Slobbing out and giving up: why are so many people going ‘goblin mode’? | Hacker News Reader

Slobbing out and giving up: why are so many people going ‘goblin mode’?

theguardian.com

18 pointsnigerian198114 comments

“Goblin mode is like when you wake up at 2am and shuffle into the kitchen wearing nothing but a long T-shirt to make a weird snack, like melted cheese on saltines,” he said. “It’s about a complete lack of aesthetic."

The snack sounds disgusting, but nobody in particular cares what I'm wearing in the kitchen at 2 am. And I don't care what my neighbors are wearing or cooking in their own kitchens at 2 am.

Melted cheese on a cracker sounds disgusting? Sounds like a pretty normal combination to me.

Melted cheese on saltines, other types of crackers, or the best, on Melba toast is actually quite aesthetically pleasing specially at 2 AM. Attire while consuming this treat is entirely optional.

lots and lots of hopelessness. over 70 percent of people 40 and under lived paycheck to paycheck before the pandemic.

maybe it's not goblin mode, maybe it is financially broke depression mode.

when it comes to generational poverty, people get tired of trying and give up.

why bother impressing others when you can barely feed yourself?

sadly it's going to get worse, there is so much welfare inequality and no amount of motivational videos will change that course.

after 30 with responsibilities, finishing college is nearly impossible so it's not like those people don't want to stay there.

the pay is so ridiculously low, the work is way more meaningless when you aren't doing what you are passionate about.

for a large percentage there is really no reason to not look like a "goblin"

not that i agree it should stay this way but we have a fundamental issue that has yet to be addressed.

I genuinely think we are experiencing a degradation in our social hygiene. I know this is an eternal opinion of adults, but I think we have particular cause to worry because of the unholy triumvirate of:

1. Smartphones (and Social Media) 2. Collapse of voluntary association and Third Places [1](bowling leagues, libraries) 3. Unclear advise on what to do when you're feeling bad about yourself (it's not your fault, mental health guidance/awareness, secularization)

I'm a young liberal, and I know this comment makes me sound like the stereotypical "boomer". But this malaise cannot be normal.

For me, personally, I don't think I would have smoked so much dope if I was born in 1980, for reasons of societal expectations. These days: what expectations?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

I have a side dream of starting a social club (that is explicitly not status based), but I’m really not sure that anyone would show up.

What? It’s just a clubhouse in which members just… hang out?

It might help to have some feel-good stated purpose as in “hang out … for charity.” I’m probably just watching too much The Guilded Age, but that’s what the characters in that show spend a lot of their time doing.

Weird thought occurs to me... it's expensive to just "hang out" in public spaces these days. When people come to my house, they tend to hang out in the kitchen/dining room while I cook. So now I'm picturing a giant communal kitchen with a bunch of individual cooking stations and dining tables.

Maybe this is a terrible pre-coffee idea and I don't want to leave the safety of my kitchen.

What is Social Hygine?

It's Only posting carefully crafted an curated thinks to show other you too can be a shallow fake human being

Just pulled it out of my rear. I don't think we have a term for this yet, and this leads the conversation towards separate silos that mask the whole problem.

> I know this comment makes me sound like the stereotypical "boomer". But this malaise cannot be normal.

It does, but it's incidental.[1] The sentiment is perennial. As cultural values and norms change[2], older folk tend not to adopt new values and norms. The result is a perception that their norms and values are fading away from society and a perception that there are no norms and values to replace them[3].

The idea of places as a essential part of people's lives is also fascinating. The very concept of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places are a product of a particular time and place, namely the couple hundred years of urban[4] workforce organized by capitalism. Consider how foreign the idea of places would be to a cottage industry worker in the 1500s whose 1st and 2nd places are one and the same and whose 3rd place had an entirely different social texture to ours today. They would be entirely justified at having a sense of loss at idea of moving to the city and organizing their life around separate physical places.

While I don't expect that 58 year olds[5] to adopt new ideas of place, I do expect them to act with the maturity their years have given them. We all must understand that while the conceptualizations cultivated in our lifetimes, while appearing timeless, are themselves a product of a time and place. And for those who look to others for wisdom, we must understand how their time and place shape their conceptions before adopting ourselves.

Just as there existed a way of social organization prior to the 1st/2nd/3rd places inhabited by urban workforce, there now exists a multitude of digital places just as real to internet natives as the bowling alley, barbershop, cafe, pub, and beer garden. We can expect that the march of social organization will continue progress beyond into spaces that have yet to be created and the same anomie we have today will adapt. In the future, only old people will congregate on Twitch.

Briefly on the concept of expectations, these have changed too. There is an ongoing massive shift in how social labels are attributed, from 3rd-party ascription to 1st-party ascription. There are inklings of change in how interpersonal conflict is handled that is starting to formulate in the minds of youth. Finally, cooperation amongst students rather competition is now a dominate paradigm[6]. All of these come with social expectations that would be foreign to a person 40 years older.

1. And fairly benign :)

2. And when don't they?

3. Why would an older person adopt a younger generation's perspective? They don't have the life experiences that shaped these values.

4. "Without such places, the urban area fails to nourish the kinds of relationships and the diversity of human contact that are the essence of the city." - The Great Good Place (1989) Oldenburg

5. The youngest "Boomers".

6. I've heard this attributed to the rise of high-stakes testing environments, but it could also be any number of other factors.

I don't want to generalize too much, but I find it interesting I only see this unholy triumvirate affecting my white collar friends. My working class friends seem relatively free of most of this baggage. Their social media use is contained to people they know on facebook, they never stopped going bowling and to the bars, even during the pandemic, and they have a surprisingly robust family/friend/church support group and don't seem as socially isolated. They have their own problems, for sure, but tragic feelings of anomie don't seem to be one of them.

I think my experience tends me towards agreeing with this. Great insight.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com