We’re drowning in 8K resolution and we’ve never looked worse.
Every morning, the algorithm serves up a buffet of hyper-optimized humans. They’ve got the $3,500 Apple Vision Pros strapped to their faces, the $200 Bluetooth-connected water bottles, and enough Ring Light energy to burn a hole through the ozone layer. It’s a relentless, exhausting performance of "The Good Life," curated by teams of teenagers in social media agencies. Then there’s Sunil Grover.
Grover just dropped another post on Instagram. It isn't a tech-spec flex. He isn't unboxing a foldable phone that’ll snap in half by Tuesday. He’s just sitting there. Maybe he’s at a roadside tea stall. Maybe he’s pretending to sell umbrellas on a rainy sidewalk or sitting on a plastic crate next to a vegetable vendor. In the latest one, he’s leaning against a rusted truck, looking like he hasn’t checked his email since 2014.
It’s the ultimate flex. And it’s making your $1,200 iPhone 15 Pro Max look like a very expensive paperweight.
The irony isn’t lost on me. We consume this "simplicity" through the most complex supply chains in human history. To see Grover looking effortlessly detached from the rat race, your data had to bounce off a satellite, travel through underwater fiber-optic cables, and land in a palm-sized supercomputer. It’s a lot of engineering just to look at a guy who doesn’t seem to care about engineering.
But that’s the hook. In a digital economy built on "more"—more followers, more resolution, more features—Grover is selling "less." And he’s selling it at a premium.
Look at the lighting. It’s terrible. It’s harsh, midday sun or the sickly yellow glow of a streetlamp. There’s no bokeh effect to blur out the "unsightly" parts of reality. There are no filters to make his skin look like polished marble. It’s just grit. For a celebrity with his bank balance, this is a calculated choice. It’s the "Quiet Luxury" of the soul. While every C-list influencer is sweating over their engagement metrics and worrying if their transition reel is snappy enough, Grover is out there playing a character who doesn't know what a "transition reel" is.
The friction here is obvious, though. It’s a performance. Let’s not be naive. Sunil Grover is a massive star. He’s a man who has made millions by being one of the funniest people on television. When he posts a photo of himself sitting in a dhaba, he’s doing it because he can. He has the social capital to look poor. For the guy actually running that dhaba, the lack of tech isn't a "flex." It’s just life. It’s a struggle.
There’s a specific kind of vanity in pretending you’ve transcended the tools that made you famous. Grover uses the platform to subvert the platform. He’s using the most addictive piece of software ever written to tell us that maybe, just maybe, we should put the phone down. Except we can’t, because we’re too busy liking the photo of him not using a phone.
Tech companies spend billions trying to simulate "authenticity." They give us "Natural" titanium finishes and "Candid" photo modes. They want to sell us the feeling of being human, wrapped in a subscription model. Grover bypasses the middleman. He proves that the best way to stand out in a world of AI-generated perfection is to be slightly dusty.
His latest post isn't about the umbrellas or the tea or the rusted truck. It’s a mirror. It shows us how hard we’re trying. We’ve spent the last decade upgrading our cameras just to take pictures of our brunch that nobody wants to see. We’ve bought into the lie that better hardware equals a better life. Grover’s feed is a quiet, cynical laugh at that entire premise. He doesn't need the latest specs to command your attention. He just needs a plastic stool and a blank stare.
The tech industry wants us to believe that the next "Big Thing" is around the corner. A new chip. A faster refresh rate. A more immersive metaverse. They want us to stay in the loop, tethered to the charger, waiting for the next software update to fix our boredom.
But then Grover pops up in the feed, looking entirely un-updated. He’s a glitch in the Matrix of "Optimization." He’s a reminder that while we’re all busy upgrading our lives, we’ve forgotten how to actually live them without a UI overlay.
Is it a bit of a gimmick? Sure. Does it feel a little condescending when a guy with a seven-figure net worth acts like he’s one of the common folk? Probably. But in a world where everyone is trying to be a brand, Grover is the only one who looks like a person.
He’s winning the attention economy by opting out of it. Or at least, pretending to. And honestly, I’d rather watch a man sit on a crate than watch another "Day in the Life" video from a 22-year-old tech bro in a glass house.
If simplicity is the new flex, how much are we willing to pay to feel like we’ve finally simplified?