!”? It doesn’t matter what they did to you. You know it and I know it. All it takes is a cheap city break and you’ll be back in that glorified bus in the sky.
Smoking cigarettes in a foreign country
Smoking will kill you. It’s easier to remember this fact on home soil. Smoking a cigarette in your dressing gown out the back garden next to your failed veggie box feels scaldy and miserable. Vaguely Soviet even. But smoking in Sicily or Nice, in a cafe on a cobblestoned square, feels sophisticated, worldly. Vaguely philosophical. It’s cultural. It’s gross, is what it is. But I’ll do it anyway.
Spray tans
These can give you a “natural” glow as long as you accept orange into your palette of natural skin colours. They can go streaky, flaky or so dark that it raises the sweaty paranoia of being accused of doing modern-day black face. Plus, it involves standing naked in front of a complete stranger, in a John Wayne pose while they spray you with cold, biscuit-scented liquid. I’ve only had one in my life, but in 10 years’ time when I’m invited to a special event I’ll forget and dye myself orange again out of panic.
I could go on – from buying veggies “that I’ll cut up and snack on instead of crisps”, to signing up to subscriptions that “I’ll cancel once the free trial is over”. From “wild camping” to matcha, the list of things I want to believe in is never ending.
