How I got brain rot: Satire on our nonsensical present

Gangster orcas. A tyrannosaurus-rex interviewing Noah. Elon Musk running a sandwich joint to the ground. Sumsang and Goggle vs Apple. Is it really brain rot if it’s subversive? That’s my defence for indulging in the absurd, satirical and nonsensical content on offer by the likes of Stanzi Potenza, Adrian Bliss, Ryan George, Steven He.

Having gone on a social media purge, YouTube and YouTube shorts are the last refuge for my digitally-addled brain to scroll past trivial content – and fortunately for it (and unfortunately for me) there’s no shortage of that.

Ryan George’s videos never disappoint, combining the millennial angst of a frustrated online generation while satirising various objects, situations and people everyone should rightly be outraged about. His “90s time traveller” series presents the perspective of a time travelling reporter on the increasingly nonsensical present we live in: NFTs (?), the Apple Vision Pro headset and endless Star Wars spinoffs, sequels and prequels no one asked for. “The future is dumb,” to quote the time travelling reporter.

But my favourite is a video that best summarises the nightmarish transformation of Twitter, which now goes by the inane name of “X”, under Elon Musk.

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