March 30, 2023

Re: Kierkegaard, the "Teenage Filter," and (Digital) Memory

A few years ago, I published Søren Kierkegaard: Discourses and Writings on Spirituality. Undoubtedly the hardest thing about putting together this collection was doing the translations—a skill for which I have newfound respect. Yet, I also had the unenviable task of choosing which writings to translate. It was a little like creating a playlist of, say, the ten best Beatles songs. Sure, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was a great hit, but should it merit inclusion over late tracks such as “Long, Long, Long” (a personal favorite) or “Let It Be” (a famous song that I don’t particularly like)? Tough call. Similarly, I knew that the limitations intrinsic to a compilation would force me to leave out important or interesting works by Kierkegaard. One example is his 1844 discourse “Think About Your Creator in the Days of Your Youth” (Tænk paa din Skaber i din Ungdom). Despite omitting it from Discourses and Writings on Spirituality, it is a piece I return to fairly often, not least because it raises questions and themes that seem uniquely relevant today.

Recently, for instance, I was reminded of “Think About Your Creator in the Days of Your Youth” when reading a number of articles about TikTok’s new “teenage filter” (more on that below). In this discourse, Kierkegaard deliberates on a selection from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them” (Eccles. 12:1). Kierkegaard begins by noting that this is a “concerned truth.” That is to say, it cannot be applied wantonly across contexts. Instead, this passage meets the individual in her own unique circumstances—the very circumstances through which she also grapples with the overarching message of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Eccles. 1:2). It is curious, Kierkegaard observes, that the author of Ecclesiastes—identified in the text as “Kohelet” (קֹהֶלֶת), which in English can be translated as “Teacher” or “Preacher”—would juxtapose these two thoughts. The Teacher asserts that all is vanity, that life “spendeth like a shadow” (Eccles. 6:12). And yet, the Teacher also insists that one think about the Creator in one’s youth. As Kierkegaard sums it up, “The meaning of youth is precisely the meaning of this thought, and precisely by means of this thought youth will be secured against being vanity (Forfængelighed).”

But why, exactly, does Kierkegaard think that this is the case? First, he observes that the expression “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth” neither indulges nor reprimands young people and/or youthfulness. It validates the idea that being young is beautiful, even as it refuses to treat youthfulness as an end itself. Youthful beauty essentially consists of “immediacy” (Umiddelbarhed), that is to say, a spontaneous relation to other entities. Kierkegaard frequently associates youthfulness with aesthetic immediacy—the pursuit of direct, yet fleeting, sensuous gratification—but in “Think About Your Creator” he notes that young people also tend to have a direct sense of God’s presence. Rather than seek God through, say, ascetical practices or philosophical demonstrations, “youth understands immediately that God is Creator.” So near is this thought that the young person does not need to justify it or make time for it. On the contrary, it “rests in childlike trust” and, for that reason, is “always handy.”

Yet, if this is true, how or why do people grow apart from God as they get older? Is anyone responsible? “Woe to him who defrauds widows and orphans,” Kierkegaard exclaims, “but woe also to him who defrauds youth of this thought, even though he gave youth everything else!” And yet, as Kierkegaard continues, it is clear that we ourselves are the main problem. In disregarding our advancing age and in yielding to various sins, we not only lie to ourselves but distort the nature of youth in the process. Since youth lies in immediacy, and adulthood in reflection (about all manner of worldly things), we will never reclaim our youthfulness nor the effortless sense of God’s care that we once enjoyed. But Kierkegaard is adamant that, in our sorrowful separation, we must “turn back to that which once was so beautiful but which since has been disdained,” even if it’s just “a recollection of this thought.” He calls this Tilbagetoget—a word with military connotations that can be translated as “retreat.” Just as an army may be forced to retreat to a former stronghold, so Kierkegaard believes that all human beings must return to the bastion of their youth—not as young persons, of course, but as older persons who need to “break the spell of brooding seriousness.” Needless to say, this retreat is temporary, but it is enough to rescue one from the vanity of life. For it promotes “a recollection of youth that preserves youth’s thought of the Creator,” and this thought “is a rosebud that does not know the time of the year or of the years.”

In light of Kierkegaard’s discourse, both the nature of, and the reaction to, TikTok’s viral teenage filter is indeed striking. Technically called “Teenage Look,” the filter works primarily by eliminating skin defects—wrinkles, blemishes, moles, and even (ironically) pimples. Teenage Look also adds buccal fat back to one’s face, bestowing a more cherubic look, and it pinkens one’s lips and cheeks. This technology is not groundbreaking. The photo editing app Facetune has been doing this sort of thing since 2013, and “selfie filters” are now standard on massively popular apps such as Instagram. What TikTok did, however, was heighten the wistful nostalgia implicit in this digital capacity. One of TikTok’s distinguishing features is the utilization of music in its short-form, user-submitted videos. On Teenage Look, it has become trendy to pair the 1997 song “The Freshmen” with the reactions of users. Released by Michigan-based, post-grunge band The Verve Pipe, “The Freshmen” deals with a teenage girl’s suicide after an abortion. Yet, in another irony, TikTokkers have foregrounded the song’s rousing and all-too-90s chorus:

For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen

This exercise started going viral in late February 2023, with TikTok users (most of them Gen Xers) marveling at the filter’s ability to conjure up their youth. In the video below, which collects a number of responses to Teenage Look, some chuckle with amusement. Yet, far more convey a feeling of rueful sentimentality. One 50 year old woman cries as she beholds her apparent teenage self, adding the caption: “There is so much I want to tell her.” A different woman flicks her hair in conjunction with the heading: “How I wish I could go back and tell her she is enough.” A third seems to treat her younger self as a different person altogether, calling her an “old friend” that “she wishes she had been nicer to.”

It is tempting to dismiss such reactions as performative or simply as fake. But I doubt that that’s true. As Kierkegaard maintains in “Think About Your Creator in the Days of Your Youth,” the recollection of one’s youth can generate powerful emotions and memories. We’ve all had this experience, whether in hearing a favorite song from high school, returning home after several months (or years) away, eating a favorite dish from childhood, rummaging through old pictures, or what have you. Moreover, as Kierkegaard intuits, these encounters can have a salutary effect, awakening long-dormant senses of gratitude or relief. Of course, they can also elicit anger, despair, or regret. Either way, it’s totally possible that Teenage Look has proven emotionally jarring to many people.

At the same time, however, I can also imagine Kierkegaard warning that the recollection of youth is nothing to be trifled with. Such emotions may be sincere, but are they earnest? Indeed, for Kierkegaard, “earnestness” (Alvor) describes a disposition towards life that is marked by sustained care and urgency. For example, one may very well be excited about an upcoming date, but marriage, strictly speaking, is a matter of Alvor. The more enduring one’s object of commitment, the more profound one’s earnestness. Thus the highest (or most enduring) existential journey would be for that which grounds and moves the self. In other words, it would be for God, rather than for a “better” (yet still fallible and transient) version of one’s own self.

With this in mind, no doubt Kierkegaard would ask the users of Teenage Look: what are you seeking when you remember the days of your youth? A range of answers would doubtless be given, but at least one commentator believes that the answer is essentially temporal, aesthetic:

We know that social media can make us feel bad about our appearance. Only in this case, instead of comparing ourselves to others, this filter drives us to compare ourselves to who we were in the past. Still, it’s a warped sense of reality—you probably didn’t look like a baby cherub as a teenager, and you might have wrinkles now…but you’re probably a lot more well-adjusted with a lot less chemistry homework. But for many users, it’s not the baby-smooth skin that makes them feel emotional. Rather, the filter spurs a sense of grief over the regrets they have about not enjoying life when they were younger, or the hard decisions they’ve had to make as an adult.

Life is hard. Kierkegaard would have no problem endorsing this point. Yet, he would surely add that the one who earnestly thinks about the Creator does not stop there. For unless there is more, unless the Creator transcends this vallis lacrimarum, then all indeed would be vanity. And then, as the evil days draw nigh, not even TikTok would be able to stop us from saying: “I have no pleasure in them.”