New year, new me?

Why going offline is setting the tone for my 2025.

The internet ate me alive in 2024. After receiving multiple death threats for speaking up in solidarity with Palestine, I had convinced myself that spending more time on my social media and email apps to “keep an eye” on things gave me more control of my safety. I knew that I needed a complete switch off in a bid to gain some perspective and process the past year. How do you know someone’s taken digital detox? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you!

I spent two whole weeks with my phone switched off over the winter break. This is an extension and expansion of my weekend practice whereby I log out of social media and try to spend less time on my phone. I’ve been harping on about this for about seven years now and refer to the ritual as Offline48.

I pre-booked my plans before Christmas Day and alerted all my loved ones that my phone would be off. My partner (who I often refer to as my housemate or current husband, juuust to keep him on his toes) kept his phone on, so I had the capacity to call family and arrange to see friends if necessary.

Having posted content right up until 10pm Christmas Eve (milking it), not checking notifications the next day was a challenge. As a woman on the internet who makes videos about fair fashion, corporate exploitation, greenwashing and climate justice, I always have a lingering feeling that somewhere on the internet at any given time, I’m being cancelled. I don’t expect this feeling to ever go away, but I have a solid support network to keep me balanced. Going offline also helps a lot, too.

The most challenging part of my break was being alone with my thoughts. I love a solo walk and I love cooking, but I rarely do either of these things without the company of a podcast. Going for a two hour solo stomp (albeit with my switched off phone tucked in an inside pocket for safety) without Nish Kumar and Coco Khan in my ears was uncomfortable. It may sound contrived, but just being with my thoughts, noticing the trees and listening to birdsong was… actually quite nice? An utterly wild thing to write, but as is being alive in 2025.

Coming back to online always feels overwhelming, but it's the best tool I’ve found to help me set and reset my boundaries with the internet. This time around, I’ve noticed that it's just as much the accompanying comment sections as it is the never-ending content that I find exhausting.

I’m not about to declare my departure from the internet. Far from it. I have content planned up until April. But I am committing to spending less time on the apps that I find most depleting. My word of 2025 is presence. I can't hope to embody that if I’m chronically online.

Algorithms are becoming more addictive by the day so I will inevitably get sucked back in, but I’m vowing to go easy on myself in these moments, as well as booking in extended breaks throughout the year in a bid to keep me on the right track. I’m also investing in a landline.

I have three main 2025 goals:
The first is to establish an improved relationship with the internet. This means sticking to my offline weekends and scheduling extended entirely phone-free breaks throughout the year. This may sound extreme, but so is the brain fuzz and lethargy that I experience after spending too much time in fraught comment sections where everyone is shouting and no one is talking. The second is to learn how to make my own clothes (I managed to conquer moth holes during the winter break, hurrah!). The third is to write more, so you’ll be seeing more of me in this much neglected space, but I’ll still be striving to create engaging, informative and hopefully maybe slightly funny videos (if we don’t laugh, we will cry) for my boss from hell.

Your attention is precious. I promise not to take that for granted.

Recent recommendations…

Books
Who Owns England? by Guy Shrubsole is an essential non-fiction read for any Brits wanting to learn about land ownership in the UK. It’s highly researched and a powerful call to arms about land redistribution, wealth inequality and the housing crisis.

After reading 65 non-fiction books last year for the inaugural Women's Prize for nonfiction, Boy Parts by Eliza Hatch is THE book that finally got me back into fiction. It’s dark, twisted and utterly compelling. Think along the lines of Sweetpea, but with excellent class and gender commentary. I inhaled it.

I adored The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley, a deeply romantic novel set in London in the near future about time travel, the British Empire and the climate crisis. It’s exciting, imaginative and moving.

Films
Jodie Comer plays a new mother in the all too real, stunningly shot climate disaster movie The End We Start From. Jodie is, as always, phenomenal. The film crawled inside my skin and hasn’t left. I watched this at the peak of the recent UK floods - not advisable.

I was mesmerised by Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun, a film about addiction, mental illness, recovery, love and loss, filmed in the beautiful Orkney Islands.

I loved spending time with good friends and SNL comedy co-writers Will & Harper on their road trip across America after Harper came out as a trans woman. It’s a warm, emotional and nuanced documentary that filled me with hope.

Articles
Is Anyone Shocked By Babygirl? by Caitlin Flanagan had me laughing out loud and almost made sitting through Babygirl at the cinema worth it.

On reading versus living, a guest essay by Ochuko Akpovbovbo for Pandora Sykes’ substack on why she's trying to read less. A wonderful balm for anyone wishing they had more time to read.

Journalist and video creator Sophia Smith Galer’s obituary for American TikTok and how the impending US TikTok ban will be a loss to us all.

I have not stopped thinking about the downright classy and superbly written viral essay by women’s health therapist Dr Lilly Jay on her very public divorce from Wicked star Ethan Slater. Not an ounce of misogyny. Beautiful.

Community Action! 📣
I watched the abysmal and frustrating British parliamentary hearing with Shein live as it happened, or “live with the nation”, as my Dad always says. Do read this brilliant write up by Jasmin Malik Chua, and expect to see more from the Say No To Shein campaign in the coming weeks. Please sign our petition as we try to block Shein’s plans to list on the London Stock Exchange.

Following the devastating fire that has impacted 10,000 people in our beloved Kantamanto, the largest secondhand market in the world and a true example of circularity, it’s a good time to read this article by my friend and comrade Liz Ricketts for Atmos on Where Your Clothes Go To ‘Die’. If you’re in a position to do so, please donate to The Or Foundation which is raising money for immediate, on-the-ground relief.

Photographed by Julius Tornyi, The Or Foundation

I would really love 2025 to be the year that I no longer need to make videos about Marks & Spencer - the brand responsible for the largest amount of textile waste washing up on Ghana’s beaches. If you have any links to the brand, please do everything you can to push them to respond to our calls to donate to the fire relief fund, take responsibility for their oversupply and end their greenwashing.

It’s a heck of a time to be alive. Please take good care of yourself and each other.

With love and rage,
Venetia