Legacy in the Age of Stories That Expire in 24 Hours

 

It started with a scroll. Not even a doom-scroll, just the usual passive thumb dance through other people’s days. A Story here, a meme there, someone’s life milestone sandwiched between an ad for protein powder and a video of a cat playing piano.

Before I realized it, half an hour had passed, and I hadn’t felt a single thing that stuck.

A selfie. A lyric slapped onto a blurry photo of my shoes on a sidewalk. You post it. It gets a few views. Maybe someone replies with an emoji or an LOL And then it vanishes. That’s the rhythm now. That’s the system...

We live in this bizarre loop where everything is documented and almost none of it is meant to stay.

We are, arguably, the most documented generation in history and maybe the most forgettable.

I used to think legacy meant something solid. A book. A building. A kid who grows up well. Something that stayed after you stopped showing up for it. But now? It feels more like your top 9 Instagram posts of the year. Or your Spotify Wrapped. Or a LinkedIn bio that sounds more confident than you ever actually felt.

And it’s not that I hate it. I’m not trying to be that guy standing on a digital hill shouting at the wind to log off. I get it. I use it. I scroll. I refresh. I participate in my own erasure, one Story at a time.

But I also find myself craving something slower. Something that sticks.

Something I don’t have to re-upload every 24 hours just to be seen.

I don’t need a statue. I don’t even need a name in lights. I just want to create something that lasts, something real enough that it doesn’t need to scream for attention to feel valid. Not legacy in the performative, self-congratulatory sense. But something that outlives the moment. Something that echoes. Quietly, but truly.

And it’s not just about work, or impact, or writing the next great novel. Maybe legacy is smaller, quieter. A single conversation that mattered. A moment of presence. A habit of choosing depth in a world that rewards distraction.

Because I’m tired of living like a Story—cropped, filtered, and gone by morning.

I want to build a life that isn’t constantly asking for approval. I want to know that I meant something to someone, even when no one was watching.

But some days, I wonder if that’s even possible...What if meaning itself has been sliced into digestible formats and served with a caption or a hashtag? 

We’ve become so good at archiving ourselves that we no longer know what’s worth preserving. We turn moments into content, love into updates, grief into algorithms that suggest more of the same.

Maybe legacy isn’t about what we leave behind anymore.

Maybe it’s about what we manage to salvage before the feed swallows it whole.

And maybe the most honest thing I can admit is this:

I don’t want to be remembered in pixels and impressions.

I just don’t want to be forgotten while I’m still here.