The Age of Enshittification

 

They keep parroting, “Everything’s fine. The economy’s strong. Unemployment’s low. Keep scrolling, citizen.”

Look outside your window and tell me if that’s true. 

Main Streets are tombstones for dead dreams. 

Malls are mausoleums with broken fountains and half-lit signs, the only stores left: JC Penny and a neon-lit Vape shop. 

Whole neighborhoods rot while billionaires laugh from their tax havens.

This isn’t just a recession of dollars, it’s a recession of soul. 

A black hole sucking the connection, meaning, and spark out of everything we once called life.

Lonely. Pissed. Empty.

We’re lonelier than ever, but we’ve never been more “connected.” 

Every swipe, every like, every doom-scroll is a hit of dopamine to keep us docile while they squeeze us dry.

Dating apps chew people up and spit them out more cynical than they started. They're built for retention, not connection, after all. 

Friendships fade into group chats nobody replies to. 

Families drown in Netflix and DoorDash, just trying to numb the screaming truth: this is not living.

And when we do talk to each other? 

It’s usually to fight. To argue. 

The algorithms love it.

Rage is profitable, kindness is not. 

So they pump us full of outrage and watch us tear each other apart for sport.

Work Harder, Get Less, Smile Anyway

Got a job? Good for you. 

Now brace yourself: layoffs, AI tools to “augment” you (translation: replace you), bosses preaching “culture” while they pocket your raise.

Try to negotiate your worth, you’ll be ghosted by recruiters who lowball you while bragging about “competitive compensation.” 

It’s a rigged carnival game and you’re the mark.

And don’t even think about quitting. 

Your side hustle pays better, but guess what? 

No benefits, no security, and if you burn out, nobody cares.

We Paved Paradise and Put Up a Drive-Thru

Once upon a time, people lingered in diners and cafes. 

We hung out on stoops and front lawns. Now we rot in parking lots waiting for our mobile order, alone in our cars, overdosing on convenience.

Third places: gone. 

Walkable streets: gone. 

Parks? Might as well be condos now. 

We traded community for curbside pickup.

Everything’s a Subscription, Even Your Sanity

We rent our entertainment, our tools, our music, our groceries. 

Hell, we practically rent our lives. 

Nothing is ours anymore, except the debt that comes with it.

And the moment you fall behind? 

Some hedge fund snaps up your house for pennies, flips it, and raises the rent for the next poor bastard. 

This is “opportunity” in America: feast for the few, famine for the rest.

This Ends One of Two Ways

Option one: 

• Keep sleepwalking. 
• Keep scrolling. 
• Keep raging in comment sections while your neighbors starve behind quiet walls. 
• Watch your town hollow out and your spirit go with it.

Option two: 

• Snap the hell out of it. 
• Rebuild something real.
• Talk to your neighbors, they’re human too.
• Spend your money with people, not faceless corporations.
• Host a potluck. 
• Crash a local event.
• Start a punk band in your garage if you have to, just do something that can’t be monetized.
• Turn off the rage machine.

Connection is rebellion now. 

Creativity is survival. 

Community is how we fight back against the slow, quiet death they’re selling us.

This is the Silent Depression. 

They won’t say it, so we have to. 

And if they won’t fix it, we will. 

Or we’ll go down swinging.