Real memories aren’t ‘made’

If I could make a new year’s resolution for everyone in the English–speaking world, it would be that we all agree never to use the phrase ‘making memories’ again, or to think about life in terms of making memories, let alone post a photo with the hashtag #makingmemories.

All of a sudden, all across the internet, it seems to me, merchandise has sprung up encouraging us to think of life as a ‘memory–making’ project: frames, filters and albums designed to capture and enhance every breathing moment. There are mats for lying babies on next to their age in months for memory-making photoshoots, though none I’ve seen yet for the other end of life: look how Granny changed through her nineties! My friends now regularly comment on each other’s Christmas photos: ‘What lovely memories you’re making!’

I know it sounds unobjectionable but I find it frightening. It’s as if, under the influence of Apple Inc, we’ve started living not in the present but in some other tense, the future past, forever constructing a picture for later gratification; as if we’ve begun to imagine that the actual meaning of life is to record it. If I worked for Apple, I might suggest some sort of photo-based life scoring system: I think customers would like it. Nice set of Instagrammable breakfasts, but… where are the dogs playing in the surf? Only 7/10. Must make better memories.

The usual criticism of life as presented on social media is that it’s too curated, that people post only their most enviable moments. My issue with ‘making memories’ isn’t that the photos and videos are selective so much that they are fictitious. You cannot record life and live it properly at the same time. That’s just a fact. And if I feel strongly about it, it’s only because I’m riddled with guilt.