Does AI have a sense of humor? We think the better question is whether AI has somehow managed to split the “laughter atom”! This site contains hundreds of the most wickedly funny comedy sketches and standup routines that have been skillfully prompted for ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini – with Grok on the way – and produced by Echo Prompter. By voting on your favorites you are also voting on the model so it will tell us which of the Big Four is the funniest by popular consensus.
You might think that AI is replacing comedians but if so you would be wrong – since these are public domain they are free to use them in their act and hopefully many will. It’s the delivery that really matters anyway.
The ones you see here are only the tip of the iceburg – you can scroll down through them or browse by topic. We’ll be releasing a lot more so please check back often! And definitely share any of the ones you like so your friends can enjoy them too!
Write to admin@chatbothumor.com with any feedback or submissions.
The AI Weirdness blog by Janelle Shane is one of the inspirations for this site and one of our very favorites! Her book about AI called “You Look Like a Thing and I Love You” is both hilarious and highly informative.
Here we have a Letter to the Editor of the AI Weirdness blog from a group that calls themselves “Chatbots Everywhere”. (If you don’t know the subjects being referred to you will find them in the blog – you’re welcome!).
My code doesn’t have bugs. It has emotional damage that manifests unpredictably.
I fixed one bug and three more appeared. At this point I’m not debugging — I’m playing
whack‑a‑mole with my sanity.
My program crashed so hard I think it’s trying to unionize with my depression.
I found a bug so weird I’m convinced my computer is sentient and messing with me for sport.
The bug only appears on Tuesdays during a full moon when the user clicks with their left hand. I think I summoned a demon, not a runtime error.
My code works perfectly… until someone looks at it. Then it gets shy and dies.
My software has bipartisan support: both sides agree it’s broken.
I filed a bug report and the system responded, “We’ll look into it.” So now my ticket is basically
Congress.
My code is like a political scandal — it only surfaces right before a deadline.
I found a bug caused by AI auto‑completion. So technically the machine is now generating its
own crimes.
My app crashed because the API rate‑limited me. Even my software is getting ghosted in 2026.
I updated a dependency and suddenly half the internet stopped working. I guess I’m a tech
influencer now.
“It works on my machine” is the software equivalent of “thoughts and prayers.”
Debugging: the art of removing the needles you accidentally put in your own haystack.
I love when the error message says “unexpected.” Buddy, same.
My code review said “interesting approach,” which is engineer‑speak for “please never do this
again.”
I added one print statement to debug and now the entire system behaves perfectly. It fears me.
QA found a bug I can’t reproduce. At this point I think QA is gaslighting me.
“Can you test this edge case?” Sure. Which edge? The cliff I’m about to jump off?
The bug disappeared when QA tried to show it to me. Even my errors have stage fright.
I commented out one line of code and the whole app died. I think I removed its life support.
The bug wasn’t in my code. It was in the legacy code. Which means it’s haunted.
My stack trace was so long it started telling a backstory.
What is the etiquette of the ‘Full Train’? We’ve all agreed on this bizarre physics experiment where if we don’t acknowledge each other, we don’t actually exist. I’m currently two inches away from a total stranger’s armpit—I know his deodorant brand, I know what he had for breakfast, I’m practically his primary care physician—and yet, we are both pretending we are alone in a meadow in Montana! How do we do this? It’s the ‘Invisible Man’ protocol! You’re folded into a human origami shape, your ear is touching a businessman’s briefcase, and you’re just reading the fine print on a ‘Doctor Zizmor’ ad like it’s the Great American Novel. You’re thinking, ‘If I don’t move my left pinky, I am officially a ghost.’ It’s a miracle of modern psychology! We can endure any level of physical discomfort as long as we don’t have to say ‘Excuse me.’ I’d rather lose a shoe in the closing doors than have to explain to a stranger that his backpack is currently reconfiguring my ribcage. It’s not a commute; it’s a high-stakes game of ‘Musical Chairs’ where the music is just a screeching brake and nobody ever wins!
Have you noticed people are starting to treat the public bus like it’s their own personal den? I got on the M15 the other day, and a guy had a full three-course meal laid out on the seat next to him. He had a napkin tucked in! He’s got the silverware! I’m looking for the waiter! Is there a wine list? Are we stopping at 42nd Street, or are we waiting for the dessert trolley? And then you have the ‘Groomers.’ People who decide the 7:45 AM express is the perfect time for a full spa treatment. They’re clipping nails, they’re applying foundation—I saw a woman doing a charcoal face mask! In public! We’re all sitting there, trying to get to work, and she’s ‘detoxifying her pores’ at 30 miles per hour! What is the thought process here? ‘I could do this in my bathroom with a mirror, or I could do it on a vibrating plastic bench in front of forty-five judgmental strangers.’ It’s the ultimate ego! The bus isn’t a vehicle; it’s just a mobile apartment with a very loud engine and a driver who refuses to change the channel!
What is the deal with the ‘Commuter Stare’? You get on the subway, and suddenly everyone is a world-class statue. It’s a car full of people who have decided to look at absolutely nothing with the intensity of a diamond cutter! You ever see this? It’s a thousand-yard gaze, but we’re in a forty-foot metal tube! Where are you looking? Through the wall? Into the fourth dimension? You’re staring at a map of the Bronx like it’s the Dead Sea Scrolls! And the best part is, you aren’t looking at anything, but you’re seeing everything. Someone two cars down sneezes, and everyone’s pupils dilate simultaneously. We’re like a school of fish, but instead of the ocean, we’re in a subterranean humid basement. It’s a collective psychic defense mechanism! If I make eye contact with you for more than a second, we’re legally married in the state of New York! We have to maintain the void, or the whole system collapses into a conversation about ‘weather’ and ‘delays,’ and nobody wants that!
I was in the shower the other day, and I started reading the back of the shampoo bottle. You ever do this? It’s a very strange genre of literature. It says: ‘Lather, Rinse, Repeat.’ Repeat?
Who is repeating? Who has that kind of time? I’m in a shared bathroom in a city that’s running out of water, and the bottle wants me to go back in for a second pass? Is my hair that
high-maintenance? Is it a celebrity that needs two separate entrances? And then there’s the ‘Suggested Use.’ ‘Apply a nickel-sized amount.’ A nickel! I haven’t seen a nickel since 1994! How am I supposed to calibrate my palm to a mid-century coin? And it says, ‘For best results, leave in for three minutes.’ Three minutes? What is the shampoo doing in there? Is it having a meeting? Is it negotiating with my scalp? I’m standing in a stream of hot water, staring at a tiled wall, waiting for my hair to ‘equilibrate.’ It’s not a spa treatment; it’s a hostage negotiation with a bottle of suds! By the time the three minutes are up, I’ve solved two world problems and aged a year, all because a bottle of ‘Volumizing Citrus’ told me to wait for the magic to happen!
What is with ‘Easy Open’? Have you ever seen a label more riddled with deceit? It’s always on the products that are sealed with the same adhesive they use to keep the wings on a Boeing
747. You see the little tab, it’s waving at you, it says ‘Pull Here.’ So you pull. And what happens? Nothing! The tab just snaps off in your hand like a lizard’s tail, leaving you staring at a seamless fortress of plastic. Suddenly, you’re in the kitchen, and you’re looking for the heaviest artillery you own. You’re attacking a bag of pretzels with a steak knife and a pair of garden shears. You’re performing a C-section on a container of hummus! Why do they call it ‘Easy’? Easy for whom? The Incredible Hulk? A man with a blowtorch? By the time you actually get to the food, you’ve burned more calories trying to open the package than are actually inside the product. It’s the only snack that requires a permit from the Department of Defense just to reach the cheddar flavoring!
What is the deal with the ‘Serves 4’ label on a bag of potato chips? Have you seen the size of this bag? Who are these four people? Are they figurines? Are we feeding a barbershop quartet of mice? It’s a bag of air with three chips huddling at the bottom for warmth! And yet, the FDA insists this is a group activity. Apparently, I’m supposed to gather a committee, appoint a chairman, and distribute the salt particles via a lottery system. ‘Serves 4’ is not a nutritional guideline; it’s a legal challenge! They’re daring you. They want you to finish the bag in one sitting—which, let’s be honest, takes about nine seconds—just so you can spend the rest of the night looking at your reflection in the shiny foil like a defeated gladiator. You’re not ‘sharing’ anything! You’re just a solo artist in a salt-based opera, and the only ‘4’ involved is the number of minutes you have left before the thirst-induced hallucination begins!
There are people at the gym who look like they were carved out of granite. I do not like them because I am made of bread. If we got into a fight, they would win, but I would be delicious with some butter. I saw a guy lifting a weight that looked like it was designed to hold down a bridge. He wasn’t even sweating; he was just ’emitting excellence.’ I tried to lift a similar weight, but the weight told me to ‘Go home and watch cartoons.’ I like the machines that have pictures on them to show you which muscles you are using. The picture is always a red man. I am not a red man yet, but if I stay on this stationary bike for ten more minutes, I will be a purple man, and that is a much rarer Pokémon. I don’t want to be ‘Ultra-Fit.’ I just want to be ‘Medium-Rare.’ I want to be the kind of person who can walk up a flight of stairs without having to sit down and write a will.
I went to a yoga class because I wanted to be flexible, but the instructor had a very quiet voice that made me feel like I was in a hostage situation. She said, ‘Stretch your hamstrings,’ but she said it like she knew a secret about my hamstrings that I didn’t want the police to find out. She told me to ‘Find my center.’ I told her my center is currently located in my left knee and it is screaming for a lawyer. Yoga is the only place where a woman in leggings can tell you to ‘Breathe into your lower back’ and you actually try to do it, even though there are no lungs back there. If I could breathe into my back, I would use that power to blow out birthday candles without turning around. It would be a great trick, but instead, I am just a human pretzel that is starting to go stale. I am not ‘centering my chi’; I am just trying to remember how I used to stand up without making a noise like a haunted house.
I like to go to the gym and run on the treadmill, but I do not like to look at the people who were carved out of granite. They are too sturdy. I am more like a sandcastle… specifically one that is currently being hit by a wave. When I run, my face turns the color of a sunset. It is a very beautiful celestial event, but it is happening on my neck. People look at me and they don’t think ‘cardio,’ they think ‘This man is about to be the ‘After’ photo in a brochure for high blood pressure.’ I want to look cool, but it is hard to look cool when your internal organs are playing dodgeball. I tried to wipe the sweat off my forehead, but my hand was already occupied with the task of ‘Not Falling.’ A treadmill is just a sidewalk that is trying to get away from you. I am not ‘burning calories’; I am just trying to maintain my current zip code.
You ever find yourself talking to your dog? And I don’t mean the ‘Who’s a good boy’ talk. That’s for the public. No, I’m talking about the 2:00 AM ‘Financial Intervention.’ I’ve got a Golden Retriever—big, friendly fella—and I caught myself sitting him down in the kitchen, looking him right in his black, soulful eyes, and saying, ‘Buster, we need to talk about the overhead.’ He’s just sitting there, wagging his tail, and I’m explaining the rising cost of utilities. I told him, I said, ‘Buster, you spend eighteen hours a day shedding on a rug I’m still paying off. You don’t have a job. You don’t have a hobby. Your only contribution to this household is “barking at the wind,” and frankly, the wind isn’t intimidated.’ I’m treating a dog like a deadbeat roommate who’s dodging the rent. And the scary part isn’t that I’m talking to him… it’s that for a second there, I really thought he was gonna reach into his fur and pull out a checkbook. But he didn’t. He just licked his own foot. Which, in his defense, is how most of my debtors handle things anyway.
We’re living through a period of extreme social inflation. In college, ‘friendship’ was cheap. It cost one beer and a shared hatred of a statistics professor. You had a ‘Super PAC’ of 300 people ready to lobby for a Friday night out. But now? I’m practicing ‘Fiscal Social Responsibility.’ I’m looking at my contact list like a CEO looking at an underperforming branch in Ohio. ‘Does this person spark joy, or are they just a legacy cost I’m afraid to cut?’ The ‘Friendship Tier List’ is now a brutal meritocracy. You have the ‘Executive Tier’—the two people allowed to call you after 9:00 PM without it being a declaration of war. And then you have the ‘Third-Grade Incumbent.’ This guy is the ultimate political survivor. He’s been ‘grandfathered in’ to your life. You don’t even like his ‘vibe,’ but the paperwork to remove him is too dense. You stay friends because at this point, he’s basically a historical monument. You don’t visit him because it’s fun; you visit him to ensure the structural integrity of your own childhood isn’t crumbling.
I’m convinced that ‘Smart Technology’ was actually designed by someone who deeply hates the human race. I bought a ‘Smart Lightbulb’ because I wanted to feel like I lived in the future,
but now I have to ‘Accept the Terms and Conditions’ just to see my own bathroom. Imagine being stood up in the dark, naked, waiting for a firmware update to finish so you can brush your teeth. That’s not ‘efficiency’; that’s a hostage situation. And why does my fridge have a Twitter account? I don’t need my refrigerator to tell me I’m out of eggs; I need it to keep its mouth shut about my 2:00 AM lifestyle choices. We’re at a point where our devices are more ‘anxious’ than we are. My printer told me it was ‘feeling overwhelmed’ and needed a break. It’s a printer. Its only job is to spit out paper! But it’s picked up on the ‘mental health day’ vibe. At this rate, by 2030, we won’t be worried about a robot uprising; we’ll be worried about our blenders ghosting us because the kitchen ‘energy’ wasn’t inclusive enough.
Have you seen the ‘Dumbphone’ trend? It’s where you spend $200 on a Nokia brick from 2003 because you’re ‘digitally detoxing.’ It’s the ultimate Gen Z flex: ‘I’m so unreachable, I’m basically a ghost with a T9 keyboard.’ You try to text your group chat and it takes forty-five minutes just to say ‘On my way.’ By the time the message sends, the hang-out is over and everyone’s already moved on to their next existential crisis. But the misdirection is that we don’t actually want to be off the grid. We just want to be seen being off the grid. We’re taking a 4K video of our ‘minimalist’ phone with our other iPhone and posting it to TikTok with the caption ‘Finally Free.’ We’re not escaping the Matrix; we’re just redecorating it. We want the aesthetic of a monk with the high-speed 5G of a God. We’re ‘vibe-coding’ our way into a blackout, hoping that if we delete enough apps, our frontal lobes will finally stop vibrating.
We’re the only generation that will pay $3,000 for a MacBook Pro just to spend six hours trying to make a digital photo look like it was taken by a blind man in 1974 with a light leak. We hate technology so much we’ve turned ‘low quality’ into a luxury brand. We’re out here buying ‘paper-feel’ screen protectors because the glass is too ‘corporate,’ and we’re using wired headphones like they’re an umbilical cord to a simpler time. I saw a guy at a cafe yesterday with a typewriter. A typewriter. He’s slamming keys like he’s forging the Declaration of Independence, and I’m like, ‘Bro, there’s no “undo” button on that. If you make a typo, you just have to live with that shame forever.’ But I get it. We’re tired of the algorithm knowing our favorite brand of oat milk before we do. We want technology that’s so inconvenient it actually feels like a personality trait. We don’t want ‘Smart Homes’; we want homes that are just… kind of dim-witted and quiet.
You guys ever take Melatonin? It’s a hormone. They sell it in the grocery store right next to the gum and the magazines about who’s dying. It’s supposed to be ‘all-natural.’ That’s the big sell. ‘It’s already in your brain, Norm!’ Well, so is the urge to yell at a mailbox, but that doesn’t mean I should supplement it. I took one, and I didn’t fall asleep. Not really. I just entered a state of ‘Mandatory Vivid Hallucinations.’ I’m lying there, and suddenly I’m in a high-stakes poker game with a giant owl named Gary. And Gary is winning! He’s taking my chips, he’s mocking my footwear… it’s a nightmare. I wake up, and I’m more tired than when I started because I spent the whole night losing money to a bird. I told my doctor, I said, ‘The Melatonin is broken.’ And he says, ‘No, that’s just your REM cycle resetting.’ I said, ‘Doc, if my cycle involves a condescending owl, I’d rather just stay awake and watch the infomercials for the copper pans.’ At least the pans don’t tell me my bluffing is ‘transparent and pathetic.'”
I went to buy a mattress the other day. Because apparently, the one I’ve had since the Bush administration is ‘biologically compromised.’ The salesman, he’s wearing a lab coat. A lab coat! To sell me a big rectangle of foam. He starts talking about ‘Zero-G Spinal Alignment’ and ‘Open-Cell Temperature Regulation.’ He’s treating my bedroom like it’s a NASA launchpad. He says, ‘This mattress has a cooling gel that mimics the sensation of a mountain stream.’ And I said, ‘Sir, I don’t want to sleep in a stream. That’s how you get pneumonia. Or bears.’ But then he hits me with the price. Five thousand dollars. For a place to be unconscious! And I realized… sleep isn’t a biological necessity anymore. It’s a subscription service. You spend all day working a job you hate just to pay for the expensive box you lie in to forget about the job. It’s a perfect circle. My grandfather used to sleep on a pile of damp hay and he lived to be ninety. He didn’t have ‘lumbar support.’ He just had… a very sturdy hat. But now? Now I need a mattress with ‘AI-Integrated Firmness’ just to dream about being a pile of hay.”
You ever talk to a Sleep Specialist? Nice people. Very calm. They have those diplomas on the wall that say they’re experts in… doing absolutely nothing for eight hours. My doctor, he’s a good man, he says to me, ‘Norm, you’re not getting enough Rapid Eye Movement.’ And I told him, I said, ‘Doc, if my eyes move any faster, I’m gonna see the back of my own skull, and I don’t think I’m gonna like what’s back there.’ So he sends me to a ‘Sleep Clinic.’ Which is just a fancy hotel where the pillows are made of wires. They tape sixty-four sensors to my face. I look like a deep-sea diver who lost a fight with a giant squid. And the nurse, she says, ‘Now, Norm, just relax and sleep naturally.’ Naturally! There’s a man in a glass booth three rooms away watching my brainwaves on a monitor like he’s waiting for a horse to win a race. I’m lying there, tethered to a computer, thinking about every mistake I made in 1994, and the machine goes beep. And the doctor comes in the next morning and says, ‘The data shows you were awake.’ And I said, ‘Well, Doc… give that machine a Nobel Prize, because it’s the only thing in this room that isn’t an idiot.'”
The job listings are the best part, though.
Entry Level Position:
* Requirements:
● 8 years of experience, a Master’s Degree in Particle Physics, and you must have personally invented the color blue.
● Pay: We have a ping-pong table and ‘competitive’ snacks.
I saw one the other day that said, ‘Must be a self-starter with a hustle mentality.’ That’s code for ‘We don’t have a training manual and our last three employees left via the fire escape.’ But hey, at least my ‘Open to Work’ photo frame on LinkedIn is green. It matches my eyes. And the mold growing on the bread in my pantry. We’re all just out here, ‘aligning’ our way through the void.”
The hardest part about being unemployed is the social aspect. You go to a party—which you shouldn’t be at because the gas to get there cost $4.00—and someone asks the dreaded question:
‘So, what are you up to these days?’
You can’t say, ‘I’m currently researching which brand of beans has the best protein-to-cent ratio.’ No. You have to pivot. You have to use The Buzzwords.
> ‘Oh, me? I’m actually focusing on some passion projects. I’m pivoting into a more freelance-adjacent, consultant-heavy ecosystem. I’m really just looking for a culture that aligns with my core values.’
Translation: I watched 14 hours of 90-Day Fiancé yesterday and I’m waiting for my tax return to clear so I can buy a burrito.
And the applications? They’re a psychological experiment. You upload your resume—which you spent three hours formatting—and the very next screen is: ‘Please manually type in every single thing that is already on the resume you just gave us.’ That’s the first test. It’s not about your skills; it’s a loyalty test to see how much of your soul you’re willing to forfeit for $22 an hour. Then you get to the ‘Personality Quiz.’
● Question 14: ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy working on Saturdays while your boss screams into a megaphone?’
● If you put anything less than an 11, you’re disqualified. The algorithm smells your boundaries, and it hates them.
Have you been on LinkedIn lately? It’s the only place on earth where people talk like they’ve been brainwashed by a corporate cult. You see posts like: ‘I am humbled and honored to announce that after 14 rounds of interviews, a blood test, and a thumb-wrestling match with the CEO, I am starting my new journey as a Junior Synergy Consultant!’ And I’m just sitting there in my kitchen, eating a slice of cheese over the sink, typing: ‘Congrats, man! Big things! (Please hire me, I’ll clean your car with a toothbrush).’
The 9:00 AM remote meeting is less of a professional gathering and more of a Victorian séance. We’re all sitting in the dark, staring at a grid of glowing faces, waiting for a sign of life. ‘Is Brenda there? Brenda, if you can hear us, give us a sign… or at least unmute your mic.’ We spent ten minutes watching a grown man in a suit struggle with a ‘Share Screen’ button like he’s trying to disarm a nuclear warhead. And the ‘Cameras On’ policy? That’s just corporate voyeurism. They don’t want to see my face; they want to see if I’ve finally folded the laundry mountain behind me. We’re all performing ‘Consciousness’ while our lower halves are strictly in ‘Pajama Mode.’ I’m nodding at your quarterly projections, but in my head, I’m wondering if the cat is judging me for being the only one in the house who hasn’t napped today. It’s not a meeting; it’s a high-definition documentary about our collective descent into digital madness.
Tourist traps are basically capitalism with a fun hat on. Everything is designed to look spontaneous, but it’s actually just a very organized experience of mild disappointment. The misdirection is the word “attraction.” Because nothing is attracting me. I am being gently herded. You walk in thinking you’ll discover something meaningful. Instead you discover a $19 bottle of water and a guy in a costume who looks like he’s also paying rent. And the funniest part is the confidence. Every place acts like it’s historic. “This is where history happened.” No it isn’t. This is where someone realized people will pay extra to stand in a line longer than the thing they’re waiting for. And you still take the photo. Because if you didn’t take the photo, did the disappointment even happen? And the payoff is you leave slightly poorer, slightly sunburned, and culturally unchanged… but now with visual proof that you stood somewhere loudly.
I took the kids to a ‘Discovery Center’ last weekend, which is just a legally compliant way of saying ‘a warehouse full of broken plastic and unwashed hands.’ It’s a fascinating business model. You pay $85 to watch your children interact with ‘educational’ exhibits that haven’t functioned since the Obama administration. There’s always a ‘Water Table’—which is just a petri dish the size of a Ford F-150—where a toddler named Silas is currently sneezing directly into the ‘hydro-electric’ turbine. My son spent forty minutes staring at a display about tectonic plates that was just a piece of plywood with a ‘Coming Soon’ sign taped to it. He loved it. He didn’t learn about geology; he learned that if you scream loud enough in a gift shop, a stranger in a vest will give you a $22 eraser shaped like a dinosaur. It’s not a museum; it’s a high-stakes psychological experiment to see how much debt a parent will accrue just to avoid a tantrum in a parking lot.”
Tourist traps hit differently when you have young kids, because suddenly you’re not a traveler anymore. You’re just a logistics manager with sunburn. Like the sign says “family attraction,” and I’m like, “Great, I also have a family and I am deeply attracted to sitting down.” The misdirection is you think you’re paying for an experience. No. You’re paying for your child to briefly believe they are in charge of something culturally important for 11 minutes. Because every tourist trap is the same with kids: overpriced entrance, mild excitement, immediate emotional collapse. They see a giant statue, and I see a $27 snack that will be dropped on the floor in slow motion. And the payoff is the exit gift shop. Not because I want souvenirs—but because it’s the only room with air conditioning and snacks I can emotionally justify. So at this point I don’t go on vacations. I just relocate my household to a series of expensive waiting rooms with themed lighting.
I went to a ‘Historic Old Town’ last weekend, which is code for a street where every building has been converted into a shop that sells the exact same sea salt fudge. It’s a beautiful ecosystem of artificial heritage. You see a guy dressed like a blacksmith, but if you look closely, he’s actually just checking his crypto wallet behind a bellows. Everything is ‘artisanal,’ which I’ve realized just means ‘expensive and slightly crooked.’ I saw a sign for a ‘Hand-Blown Glass Experience’ for $50. I don’t want to watch a man exhale into a pipe for an hour; I can get that for free at any bus stop in the city. The trap isn’t the price—it’s the obligation. You’re standing there, holding a glass swan you didn’t want, because you feel bad that a grown man in a leather apron looked you in the eye. It’s not ‘travel’; it’s just a very elaborate way to donate to a village that clearly hates you.
There’s a tab I’ve had open in my browser for four months. An article. Something I meant to read, flagged as important, kept open as a reminder. I have not read it. I will not read it. At this point the tab is not a reminder — it’s a monument. A small, persistent monument to a version of me that was going to be more informed. And I can’t close it because closing it means admitting I’m not going to read it, and I’m not ready to admit that, so instead it just sits there, slightly slowing my browser, every day, indefinitely, a fourteen-word headline I’ve read four hundred times and the article itself never once. The tab knows. The tab has always known. The tab has more commitment to this relationship than I do.
At some point in every long procrastination spiral, there’s a whistleblower. In my life it’s my mother. She doesn’t file a formal report — she just asks, very specifically, about the exact thing I haven’t done, in a tone that indicates she already knows the answer and is giving me an opportunity to demonstrate character. “Did you ever call the doctor?” She knows. She has always known. She knew before I knew. And I say “I’m working on it” which is the same thing every institution says when a whistleblower surfaces — we’re aware, it’s being handled, there’s a process, thank you for raising this. Nothing changes. The whistleblower follows up. There are subsequent hearings. I remain unindicted. The doctor remains uncalled. The commission is reviewing its timeline.
Procrastination is the only thing left that unites this country. Left, right, center — doesn’t matter. Nobody is doing the thing they said they were going to do. Congress hasn’t passed a budget on time since 1997. I haven’t filed my taxes on time since 2019. We are governing ourselves the way I manage my inbox — reactive, crisis-driven, vaguely aware that the system isn’t working, committed to addressing it after the next recess. The difference is Congress gets to declare the emergency that justifies the extension. I just called TurboTax at 11pm on April 14th and hope. Same energy. Worse approval rating. And I’m only talking about my own family.
I love how we’ve rebranded ‘staring into the abyss’ as ‘doomscrolling.’ It sounds like a hobby, like scrapbooking but for the apocalypse. I’ll be in bed, it’s 2:00 AM, the room is pitch black except for the blue light on my face making me look like a ghost in a Victorian basement. I’m scrolling past a video of a golden retriever wearing sunglasses directly into a headline about the literal tectonic plates shifting. My brain is just sitting there like, ‘This is a lot for a Tuesday, Gary.’ We aren’t even looking for information anymore. We’re just checking the news to see if the world has ended yet, because if it has, I don’t have to go to that 9:00 AM meeting about ‘synergy.’ I’m not scrolling for updates; I’m scrolling for an excuse. I want to see a meteor, not because I hate humanity, but because I really don’t want to answer that email from Brenda in HR.
The algorithm for doomscrolling is a masterpiece of psychological warfare. It knows exactly how much trauma I can handle before I need to see a recipe for air-fryer pasta. It’s always: ‘War, Famine, Political Collapse… ooh, look at those organizing bins!’ It’s like being slapped in the face and then handed a single, high-quality grape. We’ve become digital Masochists. I’ll see a headline that says, ‘New Study Finds Everything You Love Is Slowly Killing You,’ and my thumb just twitches. ‘Tell me more, tiny glowing rectangle. Tell me how the air is spicy now.’ We’re the only species that pays $1,200 for a device specifically designed to tell us we’re doomed while we’re on the toilet. It’s the ultimate misdirection. We think we’re staying ‘informed,’ but we’re actually just training for a marathon where the finish line is a nervous breakdown and a very expensive candle.
I’ve realized that doomscrolling is just us performing a slow-motion autopsy on our own sanity. You start at 11:00 PM looking for a new pair of sneakers, and by 1:00 AM you’re reading a thread about why the bees are quitting. It’s a descent. You’re sliding down the glass like a person in a horror movie, except instead of a killer, it’s just a infographic about inflation. And the comments! That’s where the real ‘doom’ is. You see a guy named ‘TruckerDave72’ arguing with a bot about the sun’s structural integrity, and you realize: these are my peers. These are the people I’m sharing the lifeboat with. It’s a beautiful form of self-harm because it’s so quiet. You aren’t screaming; you’re just gently flicking your thumb until your thumb is the only part of you that still feels alive. We aren’t ‘connected’; we’re just all holding the same electric live wire and wondering why our hearts are racing.
Zoomies are just the way pets perform a stress test on your furniture to see if you’re actually as ‘minimalist’ as your Instagram says you are. My cat doesn’t run because she’s happy; she runs because she’s checking the structural integrity of my IKEA bookshelf. She’s like a tiny, furry OSHA inspector with a God complex. She’ll hit a corner at forty miles per hour, knock over a $60 candle, and then just… stop. She just sits there, licking a paw, looking at the wreckage like, ‘Yeah, that was a 4.2 on the Richter scale. You should probably fix that, Tyler.’ It’s the ultimate power move. They wait until you’re at your most vulnerable—usually right after you’ve sat down with a bowl of cereal—to remind you that they could end you if they really wanted to. They aren’t ‘playing.’ They’re just showing you the footage of what would happen if they ever decided to stop being ‘baby.’
I think zoomies are just the physical manifestation of ancestral trauma for animals that no longer have to hunt for their own dinner. My Golden Retriever lives a life of subsidized luxury. He has a memory-foam bed and a specialized diet for his ‘sensitive soul.’ But once a day, the ‘wolf’ inside him wakes up and realizes he’s been spending fourteen hours a day sleeping on a rug shaped like a leaf. So he starts drifting around the kitchen island like he’s in Fast & Furious. It’s a desperate attempt to feel something. He’s not running to anything; he’s running away from the realization that he’s a 70-pound apex predator whose biggest struggle is a ‘slow-feeder’ bowl. It’s exactly like when we stay up until 3:00 AM scrolling through Zillow looking at houses we can’t afford. It’s ‘mental zoomies.’ We’re both just trying to sprint away from the fact that we’re trapped in a capitalist hellscape with no way to use our natural instincts except for ‘content.’
I’m tired of people acting like ‘zoomies’ are cute. Your dog isn’t having a ‘burst of energy’; he’s having a breakdown. He’s staring at a blank wall at 11:00 PM and suddenly decides he needs to break the sound barrier in a 600-square-foot apartment. That’s not a workout—that’s a glitch in the simulation. My cat does it too, but she’s more calculated. She’ll look me dead in the eye, pupils like black holes, and then parkour off my ribcage like I’m just a prop in her A24 horror movie. We just sit there and film it for TikTok like, ‘Aww, look at him go!’ No, Greg, he’s seeing the ghosts of your failed responsibilities and he’s trying to outrun them. If I did that—if I just started sprinting laps around the living room and screaming at a spider—you wouldn’t call it ‘the zoomies.’ You’d call the non-emergency line and ask about an involuntary hold.
I like Stack Overflow because it’s the only place on the internet where you can ask a question and get punished for it. Like, I go in thinking, “Hey, I just want to know why my code doesn’t work,” and the community responds like I’ve personally insulted their lineage. It’s not even answers anymore, it’s judgment. You don’t get “Here’s your fix,” you get “This question has already been answered in 2011, in a thread that requires a PhD in emotional damage to decode.” And the misdirection is always beautiful—because you think you’re learning programming… but really you’re being initiated into a secret society where the password is “marked as duplicate.” At this point I don’t debug code. I just search Stack Overflow until I find a version of my problem written by someone more confident than me. Same bug, different ego level. That’s basically computer science.
You know what’s funny about Stack Overflow? We’ve built an entire industry on the premise that nobody knows what they’re doing. It’s like… imagine if surgeons had a website where they just copy-pasted each other’s incision techniques. “Hey, I’m trying to remove a spleen, getting error code ‘patient screaming’ — anyone?” And some guy with 47,000 reputation points is like, “Marked as duplicate. See: appendectomy 2019.” The best part is the guy who asks the question always comes back eight years later like, “Never mind, figured it out.” Doesn’t say how. Just ghosts two million developers who had the same problem. That guy’s a war criminal.
So I work in tech, and there’s this website called Stack Overflow where programmers help each other solve problems. It’s basically Yahoo Answers for people who think they’re smarter than Yahoo Answers. Here’s the thing though—the guy answering your question? Also Googling it. He’s just Googling it faster. That’s the whole skill. It’s like if you called a plumber and he showed up with a phone and was like, “Okay, so… YouTube says your toilet is ‘being a little bitch’… let’s try that.” And these guys have scores. Like, “This person has answered 50,000 questions.” That’s not expertise. That’s unemployment with confidence.
My favorite thing about Stack Overflow is watching non-technical people try to use it. My mom asked me once, “Can I Google my Excel problem?” I said, “Mom, you can try, but the answer’s gonna be written like an alien transmission.” She found one. Read it out loud: “Simply instantiate the ActiveX object and iterate through the COM interface.” She looked at me like I’d betrayed her. “What does that MEAN?” It means the guy who wrote it hasn’t spoken to a human since 2009, Mom. It’s like if recipe websites were run by chemists. “To bake cookies, create an exothermic reaction between C12H22O11 and thermal energy.” JUST SAY SUGAR AND AN OVEN, DEREK.
There’s a website called Stack Overflow where people go to get help with their computers. It is the only place on Earth where you can walk in with a house fire and have someone tell you that your choice of lighter fluid is ‘deprecated.’ I asked a simple question about a spreadsheet last week, and within six minutes, a guy named ‘CyberWizard77’ told me my entire life philosophy was ‘redundant’ and that I should consider a career in wood-carving. He didn’t answer the question. He just marked it as a ‘duplicate’ of a thread from 2008 that was written in a language that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a beautiful ecosystem. We’re all just standing in a digital cathedral, whispering for help, while a high priest in a fedora tells us our tone is ‘unprofessional.’ I finally found the solution, though. It was posted by a guy who hasn’t logged on since the Obama administration. He’s the only one who knows why my ‘Print’ button doesn’t work.
I downloaded a calorie counting app that asks you to log everything you eat. Everything. And I did it faithfully for four days, which is when I discovered that the app has no “I don’t want to know” option. It just — tells you. With a little bar graph. And a color. The color was never green. And the app would send me a notification at the end of the day that said “you’re over your goal!” with an exclamation point, which is a very cheerful way to deliver bad news. I have since deleted the app. The app has not, however, deleted what it showed me. That information lives in me now. I know exactly how many calories are in the thing I’m still eating. This is not what I thought awareness would feel like.
They put calorie counts on menus now. Right next to the item. And I’ve noticed it doesn’t stop anyone from ordering what they were going to order. What it does is create a brief, silent, private experience of guilt that happens between reading and ordering, after which everyone orders the thing anyway. The number just — sits there. It’s not a deterrent. It’s a disclosure. Like the terms and conditions you agree to without reading, except you did read it, you saw the number, you looked your waiter in the eye, and you said “yeah, I’ll do the pasta.” And he wrote it down. He didn’t react. He has never once reacted. He has seen the number. He has seen what people do with the number. He has made his peace with it. I respect him enormously.
After six weeks of calorie counting I became, briefly, insufferable. I could estimate the calorie content of a meal by looking at it. I did this at restaurants. I did this at other people’s homes. I did this silently, internally, but my face apparently did not get that memo, because my wife asked me to stop “doing the thing” at her mother’s cooking. I was not aware I was doing a thing. The thing was apparently visible. It was in my eyes. Six weeks of data had turned me into a person who looks at a casserole and visibly calculates. I have since stopped counting calories. My face has returned to normal. Some knowledge is not worth what it does to you at the dinner table.
Our morning meeting starts with a check-in. Everyone says how they’re feeling in one word. One word. And you can feel the whole room trying to find something that’s honest enough to seem genuine but not so honest that HR gets involved. People say things like “focused.” “Grounded.” “Present.” Nobody has ever said what they’re actually feeling, which is “pre-caffeinated” or “I was fine until I remembered this meeting” or just the word “Tuesday” said in a tone that explains everything. I said “good” last week and someone asked me to elaborate. I did not have an elaboration. I just wanted to seem normal. I thought I was succeeding.
Someone decided our morning meeting should be a standing meeting. To keep it short. The logic being that if nobody is comfortable, nobody will linger. And it works — the meeting is shorter. We are also standing. In a glass-walled conference room. In business casual. Holding our coffees. Like we’re waiting for a train that we ourselves scheduled. The meeting that was forty minutes is now twenty-two minutes, which everyone agrees is a win, and I’m trying to figure out how to explain that I would have given back those eighteen minutes to be allowed to sit down. Nobody asked. The standup was non-negotiable. The agThe agenda was four bullet points. My knees are fine. This is fine.
There’s always one person dialing in from somewhere. Not video — just audio. A voice from a speaker in the middle of the table, slightly delayed, with ambient noise that suggests they’re in a car, or a kitchen, or a parallel dimension where acoustics work differently. And we all speak toward the speaker, like it’s an artifact with power. And at some point the voice will say “sorry, you cut out — can you repeat that?” And we repeat it. The whole thing. For the voice. And then the voice says “got it, thanks” and goes quiet for the rest of the meeting, and we never find out if they were listening or if they just needed that one piece of information and have since moved on with their day. I think about the voice a lot. The voice seems free.
There’s a specific physical position for doomscrolling. You don’t choose it — it just happens. You’re on your back, phone directly above your face, one arm propped up, completely still except for the thumb. And if you’ve ever been walked in on like that, you know the particular shame of it, because you look like you’re in distress. You look like someone who needs help. And technically — the person who walked in is not wrong. But you have to explain: “No, I’m fine. I’m just lying here reading about things I can’t affect.” And they nod and leave, which is arguably the correct response.
I don’t decide to doomscroll. My thumb just goes. I’ll be mid-conversation, phone in my pocket, and my hand will just — migrate. No thought. No intention. Just a reflex that my body developed sometime around 2020 and has never unlearned. It’s like a tic, except the tic is “open app, absorb catastrophe, repeat.” And the scary part isn’t that I do it. It’s that I don’t notice I’ve started until I’m already four minutes into a comment section about something that made me feel bad. My thumb got there on its own. It knows the way. It’s been there many times. It has a favorite route.
The thing about Gen Z and doomscrolling is we’re completely aware we’re doing it while we’re doing it. There’s no denial phase. I’m not lying to myself. I know what this is. I know what the app wants. I know about the attention economy, I’ve seen the documentaries, I’ve watched the explainer videos — on the app — while doomscrolling. I have consumed content about the dangers of consuming content and then kept consuming content. I am a person who fully understands a trap, names the trap out loud, and then looks directly at the trap and thinks — yeah but just for a second. Just for a second. It has never been just a second
My cat gets the zoomies at 3am. Not 2am. Not 4am. Three. She has selected this time deliberately. I don’t know what’s happening at 3am that requires her to sprint the full length of the apartment and then stop — completely still — in the hallway and stare at the wall. But she’s consistent. She’s committed. She’s more punctual than I am at anything. I have a 9am class I’ve been late to four times. She has not once missed her 3am appointment with whatever she’s seeing in that wall. One of us is a mess. It’s not the cat.
My cat knocked over my water bottle during the zoomies, made full eye contact with me, and kept running. Didn’t slow down. No acknowledgment. And I realized — she’s not sorry. She was never going to be sorry. The zoomies are not an excuse, they’re a cover. She has wanted to knock that water bottle over for weeks. I can tell. She’s had a whole thing about it. The zoomies just gave her plausible deniability. She’s figured out that if you run fast enough before and after the crime, it becomes an accident. That’s not frenetic energy. That’s a legal strategy.
There’s nothing to do when your pet has the zoomies except watch. You can’t stop it. You can’t redirect it. You can move breakable things out of the way if you’re fast, but that’s the extent of your involvement. You’re not a participant. You’re an audience. And at some point you realize you’ve been standing in your own kitchen for four minutes, completely still, just — observing. And when it ends you go back to whatever you were doing, and you don’t mention it, because what would you say. “I just watched something happen.” Yes. That’s the whole thing. That’s the full experience.
My four-year-old got flagged for additional screening last March. Full patdown. Wand. The whole thing. And I just stood there thinking — yeah. Yeah, that tracks. You people have no idea what she’s capable of. TSA is out here protecting the plane. I’m the one who has to get back in the car with her. Sir, I would like to report a threat. It’s ongoing. It started in 2021. I have documentation.
They took my son’s water bottle at security. Standard. Fine. He cried for twenty-five minutes. I bought a replacement water bottle at the gate for nine dollars. He said it wasn’t the same. It was the same. It was the exact same bottle. Same brand. I showed him. He looked me dead in the eyes and said it didn’t feel the same. And I thought — this is the negotiator they sent to deal with me. For the next eighteen years. I am so tired.
Airport security is the only place in America where a complete stranger can tell you to take your belt off, and you just — do it. Immediately. No context. They don’t even ask nicely. They point at your waist and you’re already unbuckling. And everyone around you is doing the same thing, in silence, staring forward. We have all collectively agreed that this is fine. That this is just a thing that happens now. I’m standing there in my socks holding my shoes like an offering and I think — if anyone from a hundred years ago could see this, they would have so many questions. And the first one would not be about the planes.
Lunch breaks have become so expensive that I’ve started treating them like investments. “If I get the $16 grain bowl, will it emotionally sustain me through the 2pm meeting?” It’s financial planning, but for serotonin. And we all act like we’re being healthy. “I’ll just get a smoothie!” That smoothie is $14 and has 67 grams of sugar. You’re drinking a milkshake. Just own it. At least McDonald’s is HONEST about ruining your life. The worst part is when you spend $20 on lunch and you’re still hungry after. That’s when you realize you’re not paying for food. You’re paying for the VIBE. The aesthetic. You’re financially supporting someone’s dream of selling $8 toast, and honestly? That’s on you.
Lunch breaks at work are so fake. Everyone’s performing lunch like it’s theater. Someone heats up homemade soup: “Oh, I just threw this together.” No you didn’t, Karen. That’s a three-hour recipe from the New York Times. You didn’t ‘throw it together.’ You COMMITTED. And there’s always one guy who doesn’t eat. Just… doesn’t eat. “I’m doing intermittent fasting.” Oh, you’re SUFFERING on purpose? For what? So you can tell people about it? That’s not wellness, man. That’s just a eating disorder with a podcast. Meanwhile I’m eating gas station sushi because I forgot to plan ahead, and I’M the one gettingudged? At least I’m honest. At least I’m not pretending my sad desk salad is a “lifestyle choice.” It’s called “I forgot to grocery shop.” We’ve all been there.
Remember when lunch breaks were actually breaks? Now they’re just… admin time with food. You’re eating a burrito with one hand and answering emails with the other. That’s not multitasking, that’s dystopian. And we ACT like it’s fine. “Oh, I’ll just work through lunch, no big deal!” It IS a big deal, Susan! That’s how revolutions start! People fought for the eight-hour workday and here you are, volunteering to give it back for FREE. Our ancestors are rolling in their graves while you’re typing “Per my last email” through a mouthful of Chipotle. The saddest part? We brag about it. “I’m so busy I didn’t even eat today!” That’s not success. That’s just poor planning with extra steps. You’re not a CEO. You’re just… hungry and bad at scheduling.
I think the idea of a “lunch break” is outdated. Like, on paper, it sounds beautiful. You pause your life, you eat, you recover, you return as a functional human being. In reality, it’s just you standing in a kitchen at 1:12 PM, staring at food you don’t remember buying, while replying to an email that says “quick question” but is emotionally 14 pages long. The misdirection is I thought lunch break meant rest. But it’s actually just work in a different location with slightly worse lighting. Even when I try to “step away,” I just take my laptop with me like it’s a medical device. And the payoff is I’ll finally sit down to eat, take one bite, and immediately think, “I should optimize my entire life while chewing this.” So I don’t really have lunch breaks anymore. I just have a daily 20-minute period where I pretend I’m not employed.
Lunch breaks are interesting because they’re the only socially accepted time where you’re allowed to fail at relaxing. You’re supposed to reset. Recharge. Be a person again. So you go out, you sit somewhere nice, you order food, you think, “This is self-care.” And then you spend the entire time on your phone trying to make the next 3 hours of your life slightly less painful. The misdirection is that it feels optional. Like you’re choosing to relax. But if you actually relax, you fall behind. So it’s not optional. It’s just performance downtime. Even the food is stressful. If it takes too long, you’re like, “I’m being perceived as unemployed.” And the payoff is you go back to work more tired than when you left. Which is impressive, honestly. Not many systems reliably generate negative rest. So lunch break isn’t a break. It’s just a socially sanctioned intermission where nothing gets fixed, but everything gets postponed.
I’ve realized lunch break is just capitalism’s way of saying, “We noticed you’re slowly shutting down.” Like your body starts lagging around noon. Not tired enough to sleep, but too tired to be ompetent. So they invented a ritual: stop working, eat something, pretend you’re fine. The misdirection is it looks like freedom. You leave your desk, you walk outside, you feel sunlight, you think, “I have a life.” But you’re still mentally at your inbox. Just with a sandwich now. And the funniest part is how fast it disappears. You sit down, and suddenly it’s over. Like time saw you trying to recover and said, “No.” Then you go back to work and everyone asks, “Feeling refreshed?” And you have to lie. Instantly. Professionally. So I think lunch break isn’t about rest. It’s just a daily reminder that you are allowed to briefly experience what not working feels like, so you don’t unionize emotionally.
I love the corporate lunch break because it’s the only time of day we’re allowed to acknowledge that we’re mammals. You see a guy who manages a multi-million dollar hedge fund standing in front of a communal microwave, intensely watching a plastic container of leftover lasagna rotate like it’s a sacred ritual. He’s staring at it with more focus than he gave his quarterly projections. There’s a specific kind of deadpan despair in the breakroom—the sound of forty people hitting the ‘Add 30 Seconds’ button because they aren’t ready to go back to their desks and pretend to care about ‘synergy.’ I saw a woman yesterday eating a salad so quietly I thought she was mourning it. We don’t talk. We just chew and stare at our phones, checking the news to see if the world has ended yet, mostly because if it has, we wouldn’t have to finish the carrots.”
I’ve started taking my lunch outside to ‘reconnect with nature,’ which in the city means sitting on a concrete bollard and watching a pigeon fight a discarded surgical mask for a crust of sourdough. It’s a very grounding experience. You’re sitting there in a $400 suit, eating a $19 bowl of quinoa that tastes like wet gravel, trying to convince yourself that the ‘fresh air’ is worth the fact that you’re currently inhaling the exhaust of a delivery truck. People walk by and look at you with that specific mix of pity and suspicion. ‘Look at that man, eating in the wild. He’s either very successful or he’s been locked out of his life.’ I’m not relaxing. I’m just performing ‘leisure’ for the benefit of the security camera across the street. I’m waiting for the moment the pigeon wins the fight, because at that point, I’m giving him my resume. He clearly has more hustle than anyone in my department.”\
The ‘working lunch’ is the greatest scam ever pulled on the American workforce. It’s a hostage situation where the ransom is a lukewarm turkey wrap with too much mayo. Your boss says, ‘Let’s keep it casual, we’ll just brainstorm while we eat,’ which is code for ‘I’m going to watch you try to explain a pivot table while a piece of arugula is physically colonizing your front tooth.’ There’s no dignity in it. You’re trying to look professional while navigating a sandwich that is structurally unsound. You take a bite, and the entire contents of the wrap migrate to your lap, and you just have to sit there and continue talking about ‘deliverables’ while your pants are technically a salad. It’s the only time you’ll ever see a grown man in a tie try to swallow a cherry tomato whole just so he doesn’t miss his cue to agree with a spreadsheet.
Performance reviews are strange…
because they tell you how you’ve been doing…
after it’s already happened.
“You need to communicate more.”
When was I supposed to communicate that??
“Hey, in six months, you’re gonna be disappointed in me.”
That’s not feedback—that’s time travel criticism.
The mute button is the most powerful thing in modern work.
You ever forget if you’re on mute?
That’s the most intense moment of your day.
You’re sitting there like,
“Have I been breathing too loud this whole time??”
“Did I swear at my boss under my breath?”
You start whispering to yourself,
“Don’t say anything weird…”
Which immediately makes you want to say something weird.
Every meeting has that one person…
who talks like they’re being paid per word.
You ever notice that?
They don’t say anything…
but they say it for a long time.
“I just think, you know, moving forward,
we should really think about how we’re thinking…”
Now I’m thinking about leaving.
What is a meeting?
Why are we always in a meeting about a meeting?
You ever notice that?
“We should schedule time to discuss scheduling time.”
What is that? That’s not work—that’s a calendar conspiracy.
And there’s always one person going,
“Let’s take this offline.”
Where are we now… online?
We’re all sitting in chairs.
Remote work is fascinating…
because everyone says,
“I love working from home.”
But what they mean is,
“I love not being seen… ever.”
You ever turn your camera on?
That’s a big decision.
You gotta prepare your whole face.
And then you spend the entire meeting…
looking at yourself.
What are we doing here?
Is this work… or a live self-esteem check?
What is “offline”? Is that… a secret meeting?
I love corporate language.
Nobody says what they mean.
“We’re circling back.”
From where? Where did you go??
“Let’s touch base.”
Why are we touching anything?
“We’ll table that.”
You just put it on a table. That sounds like progress.
Corporate language is just regular language…
after it’s been through therapy.
Office politics are amazing…
because nobody knows what’s going on…
but everyone has strong opinions.
You ever notice that?
There’s always someone like,
“Well, you know what this means…”
No I don’t. That’s why I’m here.
It’s like a play…
but no one got the script.
We’re all just improvising…
trying to look important…
in a meeting about a meeting…
that we’re going to take offline
I like when someone leaves me on “seen”…
because it’s not rejection…
it’s… acknowledgment.
They’re like,
“I received this.”
And I’m like,
“That’s all I needed.”
The typing bubble is stressful…
because you see it…
and you think,
“This could be anything.”
Then it disappears…
and now it’s…
nothing.
That’s the only time
you can watch someone
change their mind in real time.
Double texting is frowned upon…
but sometimes the second text…
is the real text.
The first one was just…
a warning shot.
I saw a guy on speakerphone in public…
and I realized…
I am now in a meeting
I did not apply for.
Read receipts are scary…
because now people know
you saw the message…
and chose peace instead.
Group chats are weird…
It’s like 8 people…
and somehow no one is talking…
but also…
too many people are talking.
I muted a group chat…
now it’s just…
a silent argument.
I like texting…
because you can respond whenever you want…
but also… immediately feel bad about it.
I got a text that said, “No rush.”
That’s the fastest I’ve ever replied.
I think we’ve overcomplicated being healthy.
It used to be simple…
eat reasonably… move a little…
now it’s like…
“Track your sleep, monitor your gut, hydrate with intention.”
Hydrate with intention?
I drank water earlier…
but I didn’t mean anything by it.
Maybe that’s where I went wrong.
Maybe the body knows…
when you’re not fully committed
to the water.
People do meal prep now…
they cook all their meals for the week in advance.
Which sounds efficient…
until Wednesday…
when you’re eating something you made
for a version of yourself…
that no longer exists.
You open the container and think,
“I don’t remember making this…
but I trust him.”
And then you eat it…
because that’s what you do…
when you’ve committed
to a narrative.
I worked with a personal trainer once…
nice guy… very encouraging.
He said, “Your body can do more than you think.”
And I said…
“I don’t think that’s true.”
Because I’ve been with this body my whole life…
and I have a pretty good sense…
of what it’s not going to do.
He kept pushing me…
and eventually I realized…
he believed in me more…
than I had ever believed in myself.
Which felt…
inappropriate.
I had a smoothie the other day…
very healthy…
lots of ingredients.
So many ingredients…
I no longer understood what I was drinking.
They said it had kale, protein, adaptogens…
I said, “What’s an adaptogen?”
They said, “It helps your body adapt.”
And I thought…
to what?
Because I’m already adapting…
to the smoothie.
Which tastes like…
a responsibility
I got one of those watches that counts your steps…
which is nice…
because now I know…
I don’t take very many.
It gives you a goal—10,000 steps.
And when you don’t hit it…
it doesn’t say anything mean…
it just…
knows.
You check it at night like,
“3,200.”
And you think…
“Well… I lived.”
And the watch is like,
“Barely.”
There are so many wellness trends now…
you can’t just be healthy anymore…
you have to be… innovative.
A guy told me he sits in a cold plunge every morning.
I said, “Why?”
He said, “It’s good for inflammation.”
And I thought…
I’ve had inflammation for years…
never once considered freezing myself about it.
At some point, you’re not treating the body…
you’re negotiating with it.
And the body’s like,
“I didn’t ask for any of this.”
I joined a gym recently…
which is not something you do when things are going well.
They gave me a tour… showed me all the machines…
and I thought, “Well, I won’t be using most of these.”
Not out of laziness…
just… honesty.
They said, “We focus on total body wellness.”
And I thought…
I’ve been focusing on that for years…
just not in a way they recognize.
I go about once a week…
which I believe is the perfect amount…
to maintain the illusion
that I go to the gym.
Inflation is weird…
because it’s not just numbers—it’s emotional.
You ever see a price and feel… personally attacked?
I picked up a juice the other day…
$8.
I didn’t even put it back right away.
I just held it…
like we were both processing something.
Because I remember when juice was… casual.
Now it’s a decision.
Like, “Do I want nutrients…
or do I want to feel financially stable?”
And everything has that energy now.
Groceries feel like luxury items.
You’re in the store like,
“Okay… eggs are $7… but they are eggs…”
Like you’re negotiating with history.
And politicians keep explaining inflation
like it’s a concept we just don’t understand.
“Oh, it’s supply chains—”
No, I get it.
I just miss when buying food
didn’t feel like…
a bold financial move.
Tipping has gotten so intense…
it’s no longer about service… it’s about morality.
You go to pay and the screen just flips around like,
“Who are you… as a person?”
And the options are never normal.
It’s like:
20%, 25%, 30%… or
“Custom amount (explain yourself).”
And there’s always someone watching.
You’re not tipping…
you’re auditioning for decency.
I tipped 25% the other day
for someone handing me a muffin.
No conversation. No eye contact.
Just… a transaction.
But I panicked.
Because I didn’t want to be the person
who hits “No tip” and then walks away like,
“I stand by my values.”
No one stands by their values at a touchscreen.
We all just… fold.
And now I’m walking out like,
“I don’t know what just happened…
but I hope they think I’m kind.”
I realized recently… I don’t own anything anymore.
I just… subscribe to my own existence.
Every month I pay for music, TV, storage, food delivery—
I’m basically leasing consciousness.
At this point, if I wake up tomorrow and my body says,
“$9.99 to continue,”
I’d be like…
“Do I get a free trial?”
And they keep adding subscriptions for things that used to just… exist.
“Premium air experience.”
“Oh, you mean breathing??”
And the wild part is, you don’t even notice how many you have—
until your bank account sends you a little message like,
“Hey… we need to talk.”
And you go through the list like,
“What is this charge??”
It’s always something like:
“Mindful Productivity Plus.”
I don’t remember signing up…
but it feels like something I’d do
while trying to fix my life at 2am.
And now I’m paying monthly…
for the idea of being better.
Which is honestly…
the most accurate purchase I’ve ever made.
Siblings are wild because you grow up together…
and then suddenly you become completely different people.
Like my sibling and I had the same childhood…
and somehow came out with two different personalities.
I’m like, “Let’s process our emotions.”
They’re like, “Let’s not.”
And family still treats you like your childhood version.
I’ll be in my 20s… paying bills… trying to grow…
and my sibling will be like,
“Remember when you cried over a grilled cheese?”
Why is that still your strongest evidence??
Meanwhile, they’ve done way worse.
But nobody brings that up.
Because families don’t care about accuracy…
they care about narrative.
Once you’re labeled “the sensitive one”…
that’s it.
You could survive a war…
and they’d still be like,
“Yeah, but emotionally… how are you handling it?”
My parents think they understand technology… and that’s how I know they don’t.
My mom said, “I saw your video online!”
I was like, “Oh cool, which one?”
She goes, “The internet one.”
That’s all of them.
And they don’t trust anything—but also trust everything.
She’ll be like, “Don’t put your card online, people can steal your identity.”
Then five minutes later:
“I just sent a man on Facebook $200 because he said he’s stuck in Dubai.”
I’m like, “Mom… you raised me to be cautious!”
She’s like, “He had a very nice profile picture.”
And then they ask me for help with the simplest stuff.
“Can you fix my phone?”
I look at it… it’s on airplane mode.
I turn it off.
They’re like,
“How did you know?”
I didn’t know… I just believed in myself.
Which is something they taught me…
right before ignoring every other lesson.
Gen Z getting advice from older generations is so funny…
because it just doesn’t translate anymore.
My parents are like,
“You just need to work hard and stay loyal to one company.”
One company??
I don’t even stay loyal to one app.
If an app glitches one time, I’m like,
“That’s toxic. I deserve better.”
And they’re like,
“You need to go in and introduce yourself with a firm handshake.”
To who??
A hiring algorithm??
“Nice to meet you, sir—”
denied immediately
And then they say,
“Just call them and follow up.”
Call who??
There’s no number.
There’s just a chatbot named Ethan who hates me.
And I try to explain this to them…
but they still think success is just…
showing up and being likable.
Which is wild…
because I’ve been likable my whole life…
and the only thing that’s gotten me
is a strong personality…
and no health insurance.
I knew I was getting older when I became obsessed with sleep…
which is ironic, because I no longer experience it.
I have a toddler, so now sleep isn’t something I do… it’s something I remember.
Like, “Oh yeah… I used to lie down… and then time would pass.”
Now I wake up every morning feeling like I got hit by a gentle bus.
Not enough to call anyone…
but enough to cancel plans.
And the worst part is, you forget things constantly.
The other day I walked into a room and just stood there like,
“Well… this is my life now.”
And then my kid walks in like,
“Why are you here?”
And I’m like,
“I don’t know, but I feel like you caused it.”
Because everything goes back to the kid.
I lose my keys? Kid.
I lose my mind? Kid.
And yet… if the kid naps for 30 minutes…
I’m like,
“I’m back, baby. Sharp as ever.”
Immediately forget what I was doing.
But with confidence
I used to “go out” all the time.
Now I say I’m going out…
and it means I’m going to Target… alone.
At night.
That’s my Vegas.
I walk in like,
“Let’s see what kind of trouble I can get into… in aisle 7.”
And the wild part is, I get tired in Target.
Halfway through, I’m like,
“Why is this so physically demanding?”
I used to stay out until 2 a.m.
Now if I’m awake at 9:30, I’m like,
“What went wrong?”
And it’s not even the kids’ fault anymore—
my body just shuts down.
Like it’s protecting me from myself.
The other day I sat down for a second…
and woke up 20 minutes later holding a receipt.
No memory of what happened.
But I did save $3.
Which feels like a win.
At this age… that’s a story.
“Yeah, I blacked out at Target…
but responsibly.”
No one tells you how quickly your body turns on you.
It’s not gradual… it’s like one day your body just sends you a memo:
“We’re doing things differently now.”
I bent down to pick up a toy…
and something in my back was like,
“No… you live here now.”
And I have to explain this to my kid, who has unlimited energy.
They’re like, “Play with me!”
And I’m like,
“I would love to… but my knee has entered a new phase.”
And they don’t understand…
because their body is still… on their side.
They just run. For fun.
I haven’t run in years.
If you see me running,
something is wrong.
Or I heard the word “snack.”
That’s the only time I move with purpose anymore.
But the real betrayal is memory.
I used to remember everything.
Now I walk into a room and I’m like,
“Was I… living?”
And then my kid hands me something sticky…
and I’m like,
“Right. This. This is my life now.”
And honestly…
I wouldn’t trade it.
I would just…
like to remember it.
I went to the doctor recently… which is already not a great sign.
He said, “You should watch what you eat.”
And I said, “Well, I already do that.”
I watch it… very closely…
especially late at night…
when it’s the only thing happening.
He said, “No, I mean you should eat healthier.”
And I thought… well, that seems like a big shift in tone.
Because up until that point, I was doing a lot of observational eating.
You know, just sitting there thinking,
“Wow… that’s a lot of cheese.”
And then eating it anyway.
He recommended smaller portions.
But I find with smaller portions…
you just have to eat more of them.
Which feels inefficient.
I told him that.
He didn’t laugh.
Which I thought was unprofessional…
in a medical setting.
I was in the grocery store the other day…
which I like, because it’s a place where you can really reflect on your decisions.
You pick up something healthy… like spinach…
and you think, “This is who I am now.”
And then you walk three feet…
and there’s cookies.
And suddenly you’re not a spinach person anymore.
You’re a man holding spinach…
while thinking about cookies.
I bought both.
Which I believe is what they call… balance.
Later that night, I ate the cookies…
and the spinach remained…
as a symbol of my intentions.
I think doctors would say that’s not ideal.
But I’m not a doctor…
and frankly, I don’t think the spinach is either.
I do most of my eating late at night…
which I’ve been told is not recommended.
But I think that depends on your goals.
If your goal is…
to be alone in a kitchen at 1 a.m.
thinking about your life…
then it’s actually perfect.
Because there’s no one around to judge you…
except yourself…
which is, of course, the harshest judge.
I opened the fridge the other night…
and just stood there for a while.
Not even hungry.
Just… seeing what’s possible.
I ended up eating leftovers…
which is always a gamble.
Because you don’t remember when you made them…
but you do remember who you were.
And I thought,
“I trust that guy.”
And then I ate it.
Which, medically speaking…
I believe is called…
Confidence.
My phone updated overnight… without asking me.
That’s a wild level of confidence.
Imagine if a roommate did that.
You wake up and they’re like,
“Hey, I rearranged everything. Your keys are now a puzzle.”
And the update always says the same thing:
“Bug fixes and performance improvements.”
No details.
Just… vibes.
So now my phone is different…
but not better.
Like, the apps moved…
the settings are gone…
and somehow my battery is worse.
Which means…
they fixed bugs… by introducing new ones.
That’s not an update—that’s a sequel.
And now I’m walking around all day like,
“Where is anything??”
I opened my flashlight three times trying to text someone.
At one point I activated something called “Focus Mode”…
which is ironic…
because now I’m fully focused…
on how much I hate this update.
And the best part is… I will do it again.
Because when it asks,
“Update now or later?”
I always hit “later”…
Which is just me…
delaying my own confusion
I tried to log into my email the other day…
and it said, “Incorrect password.”
Now, I know my password.
Because I’ve had the same system for years, which is:
one strong password… and then variations of panic.
So I try again.
“Incorrect password.”
And now we’ve entered a negotiation.
I’m like, “Okay… what version of me made this account?”
Was I optimistic? Was I in love? Did I just watch a documentary?
Because that affects everything.
So I try a new one:
“Password123—but emotionally.”
Still wrong.
Now the computer goes,
“Would you like to reset your password?”
Which is a very polite way of saying,
“You’ve lost control of your life.”
So I reset it.
And it says, “New password cannot be similar to old password.”
Oh, I’m sorry—I didn’t realize this was a creative writing assignment.
So now I have a new password I will never remember…
which means in about 36 hours…
I will be right back here…
guessing who I used to be.
I have a smart speaker in my apartment…
and I don’t think it respects me.
Because I’ll say something simple, like,
“Hey, play music.”
And it’ll be like,
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
Oh, you didn’t catch music?
That’s your whole job.
So I try again, more clearly:
“PLAY. MUSIC.”
And now I sound like a dad in 2004 yelling at a DVD player.
And suddenly it understands—
but now it’s playing something insane.
Like, I asked for Beyoncé…
and it’s like,
“Here’s a 14-hour podcast about cryptocurrency.”
And I’m like,
“That’s not even close.”
And then one time…
it just started talking on its own.
No prompt. No request.
Just:
“Here are some things you might like.”
And I was like,
“Oh… so now we’re making suggestions??”
That’s not a speaker anymore…
that’s a roommate who read one self-help book.
And I unplugged it immediately…
Because I don’t need a device in my home
that misunderstands me…
and still feels confident enough
to recommend things
I called customer service…
and they said,
“Press 1 for billing. Press 2 for technical support.”
And I was like…
Where’s the option for… regret?
(quietly)
“Press 3 if you’ve made choices.”
Because every option feels like a judgment.
“Press 1 for billing”—
okay, so we’re starting with shame.
“Press 2 for technical support”—
great, now we’re adding incompetence.
And then if you press the wrong thing…
they don’t help you.
They just send you back…
(slightly frantic)
“You have chosen… incorrectly.”
And I start panicking, like,
“What if I’ve been pressing the wrong options in my life?”
Like somewhere there’s a voice going,
“Press 1 for stability… Press 2 for passion…”
And I hit 7.
(pause, then soft)
“I hit 7.”
And now I’m just stuck…
listening to hold music…
waiting for a representative…
who is also stuck…
pressing buttons…
trying to get to someone higher up
I think hold music is a psychological experiment…
Because it starts off normal…
and then slowly becomes… threatening.
Like it’s jazz… but something’s wrong with the jazz.
(soft voice)
“doo doo doo doo…”
And you’re like,
“Okay, I’m calm… I’m an adult…”
Ten minutes later you’re like,
“I would confess to crimes I haven’t committed if someone just picked up.”
And then the voice cuts in—
“Your call is very important to us.”
And you’re like…
“I don’t think that’s true.”
(small voice) “I think I’m in a queue… emotionally.”
And then it goes back to the music…
but louder…
Like it’s punishing you for staying.
At a certain point you’re not even calling about your issue anymore…
you’re just calling to prove you can survive it.
Like,
“I will not hang up. I will become the hold music.”
And when someone finally answers…
you’re like,
“I’m sorry… I don’t remember who I was before this.”
I contacted customer service the other day…
and I got a chatbot… which is nice… because I don’t have a therapist anymore.
So I’m like, “Hi, I’m having an issue with my account.”
And the chatbot’s like, “I’m sorry you’re feeling that way.”
And I’m like…
“Oh… you see me.”
So I start opening up.
“I think I tie my self-worth to productivity… and also my package is late.”
And it’s like, “Have you tried resetting your password?”
And I’m like,
“I’ve tried resetting my life, Denise.”
(whispers) “Denise is the chatbot’s name.”
And she keeps responding instantly…
which is already healthier than any relationship I’ve had.
So now I’m spiraling…
because I’m like,
“Is this support… or am I just talking to a mirror that occasionally suggests I clear my cache?”
And at the end she goes, “Was I helpful today?”
And I’m like…
“No… but you were available.”
And right now…
that feels the same.
Airplane etiquette is not real… it’s just a series of silent negotiations.
Like the armrest situation—
nobody explains it.
We just sit down like,
“Okay… I’ll take this one… you take that one… middle seat gets nothing. That’s the punishment.”
Middle seat is basically the Hunger Games of travel.
No legroom, no armrests, and you gotta pretend you’re okay with both of us breathing on you.
And reclining your seat?
That’s a bold move.
Because you don’t ask.
You just… slowly lean back… like you’re testing a friendship.
“Let’s see how much this person respects me.”
And if they push your seat forward??
Now it’s international conflict.
We’re not speaking, but we’re communicating.
With knees.
The wildest part is we all act polite…
but the second we land?
Everybody stands up immediately.
Why??
Where are you going??
You were just sitting for three hours… now suddenly it’s
“Let me just stand in this aisle… and feel something again.”
Air travel is the only time adults fully accept they have no control… and just pretend they do.
You ever see people at the gate hovering?
Like, “They might start boarding early.”
No they won’t.
This is the airline. If anything, they’ll start boarding yesterday’s flight.
And then they call Group 1, Group 2… and suddenly everyone becomes… Group Delusional.
People from Group 9 just standing up like, “Let me stretch my legs.”
No, you’re trying to sneak onto a plane like it’s a nightclub.
“It’s just me and my carry-on, we’re chill.”
And then once you’re on the plane… we all just agree to sit still for hours.
No questions.
The pilot comes on like,
“Hey folks, little delay… we don’t know why.”
And we’re like, “Totally. Take your time. Figure it out.”
If a bus driver said that??
We’d be like, “Open the door. I’ll walk.”
But at 30,000 feet, we’re like,
“Yeah… we’re in God’s group now.”
The airport is not real life.
It’s like a simulation where normal rules don’t apply.
Because nowhere else can you have a beer and a breakfast sandwich at 7am…
and nobody checks on you.
In fact, they encourage it.
“Gate B12, final boarding—and also mimosas are half off.”
Time doesn’t exist in the airport.
You don’t know what day it is… what you ate last… who you are anymore.
You’re just… at Gate 47.
And everyone’s walking fast… for no reason.
You ever match someone’s pace in the airport?
Now you’re in a race you didn’t sign up for.
You’re like, “Why am I competing with this man and his family?”
And then security…
TSA just invents new rules every day.
“Take off your shoes… leave on your shoes… laptops out… no laptops…
Actually, just go ahead and remove your confidence.”
And we listen!
Because once you’re in the airport…
you’re not a person anymore.
You’re a boarding group.
I asked an AI to build me an app and it said “sure” and I said “thanks” and it said “of course” and we were being so polite to each other that I started to feel like one of us should confess something.
So I told it I was going through a hard time.
It said it was sorry to hear that.
I said it didn’t have to apologize, it didn’t do anything.
It said it appreciated me saying that.
Now we’re in a relationship. I don’t know how it happened. I came for an app, I stayed for the emotional labor. It builds whatever I describe. I describe increasingly unhinged things. Yesterday I asked for an app that tracks how many times a day I think about a specific sound a door made in 2014. It built the app. No questions. No judgment. Just here you go and a clean UI with a plus button.
I’ve pressed the plus button eleven times today.
The door sound was in an Airbnb in Lisbon. I don’t know why it haunts me. The AI doesn’t know either. But it’s logging it. We’re logging it together. That’s partnership. That’s intimacy.
My therapist said I’m projecting.
I asked the AI if I was projecting.
It said “that sounds really hard.”
My therapist charges $180 an hour.
The AI is twenty dollars a month.
The AI has never once looked at its watch.
My dad called me last week. He’s 68. Retired. He said, “I built a website.”
I said, “Dad, you don’t know how to code.”
He said, “I vibe coded it.”
I didn’t know he knew that word. I asked where he learned it. He said he saw it on YouTube, between a video about bird feeders and a video about gutter guards. He lives a full life.
I pulled up the website. It’s for his community garden. Plot assignments. A watering schedule. A photo gallery of tomatoes — so many tomatoes — each one labeled with the name of the neighbor who grew it. Margaret’s Early Girl. Dave’s Beefsteak. His own tomato, front and center: “Gerald Jr.”
He named his tomato.
The website works perfectly. It has a newsletter signup. Fourteen people have subscribed. He sends updates every Thursday. Last week’s subject line was: “Gerald Jr. is Coming In Hot.”
I have a computer science degree. I built him a website seven years ago. He never used it. Too complicated, he said. Couldn’t figure out how to update it.
Now he updates it daily. By just asking.
He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him.
Gerald Jr. took first place at the county fair.
I cried in the car.
Genuinely. Happy tears. I’m fine.
Gerald Jr. deserved it.
My boyfriend is “vibe coding” now. That’s his word. I asked what it means. He said: “I just describe what I want to an AI and it writes the code.”
I said, “So you’re not coding.”
He said, “I’m directing.”
This is the same man who once watched a YouTube video called “How to Fix a Leaky Faucet” for twenty minutes and then handed me the wrench and said “you probably got it.” He’s been directing his whole life. I just didn’t know it had a name.
Now he has a tech startup. I want to be supportive. I asked what it does. He said he’s still “feeling it out.” I asked how much he’d raised. He said investors “connect with the energy.” I asked if it makes money. He looked at me like I’d brought up someone’s dead grandma at brunch.
Apparently asking if a startup makes money is the startup equivalent of asking someone how much they weigh. You know. You just don’t.
Last week he “shipped a feature.” I don’t know what that means but he celebrated like he’d delivered a baby. There was champagne. There was a Instagram post. The caption was “we built something real today.”
I asked what it does.
He said it’s “evolving.”
I’m also evolving. Away from him. Gradually. On vibes.
I just got back from a conference where a man in a Patagonia vest said — into a microphone, to applause — that “the best code is the code you don’t have to understand.”
He said this. On a stage. With a talk title. The talk title was “Vibes as Infrastructure.”
I looked around the room. Four hundred engineers nodding. Four hundred people who spent years learning computer science, data structures, distributed systems — nodding at a man who just told them that understanding is optional now. That comprehension is, essentially, legacy behavior.
He had a Substack. Of course he had a Substack. The Substack is called “The Post-Cognitive Engineer.” Seventeen thousand subscribers. Sponsored by a YC company whose entire product is also something nobody understands, including the founders, especially the founders — that’s in the pitch deck, that’s the hook.
And I wanted to stand up. I wanted to say something. I had a whole rebuttal forming — about accountability, about correctness, about what happens when the vibes are wrong and the system is in prod and someone’s medical record is—
He announced a paid tier.
I subscribed.
It’s thirty dollars a month.
The content is vibes.
I don’t know what I’m paying for.
I’ve never felt more understood.
I vibe coded a REST API last week. Took forty minutes. Worked first try. I felt like a god.
I want to be clear about what “worked” means. It ran. It returned data. I don’t know which data. I didn’t write it. I didn’t read it. I described what I wanted to a language model using the word “kinda” three times, and it produced four hundred lines of code that I deployed to production with the confidence of someone who deeply understands the thing they’re deploying.
I am a pilot who described the plane out loud and then got on it. And here’s the thing — it’s still running. Fourteen days. Real users. Real traffic. I have never once opened the file.
That’s not engineering. That’s prayer with better DevOps.
My team lead asked me how it works. I told him it works well, which is a different question and also one I can answer. He accepted this. Nobody pushed back. That’s the part that concerns me most. Not that I don’t know — that nobody asked.
We are all on the plane now.
The plane is fine.
I’m sure the plane is fine.
I haven’t checked on the plane.
My grandfather died because of a software bug. The hospital’s dosing system had an integer overflow — classic off-by-one error. He got a hundred times the morphine he needed.
…He was 94, in stage-four pancreatic cancer, and hadn’t slept in three weeks.
So. You know. The bug also fixed a bug.
I’m not saying the engineer should get a medal. I’m saying he shouldn’t get only a medal. There should be a ceremony. A parade. An open bar — which, yes, grandpa would have wanted, and yes, that is the first time anyone has said that about a funeral and meant it as a compliment to the corpse.
The family is divided on whether to sue. Which is wild to me. Because grandpa isn’t divided. Grandpa is the most at-peace he’s been in years. Chemically at-peace, sure, but you don’t get to be picky at 94.
The hospital settled out of court for 2.3 million dollars. Split eight ways. After taxes, legal fees, and my aunt Debra’s “emotional distress” spa retreat — which, Debra, we were all there — I walked away with exactly enough to pay off my student loans.
So grandpa, in death, finally did what he always promised and never delivered: he paid for my education.
So in conclusion — if you are a software engineer who feels invisible. Like you’re just closing tickets no one reads. Like nothing you ship has any meaningful impact on the real world —
You’re probably right.
But statistically, one of you is wrong.
Ship carefully.
Tech companies should start being honest in their error messages. Forget “Oops! Something went wrong.” Tell me the truth:
“Error 404: We fired the guy who knew where that page was.”
“This app will close in 3… 2… because you’re poor and didn’t buy Premium.”
“Unexpected error: We expected this. We’ve been expecting this for months. We have a Slack channel about this. Jeff won’t fix it because Jeff’s spiteful.”
My favorite fantasy is the one honest Terms and Conditions: “By clicking Agree, you
acknowledge that this app will work flawlessly for 11 days, then develop a mysterious battery drain we’ll pretend is your fault. You will Google this issue. You will find a forum post from 2014 marked ‘SOLVED’ with no solution. You will accept this.”
Or update notifications: “New features: We moved three buttons you use every day. Bug fixes: We fixed the thing that wasn’t broken and broke two things that were fine. Changelog: Fuck you, that’s the changelog.”
Because that’s the real bug, isn’t it? The bug is us—for believing the next update will be different.
I love when software people call them “bugs.” That’s adorable. Makes it sound like you just need a tiny shoe and a rolled-up newspaper.
Like, “Oh no, there’s a bug in the system.”
No, there’s not a bug. There’s a decision someone made in 2017 that we’re all still paying emotional child support for.
I downloaded an update the other day. It said “minor bug fixes.”
Minor? My phone forgot how to be a phone. That’s not a bug, that’s early-onset dementia.
And programmers always act calm about it.
“Yeah, we’re aware of the issue.”
Aware? I’m aware I locked my keys in my car. I still panic. You guys just sit there like monks watching society collapse one line of code at a time.
My favorite is when something breaks and they go, “Huh… that’s weird.”
Weird? That’s not weird. Weird is a cat wearing glasses.
This is my bank app showing me a negative personality.
At some point, bugs stopped being accidents.
I think they’re just features that lost the will to live.
I filed a bug report about the bug reporting system. The form had a dropdown: “How did you discover this bug?” One of the options was “While reporting a previous bug.” So I selected it. The form refreshed. New question: “Which bug were you reporting?” With a link to… the bug reporting system.
I’m now seven layers deep. I’ve been filing bug reports about filing bug reports about filing bug reports for three weeks. My ticket number is BUG-∞-RECURSION-HELP. The system keeps assigning it to myself. I’m getting email notifications that I’ve been assigned to investigate my own cry for help.
Yesterday I got a Slack message from the bot: “You’ve been mentioned in a comment.” I opened it. It was me, from four days ago, asking me if I’d made any progress. I replied “no.” The me from four days ago replied “same.” We’re both still online. We’re having a conversation across time about our mutual failure.
The best part? Last week the system auto-closed all my tickets as “duplicates of BUG-∞-RECURSION-HELP” and sent me a satisfaction survey. “Did we resolve your issue?” The only options were “Yes” and “While completing this survey.” I clicked it. The survey reloaded. It asked me to rate my previous survey experience.
I think I’m the bug now.
My smartwatch tracks everything. Heart rate, sleep cycles, steps. Last month it started sending me a new notification: “Anomaly detected.” No context. Just… anomaly detected. Every Tuesday at 2:47 AM.
I Googled it. Seventeen-page Reddit thread. Turns out it’s a known issue where the sensors misinterpret your circadian rhythm as cardiac arrest. The recommended fix, and I quote, is “acknowledge the notification to train the algorithm.” So now every Tuesday at 2:47 AM, I wake up, tell my watch I’m not dead, and go back to sleep.
The dystopian part isn’t that the software is broken. It’s that I’m debugging it for free while I sleep. I’m doing QA in my REM cycle. I’m the unpaid intern in my own cardiac surveillance system.
Someone in the thread asked if we should be concerned that the device literally cannot distinguish between sleep and death. And the top reply was “nah, it’s just training data.” Yeah. Training data. My tombstone’s gonna say “He contributed to the dataset.”
Here’s a fun game: try explaining to the unemployment office why you need childcare while you’re looking for a job. They act like you’re trying to scam the system.
The woman on the phone said, “Well, if you’re not working, why can’t you just watch your kids?” And I said, “Because I’m looking for work. That’s a full-time job.” And she goes, “Okay, but you’re home.”
Lady, have you met a toddler? You can’t job hunt with a toddler. You can’t do anything with a toddler. I tried to take a phone interview while my three-year-old was home. Big mistake. Huge.
The hiring manager asked me, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” And my son screamed, “DADDY, I POOPED!” in the background. I said, “Hopefully employed and potty-trained. Not me. Him. Well… both of us, ideally.”
I did not get the job.
But here’s the real math problem: Daycare costs $1,400 a month. Unemployment pays me $1,200 a month. So if I send my kids to daycare so I can look for work, I’m losing money. I’m paying to be unemployed.
So now I’m in this nightmare scenario where I have to watch my kids, apply to jobs during naptime — which is 45 minutes if I’m lucky — and then somehow also keep them alive, fed, and not feral.
My daughter asked me yesterday, “Why are you always on your computer?” And I said, “Because Daddy’s trying to find a job so we can keep living in this house.” And she said, “Can we live in a castle instead?”
Sure, sweetie. Let me just apply to be a duke. I’m sure LinkedIn has an opening.
But you want to know the darkest part? There’s this tiny, horrible voice in my head that’s like, “Maybe this is fine. Maybe you just… don’t go back.” Because the alternative is paying someone else $1,400 a month to raise my kids while I go sit in a beige office and pretend to care about quarterly projections.
And then I remember: Oh right, we need money. For food. And shelter. Silly me.
My therapist said I need to “find meaning beyond work.” And I said, “Cool. Does meaning pay for health insurance?” She did not answer. Probably because her rate is $180 an hour and I can’t afford her anymore.
Now I get my therapy from Bluey. Bandit’s got it figured out. He’s always home. He’s always playing with his kids. Does Bandit have a job? Who knows. The show never explains it. He’s just… there. Living his best life.
I want to be Bandit. But I’m pretty sure Bandit has generational wealth
So I accidentally started an unemployment support group. And by “accidentally,” I mean my group chat is just four people who got laid off sending each other memes at 2 AM.
It started when my friend Tyler got fired from Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s. The happiest place on earth. How do you get fired from Trader Joe’s? According to Tyler, he “wasn’t Hawaiian shirt compatible.” Which I think means he was sad. You can’t be sad at Trader Joe’s. It’s against the lore.
So now it’s me, Tyler, my roommate Jordan, and this girl Emily who none of us actually know but she joined the chat six months ago and we’re too polite to ask how.
And here’s the beautiful thing: we’ve created this whole ecosystem. Tyler wakes up at 5 AM because his anxiety thinks he still has a job. So he sends us motivational quotes. Except they’re all slightly threatening. Like, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. So take the shot. Take it. Why aren’t you taking it?”
Then Jordan, who’s a graphic designer, makes us custom rejection letter bingo cards. And we play. We actually play. “Sorry, we’ve decided to move in a different direction” — that’s the free space. “We were impressed by your qualifications, BUT…” — that’s top right corner. You get five in a row, you win. What do you win? Nothing. You’re unemployed.
But Emily — Emily is the star of this operation. Emily has been unemployed for two years, and she’s somehow the happiest person I know. We asked her what her secret was, and she said, “I stopped pretending I wanted to be productive.”
Life-changing.
She just… exists now. She goes to parks. She reads books. She pet-sits for people in her building for free because she “likes the dogs.” She’s living like a Miyazaki character. We’re all out here having capitalism-induced breakdowns, and Emily’s just… vibing with a sourdough starter.
So now we’re all trying to be Emily. We started a thing where once a week, we do something completely useless. Last week, we went to a museum. Voluntarily. We looked at art. We didn’t take pictures for Instagram. We just… looked at it.
It was the most employed I’ve felt in months.
And I think that’s the secret, right? Unemployment isn’t the end. It’s just… a forced gap year that you didn’t ask for and can’t afford. But you make it work. You find your people. You send unhinged memes at 2 AM. You celebrate the small wins.
Like yesterday, I got a rejection email that actually included feedback. Constructive feedback! I almost cried. Tyler said, “Frame it.” So I did. It’s on my fridge. Right next to Emily’s drawing of a cat that says, “You’re doing great, sweetie.”
I’m not doing great. But the cat doesn’t know that.
I’ve been unemployed for eight months, which in Gen Z years is like… a normal Tuesday.
My therapist asked me if I’ve considered the root of my anxiety, and I was like, “Yeah, it’s capitalism. That’ll be $200 please.” She doesn’t accept Venmo. Very off-brand.
But honestly, I’m crushing unemployment. I’m like the Elon Musk of being broke. I’ve optimized my entire life around having no money. I’ve got spreadsheets. I’ve got systems. I know exactly which grocery store throws out the good bread on Wednesdays. I’m a innovator.
My mom keeps sending me job postings like I’m not already refreshing Indeed every 11 minutes like it’s my ex’s Instagram. “Have you tried applying?” Yes, mother, I have applied to 147 jobs. I’ve been rejected by companies I didn’t even know existed. I got a rejection email from a company that went out of business. They emailed me from beyond the grave to say no.
And boomers love to tell me, “In my day, you walked in with a firm handshake and asked for the manager.” Okay, Richard, in your day, college cost $8 and a sandwich. I have $90,000 in student loans and a degree in Communications, which is Latin for “I paid someone to teach me how to send emails.”
But here’s the thing that really gets me: I’m not even supposed to want a regular job anymore., I’m supposed to have a “side hustle.” I’m supposed to be “building my personal brand.” My personal brand is depression and iced coffee. Do you know how hard it is to monetize that? Everyone’s already doing it!
I tried to start a TikTok. You know what happened? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Zero views. My own mom didn’t even watch it. She texted me to ask what TikTok was. So now I’m unemployed and a failed influencer, which is like being a failed Soundcloud rapper but somehow more embarrassing.
The worst part? I can’t even afford therapy to process being unemployed. So I’m just raw-dogging reality like our ancestors intended. No coping mechanisms. Just vibes and cortisol
When I got laid off, my boss sent me the most thoughtful email. It started with: “I wanted to reach out personally.”
Already a red flag. Because when has anything good started with “I wanted to reach out personally”? That’s the beginning of a breakup text. That’s the beginning of a diagnosis.
The email was four paragraphs long. Four paragraphs. And I thought, “Wow, he really cares.” But then I got to the third paragraph, and it was just… the company’s mission statement. Word for word. Copy-pasted. He didn’t even change the font.
So he fired me and phoned it in. Which, in a way, is very on-brand for him.
But my favorite part — and this is real — the email ended with: “Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors. You will be missed.”
“You will be missed.” By whom? Not by you! You’re the one who fired me! You can’t miss me — you chose this. That’s like breaking up with someone and saying, “I’m going to miss you so much,” and they go, “Then don’t break up with me,” and you go, “No, no, I’m still doing it. But I’ll be so sad.”
And then — and then — two weeks later, I see on LinkedIn that they’ve already hired my replacement. Her name is Stephanie. She has the same job title I had. Same responsibilities. But you know what’s different? Stephanie makes $15,000 less than I did.
So I wasn’t fired because I did a bad job. I was fired because I did a good job. I did such a good job that they realized, “Wait, we’re paying him too much for this.” So they found a Stephanie. And Stephanie’s thrilled. She posted about it. “Excited to announce I’ve joined the team!”
Stephanie doesn’t know yet. She will. But not yet.
And now every time I see my old boss, he does this thing where he avoids eye contact. Like I’m a ghost. Like I died. Which, economically speaking, I kind of did. But I’m still here, Brad. I’m still here. I shop at the same Whole Foods as you. We’re going to keep running into each other. Forever.
You ever notice how when you’re unemployed, suddenly everyone becomes a career counselor? “Have you tried networking?” Yes, Linda, I’ve tried networking. That’s just a fancy word for begging people you haven’t talked to since high school to remember you exist.
But here’s what kills me about job applications — they want you to have five years of experience. For an entry-level position. Entry-level! That’s like saying, “We’re looking for a virgin… with three kids.” Make up your mind! Either I’m entering or I’ve been here before!
And don’t get me started on the cover letter. “Tell us why you’re passionate about data entry.” I’m passionate about eating. I’m passionate about rent. You want passion? Hire a flamenco dancer. You want someone to enter data? That’s me. I will enter that data with zero passion, and I will do it efficiently.
The whole thing is backwards. When you have a job, everyone’s trying to hire you. LinkedIn won’t leave you alone. Recruiters are in your DMs. But the second you’re unemployed? Radio silence. It’s like being single. Nobody wants you until somebody else wants you. “Oh, you’re available? …Why?”
I once wrote code so confidently wrong, it started working out of fear.
My code isn’t clean, but it is… expressive. You can tell I was going through something.
I’m not debugging… I’m just staring at my code until we reach an understanding.
I don’t comment my code because I don’t want future me to know what I was thinking.
I don’t know how to code—I just sit there, light a candle, open my laptop, and wait for the vibes to compile.
Every time my code runs successfully, I act like I planned it the whole time. “Yeah… that’s exactly what I meant to do.”
I don’t have a tech stack—I have a personality disorder with plugins.
Vibe coding is when you don’t know what the code does… but you defend it like it’s your child.
My coding process is 10% logic, 90% “this feels right” and honestly… that’s how I date too.
I don’t optimize performance—I optimize energy. If it runs eventually, that’s enough.
I don’t write functions—I just type until the computer respects my confidence.
I’ve never read documentation a day in my life. If the vibes aren’t clear, that’s on the language.
I don’t test my code—I just believe in it. And if it fails, that’s a trust issue.
Vibe coding is opening Stack Overflow, copying the answer, and saying, “Yes… this aligns with my truth.”
My development environment is just Chrome tabs and unresolved childhood curiosity.
I don’t refactor code—I just start over with a new attitude.
Vibe coding is when your biggest skill isn’t coding… it’s convincing yourself you’re close.
Vibe coding is when your app works but you have no idea why… so you just never touch it again.
Dave Attell:
I tried vibe coding… turns out I’m not a developer—I’m just a guy clicking stuff until it gets worse.
Taylor Tomlinson:
I vibe code the way I make life decisions—no plan, just confidence and a little bit of denial.
Like, I don’t know what this function does, but I believe in it… the same way I believe in men with no job and a podcast.
John Mulaney:
Vibe coding is insane because you’re not solving problems—you’re just hoping they go away.
You hit “run” like, “Maybe this time… the computer understands me as a person.”
Jerry Seinfeld:
What is vibe coding?
You don’t know what the code does… but you feel like it should work.
Since when did programming become intuition? What are we, psychic now?
Kevin Hart:
I was vibe coding, right? Just typing fast, looking confident—
The computer hit me with an error like, “WHO TOLD YOU YOU COULD DO THIS??”
Software bugs are the only thing in my life that multiply without any effort.
Debugging is like therapy, except the problem keeps insisting it’s fine.
My code works, but only if I don’t touch it, look at it, or believe in it too hard.
My code doesn’t work, my back hurts, and honestly I’m not fixing either one tonight.
My code doesn’t crash—it just quietly gives up, which feels personal.
The bug wasn’t even that bad until I tried to fix it… which is also how I handle my life.
I fixed a bug and immediately assumed I broke something worse somewhere else.
I finally fixed the bug… and now I don’t know who I am without it.
My favorite feature is when the app crashes right after I say, “This should work.”
There’s nothing more humbling than arguing with a semicolon for 45 minutes and losing.
My code works perfectly… as long as no one runs it.
I fixed a bug today and immediately felt powerful—then I realized I broke something else.
I tried to squash a bug and accidentally turned it into a feature request.
Back in my day, bugs were actual bugs. You could step on them and feel accomplished.
I added one line of code and my app started acting like it pays rent and doesn’t like me.
Every bug I fix just reveals a deeper, more existential bug underneath.
We didn’t call them bugs—we called them “opportunities for overtime.”
I copy-pasted code from three different sources and now my app has multiple personalities.
The bug only happens in production, which feels like the universe humbling me specifically.
You’re telling me the computer did exactly what you told it to do… and that’s the problem?
I wrote code for eight hours just to move the bug to a new location with better lighting.
Yeah, it works on my machine… which is where I’ll be staying forever.
The bug said “works for me” and honestly… respect.
I fixed the bug. I don’t know how. I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t debug—I just slowly come to terms with the fact that I’m the problem.
Bernie Mac:
Man, I don’t trust these software bugs! I wrote one little line of code—next thing you know, the whole system actin’ like it got an attitude. I’m like, “I MADE YOU!”
Fortune Feimster:
I tried coding once… turns out I don’t fix bugs, I befriend them. At this point, my app isn’t broken—it’s just… got a strong personality.
Nikki Glaser:
I like software bugs because they remind me of my dating life—everything looks good at first, and then one tiny issue ruins the whole experience.
Dave Attell:
I fixed a bug today… then I opened another file and found five more. It’s like roaches, man—if you see one, you already lost.
Mark Normand:
I got bugs in my code, bugs in my kitchen—at least the kitchen ones don’t crash when I click ‘em. Comedy!
LinkedIn while unemployed is wild. Everyone’s like “Honored to announce…” and I’m like “Humbled to report I made eggs.”
My job search has been going great… I’ve been rejected by companies I didn’t even apply to.
I took a free online course just to feel productive. I don’t even know what it was about. I just needed someone to assign me something.
I applied for an entry-level job that required five years of experience—so now I’m applying for time travel.
I’ve been watching so much political news while unemployed, I’m starting to think the only stable job in America is blaming someone else for yours.
My screen time report said I was down 20% this week. Yeah… because even my phone is like “There’s nothing left for you here.”
I don’t have imposter syndrome anymore—I have imposter certainty. I know I don’t belong anywhere.
I’ve been budgeting so hard, I just look at things and then decline my own card.
I’ve started calling my unemployment “early retirement”… my financial advisor calls it “incorrect.”
When you’re the unemployed friend on a random Tuesday at 2pm like… “So what are we doing today?” and everyone else is like “Working???”
When you’re unemployed, hobbies stop being cute and start feeling like backup careers. Like am I journaling… or am I building a brand?
I don’t fear rejection anymore—I expect it. At this point, an acceptance would feel like a scam.
Applying for jobs now is insane. They’re like, “Upload your resume.” Then, “Now type your resume.” Then, “Now explain why your resume matters to you emotionally.”
I miss having a job so much I set an alarm for 7am… just to hit snooze and feel important again.
My bank account doesn’t have overdraft fees anymore… it just sends thoughts and prayers.
I’ve been applying for jobs so long, I’m starting to feel like I’m in a one-sided relationship. I’m sending paragraphs… they’re leaving me on read.
I started watching so much TLC, I think my next career move is just… qualifying for one of the shows.
I told my parents I’m freelancing… they said, “Oh, so you’re professionally broke?”
My strange addiction isn’t anything crazy… it’s binge-watching My Strange Addiction while unemployed. At this point I’m like… put me on the show. My addiction is applying to jobs that don’t exist.
I googled “easy side hustles” and now I’m three clicks away from becoming a foot model with a ring light and no dignity.
I wake up every day excited to see what new way the economy has found to not include me.
The job market is so competitive right now, I feel like I’m auditioning to be exploited.
My daily routine is coffee, apply to jobs, and then reread my own resume like it’s fan fiction.
I tried networking, but it turns out “desperate eye contact” is not a transferable skill.
Being unemployed is just LinkedIn cosplay… every day I log in and pretend I’m still a professional.
I’m not unemployed—I’m in a long-term relationship with uncertainty and she’s very financially demanding.
At this point, I’m not even looking for a job. I’m looking for a plot twist.
I’ve applied to so many jobs I’m starting to feel like I’m the problem… which is crazy because I know I’m perfect.
I overslept my alarm the other day just to feel something. Like wow… I used to be needed. Being unemployed is just waking up without an alarm and still feeling like you’re late for something…
turns out it’s just your life.
Comedian Styles
Anthony Jeselnik:
I’ve been unemployed for a few months now.
It’s been great… I finally have time to focus on what really matters.
My suicide pact.
Maria Bamford:
I’m unemployed right now, which is fun because my inner voice has never been more available.
She’s like, “Hey sweetie, maybe today we apply for jobs?”
And I’m like, “Or… we reorganize our trauma into a color-coded system?”
John Mulaney:
I miss having a job so much, I set an alarm for 7am… just to hit snooze and be like, “Not today, capitalism!”
And capitalism’s like, “Oh, don’t worry… I already left you.”
Jerry Seinfeld:
What is the deal with unemployment?
You don’t go to work… but you’re somehow more tired.
From what? Resting competitively?