Essays

Current releases from the archive.

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Formatting the Abyss: A Requiem for Medium

An autopsy of Medium’s clap economy, showing how visibility metrics push writers toward safe formats, self-censorship and obedience while ambiguity, risk and real thinking quietly disappear.

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The Illusion of Control

Wealth, health, fame and planning sit inside a control myth that collapses under chance and mortality.

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The Great Diet Delusion

Modern diet and wellness culture operates as a system that moralizes eating, promotes optimization rituals and monetizes bodily anxiety through influencers, metrics and subscription-based solutions.

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Outsourcing the Struggle

AI-driven automation promises effortless living while eroding effort, virtue and the sense of purpose that comes from struggle.

A stylized illustration of a muscular man and an athletic woman in workout clothing standing confidently inside a modern financial trading floor, surrounded by traders and digital market screens, suggesting the intersection of fitness culture, performance aesthetics and financial systems.

Muscle, Curves and Market Fears

Fitness and beauty markets treat bodies as investment assets, turning physical ideals into performance metrics that monetize insecurity and constant optimization.

A skeleton wearing sunglasses sits in a desert landscape using a laptop, surrounded by scattered play-button icons and signs reading "Passive Income," under a starry night sky.

The Algorithm Ate My Goldmine

AI-driven YouTube automation schemes and the modern content hustle rely on algorithmic incentives, saturation and passive-income promises that trap creators in unpaid labor, burnout and illusionary success cycles.

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The Ghost in the Scroll

AI-written content has triggered mass paranoia, unreliable detection tools and a cultural witch hunt over authorship. AI writing detectors and false positives intensify the obsession with "who wrote it," obscuring broader questions of authorship.

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The Medium Is the Mirage

Medium's engagement incentives encourage clickbait self-help narratives, manufactured urgency and exaggerated income claims over accountable guidance.

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The Simulacrum Selfie

Generative AI and synthetic media reshape visual credibility as deepfakes, beautification filters and AI influencers spread, eroding trust in images.

A large carnival-style structure with a glowing sign that reads "Hustle More," while people stand around holding smartphones and taking photos as they approach the entrance.

The Race to Riches & Fame

Platforms, metrics and comparison within hustle culture and influencer-driven ambition turn wealth and fame into a cycle of self-surveillance, overwork and burnout.

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FOMO: The Fear of Other Morons' Opportunities

FOMO grows out of algorithmic feeds and hustle culture, where social comparison, constant self-optimization and metric-driven platforms convert everyday life into anxiety and distraction.