by Monday morning editorial meetings are where my soul goes to die slowly. Today’s theme: “quirky behavior that’s actually concerning.” Marcus wants me to write about Americans who’ve turned their dysfunction into brand identity, which is basically every American under forty, so I have options.
First assignment: when your childhood issues become brand identity. This is the phenomenon of people who’ve made their therapy homework into their entire personality. “Hi, I’m Jessica, and I have attachment issues” is apparently an acceptable introduction at parties now. One woman I interviewed has “abandonment issues” in her Instagram bio. Not as a warningas a selling point. She’s monetized her trauma into a lifestyle brand with 40,000 followers.
I asked her if she’s concerned about reducing her entire identity to one psychological pattern. She said, “That’s very judgmental of you.” I pointed out that I’m literally a journalistjudgment is my job description. She blocked me on three platforms before the interview ended. The modern American way: when confronted with uncomfortable truths, simply eliminate the person saying them from your digital reality.
This connects beautifully to my previous work on self-proclaimed empaths and people naming their emotions after weather patterns. There’s a through-line here: Americans have pathologized normal human emotions and turned them into content. Sadness isn’t just sadnessit’s “depression era, winter storm edition” that requires a twelve-post Instagram carousel to properly document.
The research took me to some dark places. I found entire communities of people who compete over who had the worst childhood, trading trauma like Pokemon cards. “My parents got divorced” is met with “My parents stayed together AND divorced three times.” It’s the Oppression Olympics, but for family dysfunction, and everyone’s going for gold.
Between interviews, I worked on people who clap when planes land. This isn’t about childhood traumathis is about people who need constant validation for things that aren’t accomplishments. The plane landing isn’t your achievement, Karen. The pilot did that. You just sat there eating pretzels and breathing recirculated air.
But the clapping thing reveals something deeper: Americans need to celebrate everything because nothing feels meaningful anymore. We’ve Instagram-storied ourselves into a constant state of performance where every mundane moment requires acknowledgment. The plane landed? Applause! You made it through Monday? Parade! You managed to be a functional human for twelve consecutive hours? Presidential Medal of Freedom!
I also drafted notes for tomorrow’s piece on people who smell like Etsy, which is my satirical investigation into Americans who’ve turned “natural living” into a personality trait so aggressive it has an olfactory component. If you smell like patchouli, lavender, and poor life choices, we need to talk.
Marcus loved today’s childhood trauma piece. “This is peak satire,” he said. “It’s funny because it’s true, and it’s true because people have lost their minds.” He’s not wrong. I’m documenting a society that’s forgotten how to just… be. Everything is content. Everything is brand. Everything is performance. And nobody’s wearing pants because we’re all working from home in our emotional support plant gardens.
Tonight I’m exhausted from analyzing dysfunction. My friend in Accra texted asking how work is going. “I’m writing about Americans who’ve made their therapy sessions into TikTok content,” I replied. She sent back three crying-laughing emojis. Even Ghanaians are laughing at us now.
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