by The first day of October should feel like a fresh start, but instead it feels like September’s chaos rolled over into a new month with accumulated interest. Today’s assignment is the perfect encapsulation of American culture in fall 2025: we’re broken, we know we’re broken, and we’re turning our brokenness into content.
My main piece today examines the overlap between all the bizarre behaviors I’ve been documenting. The self-proclaimed empaths, the pet therapists, the emotional support plant ownersthey’re all symptoms of the same disease: Americans have lost the ability to form genuine human connections, so we’re desperately seeking connection anywhere we can find it, even in places that can’t actually provide it.
You can’t be an empath just because you decided you are. Your cat cannot provide therapy no matter how intensely it stares at you. Your fern named Terry doesn’t understand your problems because Terry is a plant and problems require consciousness. But we’ve become so isolated, so atomized by capitalism and technology and the pandemic’s legacy, that we’ll take connection wherever we can fabricate it.
This desperation for connection explains why people flirt on LinkedIn. It’s not about professional networking. It’s about being so touch-starved and connection-deprived that even corporate social media starts looking like a viable place to find intimacy. “Let’s synergize our interpersonal assets” is what happens when you’re so desperate for human warmth that you’ll frame romance as a business merger.
The pantless remote workers and green screen beach backgrounds represent the same phenomenon from a different angle. We’re creating fictional versions of ourselves and our lives because reality has become unbearable. You’re not really working from Bali, but pretending you are makes the Ohio basement slightly more tolerable. You’re not really a put-together professionalyou’re wearing pajama pants and haven’t showered in three daysbut the camera only sees the top half.
The workplace rage I documented yesterday in the per my last email piece makes more sense in this context. We’re not really mad about emails. We’re mad about everything, and emails are the only acceptable target. You can’t punch capitalism in the face, but you can send a passive-aggressive message to Brad from accounting.
Even the absurd stuffRoombas named after Shakespeare, haunted kombucha, tote bag hoardingcomes from the same place. We’re trying to construct meaning and identity in a world that offers neither. So we name our cleaning robots and convince ourselves our beverages contain ghosts and collect promotional bags like they’re proof we exist.
Marcus read today’s piece and said, “This got dark.” I reminded him that I’m documenting reality, and reality is dark. “Can you make it funnier?” he asked. I added a joke about how my emotional support laptop understands me better than any human. He approved it but looked concerned about me personally. Fair.
I also updated my childhood trauma as brand piece with new examples. People are now selling courses on “how to monetize your mental health journey.” We’ve gone from pathologizing normal emotions to commercializing actual mental health struggles. One influencer charges $500 for a workshop on “authentic trauma storytelling for engagement.” I don’t have words. I have documented it, but I don’t have words.
Tonight, the first night of October, I’m sitting in my Harlem apartment looking at a month’s worth of articles about American dysfunction. My mother called earlier asking when I’m coming home to visit. “Soon, Mama,” I said. “I need to remember what functional society looks like before I forget it exists.” She laughed, but I was serious. Tomorrow: whatever chaos October brings, and I’m sure it’ll be substantial.
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