2026...
... That sounds like a fake future-year, like something you'd see in an old Star Trek episode. What the hell do you mean i'm turning 27 in 5 months? I graduated a couple years ago. But I didn't. it was nearly 9 years ago, and I haven't been 17 in a long, long time. But sometimes I still feel like that scared kid. I don't think we ever stop feeling like that.
That sounds a bit pesimistic. I'm not, I promise. Maybe just a bit melancholic. In all honesty, I'm weirdly optimistic about the future, despite the uhh... *gestures at everything* I've mentally described it mentally as a "desperate kind of optimism", a kind of 'light at the end of the tunnel', 'the night is darkest before the dawn' kind of optimism. how long can things suck, and everyone is looking at each other saying "hey everything sucks" before they stop sucking? Hell if I know tbh. I'm a rando from the Middle of Nowhere, south Carolina. I hope you're not looking to me for answers, reader.
In all seriousness, in recent times we've seen the meteoric rise of Generative AI, LLMs, Ultra-fast fashion, slop content, predetory social media, and intrusive advertising; yet with all of these we've also seen pushback. And the pushback grows everyday. I personally love watching video essays on YouTube, and I love watching video essays about the listed topics, and in the comments there are always people talking about how the video essayst changinged their mind/educated them on something they were perviously ignorant about. Of course this isn't any quantifiable data, just random comments i've read, but I mean, its something right? Things are't stagnant. People are learning, adjusting, changing.
I've also been facsinated by the Dumb Phone 'trend'. I hesitate to call it a trend because it's more of a lifestyle change, but I can't think of a better term right now. Now this has really piqued my interest. Part of the reason I even got into coding and made a neocitites account was because I wanted to stop using most social media (I still have Tumblr) and cut down on screen time drastically. (which btw, has happened! yippie!!)