By the age of 25, you should have all of these things on your phone

And yes, these are requirements. I don't make the rules.

Hello! You may be seeing this title and thinking “Zola, you’re 31, why are you writing about being 25? Why are you channeling the Steve Buscemi ‘How do you do, fellow kids?’ meme? Why did you just reference a meme that’s super old?” To which I say: who better than someone whose frontal lobe has supposedly been developed for a full six years (almost seven at this point) to tell you what you need by 25? And I referenced an old meme because I’m 31 years old, obviously. So without further ado, by the time you’re 25, your phone should have all of these crucial items:

1. A bunch of apps that you keep offloading and downloading again to save storage.

2. A grocery list in your Notes app that has a few basic items you buy all the time, which you keep crossing out with the strikethrough feature when you buy them, and then removing the strikethrough from when you need them again.

3. A bunch of other shopping lists in your Notes app, because of course you’re not as efficient and organized as the previously mentioned grocery list made you sound.

4. The Clubhouse app, which you haven’t used since the first month of the app’s existence and will never use again, but which you’re afraid to delete because you heard that if you delete it, your account disappears. You’re either the kind of person who takes this approach, or the kind of person who deleted TikTok during the few hours that was “banned” and couldn’t get it back until it reentered the app store; there’s no in between. This is the part where I was going to confess that there is an in between because I did eventually delete the Clubhouse app, but I just checked and nope, I only offloaded it. It’s still sitting there, waiting to be downloaded again. Maybe that makes my account disappear anyway, but if so, good riddance.

5. A bunch of voice recordings of you attempting to freestyle rap (just me?).

6. A bunch of paragraphs that you had to draft out in your Notes app before texting them to people.

7. A dating app of choice, and at least one other dating app that falls into the category of the aforementioned offloaded apps.

8. The “selfies” album that your Photos app made. You refuse to acknowledge how many photos are in it because that extremely high number brings you shame.

9. A bunch of photos that you took to demonstrate your medical concerns. I must give credit to Matt Taylor aka @mattheperson on TikTok for inspiring this part, and for basically using my actual camera roll in this TikTok.

10. About 70 percent confidence that when you review large attachments and delete them, you’re not deleting the copies of those photos and videos that you have in your camera roll as long as you’ve saved them, or they’re your own photos and videos. (I’m not, right? If you’re reading this and you know the answer, feel free to comment). I realize this item on the list is technically a thing in my brain rather than on my actual phone, but it is “on my phone” if you take “on” to mean “pertaining to”, which is quite popular on Substack and beyond.

11. A bunch of photos and videos that you downloaded to “Files” and then never found because you assumed they’d go to your camera roll because WHY would they be in “Files”?

12. A bunch of screenshots, including:

    - A TikTok comment that stated a “fact” that you want to google to see if it’s true.

    - Something you saw on social media at 3am that you had to wait to send to your friend because, well, it was 3am.

    - Something laughable on someone’s Hinge profile that you sent to your friend but didn’t post online because that would be bullying.

    - A quote that reminds you not to bully people.

    - A quote that says you can bully people who deserve it.

    - Something you want to print out and put on your wall because it’s “so you.”

None of these things will help your frontal lobe develop, nor will they benefit you in any meaningful way, but maybe you’ll be able to write a Substack post listing them one day. Just be sure to give me credit.

Thanks for reading!

XOXO,
Zola

Photo credit for thumbnail image: Ketut Subiyanto via Pexels, Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels, Oladimeji Ajegbile via Pexels, Designecologist via Pexels, Screenshot from zdnet.com