From a new book on online culture: How ‘what’s in my bag’ videos can ‘curate’ a personal brand

Look around the internet and you will find that it has somehow become entirely acceptable to care about the insides of women’s bags. Don’t get me wrong, I’m much more in favour of casual social voyeurism than the average person, and I never hesitate to sneak a peek into people’s phones on chaotic Delhi metro rides, to look into the windows of the houses I pass by, or to eavesdrop on conversations in cafes. I have also always been generally interested in the belongings of people waiting in security lines at airports, especially if they are stopped and asked to open their bags for a manual examination. This is one of the most interesting parts of the airport experience. What has that harmless-looking person got in their bag that merited being stopped by a uniformed security guard? At Indian airports, it is mostly perfume, shampoo, umbrellas, lighters, or even a whole coconut – a surprisingly frequent offender. Forgotten electronics that should’ve been taken out for a scan are another common sight. I have, sadly, never seen someone get caught trying to get something actually illegal through security.

But one thing is a constant: the person whose bag is publicly opened inevitably ends up feeling profusely embarrassed. As if overt displays of being flustered would convince onlookers that they are, in fact, not smuggling something unlawful. The nice ones apologise for holding up the line. The not-so-nice ones still do try to hurry up as much as they can. The goal is to open the bag, take out the offending item, present an explanation, secure a verdict on the object, shut the bag as quickly as possible, and disappear from the scene towards nothingness. On the internet, it is the exact opposite.

Search for “what’s in my bag?” on Instagram or YouTube (or TikTok, if this book makes its way overseas), and you’ll be met with hundreds of thousands of celebrities and creators, almost always women, who are all too eager to open their bags and showcase every single item, in great detail. One by one, methodically, taking their time. Such short-form videos follow a template: a well-lit shot of the celebrity or influencer, looking casual but extremely put together, saying, “Hi, this is ——, and here’s what’s in my bag!” The more Tumblr-inclined and not-like-other-creators creators opt instead for a still shot of their bag, with the products laid out (called a “flatlay” in internet vocab), or a creatively edited video of their products emerging from their bag.

What emerges? Depends on what “kind” of girl you are. Phone and wallet are staples. If you’re a skincare clean girl beauty influencer, you might carry a water bottle and rosewater mist at all times. A cool part-time DJ party girl might take out a vape or hangover pills. On the bookish side of YouTube (BookTube), Instagram (Bookstagram), and TikTok (BookTok), out of Sally Rooney’s newest novel’s merch line’s tote bag will emerge the aforementioned Sally Rooney book, two other cool indie titles, and a bookmark. The Yoga–Pilates influencers always seem to have teabags in their totes, while the tattooed artsy models pull out tarot card decks with effortless ease. It’s like a personality test – are you an ENFP (friendship bracelets, chock-full calendar, group chats, sticker sheets) or an INFP (indie novel, earphones, eye mask, sketchbook)? Instead of making you fill out a questionnaire, we’re going to simply look into your bag.

Vogue has been posting the iconic and immensely popular YouTube series called “In The Bag” for several years. Out of Charli XCX’s Mugler handbag, for example, emerges a wig, a banana, and her new recording contract. Out of Emma Watson’s Prada backpack come old-school wired earphones, a Kindle, a limited-edition copy of TS Eliot’s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, and two heavily used diaries. Bella Hadid’s Yves Saint Laurent bag houses her journal, a point-and-shoot camera, a camcorder, essential oils, vitamins, and a bracelet that you only get if you purchase from her fragrance line ‘Ôrəbella. An essential part of these “what’s in my bag” videos is skincare. Sunscreen, lip balm, lipstick, and moisturiser – what woman would ever travel with fewer than four separate products in her bag? Conversely, what exactly are the four products that the flawless ‘it girl’ of the season deems important enough to carry in her bag? The captions of these videos often feature meticulous lists of products showcased in the visuals, almost always sponsored, while the comments sections are full of people asking each other where to buy the described products, if dupe recommendations are available, and the details of the few products that may not have already been linked.

All of these videos, by Vogue and others, are carefully assembled, built on the featured celebrity’s personal brand – the “type” of woman she wants to project herself as. Because they are, overwhelmingly, women. Over the past few years, algorithmic optimisation on social media and the increasingly derivative trend cycle have led to the emergence of the “kinds” of girls I have mentioned – “clean girl”, “that girl”, “VSCO girl”, “surfer girl” – that are essentially visual displays of one’s lifestyle through a few curated signals and symbols. A few of these “types” are alternatively referred to as “aesthetics”, often suffixed with “-core”. Indeed, these aesthetics do sometimes include more fashion than lifestyle, or more men than usual – cottagecore, normcore, Y2K-core, goblincore, light and dark academia, and the recent meta corecore. All of these aesthetics have their own reasons for emergence, and a variety of causes for becoming the trend they did. Cottagecore, for example, was positioned as a slow-living, “return to the grassroots” movement, displayed through activities like baking, crocheting, and pottery, and objects such as cosy sweaters and literal cottages. Taking shape throughout the 2010s in niche spaces such as Tumblr, the trend finally became mainstream in 2020 due to the global COVID-19 lockdowns restricting everyone to their homes.

“It’s become very common for women online to express their identities through an artfully curated list of the things they consume, or aspire to consume,” writes Rayne FisherQuann in a 2022 piece posted on Substack. She points out that these curations are often a wink at the particular neuroses the young women identify with, a way “to chicly signal one’s mental illnesses to the public”. Fisher-Quann goes on to list identities based on specific kinds of aesthetic self-expression, one that is contextually American but would be relatable to anyone on the internet today:

one girl on your tiktok feed might be a self-described joan didion/eve babitz/marlboro reds/straight-cut levis/ fleabag girl (this means she has depression). another will call herself a babydoll dress/sylvia plath/red scare/miu miu/ lana del rey girl (eating disorder), or a green juice/claw clip/ emma chamberlain/yoga mat/podcast girl (different eating disorder). the aesthetics of consumption have, in turn, become a conduit to make the self more easily consumable: your existence as a Type of Girl has almost nothing to do with whether you actually read joan didion or wear miu miu, and everything to do with whether you want to be seen as the type of person who would.

While it is true that the objectification of mental illness is again becoming a trend on the mainstream social internet – if it ever really untrended at all – self-categorisation based on object consumption is not restricted to diagnoses alone. Fisher-Quann’s essay reminds me of a meme format from around 2022: writing, “Yes, babe, you’re so…” followed by a bunch of references, objects, and behaviours, which conjure up an entire aesthetic, personality, or lifestyle category of a person.

In 2023, I tweeted, “Yes babe you’re so jhumka wearing kajal applying Fabindia kurta slaying Delhi romanticising metro travelling culture writing Twitter shitposting ear piercing bad bitching overthinking something something.” I was talking about myself in a tongue-in-cheek way, as were many others, but a few people participating in this meme trend sought to make fun of certain types of persons by reducing them to visible stereotypes. Derogatory or not, the aestheticisation of the self has led to our focus shifting from being the kind of person to simply looking like the kind of person we want to be perceived as. The acquisition and display of relevant objects, thus, is not just part of the performance, but the performance itself.

This gap between being and looking is as wide as the zipper of your bag, for “what’s in my bag?” videos fall squarely into this category of self-expressionist media that consists of carefully curated objects to present a desired self. It is assumed on the internet today that objects are the building blocks of our selfhood – that we are what people see us own, who people see us interacting with. Who you can be, then, becomes a function of what you can access. Videos that compress individuals into consumable objects – not only “what’s in my bag?” videos, but also shopping hauls, wardrobe tours, lifestyle vlogs, etc. – hence become a shopping list for anyone wanting to purchase a specific personality.

Of course, this is not a purely internet phenomenon, not even close. Historically, individuals have always used objects to signify status, beliefs, and group affiliations, but social media platforms have transformed personal items into public displays, encouraging users to curate their possessions to project desired identities. The internet is an internet of images, and everything in an image is an object. And because objects can be bought, attainability is fundamental. Just like our tote bags are messaging boards for signalling cultural capital, their insides – and indeed those of any object conceivable – are now messaging boards for the self. My water bottle is not just a water bottle – if it’s a Stanley cup, I am a certain kind of person, and if it’s a Hydro Flask, I am someone else. Depending on the kind of sweater I wear, I can signal if I am cool or not cool, old money or nouveau riche, cultured enough to understand the distinction between hand-woven fabrics and machine-made ones (and rich enough to purchase the kind that carries prestige) or not, up-to-date with trends or so last season, preppy or hippie, supermodel-off-duty or techpreneur, and so on and so forth.

Excerpted with permission from Never Logged Out: How the Internet Created India’s Gen Z, Ria Chopra, Bloomsbury India.