Millions are losing interest in everything

[YoshidaYui]

[Skittles]

1. I really feel for the young folk

at least us geezers got to see SOME good times.......this increasing fascism on the heels of the pandemic, it sucks for all but especially for them

[highplainsdem]

18. And it isn't just the politics. It's AI, generative AI, which is badly flawed tech, but which has been

hyped so much that many businesses have cut way back on hiring - especially hiring of young people, recent college grads.

As for the kids still in school - they're often hearing that they should just forget about careers they'd wanted, since those careers aren't likely to exist any more by the time they graduate.

[Skittles]

23. yes

reminds me of how the retirement rules for Boomers radically changed mid-stream and that has hurt a lot of people

AI seems poised to do the same to the younger folk

[Hugin]

2. I really noticed the effect during the holidays...

Commenting on the lack of additional decoration in the stores. Some of which had gone all out for years. I speculated that it was a expense cutting measure and only resulted in more of the homogenization of everything.

Most chilling was the non-response of those who I was talking with, not even a “meh”. Only silence.

Is this creeping nihilism?

[Bettie]

3. That is where I am

Right now. I hope it changes, but for now, this is me

[Grim Chieftain]

6. Me too

I feel that the joy is gone, it's just a matter of getting through the days. Many people have said that something broke after the pandemic and the year of isolation. Now, with the state of our country, the constant turmoil, uncertainty, chaos and division... Things have changed, and not for the better. Our lives are different.

[Hellbound Hellhound]

19. I think it's because for that year, we realized we were free.

For a brief fleeting moment, a lot of us saw with clarity how little all the "Extra shit" mattered. We took up hobbies. We explored new horizons. We broke out of the oppression of the modern day to day and saw life as worth living for the first time in our lives.

Then reality crashed back in, and we had it all taken from us again. We glimpsed salvation and were only granted damnation. It made us spiteful. It stripped a lot of us of the notion that we had a potential future, knowing that we'd never truly achieve it. It made us ANGRY. And I don't just mean "Younger people" (I just turned 40 last year) because my old man and mom, my wife, and her 80+ year old mother feel the same. That day to day humdrum waste of life just isn't worth it; we became MORE, and then were forced to become LESS to keep society going for the 1%.

I just stopped giving a shit. I know, millions died in the pandemic, but for that year, I was the most serene and at peace I'd ever been. I learned new things, gained new skills, broadened my horizons, expanded my mind, and gained more in that year than in the ten years prior toiling away for pennies.

[Roy Rolling]

4. Good Point--let's give it a name

It’s the hopelessness of helplessness. It’s a psychological propaganda operation specifically designed to make us feel that way in 2026 (progressive) America.

But don’t let it be forced upon us by MAGAts, instead be helpful.

“I’m not mad at you” should be the battle cry of the peacemakers.

[mnhtnbb]

5. The new American Dream is to leave

Nails it. Choice between food, mortgage/rent, and healthcare. No other major country in the world allows citizens to become bankrupted by medical bills.

[Aristus]

20. Mrs. Aristus and I dream of emigrating to Finland.

We have the means. We're just waiting for her to retire. I still have some years left to go. Working as a medical provider over there would mean becoming fluent in Finnish. But maybe I can work in a clinic in a neighborhood of American ex-pats.

[greatauntoftriplets]

22. I would leave if I could.

I know where I'd go, and I'd even be with family that I know.

But health issues and money keep me stuck here. And I despise him even more for that.

[betsuni]

7. Wondered what she was selling. Off the grid anti-government. "Pro-Life Pro-God Pro-Gun Pro-USA" shirts. Click & Buy!

Low taxes, gun rights, buy cattle and land that you can defend with guns! "Late stage capitalism" LOL.

[UniqueUserName]

8. What is "LOL" about it? /nt

[haele]

16. She's got to survive, too. Lots of people are making content to survive.

What she says isn't untrue, while it may be a shallow interpretation crafted for her peeps and clicks.
Honestly, that's a given for a lot of people that are researchers or explorers I watch online when I'm trying to decompress.
While some of them are associated with a particular field, only a few of them have full-time jobs anymore; many of them used to work in education, journalism, or Federal/State research and experienced loss of employment as budgets and programs were cut.
That's the telling point to me. The amount of professional people who are regularly "gig working" on sites like YouTube or Nebula doing an additional four or five hours of work daily, or going out over weekends to film a 20 minute weekly Vlog on a historical site or science event because of cut hours or pay.

[Hellbound Hellhound]

9. All those compilation vids are on point.

I've felt the same way for a while, that I increasingly want very little to do with anyone. I'm saving up to buy a little plot of land out away from the hustle and bustle, while in the interim I'm researching farming (Far more science than I thought!) and small fowl ranching, in addition to electrical work and renewable energy maintenance methods. We're just tired of it all, the hustle, the grind, the endless wasted life of struggling to make money for other people.

I'd rather make a pittance off a small farmer's market cart and be self-sustaining rather than keep selling bits and pieces of my life eight, twelve or sixteen hours at a time to a heartless corporation in exchange for paper of dubious value, surrounded by heartless coworkers and pandering to heartless customers who won't even bother with a "Good morning" but will jump down my throat for not smiling widely enough at them. The only GOOD thing that's happened in the past fifteen years is when I moved out of Florida to go back to upstate New York; at least there's a smaller density of assholes.

[UTUSN]

10. K&R

[dalton99a]

11. Kick

[ariadne0614]

12. One might wonder if Americans are being conditioned.

They might expect us to accept totalitarianism like good Russians.

[Bettie]

14. The depressing part is the ones who will

welcome it with open arms. They seem to think it will only impact "teh libs".

[Johnny2X2X]

13. Young people feel especially hopeless

They're being told over and over they have no future and to abandon hope because AI is taking their job.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. FWIW, this video is the kind of stuff that is a very wide and easy on-ramp into MAHA, conspiracy, overly prepping and

Last edited Mon Jan 12, 2026, 09:56 AM - Edit history (1)

other types of right-wing thinking, even for people who think they know better. The whole thing is full of fortune-telling platitudes that almost everyone can agree with ("why yes, I AM tired! And I DO feel overworked!" ), which is how you get reeled in. No solutions, no organizing -- but sure, click her website and buy a "trust farms, not pharma" shirt.

[betsuni]

17. Yes, priming an audience/customer base, younger and less MAGA, using Left-leaning anti-establishment buzzwords.

Alt-right is the best way to describe it. Anti-government, anti-regulation preppers with guns & God & conspiracy theories on their side.

Republicans cultivated their evangelical right-wing base in the '70s with direct mail to create not only voters but customers. Talk radio tells them to buy gold, supplements, underground bunkers, whatever government thing scares them and they buy.

Ironic that so many get apoplectic at Democrats for not fighting hard enough and standing up and speaking out, for caving, throwing in the towel, doing nothing, sitting around, turning their backs, etc., but voters giving up is fine. Let Republicans take over! Both Sides!

[Oneironaut]

21. Tbh, goodwill in American society is over and so is the American Dream, whatever that was.

Nobody is happy with the way things are going - even the biggest MAGA followers. Trump was the final nail in the coffin, and, there is no way this will ever turn around.

Everything is bleak and depressing now. Third places are gone or going away. Everything looks sterile, grey, and boring. Workers' rights are eroding to the point that hours are creeping up, nobody will be able to retire in the future, and, jobs will be increasingly scarce, giving employers all the power. A good number of young men (and some young women) are being addicted to bullshit like "Draft Kings" or "Kalshi prediction markets" that syphon their money to the billionaire class and keep them poor. Ads are everywhere - probably soon even in the sky with drones. Everything is a fucking scam, and, no one will own anything (and everything will be rented, to further syphon money from the poor to the billionaire class).

We're destroying the environment and our national parks - probably with data centers and nuclear powerplants spammed everywhere for "AI," which is consistently as dumb as a box of rocks. We're supposed to pretend that progress is happening, even though society is disintegrating before our very eyes, and, perpetually needy, broken fucking losers like Donald Trump and Elon Musk have all the power now and demand our attention 24/7.

American society is an absolute joke now. I remember how hopeful everyone was about the future, with cool new technologies coming out that seemed to improve our lives. It's hard to believe this is the world we have now.