FOMO: Culture Through The Prism of Fear

Boy in subway car – looking ahead. New York, 1949 | Angelo Rizzuto, Library of Congress | Public domain

The worst time to open Instagram has to be in the early hours of a Saturday morning. Maybe you’ve stayed at home because you know you need to catch up on some sleep. Out of laziness. Because you went out for a while and by midnight you decided it was better to make the most of your Sunday. Because you have clothes to wash, cooking to do, bills to pay. You fancied a night on the sofa munching popcorn. Because everything is so expensive. Because it’s not a good time for you. Because you’re in love or because you’ve just broken up. Or because you felt like it. Whatever the reason, it’s two o’clock in the morning and as you browse through all the social media at your disposal you feel a creeping anxiety. For some reason, other people’s lives shine brighter through the screen. They shine bright enough, at least, to make you begin to mistrust your own judgement. It was a mistake not to buy tickets for that concert. Your archenemy from the platform previously known as Twitter has gone to the opening of the moment, and has already written a review, and the dinner organised by your friend’s friend has ended up at the bar you wanted to try out. When you finally go there, it won’t be the same. The worst thing about not being there is that the others have got there before you. You panic, you feel afraid of missing out, although on what you don’t quite know.

The term FOMO, or “fear of missing out,” has been bandied about on social media for years. Colloquially, it could be morphed into an expression of enthusiasm with a spark of friendly envy: “look at the pictures of the festival – major FOMO.” Even so, some psychologists have pathologized it as yet another form of mobile phone addiction, as another facet of the social anxiety and dissatisfaction generated by social media. However, its origins can be traced backed to a much more practical intention than we might think. The acronym of Fear Of Missing Out was popularised in 2004 by author Patrick J. McGinnis, and although today we associate it with the psychology of a frivolous, pixelated world, a world where we write LOL, post selfies and give likes, the term FOMO was first published at Harvard Business School. In fact, years before it was christened by McGinnis, marketing strategy specialist Dan Herman was writing the first research into the phenomenon. And while the first viral articles on the subject emphasised its impact in terms of social anxiety, over the years its relationship with capitalism has become increasingly evident. The fear of missing out on something awakens a hunger to devour. To consume.

If FOMO has been useful for selling us package holidays, what happens when it moves into the world of culture? Over the past few years, little by little, this fear has taken over every part of our lives, making them, inevitably, products to be consumed. Our friendships, our work, our television set and even our fridge are conditioned by this fear of not living well, of not having enough information to act, but above all, of not being able to enjoy the experience as much as other people and to tell everyone about it. Telling others has become an essential part of this enjoyment. As the internet has ceased to be a window to become the channel for a constant stream of conversation, we feel ever more keenly everything that we are missing out on, and this feeling hits us when we have nothing to say on social media. The solution is obvious – to consume. Every film, every restaurant and every exhibition is liable to become a social media post, and to let us join in the conversation. The world becomes divided into those who can post and those who can’t. It’s much more personal than envy – the panic of being left out influences our Saturday nights, but also our purchases, leisure and entertainment. And, obviously, art.

This fear even causes us to change the way we interact with our surroundings. What might once have been considered rude behaviour at a concert – taking out your phone to record the performance – is now the norm. Thousands of arms reach up to the sky to capture a piece of the star. More than a piece of star, however, we should say a trophy, because this impulse doesn’t arise from a desire to preserve the moment, which is how the photos in family albums could be understood. The act of taking photographs has always had a commemorative component, something that is present in birthdays, get-togethers and parties. When we were kids, the photograph was the icing on the cake of any celebration, the confirmation that it had been a happy day. Taking out the camera, gathering everyone together and making them smile not only resulted in the photo – the souvenir – it also reflected the desire to have a photo of that particular occasion. The act of photographing turned the image into a social act. With digitalisation and social media, this act has become less exclusive, although its value has not been lost, but transformed. A selfie with friends not only shows the friendship to the whole world, it is also a gesture of affection at the moment it is taken. Likewise, when we record a concert, we don’t think of the memory, but of expressing joy in some way. You can bet the only time we look at the clip again is when we post it on social media. It’s a gesture that falls somewhere between the joy of clapping your hands together and scrawling on the wall “I was here, I didn’t miss it.”

In fact, it’s interesting to see how some artists have understood this phenomenon and taken advantage of it. Like Beyoncé with the Renaissance Tour, or Rosalía. During her Motomami tour, TikTok was bombarded with videos of the concert, and some moments, like the dance to “Bizcochito,” became viral memes. From the moment the tour kicked off in Almería, it became practically impossible not to hear about everything that would happen at the concert. From the singer’s entrance to the moment she took off her make-up and the grand finale with the then unreleased song “Despech.” What interest could a show without surprises have? Was it worth buying a ticket for a concert that you’d seen hundreds of times on the internet? The singer was perfectly aware of the answer – of course. By making the tour viral from the start, she wasn’t giving out spoilers, but turning the concert into a participative, consumable experience. If the audience has seen three hundred videos of Rosalía chewing gum on stage, they need to go to the concert to see her chewing gum on stage. They need to buy the experience that someone else has posted on their social media profile. That, or die of anticipatory FOMO.

Now, the impetus to consume and react, spurred on by an internet that constantly demands that you say things, has also changed the way we engage with culture. In recent months cinemas have seen a surge in popularity thanks to box-office hits driven, above all, by reactions on social media – memes, TikTok collages or comments ranging from hate to love about Saltburn, Poor Things or Challengers, the most recent examples. The desire to understand the online jokes was enough to make people go to the cinema. At the same time as all this, rating and review apps such as Goodreads or Letterboxd reached peaks of popularity. There is a risk, however, in reducing criticism to a simple reaction. To a gesture. The New Yorker podcast Critics at Large relates this phenomenon to a crisis of professional criticism, with such dire consequences as the loss of media spaces dedicated to culture that go beyond mere prescription, something that unfortunately we continue to see in this country. FOMO can generate movement and interest in culture, but we must remember that since the moment the phenomenon arose, it has been a commercial one. The change in perception of cultural artifacts as objects, made to be understood and preserved, to become an experience to be consumed and reacted to, an excuse to keep us in the conversation, has more to do with fear than with socialisation. It’s possible that the fear of missing out on something means that we end up missing out on what’s really important.