Latest / The imuRgency Room / Gen Z’s ‘Soft Life’ Is Making Everything Harder

Transcript

Gen Z’s ‘Soft Life’ Is Making Everything Harder · The imuRgency Room

• 0:00
  Convenience is, well, convenient.
• 0:02
  What did he say? It's the backbone to modern
• 0:05
  American culture, like making our lives as easy as possible.
• 0:08
  And in large part, convenience oftentimes leads us to comfort.
• 0:12
  And when we're comfortable, we tend to let some things slide
• 0:16
  and let things go in order to maintain those comforts.
• 0:18
  So the question of the day is what happens when the talk isn't
• 0:22
  cheap? And it is what it is.
• 0:25
  What I mean by this is let's talk about the real cost of
• 0:29
  convenience. Hey guys, it's up to emergency
• 0:30
  and welcome back to my channel. That intro was long winded and
• 0:33
  crazy. I am sorry, but hello, good to
• 0:36
  see you again. As I was trying to talk about in
• 0:38
  that intro today, we're talking about something that impacts all
• 0:40
  of our lives more than we may initially think.
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  That is convenience and more so the feeling of convenience.
• 0:46
  And that goes for the more physical like delivery service
• 0:49
  or like Teamu Lifehack Dimple trainer type beat to which yeah,
• 0:52
  those exist. And if you yourself have bought
• 0:54
  one of those to try and look like Ariana Grande hidden little
• 0:58
  like click out the video right now.
• 0:59
  And to the more conceptual vibes based sections of life that
• 1:02
  convenience tends to impact, like relationships, friendships
• 1:05
  and just general social interactions.
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  And in this video, where I try and answer the question of
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  whether this quest to streamline and optimize our lives is
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  ultimately costing us something even bigger.
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  Because while I may have been just chatting in the intro, at
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  the end of the day, convenience does breed compliance.
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  And when we all become a compliant nation, especially in
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  today's day and age, things can get a little spooky.
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  So we're going to talk about all that.
• 1:27
  But before we do, if this is your first time seeing my face,
• 1:29
  Hi. Hello, my name is Jeremy.
• 1:30
  Nice to meet you. What's yours?
• 1:32
  Beautiful. But yeah, definitely subscribe.
• 1:33
  If you're new, leave a like on this video if you haven't
• 1:35
  already, follow me on my social site Emergency on Instagram,
• 1:38
  TikTok and Twitter. And if audio is more of your
• 1:40
  vibe, you can check out these episodes over on Spotify.
• 1:42
  Link in the description down below.
• 1:44
  And if you're watching this on Spotify, hey, don't forget to
• 1:46
  rate this podcast. Let's start this conversation
• 1:47
  off. We're talking about one of the
• 1:48
  agents of convenience that has touched all of our lives in one
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  way or another. Essentially, the luxury of
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  paying for stuff, what we don't want to do.
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  We've been making our lives increasingly more convenient
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  over the years, whether that be food delivery services be more
• 2:00
  accessible than ever. The ability for you to order
• 2:02
  something online and within a few clicks you can receive it
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  and have it be delivered the same day, if not within a couple
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  of hours. Like while the world has been
• 2:10
  going to Kaka, the society that we do live in today is very
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  convenient. It really plays on a lot of our
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  conveniences. Like if you ever watched the old
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  cartoon The Jetsons or the old Disney movie Wally, like seeing
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  the things that were in those shows and movies that at the
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  time seemed futuristic or dystopian in some cases just
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  exists to make lives easier in a futuristic sense.
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  Like we're kind of getting like, I feel like for Weldy
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  especially, I get a little spooked because I don't know.
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  I don't know. We weren't incredibly far up
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  when the movie came out. But as time has gone on, that
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  movie has proved a little bit to be more of a prophecy than a
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  fairy tale. And that's a whole other
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  conversation on like whether or not art and media are the
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  prophecies of the future with the whole concept of like, if
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  you can dream it and think it, then it can become a reality.
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  But I will not touch that bag of beans right now.
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  But in relation to the food delivery apps and the same day
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  delivery of it all, as are most things that we talked about on
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  this channel, there is a lot of nuance to it.
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  They're not inherently bad. We're good.
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  Of course, these apps serve their purposes.
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  You're not strapped to the Wally chair and lose all form of
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  autonomy like if you just order DoorDash after a long day of
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  work. But it's ultimately the choices
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  that you make and how often you're making these choices that
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  we should take a look at. Cutting the corners, having to
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  interact, go outside, have a little small tug with the
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  cashier or the people around you.
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  Like these are human touch points that we're kind of losing
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  for the sake of convenience. And we should think about these
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  sort of interactions a little bit more.
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  Like, yeah, the whole point of delivery is to not communicate
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  with others because that inherently is the convenience,
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  like not having to do with other people, not having to deal with
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  that whole process. But again, these small little
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  human interactions, as insignificant as they may seem,
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  are what make up life, and the whole concept of paying to avoid
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  experiencing something is truly the crux of convenience.
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  And a quote from the Guardian. Modern hyper convenience is a
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  kind of deal with the devil. It is seductive because it
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  appeals to our instincts, but it serendipitously depletes us.
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  It has made it easier to get by, but in many ways harder to truly
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  succeed. Human flourishing and happiness
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  is not just about subsidence, but also depends on growth,
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  dynamic problem solving and solidarity through hardship.
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  Essentially getting at that point of like the extreme
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  reliance on convenience and the extreme push of like this
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  convenience culture upon us is taking away a lot of the beauty
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  of the human experience and of human interaction.
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  And since we live in such a lonely society, again, see
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  loneliness epidemic, the multiple videos we've made about
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  that. When we talk about things like
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  combating loneliness and finding things like community, we really
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  need to take a hard look at all aspects of life.
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  Like not just the third spaces, not just the hobby centers, not
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  just going out, not just normalizing putting down phones
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  at the club, but like genuinely looking at the different aspects
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  in life, even if they are insignificant small.
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  Like where are we cutting out human interaction?
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  Where are we cutting out things that like used to connect us and
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  used to force us to kind of touch that grasp we keep telling
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  each other to? And in some cases, a lot of the
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  things that make life a little bit more convenient at things
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  that make the consumer experience especially more
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  convenient are cutting out those human experiences that we are so
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  missing. Another quote from the same
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  article says that much of my work, the other with my younger
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  clients, has been focused on not deep psychological conflict or
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  the impact of trauma, but on the approaching of basic tasks of
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  living, such as making friends, handling work, stress are going
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  to new places. What they tell me repeatedly is
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  that the discomfort of such task feels overwhelming and their
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  worlds are shrinking in consequence, Kind of
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  demonstrating that, yeah, we as Gen.
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  Z kind of do struggle with the more mundane task of, like,
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  social interaction. Like, that has been sort of the
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  meme that people have about Gen. Z, about the whole concept of,
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  like, we're quick to say that we want revolution, we want change,
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  but like, we're afraid to set up an appointment over the phone
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  for, like, a dentist appointment or something.
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  Like, yeah, like, it shouldn't be that serious.
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  But because we're not in practice of doing it very often
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  and because we're so out of practice and gotten so used to
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  like not having to interact with another person when booking
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  something or having other convenient ways to not interact
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  with strangers, It's just like an uncomfortable experience.
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  It's not something that we can just like pick the phone and do
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  with ease. Like speaking for myself, I've
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  gotten better at it. Like I can set up an appointment
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  now, but like, will I sound like the most confident version of
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  myself? Am I going to sound like super
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  businessman? Like, yes, I'd like to set up an
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  appointment at 7:00 PM. Can you please make sure that my
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  check up room is facing The West Wing and not the East wing
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  because I like the draft from the east.
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  Like, no, I am going to be a little nervous.
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  I am going to stumble over the words.
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  And if all other things go well after the phone call is open
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  for, I will be going through everything that I said,
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  questioning why I sounded like that.
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  But that is besides the point. Actually, no, that is the point.
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  And on the other side of that, food delivery apps, when we're
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  talking about how convenience has a cost, these food delivery
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  apps, despite being convenient for us, not necessarily
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  monetarily, but I guess an experience can sometimes be
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  predatory with how much they profit off of these restaurants
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  that are on their services with things like High Commission fees
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  or other extra fees. According to this website,
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  DoorDash and Uber Eats can take anywhere from 15 to 30%
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  Commission from the restaurant, which is definitely high.
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  The fact that these delivery services could also take card
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  processing fees, delivery fees, order and refund fees, and just
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  general marketing fees for the restaurant.
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  The monetary cost of convenience is also affecting these
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  restaurants as well, not just the consumer.
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  But over the past decade, apps have fundamentally shifted that
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  model. Now, the ordering part tends to
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  take place via an app, which then contacts a delivery driver,
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  who typically doesn't work for the restaurant who transports
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  the food to you. And to be fair, there have been
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  some upsides in this model for restaurants.
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  There's definitely a lot of positives and one of them is
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  like knowing that there's a delivery guy nearby to pick up
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  their food and we don't have to have someone on staff.
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  We would need about 15 guys here at all.
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  Times and it's not like for many of these restaurants, they can
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  afford to like not be on these apps like they're missing out on
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  tons of revenue as well. Like it makes sense that even if
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  these delivery services are drastically eating into the
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  revenue, they still use these services because everyone in the
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  world uses these services. Then another rather large and
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  rather recent show of things that are convenient and just on
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  no convenience is taking over and do not having the best
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  impact on the world is AI. Like if we want to talk about
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  convenience in 2025, we have to talk about AI and it's
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  exponential rise in popularity since like 2022.
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  Like despite it being out for a couple of years now, AI is still
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  pretty fresh and new to the scene.
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  But the thing about AI is that the technology gets better and
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  better by the day and it will continue to get better and make
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  our lives more and more convenient.
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  Like so many of us have grown in the last year to use AI almost
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  daily, like it's actually built into our phones now, like it's
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  made it to be convenient. And I think that there are some
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  great uses for AI and it does make life very convenient.
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  But we do get into tricky water and we really do see the cost of
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  side convenience when it comes to things like the environmental
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  impacts of AI or just the general stealing and disillusion
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  of intellectual property. Like let's talk about convenient
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  artwork really quick because it's something that's relevant
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  and happened recently. Enter the studio gibliification
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  of the Internet for a couple days.
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  If you did not know, a couple of weeks ago, the AI studio Studio
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  Ghibli filter hit the Internet, essentially taking any real life
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  picture and using AI to make it in the the style of Studio
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  Ghibli, the Super dreamy and beautiful art style that comes
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  from Studio Ghibli. And this isn't the first time
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  that Studio Ghibli AI filters had come and circulated around
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  the Internet, especially on TikTok, because that's usually
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  how these trends sort of work. But as we've talked about in
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  previous videos, trends aren't always just like cute, harmless
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  little things. They sometimes have real world
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  impact, especially when we talk about things like art usage and
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  there's much debate about the use of AI art.
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  My personal take is like I don't have a problem with AI that is
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  meant to like help and assist you for things like emails or
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  essentially like a brainstorming tool.
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  But when it comes to things like art that take creative integrity
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  and take the amount of time dedication into humanity that is
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  put into inherent art. It rubs me the wrong way when
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  you can tell an algorithm to make something in the style of
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  someone's entire life work in a couple of seconds and just get
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  like a RIP off version of that. The founder of Studio Ghibli,
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  Hayao Miyazaki, who is the originator of this art style
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  openly and publicly hates AI. He once said whoever creates
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  this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever.
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  I'm utterly disgusted. I strongly feel that this is an
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  insult to life itself. When he saw a demonstration of
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  AI creating animation. And you know what's bad?
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  When like the creator of the art sale that is being popular right
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  now is openly saying like he, I hate this stuff.
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  Don't do it. Because Miyazaki is known to
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  hand draw each individual frame of his movies.
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  And that's what brings so much heart and life and character to
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  his projects and makes you appreciate them because you
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  know, it was a labor of love. And to know that and then go
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  around just using the giveaway feature anyway.
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  Is it the deepest thing in the world?
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  No, but it is kind of disrespectful and contradictory
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  to the originator's personal philosophies, especially given
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  the environmental messaging in a lot of his films.
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  And to add on to the conversation of unethical and
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  just plain out wrong uses of AI. She'll even get into the picture
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  that the White House tweeted out using the Studio Ghibli AI
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  filter on a photo of a woman getting.
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  Yeah, I think of the trend was funny before, it definitely is
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  not now. And a big rebuttal to this whole
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  point is like, it's accessible art, anyone can do it.
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  That's the point. Like what if you can't draw
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  yourself or be able to Commission it yourself?
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  That's sort of the point. That's why talent is talent.
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  That's why people are revered for their talents and for their
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  contributions to the world because they are unusual.
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  Not everyone is able to do them. Like we're not all born singers,
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  athletes, dancers, whatever, what have you.
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  There are people that are exceptional at that, that spend
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  their life honing this craft to be good at it.
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  And I think I can understand like the democratization of all
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  these things that usually have landmarks.
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  And that does not mean that AI has to be the solution to that.
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  I'm sorry. But to bring this all back to
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  the whole concept of convenience.
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  And by specifically what we lose by diving too much into
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  convenience when we're talking about things like art, is that
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  like at the heart of art is the pouring of time and dedication
• 11:00
  into a piece. However, when you teach a
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  machine to create a frame that would have normally taken hours
• 11:05
  or even days to create, what are we ultimately left with?
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  Like, sure, we can have something come out quicker, but
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  it's nothing new. It's just an amalgamation of
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  what the machine is plagiarized from other art.
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  And some may say like, that is just like the whole art
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  experience. It's like the human experience,
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  just like plagiarizing other people and coming together and
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  twisting it and making it something new.
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  Which makes you want to ask the question whether or not
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  imitation is the same thing as imagination.
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  An AI art algorithm on the other hand, is designed with the sole
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  purpose of perfectly plagiarizing a pre-existing
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  style. In fact, that's all they're
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  capable of. The nuance of a human's
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  personality seeping in when they emulate someone else's style is
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  not a thing with a machine. It is creating an image of
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  something in the exact style of a human.
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  Who did not consent to their work being used to fuel the
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  existence of said machine, without which it couldn't even
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  exist. But in the reality we live in
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  right now, AI art can replace every single art style that has
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  ever existed, demotivating anybody from studying how to
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  become a career artist ever again, because it's no longer
• 12:06
  lucrative in any conceivable way.
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  And once there are no more artists, the AI art will never
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  evolve again because there's no new data to feed it, meaning the
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  art developed in our lifetime will be the last artistic
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  evolution to ever happen. So really, everybody loses.
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  And culture as we know it. Regarding the idea that AI art
• 12:25
  is no different than self checkout kiosks replacing human
• 12:28
  service workers, I really don't think it's a fair comparison.
• 12:31
  No shade at all at the value of service workers, but the skills
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  to work at Target can be mastered in a very short amount
• 12:37
  of time and are transferable to many other careers, whereas art
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  can take a lifetime to master. It fosters community, feeds the
• 12:45
  souls when we get home from our monotonous day jobs, and gives
• 12:49
  us cultural meaning. To erase that, I think, is so
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  much more detrimental to culture and the human experience that a
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  lot of people are ready to admit.
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  Not to mention destroying the livelihoods of millions of
• 12:59
  artists around the world in a way far more destructive than
• 13:02
  replacing service industry work with robots ever could, in my
• 13:05
  opinion. And all of this is happening
• 13:07
  when we can't afford eggs. Now let's talk about the main
• 13:10
  conversation that people usually have when it comes to
• 13:12
  convenience, AI and impacts on people.
• 13:15
  Usually the intersection of those things lands in schools.
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  AI in schools has been a big topic of debate for many
• 13:21
  different reasons because there are some pros, cons, and things
• 13:24
  that ultimately and things that can kind of go terribly if left
• 13:27
  unchecked, like from writing essays with one of those main
• 13:29
  things being the lost inability to critically think.
• 13:32
  We've talked about this before not sound like a broken record
• 13:34
  because I know something else said that we've been talking
• 13:36
  about some of the things in these videos, but that's because
• 13:37
  everything is related. But yeah, over reliance on AI
• 13:40
  and not having to think on your own, write on your own, read on
• 13:43
  your own, or put in any of that effort on your own does
• 13:46
  eventually lead you to not being able to do that as well on your
• 13:48
  own. I do think the casual use of AI
• 13:50
  to like fix or alter tone, reword something really quick,
• 13:54
  cool. But when you're using AI solely
• 13:56
  to give you a summary of research without double checking
• 14:00
  or cross referencing, we are losing out on some recipes here
• 14:02
  because like especially for that AI Google overview thing that
• 14:05
  they got going on, it has been wrong and continues to be wrong
• 14:08
  so many times because it's not yet perfect and it requires you
• 14:12
  to still do some digging on your own.
• 14:14
  My lovely researcher added a little note to include here,
• 14:16
  which says that we the class 2023 shout out to y'all
• 14:19
  graduated at an opportune time because that was like right
• 14:22
  before ChatGPT really hit the streets.
• 14:24
  And she goes and I quote, while it can be a tool, like all
• 14:27
  technology, I would have definitely let it make me a
• 14:30
  tool. And I think that's real.
• 14:33
  And that kind of goes back to the whole thing.
• 14:34
  Like we've gotten so used to using these convenient tools to
• 14:37
  help us and strides to make life more convenient in the short
• 14:39
  term. They're making life a hell of a
• 14:41
  lot more inconvenient in the long term when you're trying to
• 14:43
  create a critical or a profound argument, e-mail, paper,
• 14:46
  whatever would have you by yourself.
• 14:47
  So and you're funny even harder to do so than it was before
• 14:50
  because you're so out of practice of doing it.
• 14:52
  And by continuously relying on these methods of convenience,
• 14:55
  we're gradually, little by little, tipping away at our own
• 14:57
  autonomy and being able to do things for ourselves.
• 14:59
  Like there's a wild amount of Tik Toks online being like, I
• 15:02
  got caught using chat CBT. So now I'm using another AI on
• 15:05
  top of it to humanize my paper a little bit more so that the
• 15:07
  teacher's AI can't detect the other AI.
• 15:08
  Like do we see where we're going wrong here?
• 15:12
  Like again, AI can be an amazing tool, a great tool, but like for
• 15:16
  the majority of people, students and people included, that does
• 15:18
  not seem to be the limit or the common use for AI.
• 15:22
  Now let's table the AI conversation for a second and
• 15:24
  let's talk about more. So how convenience again has
• 15:29
  contributed to the decline in quality of friendships,
• 15:31
  relationships, and social interactions as a whole.
• 15:34
  Basically how convenience has gradually LED us to isolation
• 15:37
  and individualism. Such a great topic.
• 15:40
  I kind of touched on this a little bit in the bad friends
• 15:42
  video, but to expand a little bit more, I think that the whole
• 15:44
  cut off culture slash avoidance culture being disguised as
• 15:47
  self-care is very telling. And no, this is not me saying
• 15:50
  that you should break no contact with your ex or that you should
• 15:52
  reach out to that friend that stole your money and slapped
• 15:54
  your mom. That was crazy.
• 15:56
  I don't know what kind of lives y'all live that was that was
• 15:59
  insane, my fault I was just freestyling.
• 16:02
  But no, leave those people alone.
• 16:04
  That's not what I'm trying to say.
• 16:05
  I'm talking about the general attitude around ghost dig or
• 16:08
  around cutting someone off, whether that be a family member,
• 16:10
  friend or lover or whatever would happen over a disagreement
• 16:12
  or an annoyance. Like I think about this a lot in
• 16:14
  relation to the whole discourse that's been going around when it
• 16:16
  comes to the latest season of the White Lotus.
• 16:17
  The three toxic friends, Lori, Kate and Jacqueline.
• 16:19
  If you haven't seen the latest season of White Lotus, I'm sorry
• 16:22
  if I lose you here. Maybe watch it or just keep on
• 16:24
  going. Essentially, if you have not
• 16:26
  seen it and don't care about spoilers, the three friends are
• 16:28
  always talking behind their backs and neither one of them
• 16:30
  are necessarily great friends to each other.
• 16:32
  But there comes this one point where Jacqueline does something
• 16:34
  really sheisty to Lori and Lori has this moment where she calls
• 16:38
  out each one of her friends. And the general sentiment online
• 16:41
  from the audience is that they're really excited for her
• 16:43
  to do this because it's like a clap back and her staying up for
• 16:45
  herself and knowing her worth. But then people were kind of
• 16:47
  disappointed in Lori at the very end because she chose to stay
• 16:50
  with those friends instead of cutting them off and just like
• 16:52
  leaving them where they were. And many people have had many
• 16:54
  think pieces and thoughts on like why that is some saying
• 16:57
  that that's what happens with true friendship or like some
• 16:59
  saying that she wasn't strong enough to leave.
• 17:00
  I'll get all over the spectrum. But when it comes to the sake of
• 17:03
  this conversation, I think it does come down to the fact that
• 17:05
  unfortunately, when it comes to things like having community, we
• 17:08
  have to learn to work through uncomfortable emotions and maybe
• 17:10
  annoying and inconvenient situations.
• 17:12
  And sometimes that does mean enduring through a little
• 17:15
  discomfort. And that's not to say that just
• 17:16
  sit down and put up with anything.
• 17:18
  Like always trust your intuition, especially if
• 17:20
  something seems like actually dangerous.
• 17:21
  And again, when I'm saying, oh, this, this is very different
• 17:23
  from like harmful, genuinely toxic in other situations like
• 17:27
  that. At the center of all this toxic
• 17:28
  individualism, toxic self-care and toxic positivity is the same
• 17:32
  idea. Friendship is a reciprocal
• 17:33
  exchange of goods. You must optimize the time to
• 17:36
  fulfill your greatest potential and anything that isn't directly
• 17:38
  related to your personal journey is a waste of time.
• 17:41
  In many ways, our culture has normalized that if someone is
• 17:43
  inconvenient, like they live far away, they don't necessarily
• 17:46
  have the most compatible styles of communication.
• 17:48
  Like for example, if a friend is very nonchalant about time and
• 17:51
  isn't as punctual as you may be, etcetera, etcetera, that we
• 17:54
  could just cut them off. And of course everyone has free
• 17:56
  will and they are valid in that decision.
• 17:58
  There have been conversations online about how this can be the
• 18:00
  incompatibility that can be friendship ending for people and
• 18:03
  that can be completely valid. Everyone is entitled to their
• 18:05
  own free will and people making decisions for where they want to
• 18:07
  take their life and who they want to take it with is very
• 18:10
  valid. And when it comes to things like
• 18:11
  a long term community, this may be an unpopular opinion.
• 18:14
  It is OK to not always be compatible with your friends,
• 18:17
  family, and we are in a different part of our life
• 18:19
  journeys and that's OK. But there also is like the whole
• 18:21
  online self-care wave that centers individualism in a
• 18:24
  certain way that makes it see that these traits or other
• 18:26
  traits are like punishable by death to all of them.
• 18:29
  Like maybe not death that's traumatic, but like death of a
• 18:31
  friendship. Like yes, it's true that having
• 18:33
  friends that don't share 100% of your traits, it is inconvenient,
• 18:36
  but that's just the reality of what it's like to be around
• 18:38
  other people that aren't yourself.
• 18:40
  And of course you can try and surround yourself with as many
• 18:41
  people that are like you as possible, but one that's
• 18:44
  difficult to do. And oftentimes what I think
• 18:46
  happens a lot of times with that is like when you create a
• 18:49
  situation of having a whole bunch of people that are exactly
• 18:51
  like you, You realize eventually as you get to know somebody that
• 18:54
  y'all actually aren't that similar at all.
• 18:56
  You'll have a lot of similarities.
• 18:57
  But because y'all are different people, y'all are different
• 18:59
  people, which then can create friction between people that
• 19:01
  thought that they created a group of people that were
• 19:03
  exactly like them instead of going into the whole community
• 19:06
  friendship building thing, understanding that people are
• 19:07
  going to be different. So yeah, people are going to be
• 19:09
  different. And of course, so the
• 19:10
  differences do bug you or bother you.
• 19:11
  That's a conversation that you got to have.
• 19:13
  And it's going to be uncomfortable.
• 19:14
  But you know, that's OK. And that's part of it.
• 19:16
  And enough about hard discussions.
• 19:17
  Let's talk about how we as a culture have built relationships
• 19:19
  where we're scared to inconvenience each other.
• 19:22
  Like there are so many Tik Toks online of people talking about
• 19:24
  how they're afraid or nervous or uncomfortable with
• 19:27
  inconveniencing their friends. And again, hey, that's what
• 19:29
  they're there for. See the Genzy willingness
• 19:31
  epidemic video. See the Genzy bad friend video.
• 19:33
  You. Might think the opposite, but
• 19:35
  you are probably not bothering your friends enough.
• 19:38
  I know, I know, we're all so afraid of being just so
• 19:40
  annoying. But The thing is, we're not
• 19:43
  annoying. And that fear keeps us from
• 19:45
  building community and connection.
• 19:47
  And I know I'm just rambling but like seriously.
• 19:50
  Your friends love you. Your friends care about you,
• 19:52
  your friends want to hear from you and are likely sitting there
• 19:55
  thinking I don't want to be annoying not reaching out to
• 19:58
  you. Meanwhile you miss your bestie.
• 20:00
  And I know maybe they don't respond right away, but
• 20:02
  remember, we're all young adults with a lot of stuff going on.
• 20:05
  We got new jobs, some of us are getting married, some of us are
• 20:08
  having kids, some of us are running marathons or starting
• 20:10
  dating. We're busy.
• 20:12
  But we love each other and we want to talk to each other.
• 20:15
  So if you're like, Oh my gosh, I miss my friends, but I don't
• 20:18
  want to be annoying, be annoying because I can promise you you're
• 20:21
  not annoying, you're just insecure about it to like call a
• 20:25
  friend. So, yeah, since we need to get
• 20:26
  over our fear of convenience or being inconvenienced or
• 20:29
  inconveniencing others, especially those that are close
• 20:31
  to us, like pick up that firm from the airport, have that
• 20:34
  tough conversation, be a villager.
• 20:36
  Because again, our reliance on convenience, our reliance on
• 20:39
  these comforts are directly harming us.
• 20:42
  And we're seeing that it is not just the AIS, it's not just the
• 20:45
  doordashes of it all. Like our reliance on convenience
• 20:47
  on every aspect of our lives has been slowly but surely making it
• 20:50
  physically painful to become inconvenience in all aspects of
• 20:53
  our lives. So when it comes to things like
• 20:55
  social inconveniences, we avoid the social interactions or like
• 20:58
  skew them up to make them more than they were meant to be.
• 21:00
  Now, let's take this and bring it here when we talk about the
• 21:04
  relational piece of convenience. Now let's talk about convenience
• 21:07
  in the living situation. And you already know if I'm
• 21:10
  talking about convenience in living situations, we need to
• 21:12
  talk about those gentrify apartments.
• 21:14
  OK, we need to talk about the gentrifier buildings because
• 21:19
  those are the final boss of comedians.
• 21:21
  When I was planning and brainstorming this video with my
• 21:23
  researcher, we were talking about how low key the modern 5
• 21:25
  over ones kind of give pet off to come walk with me.
• 21:28
  Like not visually, but when we talk about things like
• 21:31
  surveillance. See previous videos, see how
• 21:33
  everything's connected. Not the same, but connected.
• 21:36
  Why are the walls and floors so thin in these gentrifier
• 21:38
  buildings? OK, it kind of seems like
• 21:40
  they're built to make you all hate your neighbors before you
• 21:42
  even meet them. I wonder why?
• 21:44
  Like these five over ones are praised and built everywhere
• 21:46
  because of the cheap building costs for developers.
• 21:48
  And while these style of buildings do provide density
• 21:50
  housing and are convenient and are relatively cheap for
• 21:53
  developers to make, oftentimes these style of buildings are
• 21:55
  expensive for the actual tenants, depending on city that
• 21:58
  you live in, of course. And of course, despite how much
• 22:00
  you're paying, you're getting the thin walls and thin floors.
• 22:02
  And they're convenient because not only are they nicer
• 22:05
  buildings, usually aesthetically it's like 5 floors or more of
• 22:08
  housing over one floor of like commercial space.
• 22:10
  So you got the convenience of having something under you,
• 22:12
  whether that be a grocery store, a coffee shop, a Pilates studio.
• 22:15
  Insert gentrifier indicator here.
• 22:16
  Like if you're from DCI, don't know if y'all knew this.
• 22:18
  Lord, I went to school in DC. In DC is gentrifying boots.
• 22:21
  When I'm talking about these proper ones, I'm talking about
• 22:23
  Northeast DC, I'm talking about Noma.
• 22:25
  OK, clock it if you can clock it LA Think like downtown on
• 22:28
  Englewood and more like these new buildings are definitely
• 22:30
  more convenient for the tenants. And these style of buildings
• 22:32
  really became popular in the 20 tens because again, can be made
• 22:35
  relatively cheap and can provide dense housing for one building.
• 22:38
  And also retail space now is at the end of the world if you live
• 22:41
  in one of these. No, I've lived in my share of
• 22:43
  them. And I'm not saying it's a bad
• 22:44
  thing too. I just think it's interesting
• 22:45
  when we talk about things like convenience and specifically how
• 22:47
  we talk about convenience and building community, that you see
• 22:50
  how these modern buildings normalize living above retail
• 22:53
  stores and these dense, thinly floored apartments, but still
• 22:57
  don't really give you a way to to engage with your community in
• 23:00
  a significant way. And honestly can kind of make
• 23:02
  you hate them, thus making you want to isolate even more.
• 23:05
  Because if you have everything in this set area, we don't
• 23:07
  really have these spaces to really network and meet new
• 23:10
  people around you. And the people that are in your
• 23:12
  immediate vicinity. You're only really getting
• 23:14
  exposed to them when they're making noise or irritating you
• 23:16
  or whatever would have you. You're not going to really be
• 23:18
  inclined to want to reach out and chat.
• 23:20
  Like who's going to want to talk to and organize with someone
• 23:22
  that always feels like they're intruding on their personal
• 23:24
  space or that you may or may not like, like everyone has an
• 23:27
  upstairs neighbor or downstairs neighbor, a neighbor to your
• 23:29
  left or right that'd be making too much noise that you are
• 23:30
  like, I don't like you. I don't know what you got going
• 23:33
  on, but I don't like it. Which does not really help the
• 23:35
  case of building community and stopping that whole isolation
• 23:37
  thing. And having these sort of things
• 23:38
  kind of benefit the landlord's low key.
• 23:40
  Because like when it comes to landlords or apartment
• 23:42
  management treating tenants unfairly or like when it comes
• 23:45
  to checking in on things like maintenance, repair times or
• 23:48
  rent increases, tenants are less likely to come together to
• 23:51
  combat these sort of things or to really check and make sure if
• 23:53
  these things are being done, that they're being done
• 23:55
  equitably and equally. Because like think about it,
• 23:57
  you're less likely to go go to your next door neighbor if
• 23:59
  you're living in an apartment first.
• 24:00
  Something like extra sugar or like an extra egg if you're
• 24:02
  running low or just have transparency around your living
• 24:04
  situation with your neighbor talking about things like, oh
• 24:05
  wait, I have this thing that's broken in my apartment and
• 24:07
  they've taken like weeks to fix it.
• 24:09
  And you come to find that your neighbor had something similar
• 24:11
  happened and got fixed within a day.
• 24:12
  Or like things like your rent increases being different.
• 24:14
  You're not going to know these things because you're not
• 24:15
  talking to your neighbors about it.
• 24:16
  Like I think of that one scene in like 1 of them days with like
• 24:19
  Kiki and Sizza where like they go over to mod appetizer
• 24:21
  apartment and they see how nice her place is in relation to
• 24:23
  everyone else's. You don't get to know that.
• 24:25
  You don't get to know these things because you're too busy
• 24:27
  being mad at your neighbor for being loud.
• 24:28
  And that's not your fault because the apartments are built
• 24:31
  terribly. So you can hear your neighbor
• 24:32
  being loud even though we're they're not necessarily being
• 24:35
  loud. It's just that the walls are
• 24:36
  very thin. So what does that benefit,
• 24:37
  really? Oh, wait, I don't go to my
• 24:39
  neighbor to ask for one egg or One Cup of sugar that I need to
• 24:42
  finish the recipe. I'm gonna go downstairs to the
• 24:44
  grocery store downstairs and buy a full carton of eggs or buy a
• 24:47
  full thing of sugar that I didn't necessarily need, but now
• 24:50
  I have. So instead of having a
• 24:52
  conversation with my neighbor, my community member and getting
• 24:55
  some free, I'm now spending money at a corporation.
• 24:59
  I'm not talking to my neighbor or my community about things
• 25:01
  that are going on in my apartment.
• 25:02
  I'm not checking to see if the rent increases are standard or
• 25:05
  is a rent increase across the board.
• 25:07
  So now I'm just going to pay the rent increase spending money
• 25:10
  when it could have been a conversation and I didn't need
• 25:12
  to. You see where I'm getting at, It
• 25:13
  really does tie back to the whole convenience thing.
• 25:15
  Inconvenient to get to know your neighbors, convenient to live in
• 25:18
  building with convenient things around.
• 25:20
  Not convenient to know your neighbors, not convenient to be
• 25:22
  in the situation within walls. Thus, how convenient are things
• 25:25
  really? Again by central convenience, we
• 25:28
  let our relationships and our community take a backseat and we
• 25:30
  further into ourselves by ourselves, thus letting
• 25:33
  isolation physically and emotionally become inevitable,
• 25:36
  but only if we really let it. Now let's talk with this
• 25:38
  conversation by talking about we kind of touched it before, but
• 25:40
  like talking about what is the point of convenience and who is
• 25:43
  really benefiting from this? If the people are getting
• 25:45
  convenience but also being very inconvenienced by the
• 25:48
  convenience, why does it seem like the powers that be are
• 25:50
  pushing this so much? Well, obviously as we know
• 25:52
  convenience is nice most of the time.
• 25:54
  We're busy people with busy lives and need things to make
• 25:57
  our busy lives easier to be busy.
• 26:00
  It's an insane conversation, but what happens when we become
• 26:02
  comfortable with convenience? We touched on this conversation
• 26:04
  a little bit before. There are two main wins here for
• 26:06
  the powers that be that keep life convenient.
• 26:08
  One, we have found a normalized way to commodify everyday tasks,
• 26:11
  which we've already talked about commodifying inconvenient tasks
• 26:14
  that we would have normally done for free or for low cost like
• 26:17
  things like Task Rabbit, food delivery services, AI
• 26:20
  extensions, Amazon Prime, etcetera, etcetera.
• 26:22
  Especially for things like, again, walk with me here, when
• 26:26
  to talk about this, we're introducing a political
• 26:28
  scientist by the name of Robert Putnam.
• 26:30
  Robert Putnam is a political scientist whose life work has
• 26:33
  been dedicated to prove that social capital plays a vital
• 26:35
  role in the functioning of societies and has significant
• 26:37
  implications for various outcomes, including economic
• 26:40
  development, political participation, or an overall
• 26:42
  social well-being. His theory urges Americans to
• 26:44
  join a club or community to maintain the health of
• 26:47
  democracy. Any other whole documentary
• 26:49
  detailing this on Netflix called Join or Die.
• 26:51
  And I mentioned because he has a great quote in an interview
• 26:53
  where he says that we are recently socially isolated and
• 26:55
  that makes our country vulnerable to, I was going to
• 26:58
  say fascism, but that isn't quite true, but it's close to
• 27:01
  being true. And if you don't believe that,
• 27:03
  Steve Bannon, the executive and former White House chief
• 27:05
  strategist to Trump, cited Robert Putnam's work as
• 27:09
  influential to his work on Trump's campaign and
• 27:12
  specifically targeted people who were isolated and fragmented to
• 27:15
  offer them community by way of supporting Trump.
• 27:18
  And there's a data showing that socially isolated people tended
• 27:21
  towards voting for Trump. Now, of course, this may be
• 27:23
  skewed because those people that are tending to be isolated also
• 27:27
  do tend to have more radical ideas because they're not having
• 27:30
  social interactions showing that these radical things don't
• 27:33
  really work or apply to these boogeymen that they have in
• 27:37
  their ideas in practice, because the real world isn't like that.
• 27:39
  But of course, people that are isolated don't really get too
• 27:41
  much interaction in the real world.
• 27:42
  But I'm saying that like, it's not crazy to think that as more
• 27:46
  and more people are isolated, more and more people can begin
• 27:49
  to think that way. People divorced from community
• 27:51
  occupation and association are first and foremost among these
• 27:54
  supporters of extremism by bowling alone.
• 27:56
  The more we're in our own worlds, the more we only send to
• 27:59
  ourselves. The more we play into this
• 28:00
  convenience in our own individualism, the easier it is
• 28:02
  to just generally lose the plot. It's not a one step pipeline as
• 28:05
  many are not. And like, I'm not saying that
• 28:07
  like you use Amazon Prime ones and all of a sudden I'm alone
• 28:09
  and like a mega fan of Joe Rogan.
• 28:11
  Like that's not what we're getting at here.
• 28:13
  I'm just saying that it's important to understand
• 28:14
  everything and how we move in society is gradual and based on
• 28:18
  the individual decisions that we make and what we're choosing to
• 28:20
  normalize. So, and as of late, we have
• 28:22
  normalized choosing convenience and we've talked about where
• 28:25
  that can eventually go if we leave it unchecked because at
• 28:28
  the end of the day, I mentioned this earlier, convenience breeds
• 28:31
  compliance. And the powers that be tend to
• 28:33
  know this like it's the whole bread and circus of it all.
• 28:35
  Keep us fed, keep us entertained, keep us in a
• 28:37
  convenient life. And it'll be harder for us to
• 28:40
  want against that because we've gone accustomed to that.
• 28:42
  We're comfortable with that. And that's one of the major
• 28:44
  reasons why some people are are deterred from speaking up to
• 28:46
  injustice or rocking the boat too much because they're afraid
• 28:49
  of compromising that privilege. And like I said, the powers that
• 28:51
  be really bank on people's fear of losing that privilege.
• 28:54
  And people's reliance and dependence on their conveniences
• 28:57
  in life to dissuade people from doing certain things and that
• 28:59
  they can continue on whatever agenda that they are on.
• 29:02
  So it's important to be aware of this and to know that in order
• 29:05
  to have change, you need to be OK with being inconvenienced
• 29:07
  first and foremost. And I guess the whole point of
• 29:09
  this video is not saying like you need to just be comfortable
• 29:12
  with like not being convenient in your life.
• 29:13
  Because as we know, many things are coming at us very fast in
• 29:16
  this world. We're on the brinks of a
• 29:17
  recession, which is going to make everyone's lives very
• 29:19
  uncomfortable to varying degrees.
• 29:20
  And again, I'm not saying to just give up all your
• 29:22
  conveniences and to just get used to this really.
• 29:24
  You can give me a lifestyle and to completely live differently
• 29:26
  than you have before. But essentially just like start
• 29:28
  micro dosing inconvenience, like start being more OK with little
• 29:31
  inconveniences in your life to work up the confidence, work up
• 29:35
  the world with all to work up the resistance to more major
• 29:38
  inconveniences in your life. Because again, community is
• 29:41
  inconvenient, change is inconvenient.
• 29:43
  And by continuously involving yourself in these communities,
• 29:46
  we're training ourselves to fix a solution to any inconvenience
• 29:48
  that may pop up in our lives or immediately in our social lives
• 29:52
  and can thus get used to normalizing those feelings.
• 29:54
  And also having some people to spend life with, which is the
• 29:56
  goal. At the end of the day, life is
• 29:58
  just a set of inconveniences and we have to define ourselves by
• 30:00
  how we navigate to cutting any feelings of discomfort from our
• 30:03
  lives doesn't necessarily make our lives better.
• 30:05
  It just streamlines us to nowhere.
• 30:07
  And I will leave you all with that.
• 30:08
  Thank you so, so much for watching again.
• 30:10
  If you're new to the channel, then definitely subscribe, do
• 30:12
  the like of this video and plug in my socials.
• 30:14
  I want to hear from you. What do you think about all
• 30:16
  this? What do you think about the
• 30:17
  convenience culture? How have you seen this play out
• 30:19
  in your life, if at all? And if not, and if you disagree
• 30:21
  with me, let me know. I'd love to have a conversation
• 30:23
  down in the comments section. Other than that, y'all, I've an
• 30:25
  emergency and I will see you in the next video.
• 30:27
  Peace.