Bo Burnham: These content creators are wrestling with these difficult questions of the sort of weird, meta… like, hellscape that it is to be online. It’s weird. It’s weird and it’s complicated. And the kids know it and they sense it.

They’re coming for every second of your life. That’s what these companies are coming to. This company, as well. And it’s not because anyone is bad. It’s not because anyone in this company has evil plans, or is trying to do this. They’re not even doing it consciously. It’s because these companies like Twitter, Youtube, and Instagram and everything they went public and they went to shareholders. So they have to grow. Their entire models are based off of growth. They cannot stay stagnant.

Youtube, Twitter grossed $4-5 billion last year, it is in the red. It is unprofitable. It has to get more of you. No matter how nice it’s trying to be, it is all – They’re trying to get more engagement from you. We -- we used to colonize land. That was the thing you could expand into. And that’s where money was to be made. We colonized the entire earth. There was no other place for the businesses and capitalism to expand into.

And then they realized, human attention. That we can now – they are now trying to colonize every minute of your life. That is what these people are trying to do. Every single free moment you have is a moment you could be looking at your phone, and they could be gathering information to target ads at you. That that’s what’s happening.

So like, as much as we can, you know, have really good conversations the, like, mechanism of the business is rolling towards that just because of the market. So, like. It’s coming. It’s coming for every free second you have. And that’s dark. That’s really, really dark and scary.

And for someone like me, I grew up a little on the internet, and I felt the repercussions of it, I suffer from anxiety. So, I know where it leads. And I’m saying like, you don’t want this. Trust me, like, you’re not going to feel good about yourself.

And you know it. The kids know it.

Like, the whole joke on the internet is everyone’s like, “This place sucks right?” I mean like, that’s like… kind of the thing. That’s why their memes are all ironic and detached, and self-referential and 12-layers deep.

‘Cause truth is completely dead to them and they know it. They look at the president, they look at the culture, they go, “What the hell is this?” They look at like, Coca-Cola commercials that are winking at them and smiling. And they go like, “Forget it.”

Someday you’re going to be fifty. Someday you’re going to be eighty, maybe. And it’s good to learn brand new skills for the first time as an older adult but if the thing you have the most practice at is saying “I might as well not start because it’s going to take too long to get good” then that’s what you’re going to be good at: not starting things.

If you’re thinking “oh, god, it’ll take me MONTHS to even have a baseline competence at this, I might as well give up at the start” you are looking at your whole life as a bullshit timeline that you have no scale for.

Someday you’re going to be fifty. Someday you’re going to be eighty, maybe. If it takes you ten years to get good at something and you’re in your twenties that seems like an ENORMOUS investment - that’s almost half your life! But if you’re fifty that’s twenty percent of your life. You’ve had the time to get great at and abandon five things that take ten years.

DO THINGS. PLEASE.

I promise, it’s good for you. It’ll make you feel better.

So. Here’s the thing.

Who cares if you don’t master the skill before you die? Being the master of the skill (or even moderately good at it) isn’t the point, the point is to do things that you enjoy while recognizing that “fun” is a good enough reason to do things.

Do you have any idea how fun it is to play an electric kazoo badly? With $44 and zero hours of practice you can find out:

https://kazoos.com/products/hummbucker-electric-kazoo

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/honeytone-n-10-guitar-mini-amp

Don’t have $44 (who does, these days? My kazoo was a birthday present) - here are some suggestions for free/low cost things to practice that can net you immediate, same-day results:

Post-it Origami

Go to the 99 cent store and get some ballpoint pens and a notebook and draw with that; hell, you don’t even have to buy those, i bet you can find a free notepad somewhere and there is probably a pen between the couch cushions

Sing Sea Shanties

Pretentious Photography with your Shitty Phone Camera (find an assignment list from a photo class and take the photos on your phone; it’s extremely doable)

Make plastic bags into plarn and crochet into random household goods (a crochet hook is about two dollars and you probably have a stash of plastic bags somewhere that you could dig into - I made a hamper to hold my plastic bag yarn balls out of plastic bags)

Look up youtube videos on how to dance

Practice different styles of handwriting/lettering and make extracts from books you like (make extracts in the “weird old hobby” sense of copy passages and quotes you like into a notebook full of passages and quotes you like and use good handwriting to do it)

Whittling - either with soap or a stick or whatever; there are videos out there that’ll show you how to do it.

Here’s a video about someone applying the same principle to skateboarding:

You know what’s on sale now? A bunch of skateboards that weren’t sold for Christmas.

Its just like… Everything i try to do comes with an ever increasing mental resistance. Telling myself “hey let’s try to do that thing again” always feels like trying to gst myself pumped up for washing the dishes. I don’t know what it is, but i can’t seem to derive any reward from these things, and the more i try to focus or push myself “to just give it another go” the more upset i get.

I know it makes me sound like some bitchy whiny person for whom nothing works but it’s unfortunately the reality of this mental prison in which i am. Nothing ever feels good anymore and any attempt to push myself to hopefully get some kind of progress makes me so upset i often become physically agitated and cry.

I really appreciate your feedback, like… I really do. Im just like scared to look at anything at this point because whenever i burn myself trying to force myself to do a thing it falls into the “painful chore/torturous concentration demand” list and then it’s increasingly harder to try again. I don’t know how to trick myself into enjoying doing anything.. it’s like theres no more reward system in my brain. The only thing i can do to prevent myself from going completely insane is escapism by binging tv shows or scrolling on tumblr, but every now and then even these things suddenly trigger an irrational anger/frustration inside my head and then i have to turn off all the lights and rock myself to sleep to avoid having a panic attack.

A friend of mine is asking me to help him build a website and I’ve been thinking of getting skilshare or something because it’s something I’ve actually wanted to learn for awhile, but the way my mind is behaving im terrified that if i try to do it and get angry because I can’t focus on learning, it’ll turn me off trying to learn things online altogether.

It’s not even the displeasure of not being immediately good anymore, it’s literally being too scared to even attempt to do a thing because the tiniest mental effort provokes a violent pushback from myself. My mind doesnt want to be grounded in anything at any moment. I have a hard time believing that a few years ago i had a full time job while studying at university… It almost seems like it was a fever dream or the life of another person..

Hi friend, you are describing pretty much textbook symptoms of depression here.

On the one hand, that sucks, because depression.

On the other hand, there are some reasonable self-treatment options for depression that can help a pretty decent amount and there are some pretty effective therapies available if you’ve got access to medical care.

So, if you’ve got the kind of insurance or health system that provides mental health treatment you probably need to get in front of a professional and do a depression inventory quiz and specifically say the words “I don’t enjoy doing things that I used to really like and everything seems pointless” because that should get professionals to pay attention. Some people are really helped by medication, some people are really helped by talk therapy, you should see what options are available to you.

If you are NOT in a situation where mental health resources are available to you here are some things that (really honestly genuinely) can help:

Get some exercise if you aren’t already. A little bit of walking, some light yoga, dancing along to youtube videos, simple stretching, calesthenics - this isn’t to, like, get shredded or whatever; this is to make endorphins go. If you’ve got the kind of personality/fitness levels that work with running consider taking up running (I *loathe* running but it genuinely was an exceptionally good kind of exercise for my mental health)

Attempt to break the cycle of negative thoughts by focusing on positive thoughts. This isn’t “get ahead through the power of positive thinking” this is “your head is an echo chamber of how awful everything is and that’s a terrible place to be in, let’s try to make that less terrible” - Personally what works very well for me is a positive things journal. Some people call this a gratitude journal but ‘gratitude’ makes me feel guilty so it’s just like a bullet-pointed list of things that don’t suck. “Pretty sunset today” or “dog learned a new trick” or “went for a walk” or “friend said a nice thing about me.” Write down the things that make you feel good in one place, write them down frequently, and when you’re feeling shitty look at your list of non-shitty stuff to remind yourself that non-shitty stuff exists

Attempt to remain in communication with people. Text your friends, call your family, join a D&D campaign, start hanging out on a discord server. Being around people and experiencing people is good for you, at least a few times a month.

Attempt to set a regular sleep schedule; oversleeping and undersleeping are both symptoms of depression that also reinforce the depression.

Try to go outside or at least look out a window at least once per day. I have a whole ass blog dedicated to photos of the sky so that I force myself to go outside and take a picture of the sky every day. Is that a cheap cheat to get me to act like a baseline normal human being? Yep. Does it feel ridiculous to have constructed a project just to make myself go outdoors? Yep. Does it work? Yep.

And my standard advice for this: Make a physical thing. Right now, or as soon as you can. Get out a piece of paper and write a poem about what a dumb idea this is. Make a paper airplane. Find a couple pieces of string and learn to tie a blood knot. Get out a sharpie and scrawl “this is bullshit” on a piece of printer paper and decorate it with doodles of flowers. Then do something else tomorrow. If you keep doing it you end up with a collection of angsty little projects that you get to look at and think about and consider growth. You will have made a physical impact on the world. You will have a thing to hold in your hands that didn’t exist yesterday.

But, again, what you’re describing sounds like actual for realsies depression. You should probably see what resources are available to you and if you don’t have access to mental health care I strongly recommend reaching out to a trusted person in your life and telling them that you’re having a really hard time and could use some help sorting out your emotions.

Please acknowledge this revelation I just had.

Update: 

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Sometimes classics can be improved upon.

The Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries : an alternate ending for Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree by Topher Payne 💯🌳❤️

COVID-19 Is Transmitted Through Aerosols. We Have Enough Evidence, Now It Is Time to Act

Finally, a practical article about coronavirus transmission and ways to mitigate its spread - including best practices for staying healthy. (These are just excerpts.)

Also, this is the first I’ve read verification of aerosol / airborne COVID transmission - hugely important information.

TIME magazine article (free): X

Two articles referenced in this piece:

Oxford Academic journal article (free): “It Is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)”

This is: