HONG KONG – As the final hours of 2025 ticked down on New Year’s Eve, many prominent figures in the entertainment industry took to social media platforms to share photo recaps of the past year. While intended as a reflective retrospective, the simple act of compiling these “best of” galleries proved to be a surprisingly arduous task, highlighting the challenge of curating deeply personal archives for public consumption.
The annual tradition saw Hong Kong celebrity Stephy Tang, known in Mandarin as Deng Lixin, dedicating considerable time to meticulously sifting through her digital vault. In a post shared on Instagram, Tang admitted that the lengthy selection process left her visibly fatigued.
“It is the last day of 2025, and my eyes are a bit dry,” Tang wrote, explaining the exhaustion stemmed from the detailed photo selection. She successfully curated a collection of 20 images deemed the most representative of her year, proudly stating that this curation effort felt like “one of my biggest accomplishments of the entire year.” Tang closed her message by urging followers to embrace the remaining moments of the year and wished everyone peace and joy in the coming 2026.
The Exhaustion of Digital Curation
Tang was not alone in confronting the digital dilemma. Fellow actress and singer Charlene Choi, known as Ah Sa, grappled with the same archival paralysis but ultimately capitulated to exhaustion.
Choi initially attempted to construct a similar retrospective. After opening her photo library and confronting the sheer volume of images and videos—a prospect she described as “giving me a headache”—she persisted for an hour. However, the fatigue of the task, combined with self-admitted laziness, led to a different conclusion.
Instead of a polished retrospective, Choi posted several candid selfies taken while resting on a couch. Her humorous caption resonated widely, reflecting the common struggle of digital overwhelm.
“Is anyone else like me? I really want to create a 2025 recap, but opening the album gives me a huge headache,” Choi mused. “In the end, I was just too tired and sleepy (mostly lazy…), so I decided to just take photos of my exhausted self and post this as my year-end summary.”
Choi concluded her post with a playful resolution for the new year, vowing to shed her “tramp” and “sleepy pig” tendencies, promising a less “rubbish” 2026.
Shared Digital Fatigue
The relatable nature of Choi’s post garnered immediate support from peers. Singer Gin Lee promptly responded, commenting, “Same feeling!”—a succinct acknowledgment of the shared fatigue that accompanies the process of synthesizing a year of lived experience into easily digestible, public-facing content.
The public display of exhaustion underscores a modern challenge: the proliferation of high-volume digital content and the time commitment required to organize, select, and present meaningful narratives from these personal archives. While celebrity year-end recaps serve as a moment of connection and reflection, the effort involved highlights the often-unseen labor of maintaining a public, curated persona in the digital age.
As the clock resets for a new year, the celebrities’ candid accounts offer a humorous yet poignant reminder that even highly visible public figures encounter digital burnout, encouraging followers to find balance between documenting every moment and simply living in the present.
