If I hear about Millennial sock length one more time, I’ll scream.

I swear I’ll do it. We’ll both be very embarrassed, but I will.

At some point on the grey, monotonous bog that is the modern internet, someone pointed out that Millennials like to wear ankle socks while Gen Z prefer socks that are longer. 

Now, unless you’re the kind of person who jerks it to foot pics, I would classify this as extremely boring information. 

Apparently I am in the minority.

There are now thousands of Instagram reels and TikTok videos talking about this topic. Accumulatively, that’s days worth of footage about sock length. People (who will one day be dead) have set up the camera phones, given a little spiel about millennials needing to throw out their old socks. Then another group of equally-mortal people have consumed it.

Sand pours through the hourglass. We are all a step closer to the grave.

If you’d asked a decade ago what worried me about the internet, I might have said something about its lawlessness; about drugs on the dark web or 3D guns. If I was feeling particularly like a Bachelor of Arts graduate, I might have talked about misinformation and the undermining of democracy. 

God I pine for it to be just those things. 

What I didn’t anticipate was the explosion of boring, mindless dross delivered in a format as addictive as intravenous heroin. 

How would you have reacted ten years ago if you’d seen a video of someone putting on makeup while monologuing about sock length, skinny jeans, men versus bears, or whatever topic is popping up on the internet like pustules during the bubonic plague? Would you have believed this was the future of entertainment? 

That is the peculiar thing about reels. When the videos are viewed in isolation, separated from their pokies-style delivery method, you see how dull the content really is. But these videos are not delivered in isolation. They’re fed to us via a dopamine factory designed by highly-paid engineers with one goal in mind: keep you on the app for as long as possible. 

You should be able to avoid this dreck by simply deleting Instagram, TikTok and all the other soma-like addictants of Silicone Valley provenance. But sadly - that won’t cut it.

A social media trend hasn’t completed its life cycle, it seems, until the mainstream media has discovered its desiccated remains and proffered it to its audience like a dog dropping week-old roadkill for its unimpressed owner. 

“Oh look,” we say through gritted teeth. “A think piece about a topic I’ve already heard about a million times. Thank you.” 

It seems the pressure of competing against highly addictive platforms for the attention of an uncommitted audience is getting to them. 

So what to do?

This could be the time to double down on good content; to accept that they can’t compete against an unending avalanche of user-generated videos, and to bank on the world needing thoughtful, interesting, and unique work instead. 

OR! They could jump on social media trends months too late, with takes that somehow manage to be simultaneously lukewarm and incendiary. 

Guess which one they’re going to go with? 

The bottom of the barrel has been scraped so much there’s a hole in the floorboards and we’re halfway to hell. 

But what can I – as a consumer of media – do? 

There are fewer and fewer providers of the content I like to read: that which is funny, interesting, new, and thought provoking. I hope that the rubber band has been stretched to its limits and will soon snap back. That both media and consumers recognise the value in good writing and seek it out. 

Until that happens? If I see one more article on sock length, I’ll scream. You don’t believe me but I will. I’ll take a deep breath and scream and scream and scream until my voice is ragged and world knows to never write - nay - think about this topic ever again.

See if I don’t.