Victorian Vanity and Modern Technology By Trinity Oros

By Trinity Oros

Picture Credit: Palo Alto City Library

Victorian Vanity:

Writing during the Victorian area was an outlet as much as it was entertainment. They were reflections of how people viewed society during internal disputes and major milestones that we look back to be a golden age of society. However, during the same time as the Victorian Era, America was passing through what is now The Gilded Age. Several shows, novels, books and movies romanticized the era without the full understanding of the experience that brought controversies.

The Victorian Era was also a major point of contention for Women’s rights, Child Labor, and severe racism. The Gilded Age was full of robber barons that brought the nickname to mean that it looked like a golden age, however it was a façade. The economy suffered. Coverture was rampant. And the division between the working class and high classes was a channel so deep that people became more obsessed with maintaining image that they suffered under the same hierarchy.

Modern Society:

This can easily sound like a “History repeats itself” post, but that is not the point. History did not repeat itself. Society has a root of image and cautionary tales that allow us to learn from mistakes that fictional and nonfictional people alike. People evolve, they adapt, and when something has a root, people carry it with them. Flaunting wealth, maintaining appearance, and “keeping up with the Joneses” used to reach only into the physical community someone was around. Your neighborhood, maybe even in a newspaper. However, social media changed everything. It went from local media, now to mass media. People all over the world can know about what one person is doing in a small town. But it also means that the extremes have expanded exponentially.

There is a car repossession crisis in 2026 that has surpassed numbers from recessions from the Gilded Age, the 1970s, and in most recent memory, the 2008 recession. There have been also, record highs of how much people are still willing to spend on weddings, houses, phones, plastic surgery. None of these are inherently wrong. However, the difference between a recession and people spending is debt, and the major changes from all these crises are the amount of people on social media. Everyone has a camera in their pocket, and everyone has something that they want to show off and share.

Essentially, the rise of social media has showcased patterns of extremes and amplified the consumerism that has been rewarded by many. This is not to say no one should consume or enjoy little things. It is only to assess what we as a society should prioritize from the stories that were written centuries ago.