Black Holes, Black Pills, and Checking Out

The Siren Song of Doing Absolutely Nothing in Late Capitalism

I’m not trying to brag, but I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I’m doing okay. I didn’t have the best home life growing up, but I have been able to heal and create meaningful relationships as an adult. I came from one of those overcrowded, underfunded inner city schools you hear so much about, but I’ve made my own way with self-education later in life. I’m working a gig in the tech industry and finally making decent money. I am in a long-term relationship and just celebrated our 10-year anniversary, thank you very much. I have a small but close-knit group of friends that I see regularly and hobbies that I enjoy. After some rough years in my youth, I feel like things are finally coming together. I'm no longer living hand to mouth and I’m even starting to put some money away. For the first time in my life, I feel like things are starting to come together. However, I feel like there is something stalking me. A shadowy figure that is always a few steps behind. A serpent that whispers in my ear. And that figure is this motherfucker you see below.

This guy is someone who haunts my dreams. He has become something of a meme in some circles representing the “bugman” when he had an emotionally charged reaction video to the trailer for “The Rise of Skywalker” that seemed to border on a religious experience. For those unaware of the term “bugman,” it’s akin to Nietzsche’s “Untermensch” or “last man”- someone who is content in their mediocrity. Someone who sees the success of others as an existential threat, someone who would rather tear down idols than strive for what they represent. Someone who has given up. Someone who merely exists to consume- like a black hole that absorbs Funko Pops and Marvel movies instead of light. My partner has wisely parsed out in my rants about this man- or those like him- that there is some kind of Jungian shadow self thing going on here. What we hate about others is often what we hate about ourselves and all that. I think she’s right, but more so because people like him are what I fear to become. However, I despise him not because I don’t understand him, but because I do. In some ways, to become like him is my greatest desire.

More and more, the siren song that calls to me is not cheating on my partner or living a double life as previous generations may have felt as success came, but that of dropping out of society all together. Almost daily, I fantasize about quitting my job and getting a studio apartment somewhere with a low cost of living. I would work just enough to survive- either some low-level remote job or a gas station. I would spend my days reading, watching movies, smoking weed, eating junk food, playing video games, and drinking cheap whiskey. I would spend my days watching DVDs of old movies and TV shows or playing old video games from my youth so I could just immerse myself in the comfort of the past. I would not care about politics or world events anymore. I would leave my partner not because of another woman, but because I want to be alone. I don’t want to talk to people. I don’t want to be successful. I just want to exist. I don’t want to die, but sometimes I want to be dead to the world. I am not alone in this desire.

I remember first hearing about people who willingly chose this lifestyle around 15 years ago when I first graduated high school. I was taking a gap year. Well, I say “gap year” but that kind of implies I was backpacking in Europe, working in a national park or something like that. In reality, I was mostly smoking weed, working part time at a grocery store, hanging out with my loser friends, and browsing 4chan. Before you freak out, 4chan of the late 2000s and early 2010s was a different place. This was pre-Gamergate and pre-Trump- so while it did have hints of what it would later become, it was kind of a place for misfits and losers of all stripes to congregate. Here is where I first learned about the NEETs.

“NEET” stands for “not in education, employment or training.” Little did I know, this was a lifestyle for a certain type of person. There is a strange mix of pride and shame in the online community of NEETs. Some see it as a modern form of punk rock or protesting their existence in a world that seems increasingly hard to get ahead in. Think the adage of boomer icon Timothy Leary’s “turn on, tune in and drop out” but without the “turning on and tuning in” part. There are some more ugly ideas that can go along with this, so I won’t romanticize it too much but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t get it. “There for the grace of God go I,” and all that. But if it were an isolated online community from over a decade ago it would be easy to dismiss. But this movement is something that is global.

There is a phenomenon in Japan of people who also choose to drop out of society and eschew careers, families, and a social life. These are people known as “hikikomori,” which roughly translates to, “pulling inward,” or, “being confined.” These people (mostly but not entirely young men) feel so overwhelmed by the world that they choose to drop out of society and live in isolation. You could romantically see it as the modern equivalent of hermits, but that’s being generous. I’m pretty sure hermits had life skills and fished, grew beards and wrote poetry that was only appreciated after their deaths. The hikikomori largely fills his day with the carnal pleasures of the perpetual adolescent- anime, video games and constant web surfing.

I recently read about another phenomenon called, “lying flat,” that has gripped the youth in China. Essentially, the idea is that society is so stacked against them they are rejecting cultural norms of hyper achievement to do the bare minimum to survive. A generation after the massive economic explosion that transformed China from a technological and economic backwater to a global superpower and those who inherited that world don’t feel like they have a place in its future. They say that hard work no longer pays off, their university degrees are worthless and the idea of owning a home and having a family is so beyond their reach that it’s pointless to try. Instead of trying to attain an unachievable goal, they “lie flat” and just survive and fill their days with social media and video games.

The comparison to what young people in the Western world feel is so obvious that it’s hardly worth mentioning, but sometimes you gotta put a hat on a hat. Be it “quiet quitting” the opioid epidemic or NEETS in the West or hikikomori and those who “lie flat” in the East, I can’t help but get the feeling that people are just over it. By “it” I mean “participating in society.” The common thread here seems to be people who have just had enough of the stresses of the modern world.

There is a genre of YouTube videos that I’ve had a strange fascination with for the past few years. I don’t know what to call them except “people having breakdowns in their car and dropping some serious black pills.” It’s a genre that has really taken off since 2020 for obvious reasons. People of various backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, and ages who seem to have reached a breaking point. You get the impression they just got off of a shift from some dead end job that pays too little and expects too much. The specifics vary, but the sentiment is nearly universal. “Is this it? Do I just work my ass off for scraps for my whole life and then die?” Why is this such a universal sentiment these days? What is causing people to just completely drop out and give up on society?

I think the reasons why are obvious. We are living through a massive change socially and economically. We are seeing the end of the post WW2 consensus and the global hegemony of the US post-Soviet collapse and the stability that reality provided. Nothing feels certain anymore. As Peter Zeihan describes in his 2022 book, “The End of the World is Just the Beginning,” we are witnessing the end of globalism and the material comfort and safety it provides in real time. As such, the current system is under tremendous strain and close to the breaking point. Even if it's not something we can all understand intellectually, I feel like it’s something we can all intuitively understand emotionally. The world we were born into won’t be the one we live through.

More and more, the world seems to be a place that’s unpredictable, frightening and increasingly unaffordable. People feel like they have no options. No future. So, understandably, more people retreat into fantasy and cling to the few carnal pleasures they can obtain as a comfort. So, in this uncertain and frightening world, where do people find comfort?

We live in an age where pleasure is trivially easy to acquire, at least in the carnal sense. A quick dopamine hit is never more than a few clicks away on a smart phone. Social media. Fast food. Streaming videos. Internet porn. DoorDash. YouTube. Video games. The list goes on. It’s easier and easier to encase yourself in a pleasure cocoon of your own making. Whatever you are interested in, there is now a niche online community complete with micro-targeted ads waiting for you.

Assuming we don’t see some kind of massive collapse within our lifetime, this is something that will only compound with time. The drugs will get better and cheaper, and they will be harder to resist. Much has been made of the rise of AI, but what will happen when it is trivially easy and cheap to create a movie or TV series perfectly tailored to your tastes? Just give some AI software a prompt with all your favorite actors, tropes, and the types of things you like to see and there will be endless content for you to numb yourself with. Or perhaps, more importantly, you can tell it what you don’t want to see. You can never have your beliefs, worldview or even comfort challenged ever again. And that is to say nothing of the disturbing potential of AI produced porn. Anything you can imagine, any depraved fetish or fantasy you have and there will be data centers the size of small cities that will spin it up for you. Complete sexual bliss- no human interaction required. You can create a world where you only ever encounter what you enjoy. You are the center of gravity in your own universe- a black hole of consumption.

How can we escape the gravity of our own bottomless pit of desire when faced with existential loneliness and lack of purpose? The answer may come from places we least expect. A few months back, when I was on something of a black pill binge, I had taken the day off from work because I was depressed and down. I decided to do something healthy and productive and day drink while watching YouTube videos. I went down some of the rabbit holes I discussed here- the youth lying flat in China, the people having breakdowns in their car and of course, the OG- the Japanese hikikomori. But I saw a related video when I was watching a documentary on the epidemic of elderly Japanese people dying alone and the people who clean up their apartments (dark shit, don’t recommend). It was a short documentary on a Japanese food blog channel. And here, dear reader, is where I found salvation.

The video details the life of an elderly Japanese man who makes his living running a one-man ramen shop out of his pickup truck. He makes nearly everything by hand. He sets up the shop with plastic chairs and tables he carries in his truck himself. He says he only sleeps three hours a night. There are some who will say that it is a tragedy that someone is working so hard into their golden years like that. To a degree, I would agree with them. When I started the video, I was hoping for that sweet, sweet hit of nihilism that would confirm my darkest thoughts and fears on aging and living in a late capitalist dystopia. However, the truth ended up being a little more complicated. That day, I found myself deeply envying him.

I think what I and so many others envy about this man and those like him is purpose and community. Even if the work is hard and the hours are long, he seems to have a deeper reason for doing what he does. I don’t pretend to be an expert on Japan’s economic situation or how it treats its elderly, but one thing I did notice was that he did not say he was still running his shop because he couldn’t afford to retire. He says how he does not want to let his customers down. He seems to have regulars who he knows by name. He is a valued and well-loved member of his community. One middle-aged man that frequents his shop mentions he has been dining there since college. His customers even throw him a birthday party and get him to take some time off to enjoy some cake. He is a man with a purpose and a calling, even if it is a humble one.

How many people do you know who talk wistfully about dropping out of the rat race in order to live on a farm somewhere? Perhaps you have had the same dream? I know I have. It’s funny- both my parents grew up on farms and worked their ass off to move to the city, get a “professional” job and live “the American dream” Now, even though I’m in my 30s, living in a major metropolitan area and working in the tech world I can’t help but have the same feeling I had when my dad told me he gave away all his vinyl albums he collected in his youth- you don’t know the value of what you had.

Of course, reality is more complicated than that. The socioeconomic conditions the generation that left the farm lived in are completely different than those of the generation of rootless cosmopolitans that fantasize about going back to nature. That said, I think the desire is still a valid one. It’s not really about the farm, but the desire for community and purpose. To live a life that is not disconnected from reality. To know your neighbors and feel like your decisions matter. I think there is a growing global movement to reinvest in reality and live on a smaller scale. I don’t know what that might look like for you, but I think I know what it might look like for me.

Last year, I read the book “The Layoff House,” by David Rogers (who writes here on Substack and you should read). I found this book affecting me in an unexpected way. Full disclosure, I know the author personally, so I initially felt the dread that we all feel when a friend shows us their art. What if it sucks and we have to pretend to like it? Luckily, I did not need to pretend because I genuinely enjoyed the book and I ended up feeling a glimmer of hope for the future- something that feels like an increasingly rare find these days. I won’t spoil the whole book, but it tells the story of a group of co-workers who find themselves all living in an old, Victorian style home after their company lays them all off and the relationships they build.

Part of what affected me about “The Layoff House” was the theme of found family. When the characters all end up living together at the beginning of the book, they are practically strangers. Co-workers, but not friends. However, over the course of a year they grow close, have fights and some awkward moments. They are from different backgrounds, but they all share a common space and a common purpose. They have to navigate living with each other because they live on top of each other. As such, problems that could be ignored or swept under the rug in a work situation have to be dealt with by necessity. You can’t ignore the humanity and needs of someone you have to look in the eyes as easily as you can over a Zoom call.

I think the parallel to the modern world and environment created by social media is obvious. I was an early adopter of the internet because of the novelty of being able to connect with communities of people online who share your interests and values. In 2004 when I got online, this was still a niche thing but 20 years later it has created a cave system of isolating echo chambers. I can’t help but feel that a good deal of the animosity we feel towards each other and the loneliness so many feel is due to the isolating nature of modern society. It seems that the blessing of boundless connectivity has turned into a curse of a digitally induced padded white room.

So, as it seems like we are all navigating through the endless dumpster fires that is the death of the world we were born into, my hope is that we can salvage something from the ashes. Community and meaning may still yet overtake nihilism and isolation. It will look different for different people. For me, it is just spending time with my found family and maybe getting some old, Victorian house that we can live in together. For others, it may be the resurgence of religion. It may be a farm in the countryside. It may even be something as simple as cooking a meal for someone and finding the small pleasures in life. All I know is that there is change coming that we will all have to deal with that will shape the world for generations to come. When that happens, I don’t want to be alone, surrounded by black mirrors and artifacts of a bygone era. I would rather be with people I love and who love me. That is a world I would never want to drop out of.