Generational Collapse and The Destruction of Life Stages

A post of mine went viral recently, unexpectedly. I didn’t expect it to resonate with so many people but it’s now at 1M views and counting.

If something happens, you and everyone else know about it. An 80 year old and a 13 year old are consuming the same things as you. The woman who was filmed having a meltdown in public? They know about it too. They’ve seen the same takes as you. Maybe they comment, maybe they don’t. Then they go back to stare at their phone and absorb themselves in their chosen social media world, whether it’s X, TikTok, or Facebook. This phenomenon has no historical precedent, and it’s very strange.

When an 80 year old, 13 year old, and 22 year old are all thinking about the same things, they’re essentially the same person. To assume one is more mature than the other implies they’re on the expected cultural life stage that most people were on before the internet. Those days are far behind us.