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The Dark Side of FOMO
A video started circulating across my fountain pen and stationery communities. An octogenarian couple stealing expensive pens at the Hamburg Pen Show. The footage is damning.
Theft at pen shows isn’t common. But it’s not unheard of either. In 2023, someone at the San Francisco Pen Show got caught after vendors followed him for ninety minutes. At the 2025 Madrid Pen Show, over 170 pens were stolen from Andre Mora. Limited-edition Montblancs. Some worth more than a used car.
But a couple of octogenarians? In Hamburg? So brazen. So blatant? And that too in our third eye society?
The more interesting part isn’t the crime. It’s the why. At that age? Was it need? Or was it desire? The kind of desire you can’t afford but can’t shake.
I keep coming back to Instagram. Pen Instagram, specifically, but it is true of every thing .
There’s hardly anything social about it anymore. It’s a focused soft-sell network. Everything is for sale. Everyone is trying to sell something. I have very few friends there. It’s all informational, pushing you to buy, buy, buy. It’s also a pretty amazing FOMO machine. Even if you don’t want something, you suddenly think you do.
This took me back to 2007. Zuckerberg introduced Beacon. Bought movie tickets? Saved a recipe on Epicurious? Your friends saw it. The point was to put ads next to those actions. Zuck called them a brand-new kind of ad, “a recommendation from a trusted friend.” I raised a lot of fuss back then. Things changed. Beacon died. Or rather, it was reincarnated as an algorithmic god. Like the house in Vegas, in the end Zuck always wins.
Fast forward to today, and you don’t need friends to recommend you anything. The algorithm creates enough FOMO. The social now exists to tell a story to sell a story. Nothing more, nothing less. Instagram is QVC 2.0. And not in a good way.
Margaret Atwood said, “A word after a word after a word is power.”
On Instagram, it’s more like a photo after a photo after a photo is an unending sales pitch. A FOMO machine. One that even forces octogenarians to steal blatantly.
February 2, 2026. San Francisco
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Facebook has been tacking ads on posts on and off for a while. I’ve asked a couple friends whose posts had them if they were getting paid or something and they were not aware, and when they looked, the ads didn’t show up in their feed. So FB is blind piggybacking posts. That’s pretty third grade.
Not surprised about theft at pens shows. Old folks stealing pens in Hamburg is weird, and sad. I do wonder what their motive was. I searched that and your post came up at the top, then a few that were about people with nice pens having to be wary of who’s around in public if they use them. I collect vintage watches and have a rule, if it needs to be kept in a safe, it’s not safe to wear daily. I like the watches most don’t look twice at fortunately.
Thanks for the comment. We live in strange times. FOMO is making people do strange things. We are just going through all the deadly sins one by one. I hope you enjoy your vintage watches. They are a joy only you can experience. 🙂
Well, yes, I guess I agree to some of that, but that is not all there is to the story. Is Instagram responsible for inducing anyone to steal? Do brick and mortar stores induce pedestrians strolling by their shop windows to shoplift? Do television commercials entice viewers to rob someone so that they can purchase the things they see advertised there? Shrug. But if humans are driven to break social constructs to gain something they can’t afford (and here I am discounting a poor hungry person who lifts a loaf of bread to survive), the fault lies in the thief.
Having worked as a small, independent craftsman for the past 10 years or so, I have found Instagram to be a great place for me to showcase my work and attract customers, as it has for numerous small businesses in all kinds of fields. Without venues like Instagram, I would not be able to do what I do. I also have interests outside of my business and I find many things on Instagram (or the Internet in general) that I would either like to have or would like to learn more about. I don’t have a lot of money for things I don’t really need, so it’s mostly about learning about and appreciating things that I am interested in. And that’s the way that most people use Instagram.
People will always be addicted to things: alcohol, gambling, food, collecting, etc., but the cure isn’t getting rid of the merchant who sells them, its dealing with the addiction. The octogenarians who took the pen in your post are flawed people whose grandparent-ly appearance broke our stereotype of what a thief looks like, not avatars of what’s wrong with the modern world.
Eric
Thanks for the wonderful comment and of course, technology is wonderful but comes with its duality. I think sometimes what it gives, it also takes.
I for certain am appreciative of every person like yourself I have been exposed to and have met through social platforms. Your work, and my affection clearly speaks for that. It goes without saying that is a net positive.
On the flip side social is indeed changing how we view wants and desire. If you look at how of SM is about behaviors that are unhealthy. I think if you are constantly exposed to a certain thing –in case of IG, commercial or things you can’t afford, your brain starts to go in different directions. We have seen this with children who have eating disorders. Jealously, and made up reality is another well known aspect of SM. So folks like the thieves in the case are somehow compelled to act on their base instincts because they decided they want something.
To the last point about physical stores. I think the loops in SM and constant and endless exposure can be way more virulent and challenging that most of us understand.
I am sure more will come out on this story soon.
Love a post that begins with you noting you have pen and stationery communities. Here’s to analog! I also enjoyed the linked QVC 2.0 story. Is Whatnot what you anticipated as the new QVC back in the day?
It is worse than the QVC I thought it would be. It is metastasized version of that. I can’t imagine ever going to IG and not overcome with negative emotions of comparison and consumption. That is why I really limit myself to using it for academic purposes and occasional direct communications.
I worked at QVC in the early 1990s. How quaint, right? A few years later, I created a banner ad campaign for IBM that the media team used to test its first-ever tracking pixel. If you searched for a competitor, you got our banner ad on your web page. How quaint, right? There’s more. But it’s boring. I feel dirty. I feel wrong. And wronged. It was all a huge mistake. Too late.
I am sure we all think about how things have turned out and what we did all the time. Sad part of having lived through it. But also the exciting part. Duality of technology is incredible.