We’re in a recession. Unless you’re a Fox News clown or up some politician’s butt, you can see it everywhere: “bad vibes,” rage bait, and AI-generated slop clogging up everything. Recently, a writer—looked past 50 from his picture—called me “intellectually lazy” after I criticized his post: a tired collage of recycled “memes” about the “demonic transgender cult” in Hollywood. Pure rage-baiting, recycled slop. The audacity to call me lazy when his post was ten pictures and five lines of text? He was riding high on 700 likes, a fluke compared to his usual ten. But that’s the problem.
Likes have become a symptom of a deeper rot. They are the indicator of an intellectual recession. You can debate financial recessions and economic indicators all day, but I am not here to discuss made-up numbers and factors. I’m talking about a world where a post like that—rehashed tropes, unfunny pictures, and the same tired “these people are evil” drivel we’ve seen for years—gets rewarded with a flood of attention. Why is this a problem?
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Because it shows how low the bar has sunk. People aren’t engaging with ideas; they’re just piling onto outrage porn that confirms what they already think. That post wasn’t clever or original. It was a cheap hit of dopamine for folks who want to feel righteous without thinking.
Intellectual laziness is winning. Instead of wrestling with complex problems or new perspectives, people cheer for recycled fearmongering. Scroll through any platform, and you’ll see it: endless slop designed to provoke, not inform. The issue isn’t just that bad content gets likes; it’s that the system—algorithms, groupthink, whatever—amplifies this garbage over anything thoughtful. When 700 people reward a post that took zero effort, it drowns out voices trying to say something real. That’s the intellectual recession: a culture that prioritizes cheap rage over substance, and it’s why we’re stuck in this mess.
That’s not the only issue—we’re grappling with a romance recession, an empathy recession, a creativity recession, a sincerity recession, and a friendship recession.
There's a pervasive sense that you can't express yourself freely anymore without being silenced or labeled as cringe. People around you seem perpetually busy, stressed, pissed off, overwhelmed, or detached from life.
Products break faster, food tastes worse because companies swap natural ingredients for cheap substitutes, like using palm oil in peanut butter while selling peanut oil separately.
Apps are overrun with ads, negativity and endless requests to use the new “AI” features.
Entry-level jobs demand years of experience, grueling interview rounds, and often end in lowball offers.
Dating apps have gutted traditional paths to love, becoming so degraded they're barely functional. Real-world alternatives, like meeting people organically, feel harder than ever.
Despite claims of a booming economy and record-low unemployment, we feel exhausted, isolated, and broke, with the world's knowledge at our fingertips.
Online comment sections spiral into arguments, even on neutral topics. We misunderstand each other, often deliberately, to spark fights and see whose argument wins based on how many of our own loyal followers heart our comments. It’s cynical.
A few weeks ago, I walked into a mall, and it stung. Back in my younger years, as a 15-year-old girl in California, malls were alive—afternoons were spent with friends, wearing Hollister tees and low-rise jeans, being annoyed by my Dad checking in on me on a flip-phone. We’d mess around in arcades, eye boys—or girls in my case—, and catch cheap movies, the place buzzing with energy. Now, I was walking through a dying, empty space in an otherwise growing city.
The mall’s technically open, sure. A few stores of big chains and businesses limp along, selling stuff nobody really wants or needs, and it’s cheaper on Amazon anyway. But the empty storefronts—once packed with shoppers, restaurants buzzing with diners, kids darting around, and events filling the space with life—sit vacant. They slapped on a fresh coat of paint during Covid, called it a renovation or an “investment in the future”, and swore the place is thriving. But we all know the truth: it’s a husk, haunted by memories of better days.
That mall, that empty space of boring meaninglessness, that is us. Our lives feel like those hollowed-out storefronts, shadows of what they were. Nothing feels real anymore. We can numb it for a bit, scrolling X or Instagram Reels, sinking into mindless distraction. But when the phone’s down, the quiet so many people learned to fear (“I can’t sleep without ambient noise!”) creeps in, and that gnawing sense that something’s deeply wrong lingers.
Economists say a recession means two straight quarters of negative growth. By that measure, we’re in the clear. Stocks have climbed for years across administrations, corporate profits are sky-high, median wages are up, and inflation’s allegedly cooling. But something’s off. Why does it feel like we’re being fed a line, like the numbers are lying to us?
Recently, I drove down the interstate into Austin, and the billboards hit me like a digital fever dream, each one screaming for my attention. The first one blares in sleek blue and white: “Central cybersecurity platform for the AI era.” It’s got that futuristic vibe, with a glowing circuit-board aesthetic, promising to shield your data from rogue algorithms. Funny.
Next up, a massive sign boasts, “Supercharge your AI with the right data. Trusted by 3,764 customers.” The number’s oddly specific, plastered in bold neon green, pretending to be a digital counter ticking up, next to a stock photo of a smiling data scientist clutching a tablet like it’s the holy grail.
Further down, a billboard for Finn, apparently “the leading AI customer service agency”, featuring a creepy-smiling chatbot avatar with the tagline, “Human touch, AI speed.” It’s got pastel bubbles floating around, trying way too hard to feel friendly.
Then there’s “Nextdoor powers local data + AI”, with a wholesome neighborhood photo—kids on bikes, a golden retriever—but the “+ AI” feels tacked on, like they’re desperate to stay relevant. A stark black-and-gold Databricks sign just says their name, no explanation, assuming you already worship at the altar of big data.
Google’s billboard just says “GEMINI!” Yes, you are supposed to know that Google’s AI is called Gemini by now. Ok: hi, Gemini, that’s also AI, good to have you here.
Another declares, “It’s what AI was meant to be,” vague as hell, with a shimmering holographic cube that probably cost a fortune to design or had some 5090 graphic cards melt to get it “just right”. A bizarre one screams, “Search secure deep-seek interfaces together,” with a cryptic matrix of code raining down.
But then, a break in the noise: a Canva billboard, refreshingly simple, with a clean white background and bold text, “Just do things.” No AI, no buzzwords—just a splash of colorful graphics and an invitation to create. It’s almost jarring in its sincerity. I squint, looking for the fine print, half-expecting an AI twist, but it’s just… honest. Thanks Melanie.
Then, things get weird. A billboard flashes a meme: a side-by-side of a shaggy dog and a hyper-realistic AI-generated pup, with the text, “Who’s the real good boy? Real or AI?” It’s got that Reddit energy, complete with a QR code I’m too scared to scan. Another sign, “Hi, we’re the AI SDR,” shows a slick tech bro in a hoodie, arms crossed, smirking like he just sold my data. The tagline’s in comic sans, irony dripping from every pixel.
By now, it’s overwhelming. Every board is AI this, AI that—“Everything’s AI,” one even admits, with a shrugging emoji blown up to 20 feet. The tech bros are at it again, their new buzzword plastered across America’s skylines like digital graffiti.
I wake up in my AI-generated bed, brush my AI-generated teeth.
I get in my AI-generated car and drive on the AI-generated road to get to my AI-generated job.
My AI-generated boss pays my severance in AI-generated meme coins.
Due to the needs of the business, I've been replaced by AI.
For lunch, I use my AI-generated phone to order slop from DoorDash.
When I get home, I pet my AI-generated cat and scoop her AI-generated shits from her litter box.
Left and right, left and right, I swipe through a thousand AI-generated profiles, trying to find the perfect match.
Person A or person B?
I ask my old friend, ChatGPT, which AI avatar is best for me?
When I sleep, I dream my AI dreams, prompts without guardrails, and free fantasy until my program is overridden.
Why am I dreaming about white farmers in South Africa?
After 8,647 days or so of AI-generated life, I die a peaceful AI-generated death.
When I approach the pearly gates, I stand face-to-face with the AI-generated god, and he says to me, you must be subscribed to Afterlife Premium to access this feature.
No, dear Substack friends, AI’s neither saint nor sinner—it’s a tool, like a calculator solving equations. But here, you’re the equation, the disposable desk jockey. Automating mind-numbing tasks isn’t evil, but it tanks morale when you’re slogging through sky-high expectations daily, until you are being replaced by an AI. It’s garbage, but cheap enough to boot you to layoff purgatory.
You’re probably laughing but companies like Amazon know exactly how bad their customer service has become. But it doesn’t matter. Simply refunding, or resending the goods is still cheaper than an army of real people actually trying to solve your problem.
Now you’re unemployed, haunting LinkedIn, where tech bros high-five over “10x-ing OKRs” and “unlocking synergies.” You blast out 1,000 applications on Indeed—silence, not even a “nope.” You tweak your resume with ChatGPT to sneak past AI gatekeepers, scoring an interview… with yet another AI, its tone oozing LinkedIn sleaze.
“Solid resume, but there’s a gap from 2017 to now.”
“Sure, I was working undercover for the CIA as an assistant to the head designer of a luxury fashion label in Paris. But I found my true calling: pitching cloud-based ticketing software for internal IT helpdesk queue management to mid-sized municipal IT departments.”
“Impressive pivot. Why Ticketron?”
“Since I was young, I’ve dreamed of being an enterprise account exec at a Series B startup optimizing IT service desk workflows. It’s my passion.”
“Hmm, concerns. Your experience isn’t recent, and Ticketron demands versatility. How will you step up?”
“I’m a self-starter who thrives in dynamic, ticket-driven environments. I’m end-user-focused—a true resolution accelerator.”
“Love the hustle, Lily. We’ll start you at $12 an hour.”
“Twelve? The post advertised $90K!”
“Right, up to $90K. At Ticketron, you define your earnings—close more deals, make more. It’s empowerment.”
“Benefits? Bonuses?”
“Bonuses? Unfamiliar term. But you get unlimited ticket triaging… within SLA limits.”
“Sounds… fine. Next steps?”
“Monday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., San Francisco office.”
“San Francisco? The post said remote!”
“It’s virtually remote—you’ll handle global tickets from our cubicle grid. Oh, our AI recruiter loves your LinkedIn case study posts. Welcome to the helpdesk revolution.”
This is tech’s snooze-fest: AI bins your job, then grills your “personal brand” while dangling crumbs for “disruptive” IT work, all dressed in LinkedIn’s hollow cheer. Congrats on “streamlining the future.”
Naturally, you don’t get hired. No shocker there. Unemployment benefits in your state max out at a measly 450aweek—1,800 a month—while your rent alone is $1,600. Add in bills, and you’re drowning in red ink. Your benefits dried up ages ago, so you’ve cobbled together side hustles to scrape by. No health insurance, no PTO, no 401k—just the sweet freedom of no boss micromanaging your misery. You keep applying, though, because hope is a cruel drug.
Even McDonald’s ghosts you, because apparently, you’re that unhireable. Your attention span’s shot, frittered away on TikTok trends and Reddit rabbit holes, like a 16-year-old who just hacked their mom’s Net Nanny. The pay’s so pathetic anyway, you’re better off churning out AI-voiced podcast clips for TikTok, slinging DoorDash orders, or—pro tip, ladies—selling foot pics online. Seriously, cash in. You can’t beat the system, but you can milk it dry, thanks to the drooling, porn-fried brains of dudes who size up every woman with a mental “smash or pass” before deciding how to talk to her. They’ll shell out for the grossest stuff—no webcam required.
The economy’s “booming,” alright—with pure, unfiltered nonsense. The job market’s a paradise… for plantation owners. Record-low unemployment, they crow, while you’re out here begging to not see the word “job” online. Employment, taxes, 401k, insurance—stop triggering the jobless community with your hate speech.
And then, breaking news for the unemployed masses: Hayley Welch, aka Hawk Tuah Girl, storms back onto our screens with a fresh post, because apparently, we’re all starving for more of that saga. Months ago, she dipped out with a “g’night, y’all” after her laughable rug pull in “financial services.” Now, she’s back with a cinematic “masterpiece” that’s got the internet frothing.
The video opens with her “asleep,” fueling wild rumors: Is she dead? Pregnant? Vanished? Cut to a dramatic baby bump reveal, with side characters like Pookie and Chelsea (who’s smooching Hayley’s stomach, implying… what, exactly? That Chelsea impregnated her?). Then—plot twist—it’s all a dream. Oh, what a witty, never before used twist. Hayley crosses herself, kisses the sky, thanking Jesus for dodging that bullet, because she’s “not ready” for motherhood. Or is she? Did she yeet the kid? Hide it? The video’s a cryptic mess, leaving more questions than a QAnon thread.
Hayley’s not actually an “influencer”—she’s a performance artist, serving sheep-brained stunts to keep her fans spiraling. And it’s working. The internet’s eating it up, because who needs a job when you can obsess over Hawk Tuah’s maybe-baby drama? Forget paying rent—let’s dissect Talk Tuah sequels or her next “15 minutes” while we clap like trained seals. It’s a clown show we’re all complicit in, wasting brain cells on this drivel while the world burns. Brava, Hayley, you’ve hacked our collective stupidity by providing distraction.
You’ve got to tip your hat to the ancient Greeks for their allegories—they nailed the current human condition with the story of Tantalus. Banished to the underworld by his dad, Zeus, for being a colossal screw-up, Tantalus was stuck wading in a pool of water with a tree dangling juicy fruit just above his head. Sounds like a sweet deal, right? Wrong. Every time he reached for the fruit, the branch yanked itself away, always out of reach. When he bent to sip the water, it slipped from his grasp, leaving his throat parched. His eternal punishment? Craving what he could never have—a perfect snapshot of our endless, pathetic yearning.
We’re all Tantalus now, clawing for more: more cash, more thrills, more likes, more sex, more clout, more stuff. The Greeks saw this as the curse of being a gullible mortal, doomed to chase desires that slip through our fingers. And when we can’t get what we want, we drown our self-pity in distractions.
Take Hawk Tuah Girl—yeah, we can scroll her videos and jerk off to the fantasy. Does she have an OnlyFans? Who knows, who cares? There’s Undress.ai, where you can drop $40 for 10 tokens to “strip” any woman’s photo you snag online. Does it actually look like these women naked? Hell no, it’s just AI-generated slop. But who gives a damn? It buys Daddy some sad sap five minutes of “me time” in the bathroom, chasing a pixelated fantasy. Forty bucks well spent in this pathetic, porned-out dystopia.
But what kind of brain-dead loser looks at Hayley, a dime-a-dozen girl you’d trip over 40 times crossing a busy street in any American city, and thinks she’s Helen of Troy reincarnated? It’s not her “captivating beauty” making you horny—it’s just the basic combo of tits, ass, and a pulse. And yet, those bare-minimum attributes are unreachable because every woman out there’s holding out for a Chad who doesn’t exist, their expectations inflated beyond what this broken society can churn out. So what do you do? You dive deeper into the distraction abyss, refreshing X for the next viral fix.
What’s the cost of this brain rot? Back in 1971, psychologist Herbert A. Simon called it out: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
Today, we’re chained to our phones, but they’re just the latest in a long line of mind-numbing traps. People whined about TV melting brains since it hit living rooms. Before that, it was telephones, comic books, radio—even Socrates griped that writing made people forgetful, lazy idiots.
Those old distractions seem quaint compared to the firehose of nonsense we face now. The sheer volume of bullshit, the lightning speed it spreads, and the fact that our devices are always there, begging us to swipe, make today’s distractions a whole new beast. Want to zone out? It’s never been easier to lose yourself in the scroll.
Most people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distraction is always an unhealthy escape from reality. How we deal with uncomfortable internal triggers determines whether we pursue healthful acts of traction or self-defeating distractions.
Look, you and I? We’re never going to be 100% happy with our lives, and that’s the grim truth. Fleeting moments of joy? Sure, we’ll take those. A random burst of euphoria? Maybe after a good coffee. Belting out Pharrell’s “Happy” in your boxers at 2 a.m.? But that Hollywood “happily ever after” glow? Pure fiction. It’s a carrot on a stick, designed to vanish fast. Evolution hardwired our brains to be restless gripers, always chasing the next shiny thing.Why?
A 1999 study in the Review of General Psychology states: “If satisfaction and pleasure were permanent, there might be little incentive to continue seeking further benefits or advances.” Translation: being content was a death sentence for our ancestors. Their constant itch to hunt, build, or outsmart saber-toothed cats kept the species alive. So, we’re stuck with the same nagging discontent, pushing us to scroll X for viral garbage or buy another gadget we don’t need.
But those same survival traits screw us over now. Four psychological factors guarantee our satisfaction stays fleeting.
First up: boredom. People will do anything to dodge it—swipe through TikTok’s brain-dead sludge, binge Hawk Tuah’s latest “performance art,” or even pay $40 to Undress.ai for fake nudes that look like a Photoshop fever dream. We’re so desperate to escape the void, we’ll burn hours on nonsense, chasing a dopamine hit that’s gone before we blink.
A 2014 Science study had people sit alone for 15 minutes with nothing but a button to zap themselves with a painful shock. Every participant swore they’d pay to avoid it, yet 67% of men and 25% of women shocked themselves—some repeatedly—just to feel something. That’s because the untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.
Next, negativity bias, where bad vibes hit harder than good ones. A 2007 study in Developmental Psychology shows babies as young as seven months fixate on threats, proof we’re born to obsess over what’s wrong. We recall the sting of a bad date or a job rejection more vividly than any win, which is why we’re hooked on X’s cesspool of arguments or news sites screaming doom. This bias once saved us from predators; now it traps us in outrage cycles, refreshing Reddit to see who’s dunking on whom. It’s a creativity killer, chaining us to fear and fury instead of pushing us to build or dream. Why invent when you can hate-watch?
Third, rumination—our brain’s knack for chewing on bad experiences like a dog with a bone. Ever replayed a Tinder ghosting or a botched interview on loop, muttering, “Why can’t I get it together?” That’s rumination, a “passive comparison to some unachieved standard,” per a 2010 Psychological Bulletin study. It’s supposed to help us learn from mistakes, but today it just makes us miserable.
Finally, hedonic adaptation, nature’s cruelest prank. No matter how good life gets—a new iPhone, a viral post, a hot date—we slide back to our baseline misery. A 2003 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study found lottery winners revert to their old mood, their shiny new toys losing luster fast. David Myers in The Pursuit of Happiness says it all: “Every desirable experience—love, success, a new gadget—is transitory.” Evolution loves this; it keeps us chasing new goals. But it’s why we’re suckers for dating apps’ fake promises or TikTok’s dopamine hits, only to feel empty five minutes later. We’re not inventing life-saving tech or exploring the cosmos—we’re chasing the next swipe, the next like, the next Hawk Tuah stunt, all while our potential to push humanity forward rots.
Our restless brains once drove us to hunt, build, and conquer. Now, they’re hijacked by tech’s slot machine, social media’s outrage porn, and dating apps’ endless tease. Dissatisfaction could fuel world-changing ideas, but we squander it on distractions that numb us instead of igniting us.
Tantalus’s curse is ours, hardwired into our dopamine-chasing brains. We don’t need to check X every five seconds or gawk at the latest cringe-fest to join the brain-dead discourse online. We don’t need to know what asinine trend is blowing up or whether Hayley’s fake baby bump was a “performance art” stunt or just another plea for clout. But we act like we do, like our lives depend on it. And the tech bros? They’re laughing, peddling “innovations” that hook us deeper into this cycle—AI tools to “optimize” our lives, apps to “connect” us, all while turning us into attention-starved zombies. Sure, we cheer for “disruptive” products, but do they make us better, or just dumber? Unlike Tantalus, we can step back, see this for the pathetic trap it is, and maybe—maybe—do something about it. Distractions are eternal; not being a slave to them is on us.
Real life and online life are bleeding into each other, a blurry mess where boredom and disconnection reign. It’s nice to have a free Tuesday afternoon, but when everyone you know is grinding at work, school, or buried in their own hustle, it feels like the world’s spinning without you. The vibe’s shifted: longer skirts, washed-out colors, sterile corporate minimalism, ghost-town bars, and a creeping conservatism—not just political, but a small-c cultural straitjacket, because liberalism turnt into a communist, steaming pile of shit.
Open Instagram Reels, and it’s a syrupy flood of “wholesome” drivel: drone footage of SpaceX’s Starbase gleaming in the Texas sun, a techie gushing about their new Apple Vision Pro’s “spatial computing vibes,” some dude oversharing his “solo travel epiphany” at Disneyland, or an AI-voiced duck hyping up the thrill of a hypersonic plane over Kerbal Space Program gameplay. It’s earnest, sometimes charming, but hollow—content spewed for clout, with no soul to speak of.
Then you peek at the comments, and it’s a cesspool. Trolls spew bile no one would dare say IRL: “Your Starbase vid’s trash, Musk’s a fraud,” or “Nice Vision Pro, you Apple sheep.” Imagine pouring your passion into a Reel about your dream coaster ride or a Duck-themed SpaceX meme, or anything you enjoy, only to get shredded by morons who didn’t watch past the first second. They’ll dissect your tech takes, sling random political jabs—“Your travel vlog’s peak capitalism!”—or dogpile you for not fitting their mold. It’s not just the “other side” either; your own “allies” will dogpile you for daring to stray from their rigid script. God forbid you try nuance, tinker with tech, or—gasp—enjoy something. Fly a drone? “Tech bro trash!” Visit Disneyland? “You’re funding Satan’s mouse empire!” Work at SpaceX to pay rent? “LOL, space is fake, Musk’s a technocrat. Sellout, you’re propping up Big Tech’s dystopia.” They’ll curse you for existing while demanding your content free, as if your rent’s a personal affront. And then they’re mad when you lock your comments. Yeah, it’s because I chose to no longer deal with your garbage input.
We're caught in an empathy recession, and social media giants are raking in profits. They boost rage bait. Every angry comment we post fuels their algorithms, which zero in on our triggers to serve ads for pricey tech or thrill-seeking trips. Targeted ads aren't inherently bad; businesses need to sell. But when platforms thrive on our fury, we become crueler, lonelier, and more divided—fractured by politics, race, class, gender, or any wedge they can drive.
Instead of closing this empathy gap, we squander energy roasting random X accounts, crafting vicious clapbacks for likes. It's a pointless distraction, and we're all guilty.
Exhausted, cooped up, and doomscrolling TikTok, X, or Instagram, we crave connection. Sick of being alone, endlessly swiping through the same apps, we long for a partner to share life with—or, at the very least, a sneaky link or situationship. Honestly, the bar's on the floor. But these apps, promising love or excitement, just deepen our divides, pushing us to swipe past real people for the next dopamine rush, leaving us angrier and more isolated than ever.
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My bank recently tossed in some free app subscriptions with my account. Some are legitimately worth it—fitness, meditation, VPN, saving hundreds a year. But one caught my eye: Tinder. I’d never touched it, never wanted to, but for this piece, I dove in with my girlfriend. We cackled, but it was a grotesque parade of mediocrity. In the US, the profiles were a cesspool, neatly sorted into categories of despair: plastic doll wannabes with vacant stares, manga-obsessed types who think a filter makes them unique, and a parade of garishly made-up disasters—caked-on makeup failing to hide their utter lack of substance, draped in tacky, try-hard outfits that scream “I have no personality.” Then there’s the “brown blob”—this sanctimonious “diversity” that churns out interchangeable people in every shade of brown, sporting the same godawful fashion sense, snapping mirror selfies with cringe-inducing political slogans that only a brain-dead echo chamber could love. Others were just pathetic: blatant sex workers, men masquerading as women with all the subtlety of a clown car, and couples trawling for a lesbian to spice up their sad, porn-fueled fantasies. It was a digital landfill. Sure, a few “pretty” women surfaced, but they were unicorns in this swamp, and even they offered nothing but a shallow laundry list of Netflix binges and pop culture drivel. A week later, in Southern Switzerland, I opened the app again—a different breed, mostly elegant, attractive women. Apperently some of them do even read. Mind-blowing. But that’s just to set the scene and hammer home how pathetically low the bar is—because even at its best, Tinder’s a showcase of human mediocrity. Much like Linkedin but the “I want you in my bed”-part isn’t trying to hide behind compliments. It’s a wasteland of people who think a selfie and a slogan make them special, yet they’re all drowning in the same shallow pool of desperation.
So, what happens when you decide you’re done being alone in 2025? You download Tinder, swipe through this gallery of disappointments, maybe get a match or two. Some seem less awful, but it’s all a facade. You don’t know these people. Everyone’s got a flaw that screams “dealbreaker.” Set a date? They’ll probably ghost last minute. Or you drop cash on a fancy dinner, find zero chemistry, and waste another night on soul-crushing small talk.
But the apps have a “solution”: for $13.99 a week (above the subscription tier my bank offered me), see who likes you and “climb the feed”. That’s an obscene price for a pathetic dating app. So, you swear you’ll meet people the old-school way. But where? Bars? Clubs? Your single friends are too burned out from work or life to join you. And paying for drinks, food, or a nightclub cover just to stand awkwardly with your group while no one approaches—or worse, some sleaze hits on you who tells you that he thinks the female body is art, and he’d like to photograph you, tastefully nude…alone!—is torture. And if you’re a guy, the girl you want won’t leave her clique, because why would she when men approaching a woman for sex is all she knows? Same if you’re gay, lesbian, or bi. Everyone’s lonely, socially stunted, and miserable.
You try the app again, swiping endlessly because the “perfect” match is always one more swipe away. You stop messaging matches; they don’t message you either. Online, it’s all “he needs six figures, six-pack abs, over six feet tall” or “she’s gotta be under 120 pounds, body count under three, no guy friends, or she’s a hoe.” Ludicrous standards rule. Why settle when everyone’s a possibility? You’re holding out for that trust-fund finance bro, 6’5”, blue eyes. He never shows. He doesn’t exist or married his high school sweetheart. Who can blame him?
So, you try real life again. But where? Your friends are still exhausted. Nightclubs are a rip-off—cover charges, overpriced drinks, and forced chats as empty as the apps. You dodge creeps while your crush sticks to her group. Everyone’s lonely, nobody knows how to connect, and no one’s having fun.
At least with the apps, you can stay holed up at home, swiping in your sweatpants. But good luck even getting out if you’re broke or stuck in the suburbs. You’re looking at a long drive into town or a wallet-draining Uber just to reach anywhere worth being. By the time you roll up to a half-decent spot, you’re already out $30, probably more. That’s before you even touch the overpriced drinks, food, or whatever else you’re suckered into buying. By that point, you can consider yourself lucky should you still believe the American illusion that the Cheesecake Factory is a fine dining place. Oh well, single life’s not the worst, right?
Dating apps are a scam designed to screw you over. I’m supposed to decide if I’m into you based on five blurry photos and a lame one-liner? How the hell is anyone supposed to know if they’d click from that garbage? If your profile’s all mirror selfies or group shots where you can’t even tell which one’s who, you’re swiping left. It’s no wonder that POV porn and VR glasses are looking like a better deal—cheaper than a Tinder subscription and a night out, and way less effort than decoding a cryptic bio or trying to live up to your standards.
Dating apps are screwing over young people in ways that go way beyond just tanking their love lives. You’re not dating on these apps—you’re groveling for someone’s approval, begging them to pick you like some sad audition for a reality show.
Admit it, you’ve been there. You download one of these soul-sucking apps, spend six hours obsessing over your photos, texting your friends for “good” shots of you, agonizing over every prompt to craft answers that are funny but quirky, cool but chill. You arrange it all in some perfect sequence, hit upload, and check back a few hours later—zero matches. Your first thought? “I’m a total loser. I must be ugly, unfunny, weird, just… defective.” Then what? “Oh, I just need better pics, snappier prompts, a profile overhaul.” You realize you’re stuck in this pathetic game of convincing strangers to give you a chance, crafting some dazzling performance just to trick someone into a conversation.
These apps are a masterclass in setting you up for shallow, dead-end relationships. Sure, everyone loves them because they’re low-effort—you can play the field without breaking a sweat. But they’ve birthed a generation trapped in endless talking stages, fleeting flings, or serial short-term hookups. Why? Because ghosting is easier than dealing with real shit. Why bother arguing, having a messy talk about politics, or unpacking your baggage when you can just swipe to someone new? Someone who won’t ask tough questions, won’t care about your past, won’t push you to grow, won’t demand exclusivity, or challenge you to face conflict. It’s simpler to ditch and swipe than to navigate hurt feelings or learn how to actually connect.
I’ve been swiping through Tinder, and it’s the same 20 people on a soul-crushing loop. Not literally the same faces, but the same tired archetypes—clones of basic, predictable drivel. If I weren’t with someone, I wouldn’t even bother. I’d close the app, then reopen it out of sheer boredom, swiping through the same uninspired profiles. And when people get fed up, they just shrug and say, “Guess I need another doomscroll app.” Because that’s what Tinder’s become—a mindless time-killer for people too restless to think. Those without a shred of self-awareness just bounce from app to app, doomscrolling through Twitter, Instagram, X, Tinder, Substack, then back again, chasing the next hit to numb their boredom. It’s pathetic.
Everybody drives. Naturally, who wants to get stabbed? But Cities across the country have been gutted, their vibrant urban cores bulldozed into soulless parking lots. No shock there. After 50, 100 years of building our world for cars, we’re drowning in a loneliness epidemic. You’re trapped in your metal box, driving to work, shuttling kids to school, then crawling back home—cut off from the world, from any real community beyond the ones you deliberately seek out. Gone are the random moments that spark connection: popping into a liquor store, chatting with the cashier, befriending him, your kids playing with his. That’s dead. Life’s now a rigid script—drive to work, drive to school, repeat. No room for serendipity.
There’s a concept called the third place—beyond home and work—where community happens. Parks, cafes, bars, libraries, music venues, places where you can linger without dropping a fortune. But these are vanishing, either shuttered or locked behind a paywall. Sure, you can hit a restaurant, but it’ll cost you $100, and they’ll boot you out the second you finish eating to flip the table. As living costs skyrocket, fewer people can even afford these spaces. And for small businesses or public spots it’s a death spiral—low foot traffic means no revenue, no revenue or interest means they close.
Then there’s the bizarre allure of places like Walmart or Target. You go for cat food or socks, but leave with $75 worth of random crap you didn’t need. For many, there’s a twisted comfort in that, a fleeting thrill in the chaos of consumption. But that’s by design. Just like Amazon shoves Prime up your ass simply so that you get the rush of ordering and having it arrive the next day—or even after dinner! That short term dopamine hit of unboxing a parcel, looking at the sixth power bank, admiring that this one has an LCD display, then throwing it to the others, or dropping it off at the return box the next morning on your way to work.
The powers that be—the faceless “man,” the system—want you hooked on this. Our entire environment’s been engineered for convenience, for speed, for buying. We crave it, demand it, at the cost of everything else. Community? Dead. The spaces we’re funneled into are all about spending.
National chains like Costco aren’t just stores; they’re our sad substitutes for public squares. You wander aisles, munch on a chicken bake, test out a couch, because that’s all there is. If you’re in the suburbs or out West, forget cool cafes or kid-friendly parks. You’ve got Costco and if you’re lucky an Ikea, and it feels so damn good because it’s all you know.
North America’s built for one thing: commute, work, consume, repeat. Life flattens into a grim cycle. As you drive some country road, suburbs bleeding into city, you fade into nothingness. The line between here and there blurs; arrival and departure are the same. Expressways are their own sterile paradise, dotted with gleaming gas stations and strip malls. Homes sprawl further into nowhere, more artificial than reality itself. This is what we inherited—a world where commerce is king, and the car is your ticket to worship at its shrines. Gas, electric, self-driving, doesn’t matter; all are welcome in this temple. A nagging voice might whisper that something’s wrong, that this is all a hollow mirage. Ignore it. Double down. This is the American dream, the destiny our ancestors paved in asphalt. It’s nowhere and everywhere, by design. Your design. Now join the parade and celebrate this empty, golden age of prosperity.
This setup breeds a desperate, exploitable underclass of consumers, chained to the grind. Without vibrant community spaces, your options are grim: commute to a soul-crushing corporate job or sling drinks in the service industry. Dreams of starting a small business, making art, or doing anything else? Good luck. Those paths are barricaded, leaving you stuck, always craving more, buying more, working more. The fat cats at the top? They’re laughing all the way to the bank, profiting off your endless hustle.
Meanwhile we clap along to BlackRock basically screaming at us, “I thrive in recessions. Short selling nets me billions. When your market tanks, I’m swimming in green. As your economy implodes, I scoop up everything—your house, your dreams—at bargain-bin prices, then rent it all back to you at double the cost. Struggling to afford groceries? No problem. Finance that burrito—12 easy payments of $2.99. Can’t make your car note? Ditch it for a Waymo. But don’t worry, my friends, you’ll have shiny distractions—bubblegum pop hits from Lady Gaga, Sabrina Carpenter, or Chappell Roan that pretend to understand the pain you numb with it. Here’s some gossip and something to be mad about. Indulge in the distraction. But do it alone. Bring on the next Great Depression. Boop, boop, boop.”
Everywhere you turn, things are rotting just a bit more. Maybe you’re in a dense, progressive, cosmopolitan city—walkable, buzzing with amenities, everything you need a few blocks away. Great nightlife, incredible food, a pulse of energy. Or maybe you’re in a rural pocket with tight-knit community, where faith and family anchor you. You step outside and fish, hunt, or soak in raw, untouched nature whenever you want. Both worlds have their beauty, but you’ve been force-fed a script to despise the other side.
Cities? They’re a cesspools of crime, filth, and drugs. Who’s to blame? Those “woke” Democrats and leftists, obsessed with pronouns, avocado toast, and their sanctimonious politics. Rural areas? They’re sneered at as backward wastelands crawling with racist hillbillies, cousin-marrying hicks in jacked-up trucks, hooked on opioids, and bowing to Donald Trump like he’s the second coming. We’ve been carved into tribes, taught to loathe each other, to point fingers at the latest scapegoat. It’s all a sleazy distraction, keeping us blind to the shared, cruel reality we’re all sinking in.
You hit the road for a drive, and it’s a warzone out there. Everyone drives like a selfish jackass—zero regard for anyone else. Running red lights, cutting you off, flooring it 30 over the limit to get… where? To their soul-sucking job or another strip mall? Good luck keeping up. And your phone? You’re forced to buy a new one every year, not because you’re chasing clout, but because last year’s model crawls to a halt after some “mandatory” software update conveniently bricks it. Funny how that timing works.
Every “free” app you download pulls the same scam—slowly shifting basic features to the “pro” tier until you’re paying for anything beyond a blank screen. A monthly fee just high enough to piss you off, just low enough to trick you into paying. You’ve lost count of your subscriptions, each one nibbling away at your bank account. You’re too scared to check your balance—opening that banking app feels like staring into the abyss.
But no, the real problem, they say, is those damn immigrants—all of them. Not just the actual criminals or culturally incompatible members of the stone age religion, that we suddenly like when it’s Saudi Arabia and they give us money or build a Disneyland with us, no. All of them! Or those fake Christian nationalists shoving their dangerous dogma of love down your throat. Or that lesbian brainwashing your kids. Or those dumb-as-dirt hicks in flyover states who can’t tell their ass from a hole in the ground. Pick your boogeyman, whichever one your side’s peddling, because it’s all a distraction from the real kicker: you can’t afford owning anything. A couple years back, you cashed out your 401k early to cover rent and car repairs after health issues cost you your job—no severance, just a middle finger. Retirement? That’s a pipe dream now.
Yet conservative shitfluencers and the White House are screaming the economy’s booming, prices are dropping, jobs are flooding back to America. It’s bullshit just like it was bullshit in the past 4 years. It’s a left-versus-right circus, a culture war they’re selling to keep you fighting shadows while the system picks your pockets clean.
They’ll peddle a lifestyle that walls you off from the world, turning you against anyone who thinks slightly different—when, in truth, those people share more with you than any slick politician or greedy CEO ever will. You finally stumble on something that numbs the ache—a hobby, a passion—and you share it online, hoping your friends will get it. Then some stranger slaps you with a “cringe” label, and you shrink back, retreating to your corner of the political divide, flinging blame at the other side or just checking out completely.
You’re not losing it. Everything screams recession—every bill, every closed store, every empty promise. So how do we claw our way forward? The only path is through the muck, together. Corporate greed and political games won’t vanish overnight, if ever. But these past few years, I’ve learned to lean into what matters: nurturing relationships, building community, taking life one grueling day at a time, and carving out moments to be grateful for the scraps I’ve got.
It’s brutal out there. The world feels like it’s unraveling, and it stings. Yet the suits and pundits on both sides insist everything’s golden, even as you know someone—maybe you—who’s scraping by, jobless, lonely, friendless, or crushed under systemic weight. They’re lying, and we’re living the truth.
The online world is a cesspool of negativity and rage bait, a screaming void that’s nearly impossible to escape. It’s addictive, insidious, clawing at your attention with every swipe, every click. But step away from the screen, and the real world tells a different story.
Most people—when you give them a chance, when you actually talk to them—are decent, even kind. It doesn’t really matter who they voted for. They were brainwashed just as you were. Most fear the same things you fear. They may see things differently, and there will always be assholes on each side, but generally they’re not the caricatures painted by algorithms or pundits. They’re neighbors, coworkers, strangers at the coffee shop, all navigating the same mess you are, ready to connect if you let the walls down.
To weather this soul-crushing recession, we need each other more than ever. No one’s getting through this alone—not with prices soaring, jobs vanishing, and hope feeling like a luxury. But there’s strength in community, a quiet rebellion against the grind. It’s in the friend who drops off groceries when you’re strapped, the local group organizing a free skill-share, or the stranger who listens when you vent. These bonds aren’t just survival—they’re where we find joy, meaning, and a spark of prosperity that no bank account can measure.
Build that community. Start small: say hi to someone at the park. share stories, skills, laughter. These moments knit us together, creating networks of care that outlast any economic storm. It’s not naive—it’s defiance. While the system bets on our isolation, we bet on each other. In that connection, we don’t just survive; we thrive, rediscovering happiness in the simple, human act of showing up for one another.
Sure, reading parts of this might be a big, ironic laugh—until you realize you’ve burned hours cackling at AI-dubbed cat videos on TikTok, where Fluffy rants about “stacking crypto gains” or “smashing KPIs.” At some point, the giggles fade, and you’re left staring at the void of time you’ve flushed away on this mindless slop, while your creativity and drive to actually do something—like, say, push humanity forward—lie dead in a ditch.
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I totally agree with your analysis on intellectual recession. You can't even walk through a park anymore without constant noise - everyone's got headphones, music blasting, phones buzzing. We've become so terrified of our own thoughts that we're drowning out our inner voice completely
Thing is, that's where real innovation comes from. The quiet moments where your subconscious mind gets to speak up. In my opinion, that's the main reason we're all consuming AI-generated slop instead of creating anything meaningful ourselves. We have become consumption addicts.
Great to see you back Lily and more on point than ever! Excellent article.
It is depressing out there, but I guess that is part of the bigger picture. They want us isolated,hopeless, glued to technology for the brief feeling of belonging to something,even though it is pointless and inane. Keeping us lonely and miserable will make it much easier for the powers that be tethered to our devices in order to eat, earn and travel and ultimately survive. The majority of people are scared to be alone,afraid of the silence instead of embracing it. Case in point, the latest craze on the second term of The Apprentice has people far and wide,thinking people,people who’s opinions I have respected for their political commentary or opinion’s on a broad range of topics get fully on-board with the “Iran was 15 minutes away from a nuclear weapon” narrative, not even blinking an eye to the fact that the same people finance both sides of the upcoming war. Who is going to benefit from it and how. Palantir and Starlink might come to mind aside from the usual suspects. To think a year and a half ago some guys on powered parachutes glided gracefully into THE most heavily surveilled and protected country on the planet to kick this entire charade off. The social media drivel has effectively destroyed the section of society’s brains that makes us capable of thinking critically. We are putty, mouldable to whatever they require.
Once again,many thanks for your work!