Lines are a part of life. The grocery store, the DMV, Target on a Sunday — we’re bound to queue up. I remember a time, however, when this was a bad thing.
And you might be thinking, it’s still a bad thing, dummy, and to that, I say: Are you sure about that? Nobody would claim to enjoy lines, but we’ve let them become a far too significant part of our lives. So much so that, I’d argue, the line is now the point of a thing rather than an unfortunate side effect. Let me explain.
Think of anything someone has told you that you had to try recently: the best croissant in town, an exclusive sale, some new pop-up. How often does that thing involve waiting in a long line? I’d wager it usually does.
I blame the internet. It seems counterintuitive, but it tracks. Facebook, then Instagram, and now TikTok have flattened our IRL experience into what’s trending. The internet’s promise of expanding our respective worlds came true, but then, faced with that vast expanse, we (the royal, cultural We) retreated into the comfort of things people have already said are good. The lines followed.
Let me be clear: This is not everything and everyone. But, overall, line culture has gotten out of control.
Think of the way a song goes viral on TikTok these days. You hear it once, and a second later, you hear it again, and by the end of the week, you know every word of Gracie Abrams’ “That’s So True” despite never playing it on purpose. Now, imagine you had to line up IRL to play that song on Spotify. It’d be one hell of a line. And you wouldn’t even be certain you enjoyed the song. That’s effectively what’s happening with real-world experiences.
Let’s talk about one of life’s finest pleasures: tacos. I live in New York City — I know, I know, the whole world is NYC, and NYC is the whole world — and recently, El Califa de León, Mexico City’s only Michelin-starred taqueria, opened a pop-up where they cooked their tacos at a local chain. Naturally, it blew up on TikTok, particularly among NYC’s food influencer set. Hourslong lines followed, only for many people to give the tacos middling reviews. But the trend — aka the line it wrought — was the point. You had to try that taco if you lived in NYC.
Now, let’s talk more tacos. My neighborhood spot, Taqueria Ramirez, blew up last year. It cracked the New York Times‘ Top 100 restaurants and, in turn, became a destination folks would post about online. Last year, there were so many posts about the spot, and, in turn, the lines were godawful. It’d take 45 minutes of queueing up to get a few (albeit delicious) tacos. As a result, I almost never went to the amazing spot I pass every day.
But then a magical thing happened. Ramirez fell off the Times’ Top 100 list. The tacos are no less delicious. They remain the best tacos I’ve ever eaten. But the lines have shrunken by at least 50 percent. What once stretched around the block is like a dozen people long. What changed? You can no longer make a social media post bragging, “I tried the New York Times‘ only taqueria in its list of Top 100 restaurants.” That’s it. Seriously, all those TikToks I linked above were the top hits, and they were all from 2023. Two taco spots of reportedly quite different quality, but the lines only follow the trend of it all — not the deliciousness.
I’m not saying a line always isn’t worth it, but I’d argue often it’s not. And they are everywhere. We’ve reached peak Line Culture. Sample sale lines are so out of hand that people can make $500 just to stand there for 12 hours. Tourists sardining themselves for a Mona Lisa selfie has, in part, sparked the Louvre to reconsider how it displays the masterpiece. Swifties flooded Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium 24 hours before Taylor’s concert to wait 2 hours to purchase tour merch. Does anyone need a T-shirt — that you could maybe even get online — that badly?
Things have gotten so bad that folks have taken to guerrilla measures. Londoners, for instance, “love bombed” a touristy, average spot called Angus Steakhouse to draw social media attention away from the good restaurants overrun by visitors.
Don’t @ Me: I hate iPhone Tapbacks
The spots with long lines are like field trips for the internet. Often, those field trip recommendations become the same thing for everyone — because the internet has flattened the world into what’s viral. You don’t have to wait in line for something; you get to wait in line for the Big Thing. What started with the Cronut ridiculousness a decade ago has morphed into its logical endpoint. If you’re not fighting for a reservation, you’re waiting in line.
That’s not to say lines were somehow invented in the last few years. But they’ve become unnatural. It used to be you showed up somewhere, there was a line commensurate with reality, you waited, did the thing, moved on. But now, thanks to posts like “I waited two hours to get X thing,” people line up just to get the thing that requires two hours in line. A line does not a good thing make!
And lest you think this is just me whining about NYC problems — which, fair, I kind of am — it’s become a problem pretty much everywhere. A town in Vermont, for instance, banned tourists last year after a horde of influencers descended on the town to snag foliage pics after TikToks about a local spot called Sleepy Hollow Farm went viral. The little town of Pomfret was overrun with traffic (aka lines) and unruly tourists trying to get their shot. Never mind that beautiful fall leaves exist…pretty much anywhere in the Northeast. Sleepy Hollow Farm was the viral spot.
I’m not saying I’ll never wait in another line. Hell, I still have to wait in line to get my favorite neighborhood tacos. But maybe next time the internet tells me I have to try something, I — and perhaps you — can leave that job to everyone else.
