The Great Exhaustion: What the Chronically Online Commentariat Is Saying About This Moment
A survey of recent posts from the top internet culture writers (January 2026)
Something is breaking. The writers who spend their lives watching the internet - Ryan Broderick, Kate Lindsay, Taylor Lorenz, Casey Newton, Max Read - are all saying versions of the same thing this month: the platforms are dying, not with a bang but with a slow suffocation of spam, slop, and political capture. Here's what they're seeing.
The Platform Exhaustion Thesis
Kate Lindsay argues in Social media dies in 2026 that the platforms have become genuinely uninteresting--and that's what will finally break our addiction to them. She points to the rise of Brick (a device that locks you out of apps), the New York Times's 2026 predictions including "dumb phones as status symbols" and "war on slop," and the Washington Post declaring phone-free bars are in.
Her diagnosis is blunt: "One out of every ten Instagram accounts that follow me these days is a real person. The rest are stock-photo sock puppets or nonsensical spam or fake dog rescues." Facebook is "pure slop." Twitter is "riddled with Grok-generated child pornography." YouTube has become TV. The feed, as Instagram head Adam Mosseri admitted, is dead.
Kristin Merrilees digs into that Mosseri admission in Adam Mosseri says the old Instagram feed is dead. Mosseri argued that "unless you are under 25, you probably think of Instagram as feed of square photos: polished makeup, skin smoothing, and beautiful landscapes. That feed is dead." Merrilees notes the shift toward DMs and close friends stories as the new spaces for authentic sharing, while the main feed has become purely professional/commercial.
The TikTok Ban and Political Realignment
Taylor Lorenz makes the case in The Great Creator Reset that the TikTok ban will permanently reshape the political composition of the creator economy. She cites Pew Research showing TikTok is the only platform where left-leaning news influencers outnumber right-leaning ones, and that 73% of Democrat-leaning teens use TikTok versus 52% of Republicans.
Her argument: the ban consolidates power to Meta and X, both of which have "outright embraced right wing ideology." Right-wing creators have support infrastructure already in place to transition audiences. Progressive creators will be forced to rebuild on hostile platforms, alone. "Most will fail, many will simply give up."
Zuckerberg's Strategic Makeover
Max Read analyzes Zuckerberg's transformation in Why is Mark Zuckerberg vice-signaling?. The gold chain, the MMA, the boxy tees--Read argues this isn't just about courting Trump but about internal workforce politics.
His thesis: the makeover attracts a new cohort of "right-coded" employees while pushing out workers prone to organizing. It also builds an online defender ecosystem like Musk has cultivated. This is the third consecutive election cycle where Zuckerberg has announced content moderation changes based on political winds.
AI as Creativity Simulator
Ryan Broderick delivers a verdict on generative AI in Generative AI is an expensive edging machine. After years of attempting to use AI for grocery ordering, troubleshooting, business planning, therapy, and video editing, his conclusion: it fails every time in the same way.
The core concept is the "AI imagination gap"--the technology can't match what's in your head, and it can't match the satisfaction of making the imperfect version yourself. Instead, "it charges you for the thrill of feeling like you're building or making something and, just like a casino--or online dating, or pornography, or TikTok--cares more about that monetizable loop of engagement, of progress, than it does the finished product."
Casey Newton at Platformer has been covering the AI productivity question from another angle, including pieces on the AI productivity paradox (managers say it makes them productive; workers don't) and his own experience with Claude Code.
The Case for Staying Online
Against the grain, Aidan Walker argues in don't log off that digital publics retain more power than we think. Two key points: First, platform history shows constant radical change--the game gets rewritten every five years. Second, "the most powerful group on the internet is everyday people."
He points to coordinated actions like the Vexbolts mass unfollowing (where millions followed then unfollowed a random streamer at midnight as a joke) as evidence that users can still flex power over attention. His reading: "The algorithm is ours, not theirs."
The Recurring Themes
Across all these writers, several threads emerge:
1. Platform exhaustion is real. The platforms have become less interesting, more commercial, and flooded with AI slop and spam.
2. Political capture is accelerating. The TikTok ban, Zuckerberg's transformation, and Meta's policy changes represent a systematic shift of online infrastructure toward the right.
3. AI disappoints. Despite the hype, generative AI consistently fails to deliver on creative promises while monetizing the feeling of progress.
4. Authenticity is in crisis. When AI can generate "flawless" content, the polished look becomes suspect. Raw and amateur aesthetics are the new markers of human creation.
5. Users still have power. Digital publics can coordinate attention in ways that matter--the question is whether that power can be mobilized for anything beyond jokes.
Who to Follow
For ongoing coverage of these themes:
- Ryan Broderick: Garbage Day + Panic World podcast | @broderick
- Kate Lindsay: Embedded + ICYMI podcast | @katielindsay
- Taylor Lorenz: User Mag + Power User podcast | @taylorlorenz
- Casey Newton: Platformer | @CaseyNewton
- Max Read: Read Max | @maxread
- Aidan Walker: How To Do Things With Memes | @wordways
- Kristin Merrilees: Phone Time | @kristinmerrilees
- Sean Monahan: 8Ball | @SeanMonahan
- Joshua Citarella: Doomscroll | @joshuacitarella
