Last week, Destiny’s Child re-formed for the first time in several years. All three members appeared on stage during a Beyoncé concert in Las Vegas. When I saw the news my brain instantly went to: “Destiny’s Child are reuniting = recession indicator.” Just the other day I was mulling about Labubu dolls – those crazed little fanged monsters hanging off handbags and backpacks – and thinking Labubus and their outrageous price tags must surely be a recession indicator. Young people enjoying themselves outside on the streets of Dublin? Recession indicator. Michael Flatley running for president? Big recession indicator. Huge.
It’s been a social media trend for months now to label almost anything a “recession indicator” and I get it, I really do. The combination of one horrific world event after another coupled with our ability to pour news of said events directly into our eyeballs from sun up to sundown means we are constantly waiting for the next global disaster to land. The obsession with recession makes sense. Meath musician CMAT, a true tastemaker, has her finger on the pulse as usual with her latest single Euro-Country, in which she savages “All the big boys / All the Berties/ All the envelopes” of Ireland’s catastrophic banking crash.
Depending on who you listen to, we’re either hurtling towards a recession, have had three recessions since Covid or are nowhere close to an economic downturn. Still, though, some of the cultural portents are there. Remember the great “desk to dance floor” movement that started circa 2008-9 when women went out clubbing in business-casual attire paired with a dangly earring? I’m telling you, it’s back. Have you been in a Zara recently? Clean eating has found its new incarnation, this time in the form of the demonisation of “ultra processed foods”, and alongside it is a renewed obsession with “heroin chic” slimness. Recession. Indicators. Every single one.
I’m somebody who made it through 2008 and the subsequent years relatively unscathed. My family and our means were extremely modest through the 1990s and early 2000s. Both of my parents had grown up with very little so were highly risk averse when it came to money. We didn’t reap any Celtic Tiger benefits so there wasn’t really much to lose. We didn’t have a holiday home in Bulgaria or go Christmas shopping in New York and Santa never arrived in a helicopter at my school. The closest we got to helicopters was via my dad’s job as an Air Corps sergeant in Baldonnel.
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When the crash came, we weren’t dependent on any of the industries that came down with it. I graduated from my second go at college in 2006 and went into a radio journalism job on €26,000 a year. I felt rich beyond my wildest dreams, even though I was €12,000 below the average annual wage. I rented a flat with my friends and we bought the cheapest and most toxic spirits from the supermarket and mixed them with beverages that were shamelessly imitating Red Bull.
When the recession hit the most tangible impact I remember was the sharp downturn in media-adjacent launches and parties offering free booze. We threw a “Re-Session” party in the flat and served the toxic vodka, as per usual. In 2008 my mother was a recently retired primary schoolteacher and in May of that year my father died of cancer, which was enough to distract from the global economic disaster.
Truly, though, not much changed for me. I feel lucky now that my parents’ jobs as public servants and our place on the low end of the middle classes insulated me from the true horror that others suffered. The shock waves from 2008 and the years that followed still reverberate and I feel those keenly, particularly when it comes to housing.
All signs point to another crash like the one in 2008 being unlikely, but that doesn’t negate the fact that many people are struggling. Conflating the cost-of-living crisis with possible recession via the shorthand language of memes and humour online isn’t all that surprising. People are poised for disaster. If Will Smith making new music or Ryanair getting militant about the size of your tiny bag feels like recession indicator, then maybe it is. Just please, for the love of God, don’t let skinny jeans come back. We’ve suffered enough.
