June 26th, 2026
DVD Collection by Purchase College Library, CC BY-NC 2.0
As we are in the cusp of further rising RAM prices, which judging by the manufacturer Micron is poised to continue into the 2030s as they locked down higher prices for the next 5 years. It's easy to ponder how we got here and theres many people with many theories and I'm sure they have their merits.
While some cite the launch of ChatGPT as the date when the world changed, back in 2022 I'd argue the world drastically changed during the pandemic in 2020.
This isn't a mind blowing thought, the shockwave to the economy, the millions who died and the collective trauma that it instilled in people is hopefully clear to just about anybody to have had an effect on the world.
However I think people underestimate that things like Techbroism (I'm coining that lol), conspiracy theories, trans exclusionary radical feminism and pseudo-science health influencers had a huge surge during the pandemic. The act of needing to wear masks or lockdown seems to have been enough to radicalize some people to the right.
This,combined with the ease of access to podcast equipment and everyone being indoors gave a hungry new audience to these people. Things like the Memestock where people invested in silly stocks hoping to cause a Gamestop level surge came shortly after 2020, which lead to the rise in pump and dump crypto scheme as people were trying hard to game the system. The culture became overly defeatist, a sort of the system is broken, nothing can be done about it mentality in a lot of people and why not screw some folks over to get a slice of the pie.
A lot of this techno-nihilism, con-artistry and fear that the system is too broken to repair reminds me of what I've read about the late 90s and the dotcom bubble. I was a mere baby when that happened but I can definitely see some pararells.
The reveal of some of the Epstein documents only emboldened the conspiracy minded as if they had been right all along but given that the man they hitched their wagon on was part of that I'd say they were not right. If there is some sort of "cabal" its just big business and government colluding to fan the flame of fascism, because that aligns broadly speaking with their goal of wealth accumilation.
I don't want to just be here listing things that you likely agree with, if you're on here you're probably of similar leanings as I am. But I think there is hope to be found among the chaos, if we just look at tech which has become worse and more expensive over time, there's trends that one notices.
There's a surge in younger people getting into retro tech and retro gaming, ipods for instance saw a rise in popularity following the pandemic due to the youtuber Dankpods.
DVDs and physical media while it has fallen by the wayside has continued to exist and has seen some rise with younger people who are sick of streaming services
Movies like Backrooms and Obsession caused the highest attendance in theaters since 2019, meaning its not true that people don't wanna go to the theater anymore but are perhaps just tired of the blockbusters and remakes that keep being pumped into the cinema. Obsession and Backrooms both beat Disney's Mandalorian & Grogu star wars film at the box office some weeks.
Despite AI being shoveled down our throat its overwhelmingly not well recieved by people. The usage of it doesn't really justify the cost. Companies are just hoping they can replace workers and sell every person on using AI to do their shopping which doesn't seem to be working.
There's an air of "okay...enough is enough" among people, young and otherwise and I think that's kind of refreshing to see.