Welcome to the first edition of Future Testing, a new foresight format where I talk about a consequential change, its implications, and resulting scenarios. In case you missed it, I introduced the format here.

The topic for this edition practically picked itself: AI-powered, camera-equipped smart glasses, launched with fashion and celebrity backing. In May, Google and Samsung unveiled “intelligent eyewear” at Google I/O that was co‑created with eyewear brands Gentle Monster and Warby Parker. June saw Snap’s release of their SPECS, shot by Steven Meisel and fronted by multiple high-profile celebs like Kaia Gerber and Jack Harlow. Soon after, Meta announced its native “Starfire” glasses, co-designed with Kylie Jenner. It was the latter announcement that seems to have ruffled lots of feathers online.

I wanted to unpack what the arrival of these campaigns means in the longer run. For links to articles and my other references, I’ve assembled them here.

Fashion-coded smart glasses sit at a convergence of several forces. Technologically, on-device voice computing has gotten small and capable enough to disappear into an ordinary-looking eyewear frame. Culturally, tech companies like Meta are making a big push for fashion-adjacent credibility via the right brand partners and celebrities. Economically, the fashion sphere has been reciprocating by leaning into such brand-funded media and events.

Kylie Jenner’s partnership isn’t the first high-profile female endorsement for Meta, having partnered with Doja Cat for example. What’s noticeable about the Jenner collaboration is the combination of cat-eye design embedded with highly subtle cameras. The partnership has attracted accusations of using femininity to normalise a problematic technology, at a time when news headlines keep appearing about people being unknowingly filmed with smart glasses. More often than not, it’s women being filmed by men non-consensually.

With that said, here’s the spark I’m working with for this edition:

Smart glasses with near-invisible cameras are launching for a mainstream audience, fronted by celebrities and fashion houses.

Quick note before we dive into implications. My analysis is focused on the UK, where I’m based. Several stories have surfaced over here of smart glasses footage of women appearing non-consensually online, the picture here is highly sceptical of this consumer tech, perhaps even hostile. 49% of the British public support a ban on smart glasses in public spaces according to YouGov, vs. 30% opposed to one. There’s been a voyeurism conviction involving them. Emancipating something like Meta Starfire would take a lot more PR to win female consumers over here.

Which brings us to implications.

What does this change make people believe, value or desire that they didn’t before?

1st order consequence: more people start to lose sight of when smart glasses are present in the room. Some people, unconcerned with being filmed, stop caring while others become hyper-vigilant and double down on anti-surveillance protection like the Nearby Glasses app and Deveillance device. UK public suspicion remains high but the camouflage is harder to detect. Among fashion-forward adopters, good design starts to outweigh caution over features. Picking glasses to wear comes with a risk of being judged, depending on the frames.

2nd order:

• Brands could pull back from mass-market positioning and pivot toward smaller, fashion-week-exclusive drops aimed at the audience the camouflage actually works on.

• Wearing smart glasses convincingly could become its own status signal, less about owning the tech and more about being someone who can pull them off.

• Future product launches may build privacy reassurance into the marketing itself, having watched pure aesthetic appeal fail to shift UK public opinion.

What does this change do to how people relate?

1st order consequence: wearers and non-wearers split into separate social tribes. At gyms, clubs, theatres and other venues, smart glasses get banned outright. It becomes implicit everywhere else too: people who wear them will only mingle with other wearers, and vice-versa. Trust between two people now partly depends on what they know about each other and their stance on wearables and AI, because knowing whether the person needs glasses is not enough.

2nd order:

• People preferring to be closely watched by people they already know, and more uncomfortable with strangers standing near them wearing unidentifiable glasses.

• Venues may increasingly need explicit ground rules about which kinds of cameras are allowed in the building, formalising what gyms and clubs are already doing informally.

• Wearing camera-enabled smart glasses could become a social cue in itself, less about the device and more about which kind of person you’re signalling you are — the tech equivalent of a MAGA hat.

What does this change make obsolete, and what does that clearing make room for?

1st order consequence: the visual tell of a camera-equipped device is gone. You used to be able to spot one by how it looked, but now design can erase that completely, turning a wearable into something that just looks like ordinary glasses.

2nd order:

• Detecting such a device is likely to shift from visual to technical and behavioural cues, audio interference and signal detection becoming the norm rather than the exception.

• A counter-design trend could emerge, following the logic already seen in phone-free club nights, where products or spaces are designed to visibly signal “not recording” as a value proposition in itself.

• Society and legal systems begin to revise “reasonable expectation of privacy”, since the old visual cue, of a raised phone or a visible lens, no longer applies.

The following vignettes serve as micro-stories, showing how these shifts in fashion, trust and visibility could play out on the ground.

Set in Soho, London, ca. 2027.

New beliefs, values, desires:

Lola steps on to the Elizabeth line platform, passes a digital billboard.

A large portrait of a model pops up. She looks familiar. It’s a campaign for a new kind of smart glasses. Completely camera-less and no microphone either. “Smart glasses with no cameras? Interesting. Must be too much money in that category, now non-creeps can own them too”, Lola thinks to herself.

On her way to the bar, she sees someone in sunglasses standing outside but there’s something off about his body language — he’s making strange gestures. He briefly talks to himself. It’s bemusing. Only for a moment though. Now she’s figured it out. Whatever those glasses are, he hasn’t got the hang of them. “Ick”, she thinks.

Relating differently:

Lola walks into the bar, checking the app DMs on the way in — he’s already arrived. The waiter points out the table where her date is sat. She’s just come in from the sun, and London has been battling another heatwave.

He nods as she approaches, smiles, introductions. She takes off the glasses at the top of her head, folds them and puts them on the table. He looks at them, comments on how they resemble the ones labelled “Fashionably Orwellian” in a Guardian exposé.

“Nope, just bog-standard frames”, she says. “I’m offended you’d ask that actually!” A pretend-shock look on her face.

They keep talking, launching into a conversation about their flags. Calling out Meta glasses in public like there’s a pickpocket: green flag. Being friends with someone who owns some: red of course. They both laugh.

Something goes away:

“Fancy another drink somewhere else?”, he asks.

Lola can be persuaded. It’s 32ºC right now and it’s Thursday.

They spot a bar with fun-looking neon signage — 1980s aesthetic. A security guard stands outside. “IDs please”, he says.

He points out to the two that all eyewear needs to be scanned before they can enter. He runs a small scanner over Lola, then her bag, a soft beep each time. Then her date. Clear.

“It’s like this everywhere now”, the security says, as he catches Lola rolling her eyes.

Dissonance

In early 2025, graphic designer Aurélia de Azambuja opened a festival talk with a confronting question: how to make the logo bigger when the world is burning?

Lately, it’s become increasingly hard for me to navigate the cognitive dissonance of working as a designer within such a loaded political, economic, and societal context. We are, indeed, quite deep within the belly of the beast. And it seems I am not the only one feeling this way.

Extracts from the talk and its provocative graphic (below) rippled through social media. In a follow-up interview, de Azambuja explained it was a moment of working on a sunglasses campaign for the brand Ace & Tate that sparked it all. The campaign featured the optimistic tagline “today is a good day” printed on bright yellow posters. Just as the campaign was being sent to print, Russia invaded Ukraine. That left her with a personal rift between her craft and the reality this campaign was operating in, to the point of making her work feeling irrelevant.

This hits very close to home for the marketing strategist, a role with a similar endgame to the designer: devising compelling output for brands. Working as a strategist today means operating inside a contradiction and a kind of doublethink. They’re paid to think on behalf of clients, to immerse themselves in their position and champion their goals, which usually boil down to growth and profit. They’re tasked with building desire for private sector corporations, whether these make a net positive impact on our polycrisis world or not. At worst the strategist’s job is to “help sell shit people don’t need”, as put it.

This dissonance is poignantly illustrated by the protagonist of William Gibson’s 2003 novel Pattern Recognition. Cayce Pollard, a coolhunter with a clairvoyant ability to recognise effective branding, has a visceral and sometimes violent aversion to the same semiotics she must examine for work. She’s allergic to brand signifiers, especially the Michelin Man, who triggers something close to a panic attack in her. She has the buttons on her Levi’s ground smooth and her Rickson’s bomber jacket stripped of its labels. In the 2009 edition of No Logo, mentioned Pollard as an allegory for her own experience researching the book — a psychological nausea from being immersed in the world of brands.

Smile

To be clear, most people in advertising strike me as creative, intelligent and well-meaning people whose role in the persuasion industry isn’t necessarily a reflection of who they are. Or as one person put it on LinkedIn, they’re left-wing talent in a right-wing industry. It was always about executing someone else’s campaign. When you think of some marketing terminology like campaigns, targets, tactics, it’s clear that it’s always been about weaponising creativity. The word “strategist” has military origins (from the Greek στρατηγός meaning general). The problem with this paradigm is that it validates an “us vs. them” world, even when we’re all stuck sweating on this big burning rock.

What’s changed in the late 2020s is, in my view, a near-inescapable unease with the system propped up by the persuasion industry: short-sighted capitalism. A recognition that while adland is largely failing long-term human prosperity, strategists and related professionals must keep on keeping on, in an age of mass employment insecurity, high cost of living and the resignation to being a tiny cog in a huge machine. Mark Fisher, writing in a 2006 k-punk post, named this psychological state “reflexive impotence”. To put it less academically, the strategist has to keep holding the smile like Mia Goth at the end credits of Pearl:

Soma

Some strategists can manage the dissonance professionally, by choosing more morally defensible clients: a small brand over a big one, a B Corp over a known polluter. Some might go freelance to hold the brand machine at a critical distance and on their own terms, while still getting the bills paid. Or, if they don’t have the freedom to choose their clients, hours or employer, they start extracurricular projects as a release valve: zines, cultural theory salons, supper clubs, a Substack. Projects that restore some creative autonomy and meaning to their lives.

A more insidious type of guilt management I’ve noticed is the pursuit of pleasure as a coping mechanism. I can only really speak for London, but I suspect Berlin, Amsterdam, and other creative capitals know the feeling. A kind of “pleasure bubble”, a scene where you could easily sedate yourself into blissful complacency. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, soma is a drug distributed by the state to keep its citizens content. In the case of creative industry professionals, the soma isn’t a single substance or activity, but a reality smoothed over by events, travel, consumption and the very brands they promote.

This is why I find it hard to enjoy London meme accounts like Real Housewives of Clapton or Socks House Meeting. While they’re obviously satirical, they’re also a reflection of the very soma a lot of Londoners are on. “Too broke to buy a house and too money’d to buy cheap wine.” Embodying a parodied archetype while shielded by self-irony.

That said, some people might enjoy their lives unironically and without feeling the dissonance as pointed out to me. On the more executive, privileged and older end of the adland spectrum, some have gradually stopped acknowledging a problem altogether, leading to a retreat from sustainability commitments and DEI efforts in boardrooms in pursuit of pure commercial logic.

Another thing: the job title itself has become part of the soma. Being called a strategist is undeniably sexy and aspirational right now. The irony of me co-opting that in my own practice is not lost on me. In an increasingly chaotic information and media landscape, success means thinking like a strategist for better or worse. Everything now needs a gameplan to cut through the noise. The stanning of brand campaigns, whether you worked on them or not, has become a thing, as touched on in Everyone is a Strategist and No One is a Writer. Closely connected to this is the “pop-strategisation” of culture, which many commentators on here (Nikita Walia, Jill Grace, Alexi Gunner) have already unpacked before me.

Machine

At the industry level, a professional soma is distributed at scale at gatherings like Cannes Lions. Every June (at the time of publishing this piece in fact), the advertising and creative industries descend on the South of France to give each other awards and attend panels about the future of creativity. A place where well-meaning people gather for shmoozing and self-congratulation, to progress their careers.

Not only is adland dissonance easily suppressed by soma, it’s an industry that keeps adapting to changing consumer attitudes. In his 2022 essay Life After Lifestyle, describes a shift from brands attaching themselves to existing subcultures to a new cultural economy where the production of culture itself has become the primary product. What brands are really selling now is a belief system, a type of person, a way of being in the world. Shorin calls this “cultural engineering”, the intentional shaping of human personality in service of commercial ends. The marketing strategist is the architect of the belief system. Because instead of coming to grips with how brands are slowly breaking the world, brands simply expect more from their strategists now. In an age where everyone is hyper-aware and brand-sceptical, they’ve had to introduce new tricks to retain mindshare and keep pumping new stuff into the world.

End

I don’t think the dissonance is going anywhere. Neither will the soma hold forever. I think there’s a reckoning coming for the persuasion industry at large, which is why I decided to hit publish — also I blame the heat. The two essays that follow will unpack this unravelling, where this could go for the strategist and how they could evolve under pressure. We’ll get into climate, and yes we’ll get into AI.

I’ve been incubating a new format since the start of the year, and have finally crystallised something I’m happy with. So here it is! True to the name, Future Testing is about testing out possible futures in a controlled way.

If you’re someone whose job relies on cultural sensemaking, you’ll know that in today’s information environment the need to approach sensemaking with intention has never been greater. And with AI tools making the “bagging and tagging” of trends more efficient than ever, the value of the human in the loop becomes about curation: deciding where to anchor yourself in a sea of change.

I hope this format can help deliver that. The aim is to produce something that’s fun, digestible and useful at the same time. Think of it as a multifunctional supplement for cultural strategists, foresight practitioners and the future-curious, constantly asking themselves “what now?”

Instead of covering several topics or trends, I will focus on just one real-world development each time, then its ripple effects, and the worlds those ripples could give rise to. So each instalment of Future Testing will run the same controlled experiment in three steps. Let me break each of those down for you:

A spark is my term for a single, consequential development — what foresight would typically call a central change or event. How do I determine what counts as a ‘spark’? My approach is about searching for convergences. This was inspired by Amy Webb, a strategic foresight heavyweight who recently shifted her work’s centre of gravity from trend reports to “convergence outlooks”. In fact she made quite a show of it, staging a mock funeral at SXSW 2026, with a marching band later entering the room to celebrate the beginning of her new type of report.

Theatrics aside, I think her argument holds weight: in a world of constant change, particularly when it comes to technology, annual trend reports become obsolete before leaders even finish reading them. The real work of foresight isn’t cataloguing trends one by one, but understanding how they influence and interact with each other.

While Webb’s work is about data-informed macro-level foresight, that's not the focus of this format. To give you an example of my thinking, take the recent news of Bumble announcing the end of the swipe, likely in favour of an AI matchmaking assistant. It’s a sign of change, no doubt, but it also shows how several forces are meaningfully converging: sophisticated consumer-facing AI (technological), a collective yearning for a more meaningful dating culture (cultural), and dating app fatigue threatening user retention and revenue (economic).

So the spark would be something like: “a major dating app is replacing swiping with AI matchmaking”.

If a spark is about a shock to the system, the implications are about its shockwaves.

Here, I’ll be drawing on the Futures Wheel, a well-known foresight framework for working through the knock-on effects of a consequential development.

I’ll be giving you a curated, bite-sized version of this, limited to just three types of consequences:

• Define (the meaning shift): how the change reshapes what people believe, value or desire.

• Relate (the social shift): how it reorganises relationships, roles and the structures that hold people together.

• Destroy (the dissolution): what gets cleared away or made obsolete, and what that clearing makes room for.

For the framework nerds out there, this approach is taken from the Verge framework, which uses an ethnographic lens to map out how change impacts people across different domains.

This part is about making the ripple effects of a change felt, through very short stories.

Here, each consequence branch becomes a short written scenario: a simulated world you can step into. This isn’t about predicting the future, but about making change feel real enough to take seriously.

If you’ve been following this newsletter for some time now, you’ll know that I enjoy comparing real-world trends to near-future fiction — because these days, fact really is stranger than science fiction. But also, storytelling and narrative foresight have been growing in importance, because a story lands in a way a framework never quite does. I’m a particular fan of how , of Beyond Beauty, does this with her recurring character Lucy, using short fictional vignettes to bring the trends she’s spotlighting to life. These stories, while made-up, are always rooted in something real.

So that’s it: one spark, three consequence branches, three scenarios.

Now you know how this thing works, I’d love to get your input on what to bring to the futures lab for testing.

Each month, something will grab my attention. Usually whatever the pop cultural conversation is fixated on. That said, I’d like to know which of the below categories would interest you the most, dear readers:

I’ll keep your preferences in mind for upcoming editions of Future Testing.

Expect the first edition at the end of June! 🗓️

The format is simple: you present three trends, with three slides, in three minutes. I prepared a script for that which I later had to cut down, so I thought I’d share the full unedited version here:

Trend 1: High Tech, Low Tempo

I have a theory that smartphones are the new boyfriends. Having them out in constant public view is embarrassing. And what’s more, without the right settings, they’ll rush you into things and add more chaos to your life than you asked for.

Jokes aside, what I mean to say is: the post-smartphone age is coming. As we’ve seen with Gen Z embracing dumb phones, digital cameras and iPods, people are yearning for devices that don’t hijack the tempo of their lives. Hardware design is now catching up to that.

We’re seeing a wave of new devices built around one core activity, while tapping into modern functionality. For example:

• a voice messaging device for kids to communicate with parents

• a card-based smart speaker for families to listen to stories and music

• a camera that turns images into poetry

• a souped-up alarm clock with smartphone-worthy features

The umbrella term for these devices is ‘calm tech’. It’s hardware that’s mindful of human attention, and therefore time. At the heart of its philosophy is a simple question: does this device demand your attention, or does it earn it? The ideal lives at the edge of your awareness — informing without interrupting, and only occupying you when you need it.

Now, I see the irony in using more gadgets to address a problem created by tech. And there’s another flag: if this grows into something bigger, we don’t want calm design becoming a smokescreen for Big Tech. Hiding the same extractive systems behind a friendlier exterior wouldn’t be progress, but ‘calmwashing’.

Putting that cynical thought aside, to me design is hope made visible, and what calm tech represents is a choice about how much autonomy we want over our attention tomorrow. It also challenges the assumption that technological progress always means more speed, more features, more sensors, more data capture.

Calm tech won’t fix a fast world. But reintroducing friction and slower behavioural nudges is a step in the right direction.

We don’t need to chase a cyberpunk world, nor retreat into nostalgia. We can look for a Goldilocks zone somewhere in between, where we decide how and when to use our tech tools, instead of them using us.

Trend 2: Oracular Spectacular

In 600 BCE Ancient Greece, people travelled hundreds of miles to hear the Oracle of Delphi guide their fate. In 2026, people open Twitter to see which tech CEO has penned a viral AI prediction this week.

Oracles are back, but they’ve had a rebrand. And more often than not, they’re seeking another round of venture funding in exchange for their prophetic visions.

That’s all to say, predictions are having a moment in culture. To me this feels like the off-switch broke on the end-of-year tradition. Prophecies have become a content niche and an ongoing spectacle. The spotlight falls on whoever can paint the most vivid picture of the future.

• On Twitter and Substack, AI disruption essays go viral fast — whether about job upheaval, runaway agents or superhuman productivity.

• On the mystical side, tarot is also having a moment: the Netflix ad campaign, Etsy readers and astrology apps like Co-Star are booming.

• Then there’s prediction markets. Some of my personal favourite bets being: will Jesus Christ return before we get GTA 6? Will the US confirm aliens are real before 2027?

I’ve covered off different types of prediction here, but they all point to the same trend: possibility is competing for attention with plausibility. Nobody’s saying these things are actually coming. But once a confident timeline or statistic is attached to something, bold speculation travels further than measured nuance.

Those who compress the complexity of the moment into a narrative, as delulu as it may be, get people’s attention. So who actually benefits when speculation turns into spectacle?

And that runs counter to what real foresight is meant to do. Foresight holds multiple possibilities open at once. It stress-tests them. It sits with uncertainty. It stays with the trouble. When we fixate on the most hyped or vivid version of the future, our range of possibility starts to narrow.

It’s cool to predict the future, but don’t let the future predict you.

Trend 3: The Remix Multiverse

A few years ago, I thought of starting a side-hustle crafting bespoke DJ mixes for runners. Spotify would’ve put me out of business as of autumn last year, when they introduced a Mix feature that does exactly that. Apple Music quickly followed suit.

This may not significant on the surface — these platforms love to pile on new features. But it’s one of several signals pointing to something quite consequential for recorded music: a shift towards songs becoming interactive listening experiences.

Imagine speeding up a track, removing the drums, or remixing an artist’s catalogue with entirely new production. These versions already exist on YouTube and SoundCloud. What’s changing is that eventually anyone will be able to do this. And everyone’s preferred version of a track may sound slightly different.

Spotify has already announced AI-based remix features, and the genAI music app Udio recently signed a deal to license Universal Music’s catalogue. The mainstream infrastructure for this new era is being built right now.

Music is going through some mutations right now. Live music has become a luxury, while recorded music is abundant and increasingly treated like content. This shift towards personalisation also raises a question about the interpersonal function of music. It’s most powerful when it brings people together.

One of the speakers at the last Futures Friends said something that stuck with me: if we’re only given the art that we want, we’ll never know what we need.

So if we move into a world where no two people hear the same version of a track, what happens to that social glue? Will the listening experience fragment into parallel realities with fewer common reference points? Or will sharing these remixes work more like memes?

For all its flags, this shift could also usher in a new type of democratised self-expression, just like how production software gave us a new generation of music producers. When hip-hop sampling came along, people didn’t stop composing original music. The new medium doesn’t replace the old one.

The crucial question is whether the creators will get a fair share in the value of this new expression, as it scales.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about inevitable futures, the imagination gap and why speculative fiction matters for futures thinking. I ended the piece with a promise of book recommendations. So here they are. The idea for this index grew out of Future Fiction Lab, a virtual collective I host for reading and writing speculative fiction.

This is a curated, living index of speculative fiction titles, selected for their futures thinking value. It spans novels, novellas and short story collections — something for every appetite and reading capacity. All titles are from the 21st century, by authors from the Anglo-American canon and beyond. This list is not at all comprehensive, but new titles will be added over time.

Speculative fiction overwhelmingly spotlights the US and UK, so I’ve made sure to include stories set elsewhere. The index includes that as a label. I’ve also distinguished between stories that unfold on an individual, community or civilisational scale. Longer stories and more complex worlds lend themselves better to big picture thinking, whereas shorter and more intimate stories consider change on a smaller scale.

’s Imagination Curriculum is worth reading for a deeper explainer on why fiction has value as a futures tool, with plenty of examples. It informed my selection here and covers some 20th century essentials too.

Head to the full index to read a short summary of each book. The tables below are for quick browsing:

How the future got privatised

Allow me to set the stage. The future is being imagined for us, not for us. It’s a cartel, made up of too many corporate execs, venture capitalists and techno-futurists. Overwhelmingly white and male. Whose visions are amplified through more elitist forces: Hollywood, Big Social, global entertainment platforms and mass media outlets.

Certain people in high places are trying really hard to make us believe all kinds of ‘prophecies’: that AGI is coming, ASI is coming, human-AI merging is coming. To those looking on, the investment and momentum behind these agendas seems unstoppable. But as has written, that inevitability narrative is very much the point:

They want you to feel powerless. They want you to believe that the future is already written and your only option is to adapt to it. That feeling of what can I even do - that’s not an accident. It’s deliberate. Learned helplessness, manufactured at scale and sold back to us as this inevitable future.

Popular sci-fi offers a window into how elitist narratives of the future curdle into soft power. Cyberpunk, once visionary for depicting extreme levels of corporate influence, has been gradually dulled and appropriated by the system it was critical of. Through an endless slew of adaptations, reboots and sequels, it continues to be a muse for new IP today, without the countercultural bite it had in the 1980s. Now it’s just eye candy and a moodboard for techno-authoritarian product pitches. No longer a worthy depiction of the future, as points out in his own cyberpunk critique. That future is already here, just not as rebellious as we thought. And this is only one example of how a dominant narrative has colonised our imagination over decades.

Another popular narrative is automobile supremacy. In car-centric nations like the US, the next frontier seems to be electrification and automation, as opposed to more sophisticated public transport. That vision is being exported abroad. Just last month I saw a Waymo doing road-testing, here in London. But like the AI myth, the car myth is just a narrative. If you do a quick fact-check, you’ll realise that pedestrianisation, cycling infrastructure and other car-free initiatives are on the rise, in Europe at least. The narrative of mobility as an individualised, technology-driven solution is sticky though.

The imagination gap

On the one hand, a bunch of stubborn narratives about the future keep dominating our feeds, screens and heads. On the other, most of us are too tired to imagine anything else. We consume these narratives, often through entertainment, while metabolising them into (what my therapist calls) limiting beliefs about how things are and will be. Imagining outside of that zone feels heavy, wishful at best, when the present keeps throwing unsettling news at us. A constant intake of disruption, decline, and other grim signals. The late futurist Alvin Toffler coined a term for this in 1970: future shock. Today, we’re struggling with a similar condition, especially the younger generations dealing with horizon collapse.

Paradoxically, there’s been a deluge of ‘what’s next?’ discourse in the last few years — both on social media and in corporate contexts. From the green-screeners to major brands and marketing agencies, everyone’s pumping out takes, webinars and reports to dissect the ever-mutating zeitgeist. However, much of this output is either hyperbolic, superficial or both as reminds us. Despite that volume of ‘sensemaking’, it doesn’t seem like culture is actually moving forward.

writes of unthinkability, or the gap between what we can imagine and what might become possible. He argues that some of the most consequential events are the inconceivable ones (like his example of the Haitian revolution against colonial rule in 1791-1804). This thinkability gap is not a failure of information but a failure of imagination. We don’t need more frameworks for understanding what’s measurable. We need a way to engage with glitches, the ruptures that unsettle the very systems we take for granted. Even futures thinking struggles with this trap. We extend existing patterns forward and call it foresight, when the real work lies beyond that thinking.

Meanwhile, the financialisation of probabilistic thinking (prediction markets) turns the future into a commodity to be locked in and priced. The most ‘likely’ (i.e. predictable) outcome of events feels like the most legitimate. Probability and expectation warps into fatalistic thinking.

As if structural and cultural pressure wasn’t enough, the GenAI sector, insistent on unburdening us from wasted time and heavy cognitive lifting, wants us to outsource the very process of imagining. Journalist Lizzie Wade puts it like this in her essay The imagination economy:

The imagination economy’s goal is to replace creating, daydreaming, wondering, thinking, and trying with prompting a machine. Write the correct prompt, or a series of them, and AI will do the imagining for you.

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Fiction as imagination fuel

So I’ve covered a lot of what’s lacking, but I wouldn’t do that for no reason. Have some imagination. Yes, it can feel like we’re stuck in a loop, but the antidote is actually staring us in the face. If you hold it in your hands, it’s quite literally staring you in the face: fiction.

It’s one of the last bastions of unoptimised behaviour. It requires patience and, you guessed it — imagination. People, rooms, buildings, cities, systems must be constructed in the mind, gradually with every new page. This is especially true for books that haven’t been adapted for the screen. In short, reading expands our imaginative capacity. The mental effort encouraged by fiction can also counter the cognitive atrophy from convenience technology.

While non-stop news consumption shrinks our sense of possibility and amps up anxiety, fiction does something else. Stories, even short ones, change how we see the present. They loosen our assumptions and limiting beliefs. In other words: they challenge the stories we tell ourselves — the narratives that decide what feels normal, credible or inevitable. For example: “Rest is a reward, not a right.” Narratives are important because they ripple out beyond culture, as explains. They influence policies, markets, institutions. Who gets heard, what gets funded and what gets dismissed all begin with a narrative. Change the narrative, and the system shifts with it.

Building worlds to simulate change

Speculative fiction does something particularly mind-expanding: it presents us with worlds unfamiliar to our own, allowing us to user-test new ideas in complex yet hypothetical environments. You can’t demand what you can’t describe, and worldbuilding supplies the texture that makes those demands thinkable.

New models of society used to be unimaginable. Ada Palmer, a sci-fi author and historian, calls this the ‘Petrarch problem’. Named after the Renaissance poet and intellectual who, faced with a declining society in 14th century Europe, longed to imagine a better one but had few alternatives to draw upon. For thinkers of the time, the only available image of political stability was an idealised memory of Rome. With barely any historical examples of governance to hand, progress meant looking backwards. Improvement was limited to nostalgia.

How can imaginative worlds shift the real one? Let’s take an example from TV. In the 1960s, actor Nichelle Nichols planned to leave Star Trek after its first season for Broadway. Before she quit, she happened to attend an NAACP event, and was asked if a fan could speak to her. That fan was Martin Luther King Jr. When she mentioned leaving the show, he told her it was the only show on TV depicting the future he was working towards: a workplace where a Black woman held authority as an equal. It was a working prototype for a more plural society. Nichols ended up staying.

Years later, that on-screen representation gave Nichols the platform to partner with NASA on new recruitment efforts. Those efforts brought in the first generation of women and Black astronauts. Fiction modelled a future and institutions followed. Imagination became legitimacy became implementation.

Here’s the kicker: we have decades of complex worldbuilding at our disposal, mainly in books but certainly in the speculative fiction genre. A whole archive of alternative futures: post-scarcity economies, new forms of belonging, and radically different approaches to daily life. Heaps of non-capitalist imagination with a shelf life longer than a corporate planning cycle. This is not the worldbuilding they talk about in marketing — those worlds are false-front towns like in the Western films. Textual worldbuilding means building the laws and systems of a world, not just its aesthetics.

Today, worldbuilding is moving beyond the visual and textual dimension. The next frontier of AI research involves ‘world models’. Systems that simulate possible outcomes in the real world, allowing machines to rehearse actions before carrying them out in physical space. But who knows where this could go. Will AI world models influence other decision-making? The question is no longer whether we should be building and simulating worlds, but who and how.

Keeping multiple futures in mind

I’ve jumped through a lot of ideas, so I’ll end this piece on a grounded note. The concept of the future can feel incompatible with lived reality, like a distant land we may or may not reach. In Arabic, the word for ‘future’ is مستقبل (mustaqbal), which translates to “that which is coming”. Framed this way, futures become about preparation, not a game of extrapolation. As Octavia Butler argues in her (ironically titled) essay A Few Rules for Predicting the Future, a big misconception about sci-fi is that it’s not about the present. It may surprise you that many legendary writers never tried to predict the future, but to hold up an imaginative mirror to the present.

This is also why the practice of futures literacy is useful. Developed by UNESCO, it’s a framework to understand the future not as something to predict but as a tool to deconstruct the present. It allows us to surface the assumptions we carry about what comes next and consider multiple paths ahead. Treating tomorrow as plural and unfinished means we can untether ourselves from a singular mindset, because that mindset can lead to doomy thinking: “the future is already decided”. For any big conversation — AI, climate, economics, governance — it’s important to hold multiple scenarios at once. Defaulting to the most hyped or probable one is simply not constructive.

Keeping an open mind about scenarios isn’t enough though. Imagination requires time. Slowness. At the current speed of culture, most claims of ‘the future’ are just re-arranging the present. Genuine imagination requires pause, and spaces to go beyond the obvious and the system-validating.

After all is said and done, the message is this: invest in your futures literacy. Read more speculative fiction. Discuss it with others.

If you need book recs, I’ve got you covered — in the next post.

I pulled the insights and theories from those essays together, to build the backbone of a deep-dive deck on slowness, filled with more research and strategic thinking.

Here’s a quick summary:

In the first section, I make the case for how knowledge work, digital media and cultural production today are organised around feedback loops of constant reactivity.

I go on to illustrate how these fast systems push the costs of speed on to their underlying human, social and ecological layers.

Then I go on to map out how in culture, technology and work, slowness is resurfacing in pockets as an adaptive, survival response to speed.

I then explain how slowness as strategy means designing to protect attention and time.

And finally I offer some thoughts on how the time architectures we live under shape the very conditions for (re)claiming slowness.

You can peep the full deck here.

Enjoy!

As we head into 2026, I wanted to bookend the story so far with some reflections on the near-past and near-future.

But firstly, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to read and engage with my ideas on here. It’s been a strange yet enlightening year for me—I’ve been navigating two lives at once, mutating out of my old one and into a new one. Writing has been one of my main sources of joy this year, and I’m so grateful for the people I’ve connected with because of it.

On finding your niche, through pattern recognition

I launched my Substack with no clear agenda beyond a name, a vibe and a curiosity: to explore preferable culture shifts for the near-future. My first few essays were on solarpunk aesthetics and culture; the viability of a swap-economy in fashion; the evolution of phone-free spaces; and the future of social media. I wasn’t especially concerned about editorial coherence at that stage.

6 months in, several patterns had surfaced in my writing: (1) ideas for shifting society into a future-ready mode; (2) an interest in the social impacts of consumer technology; and (3) a knack for analysing the real world through the lens of sci-fi and speculative fiction. So if your Substack is still niche-less but already 5+ posts deep, I encourage you to look back and consider which patterns are emerging for you.

That said, for anyone stressing about how to compress their writing into a legible category, my response would be this: don’t. Why? Because I think the world is only getting weirder, and so learning to think between and across multiple disciplines will only grow in importance.

The beauty of being an outsider

While the through-line of my writing is futurism and near-futures, I couldn’t file this ‘laboratory of ideas’ cleanly under one category. If you’ve been a reader for some time, you’ll know my background doesn’t fit neatly into boxes. I’m a third culture kid, a career changer, and a cultural omnivore. For me, the ‘mutant’ label is an identity marker. The name Mutant Futures is both my worldview and MO: turning otherness into an advantage, shifting with the strangeness of our time, and seeing connections between dots that others might miss. I want to bridge worlds that don’t always talk to each other, or not enough.

That anti-disciplinary curiosity has led me to experiment with ideas from trend analysis, strategic foresight, design futures, systems thinking, world-building and other related but distinct fields. This patchwork practice has attracted a diverse subscribership so far, from cultural strategists, to trend forecasters, sustainability thinkers, tech analysts, futurists, and more. Some junior, some senior. Either way I’m immeasurably grateful to have you here, and if you’re new…

Subscribe now

A few observations on Substack

Earlier I talked about pattern recognition, so here are a few conclusions I’ve drawn about the platform, from the past twelve (chronically online) months on Substack:

• Virality and quality don’t always align on this platform. Plenty of good writing flies under the radar, and vice-versa.

• The platform’s design flattens authority, which can work to the advantage of new writers, but also creates a saturated environment for everyone.

• There are good ideas on here masked by bad editing.

• There’s an endless supply of takes and the platform makes it tempting to chime in.

• Substack is no longer an IYKYK platform and we’ve entered the era of newsletter fatigue (although I don’t think that’s news to anyone).

A few ‘predictions’ for the new year

While I don’t believe in straight predictions (and many futurists would concur), there are some things I can say about the year ahead with near-certainty:

• The influencerisation of Substack will get crazy in 2026—expect more branded partnerships on here than ever. Expect more politicians on here too.

• App interfaces will get increasingly decluttered and entertainment platforms will lean on AI-driven curation, in a bid to combat digital overwhelm.

• We’ll be talking more about media diets, and friction.

What to expect from me in 2026

Finally, a couple of announcements for year 2 of this publication.

I’ll be bringing back my ‘From the Lab’ format, which I’ve revamped for more method-led foresight dispatches. Expect a monthly dose of this.

Other than that, I’ll be focusing my energy away from Substack in 2026, but expect at least a quarterly essay, with more editorial polish. Also, I’d love to know…

Last but not least, I’ve been working on a number of exciting projects, both solo and with others, which will be revealed over the course of the new year. Next up: a report synthesising my research on the Future of Slowness.

Until then: take care, thanks for reading and enjoy the remaining days off! 💜

• Stuck on fast-forward set the stage. We’re accelerating beyond what our senses and systems can handle.

• Seeds of slowness started searching for answers: cultural movements, design principles and other signals promising slower futures.

• Speculative slowness was about expanding our understanding of slowness, by pushing it beyond the horizon of tomorrow.

Here is the fourth and final piece, and it’s a short one—enjoy!

In a chaotic megacity set in a wasteland future, so-called Judges have the power to enforce and execute the law on the spot. Judge Dredd has been called to a crime scene to investigate multiple homicides by a drug gang, hiding away in a high-rise tower and weeding out competition. The drug they sell is a highly addictive substance called ‘slo-mo’.

This is the premise of the 2012 film Dredd. What’s interesting about this drug is its effect: it slows perception so drastically that time unfolds in a suspended, hyper-sensory experience, completely out of sync with the world around you.

Read more

In the last instalment, I discussed real-world developments embodying slow values. But here, we go a step further: what kinds of objects would exist in a world beyond the rush? Objects that can spark conversations about alternative realities. By expressing slow values in some form—a product, a service, an event—we gain a better understanding of what a more desirable existence under capitalism should look and feel like. Because design is, in the words of graphic designer Brian Collins, ‘hope made visible’. It can help bridge where we are with where we want to go. To emancipate slowness, it helps to have concrete reference points. So let’s get into them.

Read more

Stuck on fast-forward, my previous essay, was about a world that’s no longer just rushing, but accelerating beyond what our senses and systems can handle. We became the machines that the pioneers of the slow movement warned us about. Or rather, a kind of cyborg: hooked up to machines, connected to a system powered by our data and desires, yet still feeling disconnected. Because we neglected the most important connection of them all: our connection to the present moment. This essay is not about dysfunctions however. This time, we’re looking for seeds of slowness sprouting in the system. But do we know exactly what we’re looking for?

Read more

Over the summer, I embarked on a Substack side-quest interviewing people on the the theme of heat, and how it influences culture in the Mediterranean. That project left me thinking about slowness. Not the slowness of a summer holiday, or the ‘lazy Sunday’ once you’re back to work, but a deeper, systemic kind. Slowness as atmosphere. Perhaps the kind that was unintentionally prototyped in the lockdown days. Or maybe the kind embodied by blue zones—those near-mythical places known for extraordinary levels of human longevity.

My curiosity was this: can you import the logic of Mediterranean slowness into other, more Western contexts? In places like London, New York, and other megacities, is it possible to have slowness beyond marginal pockets of time and space? What would it take to amplify slowness in systems addicted to speed?

Read more

Welcome to Mutant Futures: a newsletter about culture, futurism and strategy.

The theme of this From the Lab edition is recalibration. Because frankly, I need recalibrating. The past five months of writing on here have been very rewarding, but also taxing. Balancing this with a full-time job, among other things, has left me zapped. The pace and noise of the world can feel relentless when you’re constantly scanning for what’s next, and I need a break from all of that.

So this summer, I’m switching things up. It’s time for some crop rotation to give my creative soil fresh nutrients. As the temperatures rise, I’ll be curating something lighter, more sensorial and less future-facing through a separate project.

To everyone who’s been reading, engaging, appreciating—thank you! Your curiosity and engagement is truly motivating. I hope you have a fantastic summer.

MF will be back in September.

Take care,

P x

INDEX:

🧬 RECODED: Desktopian Dreams: slow tech is romantic

🔬 UNDER OBSERVATION: Youth Unplugged: more digital detox signals from Gen Z

🧪 CULTURE SAMPLE: A Date in 2025, sci-fi comedy short

📘 FINDINGS: Mashina, a ‘hand-crafted’ video game about a little robot that loves to dig

RECODED

An emerging cultural logic, its tensions, and longer-term implications

Desktopian Dreams: slow tech is romantic

1. What’s emerging?

Retro-tech is no longer just nostalgic, it’s romantic. You can see it in Tate Modern’s Electric Dreams exhibition, which pays tribute to early digital artworks before the arrival of the Internet. You can feel it in BURN AFTER READING’s recent piece Save the Desktop, which reminisces on the shared and tactile nature of early desktop PCs—when ‘going on the computer’ was intentional. There’s the ongoing revival of dumb phones and Y2K cameras of course. And hardware is having a moment more generally—just look at the bemusingly affectionate partnership that Jony Ive and Sam Altman just made official. The signals are talking, and they sound warm and fuzzy.

The romantic revival of old technology is showing up through creative recontextualisation. Artists like Gab Bois, Myra Magdalen, Emma Orhun and Nicole McLaughlin are repurposing vintage devices as fashion, plaything or performance, turning them into something intimate and expressive. From camcorder handbags, to keyboard puffer jackets, to upgraded Tamagotchis, these remnants of pre-smartphone tech send an affectionate message. A message about what we want from our machines now: more soul.

2. What does this mean for us?

The reclamation of slow tech symbolises not just an aesthetic revival, but a yearning for agency. Beyond the colourful plastic and clunky parts lies the pursuit of something deeper: a soft rebellion against the insidious, ambient digital systems that define modern life. For Gen Z, especially the younger cohort, the digital has often felt more ‘real’ than the physical, and their own bodies more like avatars. In this context, clunky tech becomes a way to re-embody, to choose friction over convenience, and regain presence.

It also speaks to the role of care in product design. Jony Ive recently reminded us that what we make signals who we are—and that care, even in invisible places, is felt. In a world of soulless optimisation, the desire for more humane tech feels urgent. And maybe that ethos of care is re-emerging. Not through innovation for innovation’s sake, but through design that acknowledges our need for tactility and joy.

3. And beyond…?

Here are three speculative scenarios that could reinvigorate our relationship with technology in more playful and human-centred ways:

• Tech youth clubs: tinkering and repairing tech becomes the new hobby club. Gen Z and Alpha gather to revive their parents’ dusty devices. In doing so, they practice a sentimental form of self-expression, much like how we adopt our parents’ vintage clothes. They might learn to retrofit hardware with an AI companion (and perhaps create a neo-neopet?) Or build their own smart compass for hiking using an old Tamagotchi.

• Classic hardware revivals: a wave of tech brands with 90s and Y2K heritage might remaster legacy products, not just for retro appeal, but as reimagined playful tech:

  • a Sony MiniDisc with spatial audio playback and built-in transcription for journalling.

  • a Bluetooth-enabled iPod that allows you to control an animation on-screen when you fidget with the scroll wheel.

  • Fax machines in miniature form, so that two people can send each other hand-written notes wherever they are.

• Tech that’s semi-smart: as with those dumb phones that still support WhatsApp or web browsing, we might see more quirky iterations of ‘semi-smart’ tech. Products that side-step both the overwhelming functionality of modern devices and the irritating clunkiness of old ones. Think: music players with a setting to stream just one album a day through an intelligent music concierge, or e-notebooks that compile all your notes into a memoir and play a ringtone if you haven’t done your gratitude reflections…

Be sure to catch the next edition of From the Lab (after summer) by subscribing!

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UNDER OBSERVATION

A compilation of signals on a particular subject

Youth Unplugged: more digital detox signals from Gen Z

• Welcome to appstinence: a graduate student at Harvard has founded a support group called APPstinence. Inspired by her own struggles with tech addiction growing up in Silicon Valley, Gabriela Nguyen started the club to help others reclaim focus and presence in everyday life. Central to the club is the 5D Method (Decrease, Deactivate, Delete, Downgrade, Depart) a phased unplugging strategy designed to last. Nguyen notably uses three different dumb phones, which she alternates between depending on the functionality needed.

• Kids support digital curfews: a study highlighted by the Guardian revealed that half of UK youth (ages 16–21) supports the idea of a digital curfew after 10pm. Many say the Internet worsens their mental health, with 68% reporting negative effects. Coming from a digitally native demographic, this signal is significant. The study chimes in with reports that the UK technology secretary Peter Kyle is considering the legal implementation of social media curfews for U16s.

• Some Gen Z is even ‘quitting’ music: take this Dazed piece with a grain of salt, but it’s a fascinating signal. One of the music-quitting people who was interviewed had this to say: ‘Quitting music feels like a fog has been lifted from my brain. I feel like I have more clarity to think.’ The author also makes a valid point that digital music consumption in the age of Spotify supremacy can be a passive and often mindless experience.

CULTURE SAMPLE

A film, TV, podcast or other media recommendation (usually sci-fi related)

A Date in 2025, sci-fi comedy short

(12 mins | 2017 | Directed by Ryan Turner)

In a world optimised for efficiency, socially isolated Daniel is affectionately (and hilariously) coerced by his well-meaning AI ‘counsellor’ into seeking real-world connection before it’s too late…

Although it was released almost a decade ago, A Date in 2025 feels ironically quite prescient. Its world of augmented reality classes, pizza shakes, body buddies and lonely young men seems more sci-fact than fiction.

The theme of AI assistants influencing our decisions feels particularly close to home. There’s even a moment when the AI begins to blackmail Daniel (with the deletion of his porn collection), if he doesn’t go on the date. It’s a little unnerving to think that AI coercion is a real thing—just this month a new Claude model resorted to extramarital blackmail to avoid getting shut down by a researcher. With that being said, this short film was light-hearted and easily watchable.

FINDINGS

A recent discovery that caught my attention

Mashina, a ‘hand-crafted’ video game about a little robot that loves to dig

I'd like you to meet Mashina.

Mashina lives on a little island, completely surrounded by slime! She lives on this island with some very dear robot friends. More than anything, Mashina very much loves to dig.

(Watch the trailer here)

While I’m no gamer at all, the concept and process behind this upcoming video game really warmed my heart. The idea is to mine minerals, uncover buried treasures and build helpful machines to support your robot friends. Each of your friends has a different passion (music, welding, decorating, inventing), and your role is to dig up things to help them flourish. How wholesome is that??

Every element of the game was handcrafted, then animated using traditional stop-motion techniques. While most video games are visually captivating, this one’s captivating and grounded in human-made care.

At a time when so much creativity is being sucked into a generative, automated vortex, such an artisanal approach to digital creativity is comforting to see. The cute robot trope is also a welcome break from all the I, Robot energy in the world right now.

This delightful indie title is set to release in June/July this year, according to their devs’ Kickstarter updates. If you’re a PC gamer, you can wishlist Mashina here.

Thank you for reading Mutant Futures! 💜 If you haven’t subbed already…

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Welcome to Mutant Futures: a newsletter about culture, futurism and strategy.

Today is Mother’s Day for most of the world, including my (Greek) mum.

So with this edition of From the Lab, I’m paying tribute to mothers. 💜

Enjoy!

INDEX:

🧬 RECODED: Mum, You Were Right: the social media softening and new maternal discourse

🔬 UNDER OBSERVATION: Mother in the Machine: maternal tech meets AI

🧪 CULTURE SAMPLE: Monitor, a sci-fi short about motherhood on probation

📘 FINDINGS: Mama Space Suit

RECODED

An emerging cultural logic, its tensions, and longer-term implications

Mum, You Were Right: the social media softening and new maternal discourse

co-written with

The way people talk about mothers on social media (especially TikTok) is shifting. What started as a culture of venting and laying blame has started to soften, revealing something deeper about our collective understanding of motherhood today.

1. What’s emerging?

Since the early 2020s, the portrayal of mothers in online culture has often skewed critical, ironic or one-dimensional. The ‘Boomer Mom’ became shorthand for emotional volatility and generational disconnect. The ‘Almond Mom’ embodied anxious control and diet culture. The tradwife trend aestheticised domesticity into performance, blurring caregiving with content. Meanwhile, therapy-speak entered the feed, as content creators (some qualified therapists, some not) began to dissect their childhoods and discuss parental estrangement in the open. At the same time, non-motherhood gained visibility as a counter-position, framed as care for the self.

More recently, that tone has begun to shift. While creators still joke about their mums, the punchline might be aimed at the creator’s younger self. Sentiments like ‘she did her best’ or ‘it was her first time living life’ signal a collective understanding that’s moving away from cringe and blame, towards affection and understanding. This shift is echoed in research like The Bump’s latest Future of Parenting report, which highlights how younger parents (particularly in the US) are rejecting perfectionism in favour of emotional realism and relatability.

2. What does this mean for us?

As the online portrayal of mothers shifts, so does the emotional work surrounding motherhood itself. The recent Type A vs. B mum trend (where people reflect on what kind of mother raised them), works like shorthand for diagnosis, not just entertainment. Tropes like ‘I’m the way I am because my mum had jars for every pasta’, or ‘never said no’, or ‘forgot to pick me up’ fall somewhere between humour and self-diagnosis. They show a generational urge to make sense of maternal influence, by comparing it to how things are done now. For many Millennial and Gen Z parents, this means trying to parent differently. The rise of gentle parenting, widely talked about and often debated, channels this calling to do better. So does content like ‘asking my daughter to finish toxic parenting phrases’, which blends emotional awareness with a bit of performance.

That instinct is also supported by the way language has changed. Therapy-speak like ‘trauma responses’, ‘enmeshment’ and ‘generational cycles’ has entered everyday language. Parenting content is increasingly shaped by a shared emotional vocabulary, where creators name patterns and viewers respond in kind. At the same time, motherhood itself functions as a social signal. TikTok-born labels like ‘crunchy mum', ‘chaotic-neutral mum’ or ‘reformed almond mum’ communicate values at this point. Even those who avoid sharenting find that everyday parenting choices are still seen as expressions of their values.

3. And beyond…?

If the early 2020s have been about reckoning with mothers, the near future may be about reimagining them. Here are three speculative futures, asking in different ways: are we imitating, rejecting or reauthoring the mothering we received?

• In one future, reconciliation becomes a content genre. Emotional closure becomes part of the creator arc, driven by audience expectations as much as personal intent. Followers are familiar with: the silence, the call, the emotional release. ‘Calling my estranged mom after 10 years’ is part of a recognised format. Platforms start to favour reconciliation content algorithmically. For some, it’s a genuine attempt to reconnect. For others, it beomes a genre of its own. Vulnerability crafted for digital payoff.

• In another future, invisible children become the norm on social media. With rising concerns around sharenting and tighter laws to protect children online, parenting content changes. Children’s faces are gradually edited out. Stories are told through voiceovers, ambient sound and stylised AI renders. Followers come to know children through tone, rhythm and narration, rather than images.

• And sometimes, there’s no child at all. As birth rates continue to fall across high-income countries, non-motherhood could evolve from lifestyle choice to a more established role in society. Non-parental family contributors (individuals who offer care, knowledge, or relational stability outside the frame of raising children) begin to gain recognition. Healthcare providers account for this role when identifying next of kin or assigning care responsibilities. In a world where shrinking populations are putting pressure on social infrastructure, not having kids is no longer seen as civic withdrawal.

If you’ve enjoyed the newsletter so far, be sure to catch the next edition of From the Lab by subscribing!

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UNDER OBSERVATION

A compilation of signals on a particular subject

Mother in the Machine: maternal tech meets AI

• AI doulas for postpartum mental health: new AI-enabled apps are stepping in to offer emotional support after birth, acting like virtual doulas. These tools use AI chatbots to check in on how mothers are feeling, respond empathetically, and guide them through stress, overwhelm or early signs of depression. They operate continuously, offering support at any hour which can be useful when in-person care is unavailable or difficult to access.

• Wearable femtech gets an AI upgrade: one company has integrated an AI assistant into its breastfeeding app, which pairs with a hands-free, wearable pump. The assistant answers questions on lactation, recovery and pelvic floor health using a clinically reviewed knowledge base, not scraped web content. It tailors responses to user phrasing and tone, drawing on insights from a large dataset of maternal interactions.

• AI-enabled baby monitors: the baby monitor is evolving from passive observer to active interpreter. Some models now use cry-recognition algorithms to distinguish between different types of cries (such as hungry, sleepy, gassy, fussy) and transmit that information to parents through a connected app. The idea is to provide clearer guidance to parents, particularly first-timers navigating unfamiliar cues. At the same time, it changes how parents tune in, translating emotion into data before they’ve had a chance to read the cues themselves.

CULTURE SAMPLE

A film, TV, podcast or other media recommendation (usually sci-fi related)

16 mins | 2024 | Directed by Margo Roe

In an over-populated future, two mums must raise a ‘robot’ baby under observation, so they can receive a licence to start a family. Will they get the result they want (and deserve)?

FINDINGS

A recent discovery that caught my attention

Mama Space Suit

Multi-disciplinary artist Aimee Koran reimagines maternal labour through her latest work, Mama Space Suit (MSS): a functional boiler-suit for motherhood, created in collaboration with FWM Studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The suit includes compartments for baby gear, breastfeeding access and patches modelled after labour unions and NASA insignia.

Koran’s broader practice explores both the emotional and physical terrain of motherhood. She transforms everyday maternal objects and materials (breast pumps, fertility sticks, spilled milk) into reflections on invisible labour, personal transformation and care on a cosmic scale.

Read more about Aimee Koran here

Thank you for reading Mutant Futures! 💜 If you haven’t subbed already…

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Welcome to Mutant Futures: a newsletter about culture, futurism and strategy.

In this edition, I’m debuting a new format called From the Lab: a digest curating my latest signal-tracking, discoveries and cultural curiosities.

Enjoy!

INDEX:

🧬 RECODED: Vibecore and beyond

🔬 UNDER OBSERVATION: Gen(erative) Z: young people’s complex entanglement with AI

🧪 CULTURE SAMPLE: System Crash Podcast on sci-fi, power and possibility

📘 FINDINGS: GreenPT, an eco-conscious AI platform

RECODED

An emerging cultural logic, its tensions, and longer-term implications

Vibecore and beyond:

1. What’s emerging?

Vibecore, as coined by , is the growing trend of AI-based applications seeking to commodify our subjective sensibilities. You may have heard of ‘vibe coding’, but there’s more: vibe essay-marking, vibe marketing, even vibe lawyering? As He notes, there’s a growing list of companies that claim they can capture the ‘je ne sais quoi’ of human preferences through algorithmic means. According to He, ‘vibe’ can be understood as:

• a shortcut for translating complex tasks into ‘feels right’ workflows, and

• the externalisation of your unique taste into something machine-readable

The proposition of these companies is to unburden you from the tedious and time-consuming execution involved with knowledge work. Instead, you can simply prompt your way to the finished product, using a bespoke AI model as your sounding board. It brings to mind those gestural interfaces in sci-fi films, you know the ones? Where you wave your hands around and command your AI butler with Type A conviction, while indulging in the feeling of an imminent breakthrough.

Welcome to the ‘thought-to-product’ economy.

2. What does this mean for us?

What I find interesting about this trend is what it says about our relationship with convenience in 2025. When LLMs can produce detailed outputs instantly, we feel like we have a magic genie at our beck and call. But as He points out, vibecore taps into the addictive allure of automating daily complexity by supposedly just being yourself, out loud.

This convenience, of being able to vibe your way through work, is why thinks we may see a new social hierarchy emerge—one that’s organised by cognitive ability. I agree with her warnings: if we outsource more of our thinking to the machines without questioning them, we risk eroding our capacity to think. AI’s outputs are now so convincing that it seems inefficient and inconvenient not to use it, when tackling knowledge work. But for those who aren’t motivated enough to keep their thinking caps on (or lacked them in the first place), this can lead to a dangerous feedback loop, resulting in cognitive cannibalisation. Those who can tap into AI’s superhuman capabilities while continuing to think critically and strategically, will rise. But those who treat it as a cyberbutler, to handle the ‘inconvenience’ of thinking, will fall.

Also, if vibeworking continues to spread, we’re likely to see (aside from an explosion of content and digital products) a macro-level erosion of meaning online. In a world of frictionless execution, productivity becomes a paradoxical treadmill: constant motion, with no direction. Brands jumping on the AI bandwagon may flood the zone with increasingly bland outputs, mistaking scale for value. But the real value will come from what not to make. Think of something like Spotify’s 2024 ‘Wrapped’, which many users criticised for feeling soulless and lacking resonance, due to AI use. From a strategic standpoint, the most successful brands and creators going forward may be those that resist AI opportunism, prioritising restraint and coherence with everything they do.

3. And beyond…?

While acceleration and automation may seem inevitable, we can still challenge the vibecore narrative by thinking about opposing currents. So here are some counter-futures already being teased today, that could rise up in opposition to that narrative:

• Human craft = cultural cachet: human-led creativity may increase in cultural impact, precisely because it involves resistance to GenAI. For example: after the ChatGPT action figure trend went viral on Linkedin and elsewhere, a counter-trend of illustrators sharing hand-drawn versions of the action figures gained traction.

• Brands gain more consumer affinity for being real. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, some brands could shift to a human-centred creative and marketing approach. They might start showing more of the process behind the product, with BTS content and the like. By contrast, brands that shortcut craftsmanship algorithmically could alienate consumers for doing so.

• The return of consumer tech with friction: the nostalgia for Y2K tech, the ongoing appeal of analogue and the rise in simple but modern tech, all point to a counter-movement of slow tech as resistance to unsolicited AI.

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UNDER OBSERVATION

A compilation of signals on a particular subject

Gen(erative) Z: young people’s complex entanglement with AI

• From novelty to necessity: For Gen Z, AI has become all but ubiquitous. As of early 2025, over 75% of global Gen Z are active AI users across personal and professional activities, with many integrating it into daily routines. In the US, a survey found that 93% of Gen Z knowledge workers use two or more AI tools each week.

• The post-AI education landscape: When it comes to learning, Gen Z readily relies on AI for instant explainers, proofreading and other uses. A global study in 2024 reported that 86% of uni students uses AI tools for their studies, with over half engaging with them at least weekly. But as dependency grows, so does the risk of cognitive atrophy. Aside from teachers of course, students themselves feel conflicted about outsourcing heavy cognitive lifting to AI.

• Using machines for career success, while competing with them: Graduating into economic volatility and amidst concern about AI-induced job losses, Gen Z has embraced AI as a tool for career strategy. In the US, young workers increasingly turn to it for career advice, often rating it more highly than feedback from their line managers. In Europe, 57% of Gen Z report using AI for tasks like CV building and job hunting.

• Seeking support in echoes, with AI therapy: A growing number of studies are showing that Gen Z is turning to LLMs as makeshift therapy. In the UK, 31% of people aged 18 to 24 feel most comfortable sharing their mental health issues with a chatbot. In the US, young people are increasingly relying on LLMs for free therapy, amid recession fears. A sticky situation, given that a quarter of Gen Z already believe that AI is conscious.

• Young people want a more ethical future for AI: The question for Gen Z is no longer if AI belongs in their future, but what values it should be built on. They expect the technology they work with to be ethical, accountable and human-centred. And the same goes for AI, particularly its environmental impact. While Gen Z loves AI, they’re also demanding sustainability from the tech companies that make these tools.

CULTURE SAMPLE

A film, TV, podcast or other media recommendation (usually sci-fi related)

System Crash Podcast on sci-fi, power and possibility:

Tech journalists and were recently joined on their pod by sci-fi writers Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, for a lively conversation about:

• How sci-fi is often misread and commodified by people like Elon Musk. Instead of engaging with the deeper critiques embedded in sci-fi, tech folks engage with these stories in an extractive way, for their product ideas or aesthetic blueprints. Musk is known to have borrowed surface-level imagery from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Culture series, without heeding their anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist messages.

• How nostalgia is holding back our visions of the future. A huge chunk of today’s pop culture, especially Hollywood, is rehashing the aesthetics and fantasies of the 70s and 80s. Reboots, retro-futurism and comfort-zone storytelling keep audiences locked into yesterday’s dreams. In doing so, they reinforce old hierarchies (white, cis, male, heroic) instead of pushing towards inclusive or visionary futures. This creative stagnation narrows the imaginative bandwidth needed for real cultural evolution. Good year for Tron fans though.

• How sub-genres like hopepunk and solarpunk are carving out space for collective resilience. There’s a growing body of sci-fi imagining futures rooted in sustainability, cooperation and radical hope. In doing so, they offer a vital counterweight to the techno-dystopias dominating mainstream culture, reminding us that envisioning better futures is itself an act of resistance.

And there’s more where that came from! I love how the conversation explored its bleak subject matter in a light-hearted way. And it was accessibly delivered—no need to be a big sci-fi reader to enjoy it.

Listen on YouTube, or below:

FINDINGS

A recent discovery that caught my attention

GreenPT, an eco-conscious AI platform:

Shout out to my fellow Londoner and friend for surfacing this. In her write-up, she talks about the hidden environmental costs of LLMs and how GreenPT, a Dutch climate tech startup, was born:

it all started when a group of students in a small apartment realised that their laptops were keeping the room warm. That sparked a thought — if computers give off heat anyway, why not use it? What if, instead of cooling data centres just to throw that heat away, we put servers in places that actually need warmth? From that simple question came a bigger idea: design digital infrastructure that works with the environment, not against it.

It’s an inspiring example of circular computing—in this case server heat is recycled into heat for living spaces (elderly care homes!) Could this be the Ecosia to OpenAI’s Google? If you're curious about regenerative futures for AI, absolutely give Camilla’s piece a read!

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Welcome to Mutant Futures: a newsletter about culture, futurism and strategy.

In this edition, I talk about the stories that help us imagine better futures.

This essay is part 2 of a two-part series.

Let’s get into it 🔬

In 2025, the zeitgeist is seemingly saturated with dystopian narratives—that was the topic of my last essay. When dysfunction is all we can think of, our capacity for hope suffers too. And when progress feels like a fantasy, we struggle with anything remotely ‘utopian’. But what if I told you that romanticised world-building was overrated anyway?

Beyond the utopia-dystopia binary

In speculative fiction, the utopian/dystopian distinction is only half the story. Sometimes, the power of hope is best captured through worlds that are neither very peachy, nor very grim. Enter the ‘ambiguous utopia’. Coined by Ursula K. Le Guin in The Dispossessed (1974), it’s a world that’s functional in some ways and dysfunctional in others. The book focuses on two contrasting societies:

• Urras, a planet defined by prosperity. Home to sprawling cities and academic prowess, but also deep inequality. It’s ruled by competing nation-states, each built on privilege and patriarchy. Ambition drives success, but getting a seat at the table depends on your class, gender and connections.

• Annares, an anarchist moon colony. There are no rulers, no property and no hierarchy. Here, everything is shared and ego takes a back seat. But over time, the system has a side-effect: psychological and cultural constraint. How? By stigmatising those who show too much individual thought. All in the name of collective harmony.

The story follows Shevek, a gifted physicist who starts to feel boxed in on Annares. He’s working on a theory that could make instantaneous communication across vast distances possible, faster than light. But his unconventional thinking is not encouraged, and his research isn’t given the space it needs. The pressure to be conformist leaves him frustrated. Hoping to find a better environment to develop his work, he travels to Urras. At first, it’s everything Annares isn’t. He’s celebrated, well-funded and surrounded by top scholars. But this comes with its own price: his work is co-opted to serve political agendas, and he’s caught in the middle of it all.

So it turns out that neither society is more preferable than the other; both involve tensions and trade-offs. The message? Utopia is not a fixed state but an ongoing, dynamic process. Utopia is a verb. What matters is pushing for something different, doing the work to change the system rather than just escaping it.

The quiet power of protopias

Thinking about stories on a spectrum, not as a binary, means that we can hold space for the messiness of progress. Because real progress can be slow. Maybe a story built on tiny wins would make more sense? Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, termed this protopia: a world that strives to be a little better than the day before. A more realistic take on the ‘sunshine and rainbows’ notion of utopia. Not about flying cars or interplanetary breakthroughs, but small gains that add up. Think of how planting trees in urban spaces can help clean the air and improve mental health, or how opening a youth centre can keep vulnerable young people off the streets. These futures may not be thrilling by sci-fi standards, but they’re more honest about how real change happens. They remind us that imagining better doesn’t always mean imagining bigger.

Futurist , a creative advisor on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, takes the idea of protopia further by reframing it through an intersectional lens. She challenges the dominant aesthetic of futurism—one shaped by white, male, techno-utopian thinking—and instead centres social justice. For her, protopia isn’t about shinier gadgets or space colonies. It’s about plural futures shaped by those who’ve historically been excluded from imagining them. More about cultural repair, and less about technological solutionism.

Dynamic worlds > static worlds

So the utopia-dystopia spectrum tells us about the setting of a story. But it tells us nothing about what kind of evolution takes place in that setting. Does that world evolve, or does it remain stagnant? That’s where a second dimension helps. Because not all speculative fiction is built to expand our sense of possibility. Some fictional worlds, especially those depicted on screen, are just stylish backdrops: heavy on aesthetic, light on intention. So it’s worth asking how dynamic the world-building really is.

That gives us 4 general categories of story:

• static dystopias

• dynamic dystopias

• static utopias

• dynamic utopias

Examples from film:

1. Static Dystopias

Here, the world is dystopian and stays that way. These stories often double down on mood and aesthetics, but offer little sense of revolution:

• Blade Runner 2049 is visually stunning, but inert. The story follows K, an artificial human (replicant) assigned to retire his own kind. He uncovers a potential miracle: a replicant born of natural birth. Yet even this revelation doesn’t lead to meaningful change. The world stays bleak, corporatised and indifferent.

• The Matrix teases a world of rebellion and awakening, but its sequels fail to build on this. Instead of offering a vision of systemic overhaul, the films settle for spectacle. Overall, the story suggests that even rebellion can be absorbed by the system. But instead of suggesting a way out of this, it leaves us with a circular narrative.

2. Dynamic Dystopias

These stories depict broken worlds, but show characters actively pushing against them. They’re not pretty, but also not ugly forever. They’re narratives that centre hope and inspire a mindset of resistance:

• In Children of Men, society has collapsed under the weight of mass infertility. The world is militarised, broken and stripped of joy. But when a young woman miraculously becomes pregnant, a man determined to protect the last hope of humanity risks everything to get her to safety.

• In Elysium, Earth is overpopulated and ravaged by poverty, while the wealthy elite live on a luxury space station. When a radiation-exposed worker breaks into the station to access life-saving technology, he sets off something bigger. What starts as an act of survival sparks a movement for change, to unlock a future where health and dignity aren’t reserved for the few.

3. Static Utopias

These are well-functioning worlds, where little is questioned or evolved. Conflict is minimal, which can be comforting of course. But without moral movement, these stories can paint a naive picture of the future:

• The Martian follows an astronaut stranded on Mars after a mission goes wrong. He survives through scientific wit and determination. The story celebrates human resilience, but its grander themes of NASA optimism and global collaboration remain largely unexamined.

• Tomorrowland is about a secret, high-tech city created by scientists and artists to escape the cynicism of the outside world. A disillusioned teen and a former boy genius are recruited to restore the city’s original vision. While the visuals are ambitious, the system itself remains static. It’s more hope-core than anything else.

4. Dynamic Utopias

These are optimistic worlds that still aspire to be better:

• In Black Panther, Wakanda offers a dynamic take on utopia through the lens of afrofuturism. It’s a world rooted in tradition yet open to change. It shows that progress doesn’t mean abandoning identity. While not perfect, its society adapts through debate and growth, not complacency.

• Star Trek, specifically VI: The Undiscovered Country, explores the uneasy process of peace-building between enemy civilisations. Set against the backdrop of galactic diplomacy, the film deals with ideological division and rebuilding trust.

Examples from TV:

The same thinking can be applied to TV shows, though the longer format gives them more room to explore change over time.

• Black Mirror is a bit of an anomaly, since it’s an anthology series, so each episode is more like a short film. Most of its episodes involve static world-building, tapping into techno-paranoia or existential dread, with little sense of empowerment. There’s a tendency for TV shows in the sci-fi genre to focus on dystopian worlds, probably because those settings offer more drama.

• Utopian series are rarer, and most of them tend to follow the ‘Star Trek’ model: humanity has overcome its problems at home and is now focused on space exploration.

  • Shows like The Orville, Star Trek: Discovery and The Expanse follow this model. The Expanse is notable for its complex world-building and portrayal of a Solar System in flux. Whether it’s the discovery of alien technology that can help humanity discover new galaxies, or an uprising from marginalised asteroid belt people who form their own union, the series depicts many shifting alliances, uprisings and existential threats.

  • Upload takes a different approach. It’s a more character-driven story, exploring the evolving concept of a digital afterlife. While it touches on social hierachies and techno-capitalism in a light-hearted way, it’s not as concerned about macro-level shifts like the other shows.

Finally, an honourable mention: Doctor Who. In my view, it doesn’t fit into this 2x2 as neatly as the rest. Its storytelling is more fluid, balancing family-friendly optimism with darker, dystopian elements. The Doctor’s mission to heal and repair, rather than conquer, puts the show in a unique category. While hopefulness is central to the show, it also addresses the failure of hope and the persistence of prejudice, reflecting a humanistic philosophy rooted in empathy and ethical balancing. The series stands for everyday progress, rather than striving for perfection.

Examples from books:

With their depth of world-building and capacity for detail, books can serve as blueprints for imagining better futures. Unlike films or TV shows, books explore not just characters and plot, but the very structures that govern society: laws, institutions, economies, and more. This level of detail allows for a deeper understanding of how change can happen within these systems, offering a more comprehensive vision of a different world.

It’s important to acknowledge classic novels like 1984 and Brave New World. These are foundational texts, no doubt. But their worlds are deeply static. While they are essential for understanding systemic dysfunction, they don’t offer a path forward. That’s why it’s crucial to balance the canon with more empowering stories, like Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, or Naomi Alderman’s The Power. These are thoughtfully constructed stories that can help us imagine how we might repair what’s broken.

Stories as simulations

Of course, any work of fiction can act as a sandbox for our imagination, regardless of genre. I like to think of it as the original virtual reality: immersing us in a unique environment and someone else’s shoes. But what makes speculative fiction special is that it plays with macro drivers of change. It allows us to investigate the future, by stress-testing various worlds and value systems in the safety of our imagination. Stories become thought experiments, a way of simulating scenarios. And this thinking is actually being put to strategic use: earlier this year, the UK Ministry of Defence was reported to have enlisted sci-fi writers to help with scenario planning. From mass blackouts triggered by cyberattacks to weaponised AI systems undermining national security, their ability to imagine dystopian scenarios can allow policymakers to better prepare for emerging threats. The logic is: if stories can simulate crisis, they can reveal blind spots in the government planning. When done intentionally, speculative fiction can help us investigate the edges of plausibility, by preparing us for a wider range of futures:

Imaginative infrastructure

Fiction becomes dangerous when it falls into a single point of failure; when it frames things like political collapse or techno-tyranny as inevitable. But too much of the same story traps us in a loop of paralysis. We risk normalising a doomer mindset. When our media diets are laced with dysfunction, it’s no surprise that we get future fatigue: a kind of cultural burnout that leaves us unable to imagine or believe in long-term futures. And when we stop believing in the future, we treat the present as whatever. Stories can make us feel seen by portraying a broken system that we can relate to, reflecting our anxieties. But they can also help us strategise a way out of that broken system.

Hope is a muscle. The more we exercise it, the more we empower ourselves, regardless of what’s on the horizon. So let’s focus on better stories, and work that muscle.

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In this edition, I unpack our cultural relationship with dystopias.

Let’s get into it 🔬

The word ‘dystopian’ seems to be unavoidable these days—on and off Substack. I can think of a bunch of reasons for this:

• Trump’s election victory last November, which also prompted a surge in US book sales for dystopian faves like The Handmaid’s Tale.

• Tech billionaires have gone full rogue, in a way that brings sci-fi to mind.1

• AI has disruptively occupied the public conversation, threatening our intellects, artistry, careers and climate goals.

• Humanoid robots walking to synthwave music.

• Recent film & TV hits with bleak storytelling and stylish visuals have captured our imagination (Fallout, The Substance, Severance, to name a few).

• Dark and gothic aesthetics are having a moment in fashion and wider culture.

• Climate disasters are ramping up, while some influencers film them for content.

The signals are talking, and they’re saying ‘dystopia is just a vibe now’. What used to be the language of decay is now a design language. A mood. A look. A value proposition. For brands, for entertainment, for cultural capital.

The idea for this essay started from the following thought: in a world where bleak sci-fi and real life resemble each other more than ever, should we ban dystopian stories? This provocation really got me going. Maybe let’s not outright ban things, as that would be quite ironic. But the question still stands: when our lives are dominated by dystopian narratives, should we de-prioritise stories that depict bleak and undesirable futures?

Before we entertain that debate, let’s unpack why dystopia feels so sticky, psychologically and culturally.

We’re wired for dystopian thinking

Let’s talk about negativity bias for a second. Believe it or not, humans have evolved to prioritise the negative. Why? Because for our pre-historic ancestors, staying alive was hard work. So staying alert was do or die, quite literally. Not just alert to sabre-toothed tigers, but to anything and everything—a storm, a plague of insects, a tribal ambush. A sabre-toothed tiger trying to eat your baby, while a storm is breaking out and the shelter’s leaking and the tribe is pissed you ate the last berries? You name it. And so our brains are biased towards fear, risk and danger.

⏩ Now modern humans aren’t burdened by quite the same things, but we still over-index on the bad. It’s why we obsess over an uncomfortable interaction at an otherwise enjoyable event. It’s why we get nervous when we hear shouting in public. You get the idea. And negativity bias doesn’t just show up in our reactions, but also in our language. When things feel off or quietly threatening, we reach for words that help make sense of it. And lately, that label is often ‘dystopian’. It’s become a catch-all term for the darkly surreal moments we increasingly encounter in real life:

• A dating app that selects your matches for you, with AI?

• A company that films its employees every day for social media content?

• A theme park that uses surge pricing to charge you more on sunny weekends?

Dystopian, dystopian, dystopian. And all true—number two used to be my actual employer 🤭

Here’s the thing: when a single word covers so many dysfunctional scenarios, it becomes a default label. And the more we label things ‘dystopian’, the more we risk saturating our thoughts with that state of dysfunction, to the point of numbness. It stops feeling like something to question, and starts feeling like the background noise of everyday life. Ambient. Documentary-maker Adam Curtis captured this phenomenon in HyperNormalisation (2016): during the final years of the Soviet Union, everyone (citizens, officials, even the media) knew the system was broken. But they kept participating because they couldn’t imagine an alternative system. Reality had become performative, and dysfunction was accepted as the everyday norm.

So it’s tempting to throw the word ‘dystopian’ out altogether, and to assume that dystopian stories are part of the problem. After all, by depicting these unsavoury worlds, aren’t we just encouraging the 1% with unsavoury agendas and the means to create those worlds?

Cyberpunk and its aestheticised corruption

The seduction of much dystopian storytelling is also its curse: aesthetics. Some dystopias present decay so nonchalantly, it stops feeling like a problem and starts feeling like atmosphere. The biggest perpetrator of this, arguably, is cyberpunk. A genre synonymous with cityscapes that actually exist in our world today: glassy high-rises showing billboards with neon ads, for omnipresent mega-corporations.

When the genre crystallised in the 80s and early 90s, cyberpunk was critical of the things it depicted: monopoly-chasing multinationals, increasing wealth inequality and technology intruding on our private lives. Pioneering novels like Neuromancer (by William Gibson, published 1984) and Snow Crash (Noel Stephenson, 1992) constructed worlds where power had shifted away from governments and into the hands of unaccountable tech elites. This commentary on corporate power was also alive in the cyberpunk films of the time, notably Blade Runner (1982).

As decades passed, the ‘punk’ aspect was eclipsed by the genre’s aesthetic appeal, which made it more marketable for entertainment. Whether it was TV (Altered Carbon), film (Blade Runner 2049) or video games (Cyberpunk 2077), today cyberpunk no longer serves as a movement, but as a moodboard. For Hollywood, streaming companies and so on.2 The nail in the coffin came from AI, which has accelerated this aesthetic flattening, as points out in The Neon Graveyard. Image generation models trained on cyberpunk imagery don’t understand context or critique. They understand the aesthetics only, rewarding what’s stylistically consistent and instantly recognisable. In doing so, they completely sever cyberpunk from its ideological roots.

Soft dystopias, with soft colour palettes

To add another layer to the discussion of aestheticisation, we need to talk about soft dystopias. The OG soft dystopia, Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932), depicts a society controlled by consumerism and pleasure. The book highlights the dangers of collective complacency. Unlike dystopias that involve violence or apocalyptic conditions, this type of story explores systemic decay and oppression through psychological or emotional means.

A modern and popular example of this niche is Spike Jonze’s Her. It presents AI as an emotionally intelligent companion: charming, adaptive and deeply empathetic. This framing sidesteps classic fears of machine domination, inviting viewers to sympathise with the AI, blurring the line between tool and sentient being. The film presents its story with a warm, almost soothing aesthetic. Its inviting visual palette, with its vibrant colours and gentle light, creates a world that feels innocent, subtly masking the theme of loneliness at its core. While it ends on a reflective and human-centric note, the film renders its dysfunction beautiful and quietly normalised. At the time of release (2013), Her was read as a cautionary but understated tale about the tech-enabled outsourcing of relationships and empathy. But in today’s age, that’s no longer fiction. It stands as another example of how stylised visuals can seduce us into softening our attitudes about the underlying, problematic issues.

More substance, less style

At this point, the case against dystopian storytelling is well-founded. Why invite more of it? Speculative stories adopted by pop culture continue to lean heavily on style at the expense of substance and messaging. Why entertain more dystopia? Because not all dystopian stories are problematic, and because we need to champion more useful dystopias. When done right, these stories can act as warnings and scenario simulations to inspire real-life activism. To give a brief example from film, V for Vendetta (2005) provided both a symbol and philosophical input for protest movements like Occupy. These are dystopias that provoke agency over apathy.

I wanted to end this essay on a note of hope, as that’s why I decided to write this series—to talk about which futures centre hope. So I’d like to share with you some wisdom from the late great Octavia Butler. In her classic essay, A Few Rules for Predicting the Future, Butler reminds us that strange futures can act as a useful resource. She explains why dystopian world-building is important: to imagine systemic struggles that we can learn from. Her point is that speculative fiction isn’t about prophecy, it’s about diagnosis. It helps us question the status quo, and rethink our systems. A story that unsettles us might still be generous, if it helps us widen our thinking. The challenge is distinguishing between dystopias that darken our imagination and those that sharpen our vision in the dark.

This essay is part 1 of a two-part series. Read part 2 here.

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In this edition, I’m discussing the film Annihilation and how it works as a metaphor for the mutating effects of AI.

Let’s get into it 🔬

Recently, I rewatched Annihilation, Alex Garland’s adaptation of the 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer. Here’s the basic premise:

Five scientists embark on a military expedition into ‘the Shimmer’, a mysterious zone that appears in coastal Florida, after a meteor strikes there. One of the scientists, Lena, has joined the expedition to understand what happened to her husband, Kane, after he entered the Shimmer and disappeared. You see, this expedition isn’t the first—in fact, several expeditions have already taken place. But all previous teams went missing and never returned, save for one person: Kane. A year after his disappearance, he miraculously comes home to Lena. But something isn’t right. He is not the same man. And the Shimmer has something to do with it.

Annihilation deals with themes of self-destruction, identity dissolution and ecological distortion, among others. It explores what happens when biological systems stop functioning as expected and evolve into something unfamiliar, even hostile. The film is considered 'eco-horror’, a genre which presents nature not as a passive backdrop, but as an active force that retaliates against humanity’s interference. Through that lens, Annihilation confronts us with the unknown, the uncanny and the alien. And while it was released in 2018, I was struck by how zeitgeisty it feels in 2025. Not just because of its ecological themes, but because of how it captures our anxieties around a very palpable force reshaping the world: AI.

🪧 There are spoilers in this post 🪧

What is the Shimmer?

To illustrate my theory, let me start by explaining what the Shimmer actually does.1 It’s an ethereal spatial energy that acts as a prism, refracting everything within it. Not just light, but DNA as well. As a result, it influences the anatomy of all life that finds itself inside it, human and non-human. It’s neither good nor bad, but operates on its own alien logic. And its sphere of influence is constantly expanding.

The longer you stay in the Shimmer, the more you experience its mutating effects. Your memories become unreliable and your sense of identity starts to blur—here’s a snapshot from Annihilation the novel:

I am all by myself. The trees are not trees the birds are not birds and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time…

Meanwhile, your body begins to do peculiar things. Your fingerprints start shifting around. On a microscopic level, your cells start dancing. In the film, the scientists discover animals with strange physical traits, like an alligator with shark teeth, a bear that mimics human cries, and forest animals with floral mutations.

So we know that the Shimmer:

• Continuously absorbs and reshapes things

• Assimilates human and non-human inputs, and mixes them together

• Can blur the boundaries of things, until they’re unrecognisable

• Operates on a non-human logic

• Erodes memory and reality

• Is continuously expanding

Does this sound familiar? It’s hard not to see the parallels with AI. It’s a force that’s been unleashed on the world, like the Shimmer. While it’s not an alien intelligence, it certainly doesn’t function in ways we can always comprehend (when it hallucinates for example). And we don’t know its intentions. Whether it will align itself with humanity, once it gets really going, is unclear. The more we engage with and perpetuate it, the more it mimics us, warping us in the process. If you ask me, we’ve created our own Shimmer.

Duplicates that we don’t recognise

There’s a moment near the end of Annihilation when Lena, having gone to the epicentre of the Shimmer, comes face to face with an alien duplicate of herself. A mirrored being, moving in sync with her. No aggression, just imitation. It taps into something quite unsettling: being confronted with something that reflects you, but isn’t you.

This phenomenon is something we encounter all the time with cutting-edge AI. The visual trickery of AI-generated clothing filters, the uncanny authenticity of conversational speech models, or the eerie humanity of synthetic clones. If we can no longer tell what’s purely human-made and what’s not, it’s not just creativity and reality that we’re blurring, but also identity. This raises a huge question: what does it mean to be our digital selves when we can create a carbon copy of ourselves?

The age of ouroboros

Throughout the film, a tattoo subtly appears on several characters: a snake eating its own tail (aka the ouroboros). The ouroboros is an ancient symbol of course, associated with the circle of life and death, but also self-destruction. In the context of Annihilation, it’s a product of the Shimmer and a motif throughout the film, as everyone on the expedition is struggling with some form of self-destruction:

• Lena (Natalie Portman): has an extramarital affair, which contributes to Kane’s decision to join a Shimmer expedition. Her guilt and Kane’s peculiar return push her to study the Shimmer herself, as an act of marital redemption.

• Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh): has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her choice to enter the Shimmer is driven by a pursuit of answers and a confrontation with the unknown before the cancer claims her life.

• Anya (Gina Rodriguez): is a recovering addict. Her struggles have left her seeking purpose and an escape from her past, which she hopes the expedition will bring.

• Josie (Tessa Thompson): struggles with depression and self-harm. The expedition represents an opportunity to heal and make peace with herself.

• Cassie (Tuva Nuvotny): is grieving the loss of her daughter, which has left her emotionally hollow and isolated. She joins the team to move forward with her life.

Again, it’s not a stretch to see parallels between the scientists and us in this context, but with AI. Beyond the productivity benefits, we’re using it as a crutch, an escape and a source of distraction. A replacement for therapy or comfort in times of loneliness and dysfunction, when we can’t find solace in each other. But this comes at a price, to our identity and our intellect. You may have heard about the Microsoft study linking LLM use to an erosion of critical thinking, for example.

On a collective level, AI represents a self-destructive transformation of civilisation.2 It’s trained on our most profound knowledge, feeding it back to us in new forms, and this cycle is repeated over and over. And so gradually, the line between what’s human and what’s synthetic blurs a little more each time.

We’re caught in a loop where we want to resist, but also want to see what happens next. We optimise our lives with it while also fearing what it might take away. It’s a double-edged sword. Both empowering and destabilising. Exciting and worrying. It has undeniably contributed to our culture of chaos, that’s manifested itself this decade. The Akin, a strategy and research studio, has termed this period the ‘era of dissonance’. Their 2025 Changemaker Report describes this as follows:

The once-solid ground beneath our collective feet has liquefied into a state of perpetual flux, neither fully crisis nor calm, but a hyperfractured reality where opposing forces coexist without resolution.

The old structures are breaking down, but the new ones haven’t formed yet. This feeling is also captured in Annihilation:

We were neither what we had been nor what we would become once we reached our destination.

On a macro-economic level, jobs are facing obsolescence because of AI, with new ones expected, but not yet crystallised. Last November, the Tony Blair Institute released a report outlining four possible futures for AI’s impact on the UK job market. The most likely scenario according to them (see ‘Tailwind’ below) involves a relatively stable transition where AI is adopted by most employers, with unemployment impact peaking around 2040. By the 2030s, around 10% of UK firms are expected to be using AI effectively. 90% by 2050. Job losses will happen, but rather than mass layoffs, businesses are expected to retain a portion of their workforce by redistributing tasks and integrating AI into existing roles.

The report predicts that in all four scenarios, not all displaced workers will be absorbed into new jobs within their companies. So unemployment will go up, that’s a given. But that’s not as problematic as a lag between displacement and job creation. The report predicts that even in the most likely scenario (Tailwind), it could take around five years for some displaced workers to be absorbed into new roles. AI adoption promises to boost GDP growth, but it will also lead to societal turbulence. And right now, we’re not entirely sure if we’re safe from a whirlwind.

Finding ourselves in the alienation

The key to facing the Shimmer lies in curious adaptation—that’s the takeaway from Annihilation in my view. The film doesn’t end in tragedy. In fact, Lena manages to overcome the Shimmer. Not by resisting it, but by leaning into it. Her arc suggests that survival of such an all-consuming force involves letting go of who you were before it came along. AI presents us with a similar situation. It’s here to stay, and it’s already refracting and mutating aspects of humanity. Shunning it won’t stop it from expanding and reshaping the world. And so a more realistic way forward would be to explore human-AI synergies, to cultivate a net positive relationship with it. And to grow with it.

I’m aware that AI can be destructive in more ways than one. Especially GenAI, with its energy consumption and copyright infringement issues. That said, if we empower ourselves with an understanding of it now, we can push for AI futures that serve humanity beyond corporate efficiency and economic accelerationism.

With the way things are going this decade, our best adaptation strategy might be for us to anticipate and get comfortable with unnatural transformation. And that’s the ethos of this newsletter. Mutant Futures is about finding beauty in the mess and resilience in the storm. It’s about inviting futures where we experiment with change, challenge our limiting beliefs and think about how to shift with the chaos.

AI will continue to transform us, but we can be more than bystanders in this journey. We can co-create the future, while accepting that there are some things we simply can’t control. As the sci-fi legend Ursula K. Le Guin put it:

To find a new world, maybe you have to have lost one. Maybe you have to be lost. The dance of renewal, the dance that made the world, was always danced here at the edge of things, on the brink, on the foggy coast.

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It’s time to make social media less shit

Of course, the urge to unplug in 2025 is understandable. I’ve seen countless Substack posts about people deleting their other social media accounts. I don’t blame them. It just goes to show how enshittified things have become. Online, everything is so intertwined: communication, entertainment, advertising, commerce, culture. So in this post, I wanted to untangle some things. I wanted to look beyond the familiar cycle of digital overwhelm, fatigue, detoxing, FOMO and relapse. What would it take to plug in more intentionally? What if we could cultivate something to replace our sense of digital dread, with something more positive?

‘Community’ is this thing we all seem to be craving, against the backdrop of a loneliness epidemic—a crisis of connection. And what I realised, after many head-scratches, is that this crisis had been creeping in for a long time. We’ve been sitting in Big Social’s slow boiling pot1 and only now are we realising how cooked we are. Making things less shit seems impossible at this point.

But it is possible. It just won’t be a picnic. We must grab a machete (metaphorically, not for real please), and hack our way out of this messy, overgrown situation. Side note: I almost went crazy writing this post, can you tell?

Decentralised social media: the future?

When I started prepping for this piece, my assumption was that there are platforms out there that we can flee to, away from the toxicity of Big Social. I was going to talk about decentralised alternatives to the big bad platforms, and share my thoughts on making the switch. Why decentralised social media? Because it gives power back to the people: no big evil company (or oligarch) in control, no algorithmic fuckery and no exploitation of people’s data. Oh and there’s no ads.

I got particularly excited about this thing called the fediverse, which is an interconnected ecosystem of multiple decentralised platforms. Get this: users of these platforms can talk to each other, even if they’re on different platforms. Like email, but for social media.

So with all these alternatives out there, I was going to discuss which ones we could defect to. I even mapped out the various platforms and their decentralised equivalents here. To cut a long story short:

• There’s no perfect replacement for every popular platform: there are several Twitter-ish alternatives (Bluesky and Mastodon). There’s Pixelfed for photo sharing, and Peertube for long-form video, but neither of them measures up to IG and YouTube in terms of functionality or UI. And there’s no viable alternative to TikTok.

• Lack of monetisation as a barrier to scaling: for decentralised social media to gain critical mass, it would need to figure out how creators can earn money on there. Without a monetisation incentive, professional content creators will likely hold on to their existing accounts. And their audiences won’t want to budge as a result.

• Clunky setup: decentralised platforms often involve choosing a server and a less intuitive UI compared to mainstream social media, creating a barrier to entry.

For any of these platforms to stick, they’d need to give the masses a good enough reason to join. Mastodon and Bluesky are the most popular ones, with about 12 and 30 million registered users, respectively. When Twitter / X went to shit, people defected because of how Twitter-ish Mastodon and Bluesky are, but this type of social media isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. In any case, the more important question is whether it’s worth leaving one platform only to risk being sucked in by another.

But first, we must heal

After much umming and aahing, I’ve concluded that it’s still too early to talk about exploring new social media platforms. Even if they’re considered more ethical. Fixing our Big Social problem that way just doesn’t feel right. We must first regain what we’ve lost. It has to start with recovering from digital fatigue, as a species. Information overload has been linked to a number of cognitive impairments, and those need to be addressed so we can really connect with each other in the first place.

points out in her piece Distraction Is The Whole Point that the constant flood of irrelevant and misleading content erodes our ability to sustain our focus and pay attention to what truly matters. Before we decide where to go next, we need to work on our cognitive resilience and reclaim our capacity for deep attention.

Over the years, we’ve seen an increasing affinity for ‘cozy’ digital spaces (aka the cozy web). WhatsApp group chats and Discord servers for example, where undisturbed interactions can take place. It goes to show that people are tired of the BS, but that doesn’t mean we have to reject digital spaces entirely.

Towards a regenerative digital future

The reality is, a lot of us are stuck in the Matrix that is Big Social. Content creation has now become so intertwined with conventional artistry that digital downsizing may seem unthinkable to some. It’s a sticky one if you’re any kind of artist or performer2 . And even those who aren’t on these platforms by necessity might prefer to choose the blue pill out of convenience.

But the rest of us can take a stand against the Superorganism. We don’t have to feed the machine and stay trapped in a vicious cycle of extraction. Because the thing is, Big Social is built on extraction. If the platform contains ads, best believe it has been engineered for obsession—not just engagement—obsession. What’s being extracted? Our attention, and data of course. So, by extension, depriving these platforms of our attention is a form of power. It’s why Reed Hastings (former Netflix CEO) once said that Netflix’s biggest competitor isn’t FX or HBO—it’s sleep. When a platform benefits from our binging, simply depriving it of attention hurts their earnings in the long run.

That being said, it’s not just about sticking it to the system. It’s about nourishing and recultivating something we’ve lost, as a species. Our attention has been unsustainably depleted. And you know how the climate activists say ‘there’s no growth on a dead planet?’ Well there’s no personal growth in a dead brain. And there’s no collective growth in a dead culture.

Our minds are overfished, so if we want to reclaim our bandwidth and thrive again, we need to treat attention like a finite resource. Like regenerative farming, or sustainable fishing. Something to be preserved and restored. If good stewardship can bring soil back to life, taking care of our attention can turn our depleted minds into fertile places for creativity and connection.

The No-BS digital regeneration guide:

With all of that being said, let me walk my talk. Here’s a short, straightforward guide I put together, based on stuff that’s actually worked for me. It’s not about unplugging completely, but instead about redesigning our digital consumption to reduce the unhealthy stuff and nourish the good stuff.

Have a browse and see what resonates with you. If it does resonate, please do let me know with a Like or Comment. I’d like to follow this up with a more sophisticated guide in the future…

Phase 1: clear the weeds

On Instagram, TikTok and any other ‘scrolly’ app with sticky short-form content:

• Unfollow (and remove as followers too)3:

  • the people you’re simping for;

  • the influencers and cool kids you wish you were friends with;

  • the strangers you followed back;

  • the people you met IRL once and will never see again;

  • any brand or organisational page that makes you feel bad.

• Mute (on IG):

  • everybody’s Story except for close friends and family;

  • everybody’s Notes (nobody needs to see that shit).

• Remove the ability to scroll: now delete Instagram, TikTok and any other time-suck app from your phone. Start using the desktop versions instead.

• Create friction for the apps you must keep, like email and Internet: I recommend getting Opal for iOS, or One Sec for Android. Their free versions work great.

  

Phase 2: regrow your attention

• Have a conversation with a friend about digital overwhelm and clearing weeds. Also, tell them about your new book club (see next step).

• Join a book club: they’re trending hard in 2025. Big Social will be trembling, and your attention span will bounce back. If you can’t find one you like IRL, join one that gets together by Zoom or something. Or start one if you have to.

• Try the Smiling Mind app for a bit of guided meditation before you start your day. As opposed to apps like Headspace, it’s free and not overwhelming to use. I cannot overstate how game-changing meditation is.

Phase 3: cultivate your sense of wonder

• Invest in a simple film camera, and use that instead of your phone camera when you’re out and about. Or, if you don’t fancy the expense, try Lapse4. The app mimics the slow gratification of disposable cameras, and positions itself as the antithesis of Instagram, with no metrics or algorithm. Just a closed loop photo app.

• Unleash your curiosity, to regain that long-lost sense of wonder. If you like visual brainstorming, try Globe Explorer.

• Experiment with analogue formats: try a zine-making workshop.

  

Wow, you had the attention span to finish this post, fantastic stuff! 💜 If you haven’t subbed already…

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As a chronically online species, a dominant theme of this decade so far has been our yearning for offline escape.1 But fast forward to 2025 and the plot feed has thickened. We’re dealing with unprecedented levels of digital fatigue, and a lot of us just want to hurl our phones into outer space. , head of foresight at Reddit, captured this feeling in a fabulous nutshell: Brain rot enshittification slop triggers a pining for life before tech ubiquity.2

While IRL gatherings have been mushrooming in urban areas ever since Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, we’re now witnessing a boom in anti-smartphone events. It’s not just about touching grass, it’s about banning cyborgs from the picnic. Part-human, part-device, there’s a cyborg in all of us now. These events recognise the need to take off the cybernetic enhancements and let our humanity breathe again.

How is this phone-free movement evolving, and what’s the outlook for those trying to push back against a normalised culture of contentification?

No phones on the dancefloor 📵

The clubbing scene offers a prime case study on how smartphone etiquette in public spaces is evolving. The debate over phone-free clubbing has been raging since as early as 2016, if not earlier.3 After much fuel was thrown on the fire by years of unchecked crowd behaviour, more clubs than ever have introduced an anti-smartphone policy. And in 2024, the Berghainification of dancefloors gained mainstream traction. What began as a privacy measure to safeguard LGBTQ+ and sex-positive spaces is now being co-opted across the nightclub sector, to bring back the immersive, communal energy of the dancefloor. The debate remains divisive, and those that oppose the bans argue that phones can amplify the promotional reach of a club night and boost the careers of the artists. And then there’s the argument about letting people document the moment—but at what cost to the culture? Elijah, a UK grime originator and music industry veteran, had this to say only last month:4

I feel like this is one of the biggest disrespects in culture now. Everyone having their phones out in a room, it doesn't just take you out of the room there and then. It makes people on edge, in a way that I've never really experienced before. […] It feels like you're under CCTV, like, a thousand CCTV's at once. Why would you wanna break form? Why would you wanna dance in a crazy way?

Elijah raises a point that we’ve completely taken for granted: the omnipresence of smartphones risks flattening our social behaviour. Surveillance 2.0. Whether it’s on or off the dancefloor, when the cameras are out, we’re subconsciously suppressing our self-expression. Because if we did ‘too much’, the cameras might turn on us. And suddenly we’re dancing bears for other people’s entertainment (and possibly their IG Story).

These concerns echo the warnings of Black Mirror’s Nosedive episode. To recap, it tells the story of Lacie, who’s driven to curate and dress up her every move to get a perfect digital star-rating from others. But her relentless pursuit of social proof eventually sees her crashing out. The obvious takeaway from Nosedive is that scoring our interpersonal moments would spell a shitshow for society. It’s been nearly a decade since the episode aired and thankfully, star ratings didn’t take over social media. But there’s still something Nosedive-ish about our society today. We may not be rating each other out of five, but we’re still adjusting our behaviour under an invisible social score. Every camera held up in a public space, every post, every reaction—it’s all a form of interveillance (where we monitor each other and ourselves). Nosedive wasn’t just about a rating system, it was about a system where we’re compelled to distort who we are IRL to suit online expectations, thanks to our phones.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Whichever side of the no-phone debate you stand on, it’s clear that the ability to enjoy a space free from contentification comes at a premium. And this shift is entering a new phase.

The Luddite experience boom

The curation of anti-smartphone spaces is gaining popularity beyond dancefloors. Since early 2024, Dutch-founded Offline Club has been organising phone-free gatherings at cafés, restaurants and even churches, providing refuge for the digitally fatigued, addicted and jaded. They provide dedicated lockers, so-called phone hotels, for guests to stow away their devices on arrival. Their activities are designed to let humans be human again: to talk and get to know one another while painting, playing board games, hand-crafting something, and so on. There’s no pressure to socialise—some participants take a beat while reading a book. Others simply take a nap. Everyone is peacefully blending in. It’s one big Luddite experience.

And it’s a fascinating case study, in the age of normalised self-broadcasting and documenting. By switching off our Pavlovian urge to reach for our phones when something interesting happens, these events take us back to a nostalgic, by-gone era. We get to relive a feeling we’ve basically forgotten (or barely got to experience, if you’re Gen Z). And who doesn’t want to reconnect with their inner child?

Unsurprisingly, Offline Club’s events have seen rapid growth in a short space of time: one year in, they’ve hosted over 150 events, in 11 different cities, across 7 countries. Consistently sold out. Their swift international expansion is thanks to their franchising model: anyone can apply to become a ‘City Leader’, and set up a local Offline Club using the company’s branding and know-how. It’s a savvy business move. The founder’s goal is to get 100 million people to experience an OC event—he wants to reach the masses.5 Ironically, a viral Reel on their Instagram page propelled the company massively forward. But to be fair, Instagram is likely the best place to reach those who need disconnecting the most. While people get to disconnect, footage of this is captured and uploaded for promotional purposes to OC’s social media—and this strategy seems to be working. Ironies aside, if these events saw mainstream success, other social clubs (e.g. a supper club) could seize the opportunity to attract more guests by introducing their own anti-phone policy. Whether this halo effect could actually be unleashed remains TBC.

Having fallen down a rabbit hole for this post, I couldn’t decide whether the commodification of something quite ordinary (putting your phone away) could have a positive cultural impact. Should we embrace it, or does it risk contributing to the ‘privacy as a luxury’ shift, in that it’s becoming a privilege for the few, not the many, to go off-grid?

Let’s get into that for the last section of this post.

The digital detox paradox

Offline Club’s vision is that by attending one of their events, we can wake up to our dysfunctional relationship with our phones, then redesign it for the better. Their mission is to be accessible—their events last 2-3 hours and tickets are around €10 / £15 for activity meetups. It sounds democratic, but the picture gets more complicated once you visit their website. The company also offers conventional detox retreats, some up to five days long. I’d be surprised if they weren’t trying to upsell the retreats to those who attend the micro-detox events.

The paradox of the digital detox industry is that its growth only stands to gain from smartphone addiction and being discovered on social media. Once a detox events company is established enough, it risks becoming indifferent to the real enemy—the big social media platforms and their algorithmic tyranny.

My concern is that the movement Offline Club started could simply settle for being a ‘pressure release valve’—an illusion that society is healing from smartphone addiction. If you watched The Matrix Reloaded, you’ll remember that Zion (the ‘unplugged’ city and home of the Resistance), was allowed to exist by the machines. Why? Because they realised that allowing the Resistance, while containing it in Zion, made the whole system more stable. The status quo depended on the illusion of a counter-movement, to keep the humans from realising they were still playing by the system’s rules. This pacification of counter-movements by the system was a central tenet of Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism. Instead of silencing the rebellion, capitalism neutralises it by making it monetisable and consumable.

Regardless of how the business of anti-phone events evolves, the very concept might distract us from what it takes to find true community, a word which gets thrown around a lot in branding and marketing circles these days. We’ve romanticised community to the point of giving us community FOMO. A by-product of the loneliness epidemic. Anti-phone events might offer a quick fix by encouraging situational or temporary communities, but once they’ve left those spaces, people have to return to the Matrix, the status quo.

Mindful smartphone use is obviously a good thing, but I don’t think it’s as simple as unplugging from everything once in a while. I’ll be sharing my thoughts on this, and on the state of social media, in the next post.

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