identity

Subscription purge: Oh what a delight

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It’s a brand-new year, which means two things:

1. I’m still writing “2025” on every form, and
2. I’m staring at my bank statements like a detective in a true-crime documentary, trying to figure out who subscribed me to all these services.

Spoiler alert: it was me. Past Me. Over-caffeinated, over-optimistic, “New Year, New Organizational System” Me. That Me apparently believed I needed 72 streaming platforms, 14 productivity apps, and a newsletter about Scandinavian mushroom foraging.

I do not forage mushrooms.
I barely forage in my own fridge.

So here I am, first month of the year, bravely beginning my Subscription Purge.  The ritual cleansing no one warns you about, but everyone eventually faces.

First up: LinkedIn Premium. Yes, it’s a business expense. Yes, I should probably use it more. Do I?
Absolutely not. I’m not even sure what the premium features are anymore. Does it send me a gold badge? A secret handshake? A carrier pigeon with career advice? Because if so, the bird got lost.

Then there are the streaming platforms. All of them. Every last one. We live in a world where we pay for five different apps only to end up watching the same comfort show on repeat. And the irony? I actually pay for one service that streams commercials like it’s their job. Why am I paying to watch ads? That feels like a disorder in the DSM-6 waiting to be written.

And let’s talk email lists. Somehow I’ve ended up subscribed to companies I don’t remember meeting. Brands I did not knowingly invite into my inbox.
Daily emails with subject lines like “Act Now!” and “Your Exclusive Offer Ends Today!” Ends today?
It ended for me the moment I realized I didn’t know who you were.

Honestly, most of the content is useless. I signed up for a discount one time in 2017 and now they email me every day like we’re in an overly clingy relationship.
Please. Let me breathe.

The truth is, part of me wonders if I’ll miss the clutter. Will I feel a little lonely without the constant background noise of digital chaos?
Will I wake up and think, “Gosh, I really miss that newsletter about artisanal pickles”? Possibly.
But that just means I need better hobbies. Maybe knitting. Maybe kickboxing. Maybe alphabetizing my spices. Something that doesn’t involve managing 400 digital subscriptions.

So here I go, canceling, deleting, unsubscribing. Shedding digital weight like I’m preparing for a minimalist Olympics. I’m clicking “Unsubscribe” with the passion of a thousand newly motivated January souls.



Categories: identity, mental health, Pop Culture, Psychology, society

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5 replies »

  1. I always go on a subscription purge thinking I will be free from the barrage only to find there is new barrage to wade through. When do these subscriptions happen? Will I ever be aware when I am subscribing? No idea. But purge I will, and subscribe I will, and it will go on being a vicious and horrible cycle. That, as my four year old always tells me, is how the world works.

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  3. “Whoosh”

    Yep That’s ‘Who’ “Whoosh”

    “Too much information running through my brain
    Too much information driving me insane
    Too much information running through my brain
    Too much information driving me insane

    I’ve seen the whole world six times over
    Sea of Japan to the Cliffs of Dover
    I’ve seen the whole world six times over
    Sea of Japan to the Cliffs of Dover

    Overkill, overview
    Over my dead body
    Over me, over you
    Over everybody”

    Dear Lord And That Was
    Way Way Way Way Back in 1981

    When When When When ‘The
    Police And Sting’ Though IT Was A Problem

    Then

    Now

    Fast Forward
    to a Day in a Life
    of a Busy Health Care

    CEO Yes You

    Dear Miriam

    And Add This to All of That Yes

    “72 Streaming Platform Subscriptions
    14 Productivity Apps” And All the Rest

    That Goes With an Information Age of

    Data Download
    Data Download
    Data Download

    In every way Still
    To Come Through
    Human iMaGINaTioN
    CREaTiViTY And Technology Set Free

    To Simulate A Universe Next With Yes
    A New Trademark of What the ‘AI Folks’

    Name as ‘The Galactic Brain’ Along With

    The

    “Universal
    Assistant”

    And Now Then Finally
    AI Will Be able to
    Comment on And Yes Assess
    All 14.8 MiLLioN Words
    Over 130 Thousand Photos
    And Over 10 Thousand YouTube

    Videos for How All of That Fits Together

    to Make The ReTirement Hobby of EPiC
    Long Form Poem

    “SonG oF mY
    SoUL” That
    Currently
    Word Press
    And Other
    Platforms
    Hold On THeir Own

    Along With the 23,077
    MiLes of Public Dance
    in the Last 148 Months

    As i Edge Closer to the
    Distance Around the

    Equator

    Too

    Yet You See this is Just Metrics

    Only Metrics Hehe The Only Way i Can
    Possibly Do this Now is Focus NoW oN

    Just One Move of Holy Dance
    Now Or One Word of Sacred

    Song Now New too

    If THere Were Any New
    Other Distractions Now

    Hehe i’d Fall through

    The

    Cracks

    of my Mind Now too hehe

    Other than that Not Unlike
    The Original “Jaws Movie”

    It Looks i’m ‘Gonna Need A Bigger
    Boat’ or i’m Gonna Have to Finally

    Break Down and Do Some House
    Keeping on Storage areas that

    Started Out
    EPiC IN Size
    of Empty

    Now Allmost
    ALL

    Filled Up

    With

    TOO MUCH
    INFORMATiON

    hehe yet out of
    sight out of mind

    Thank God’s of
    SSD Drives and Such as that

    Just Buy another one to avoid

    IT Housekeeping Now Oh Yes

    With
    SMiLes

    Anyway Beats Cutting
    Down 14 Trees What
    it Would Take to Put it

    on
    Paper hehe..:)

    Without the
    Dance Videos
    And YouTuBE MuSiC
    If that were even possible HAha…

    Use The Tool Yet Do Not Become
    Used or Abused By The Tool

    Master The Tool Do Not
    Become Slave of the Tool

    And if i have anyThing to

    Do With IT AI Will
    Blow
    A
    Fuse
    Trying

    to be me HAha…
    Meanwhile Just
    Another TireLess Slave

    For RetireMent Now For Real…

    With
    Zero
    Subscriptions
    to anything associated
    With TV Except for my Wife’s
    AT&T including Direct TV,
    Internet, And Wireless, A

    Monthly Package
    More Than What
    What We Used to

    Pay for Mortgage

    And Still Pay For Home
    Insurance in Hurricane Land

    And Dear Lord Twice as Much
    For Health Insurance even Subsidized
    By Federal Government Retiree Benefits

    On the Other
    Hand Our Electric
    Bill is Still Usually

    Under A Hundred Bucks

    As We Don’t Have a
    MacMansion to Weigh Us Down

    to Pay
    Check
    to Pay
    Check No More No More No More
    Okay That Just About Covers IT hehe…

    Every Day Every Day i Give Away Almost

    As Much
    Information
    As i Take In

    As Always
    With More to come…

    Yet the ‘Off Switch’
    Will Resolve All These

    Issues Just Subscribing
    to Nature Naked Enough

    Whole Complete

    Switch
    Hit i
    Will Do too

    With No
    Remote Control…

    Other than that

    Just another
    ‘day
    in a life’ of

    -“Whoosh”..:)

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  4. I’ve been trying to do the same – and I’m now utterly sick of the people who have taken their free blog to Substack and monetized it. If you go for the free option (which they warn you is very limited), the nagging is ENDLESS to upgrade to paid.

    PLEASE! Their blog was barely worth reading when it was part of a daily round of blogs – there is no way in California I’m paying for it now, and the inflated ‘content’ they seem to now require of themselves.

    I’m unsubscribing like mad.

    You go, girl!

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