The New Decadent Movement Is Digital
"I feel like my digital identity is the real me.”
The Decadent movement of the 19th century centered around artists who turned away from natural and took to glorifying all things manmade and artificial. For example, in the novel Against Nature, published in 1884, the main character hides away from public life and neurotically obsesses over paintings, perfume, cheese, philosophy, jewelry, religious literature, music…
Today, nearly everyone in society lives this type of decadent life. Except, our escape from nature is mediated through technology. When seeking out ways to entertain ourselves, we don’t just preference things that are manmade, we go a step further to preference things that are digital rather than analogue.
While the 19th century Decadent movement was driven by radical artists, the 21st century Decadent movement is driven by tech companies and online influencers.
In the 19th century, decadence was a rebellious philosophical turn away from the natural world. It was an argument for the power of human stories. It was a celebration of material excess and sensual hedonism.
Today, tech-driven decadence is less a rejection of nature and more a replacement of nature. It’s less artistic, more pragmatic. You’re not a radical artist if you spend all day in an artificial world, you’re a normie consumer.
Most people who participate in digital decadence don’t necessarily believe in the philosophical merits of turning against nature. That is, they don’t regularly escape from the natural world because they’re convinced nature is inferior and that manmade fantasies are more worthy of our time and attention. Instead, they take to digital worlds out of convenience and out of our insatiable desire to be entertained.
These people aren’t in a movement. They’re participating in a lifestyle.
The contemporary decadent movement is driven by those who advocate for digital supremacy. They don’t just live in digital spaces as consumers but actively produce content to promote over-indulgence in all things digital.
Jules Terpak comes to mind. Jules is an internet personality who developed a following by sharing her comments on digital culture. “I find digital communication to be more authentic a lot of times,” she once said in a TikTok video. “It gives you the chance to reflect and then respond. I feel like my digital identity is the real me.”
There is a vast ecosystem of people like Jules. Find a platform (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, X, etc.) and you’ll find people growing large communities by effectively living a second life online. They may not articulate it as specifically as Jules, but no doubt they feel a stronger connection to their digital identity than they do their IRL identity.
To consume the content of a digital personality is the modern-day equivalent of reading Against Nature. Vicariously, we’re living through characters who make a life out of living in artificial worlds.
Some people hate this. There’s a backlash movement of people deleting social media and avoiding digital spaces whenever possible. Some people are even fleeing cities to raise traditional families in the country.
But a strong contingent of people find artificiality and excess to be far more enticing than the natural world. This anti-nature instinct seems to be baked into us. We like to build things. And we like to live inside the things we build, whether that means living in the pages of a book or living in pixels on a screen.