When even solitude needs a tripod. One man’s dawn swim meets the selfie apocalypse.

After an hour’s swim at dawn in glorious solitude, the sea smooth as glass, the horizon glowing like molten silver – I thought I had the beach to myself: two kilometres of unspoilt quiet. Then, inevitably, modern civilisation arrived.

A lone ‘content-creator-slash-YouTuber-slash-influencer’ appeared, tripod in hand. For forty-five relentless minutes she performed interpretive TikTok semaphore to music only she could hear – all legs, hair, and self-adoration – stopping and restarting each take with admirable determination. What was this, performance art? No, impossible. I’ve seen better choreography at a wake. So it could only be what’s now ironically called content – a word redefined to mean vacuous, pointless nonsense for fans with the attention span of a flea.

When at last she was satisfied, she packed up and drove away without a backward glance, leaving the sea, the sand, and what remains of civilisation exactly as she found them: untagged.

The tide, mercifully, is still analogue.