"Rebranding" 2022

TikTok is celebrating its latest (and probably none too enlightening) surge in its self-motivation sub-genre: 2022 Rebrand. Its concept basically consists of a softened business-like approach to promote a reinvented image of the typical "new year, new me" ideal. It's a step up in the ladder of making - and breaking - resolutions. Of course, we won't consciously accept any of it without cursorily glancing over its long list of terms and conditions. Resolutions are promissory notes which aim to improve ourselves - but why do it directly when we can distort our existing selves to make them more visually appealing instead?

Ten days into the new year, expectations naturally arise as to what the future might hold for the world. But, people around me are treating January as though they were in the middle of a severe case of Monday morning blues. Compared with the thirty-first of December last year, everyone now has their tail between their legs: thanks to the (confusedly pronounced) omicron variant of the coronavirus. The Greeks, however, aren't too happy about it.

Honestly, it doesn't seem that anything has exponentially changed. Just as lockdown protocols were relaxed, many took it as a license to revel in unmasked pleasures - bearing a sort of carpe diem mania. Now, almost everyone I know is shuddering feverishly and has totally forgotten what hunger means. The third wave in my country somewhat nulls our collective emboldenment at COVID-19 itself - in hopes of not taking omicron's bridal-like demureness for granted.

It's still quite early to definitely proclaim the end of mankind's hellish suffering this year, as opposed to 2021's wishes. Nevertheless, with high recovery rates and isolation periods cut back to a mere week, us being home-bound once again might not be the worst thing after all. Though every order within the health, employment and business economies are still compromised, this blessing in disguise will in turn strengthen us for a renewed future.

Finally, rather than only rebranding our self-strategies, we can actually take some time out to rethink where we went wrong. Resolutions are so last year; now a "very peri" kind of effervescent self-determination is in.

Slightly changing Phoebe Buffay's words, here's to a not-so crappy new year just yet!

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