I wish we could slow down

Posted by brilokuloj on Apr 10, 2026

Everyone I know is collapsing from anxiety right now.

It’s not like I think it’s unwarranted. And it’s not like I’m not doing the same.

I think we have hit a point as a culture where we are so thoroughly alienated and removed from meaningful action that we can take. All we really have left is scrolling on our phones.

I’m not here to tell you what you should be doing instead, because honestly, I have no fucking clue. I am at a total loss. I am, however, aware of the patterns of manipulation going on here, so this is my attempt to write about that for anyone else who might want more control or at least awareness over their mental state.

You’ve likely noticed over the past few years that Trump has seemingly taken his presidential announcements to social media first. I found this shocking in its lack of decorum, the idea that our fates and livelihood was to be projected on the same platform that I would post about being stuck in the bathroom. Not that decorum matters or is real, but it did shatter the illusions I had.

What I don’t see people talking about is that this is at least partially a lie he is crafting. The most recent example I can give of this is from the article “White House Knew About Pakistan’s Cease-Fire Post on X Before It Was Sent”, unfortunately published by the deplorable New York Times. I am too exhausted beyond belief to find more links, so you’re going to take my word for it that this is a long-term pattern.

What does it really mean? It means that Trump knows what he’s doing long before he makes his stupid posts. He’s having talks, he’s writing these in advance, he’s lying to get his way.

Here are some tactics that may be familiar:

• Setting a date that is conceivably close, such as “tonight” or “tomorrow morning”
• Raising a vague threat
• Tying that threat to an expectation of change in behavior (“you do what I want or I’ll kill you”)
• Moving that date continuously
• Bringing these threats into your personal life (notes taped to your door, texts on your personal phone, no longer having these conversations at appropriate times in monitored channels)

All of this is emotional manipulation, a field whose experts consist of marketing teams and abusive family members.

As Americans, we are born into a society where our day-to-day is structured around waiting for prime time television. We go to jobs where we are expected to swallow this feeling of anticipation, lest we risk bringing our personal life into the workplace. Now with push notifications we can and will have those threats delivered to us during working hours, where our only option is to completely shut down.

All I’m saying is that if you are looking for a change in your life that might make this easier, I’d say to not get your news from sites like Bluesky. But I know everyone is going to do it anyway, because it’s like digital cigarettes - I started doing it myself, after years of saying I wouldn’t go back to it. And my mental health has immediately and predictably tanked from it, and I don’t really see a way out, because this kind of 24/7 flashbang social media cycle is becoming more and more omnipresent.

This is a plea into a void. I can’t change anything. I am totally out of control in my life. But I want to stop hearing my news from screenshots of Donald Trump at Truth Social because right now he is posting videos of marginalized people getting murdered and I don’t know how nobody else is talking about how this is a mass attempt at triggering the populace. And we spent a whole decade on stupid arguments making the word “trigger” into a fucking joke so nobody’s going to take that seriously either.

I wish we could go back to a slower news cycle, a slower life. I would trade a world of convenience to go back.

Categories: news