Reality is as fractured as politics. What could possibly go wrong next? Trends are culturally specific and my viewpoint is an American one. It’s a Florida one, in fact, and given the algorithmic-controlled media complex, I’ve no doubt experienced an entirely different reality than you.

Reality itself is fragmented into sales funnels.

We’ve all experienced distinct realities this year because, increasingly, reality itself is fragmented into sales funnels.

As Elle Griffin, the author of brilliantly dictated in this post about our broken Internet, we tend to notice the worst things and the most sensational version of reality more than the positive elements.

Here is my own dystopian, sensational memory tube for the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.

Division

As if the anger and division triggered by the pandemic had a waiting period, in 2022, post-vaccine roll-out, people started hating each other even more. Things did not get fixed. More than any other year, I personally experienced and witnessed intolerance to difference. The rifting kicked off with the Canadian Trucker demonstrations in Jan of 2022 and continued throughout the year.

When peaceful, tolerant Canada ignited with discontent, I did a double take. Canada is a very pacifist/mind-your-own-business kinda place, but in 2022 they popped off with unusual political unrest and even mass shootings.

Canada is a microcosm of us all.

Resentment and distrust were the real pandemics of 2022.

And these divisions touched me personally.

My political beliefs haven’t changed in years; I’m an independent person who doesn’t fully agree with either U.S. party, but I love to share “crazy” videos from both sides on my friends-only Instagram. I often share things that are just WILD. Sharing isn’t an endorsement from me, it’s just me saying, “Woah, I’m looking at this. Look at this too and tell me what you think.”

This used to be fine. It was FUNNY. Ha-ha.

Not anymore.

This year was the first year ever that I got long messages, upset messages from friends and family—worried or hurt because I’d simply shared a crazy video or tweet. The intensity of emotions on all sides blew me away.

No one could have predicted all the crazy shit that went down. I remember everyone joking around this time last year that 2022 was going to be 2020-part 2, and that was about right.

From Ye to Z, 2022 was TOO much.

The Demise of #MeToo

And speaking of too much and canceled people, sadly, American society seemed to have had too much of the #MeToo movement. 2022 marked the end of the #MeToo movement as we know it. Thanks, Johnny Depp.

A publishing exec even told me to “cut the #metoo stuff” from a memoir I had on submission.

Image from a meme about Amber Heard looking like a sims character by Charlotte Dune

I was like NOPE. Bye.

But alas, R. Kelly released a prison album defending his rapes. Ye openly stalked and harassed Kim K, elevated the status of a known domestic abuser, Marylin Manson, and showed his employees revenge porn.

Amber Heard was voted more disliked than Putin in a major poll, and even Snoop Dogg was accused of sexual assault this year with little to no social repercussions.

I searched #metoo on Twitter, and the top tweet that appeared was a link to an OnlyFans account about women having sex with dogs. Sad times.

At least alleged rapist Chris North, aka Mr. Big, got murdered by a Peloton on HBO, in the Sex and the City reboot, Just Like That, (AMAZING, loved it) but aside from his demise, justice for sexual assault and abuse survivors took a major hit. Men essentially clapped back, flexed their big, RevengeLawyer financial muscles, and sued their #metoos for slander and defamation.

If you want to support women being sued for reporting sexual assault, check out this campaign. The case these women are caught up in is still ongoing.

MetaFails

Meme about Mark Zuckerberg, author unknown

More fails. Like the #metoo movement, full of promise, Zuckerberg’s Meta metaverse failed to thrive.

Even I predicted the metaverse would be much bigger by the end of the year.

Charlotte Dune's Lagoon

The Age of Imagination

Listen now (12 min) | Humans are hardwired to be storytellers, story consumers, testers and builders, listeners, learners, communicators, and designers. Since the dawn of humankind, we’ve relied on stories to unite and separate communities and to spread lies and truths. The metaverse will expand our capacity to create and experience stories and worlds…

Listen now

9 months ago · 1 like · Charlotte Dune

Instead, it grew progressively weirder and worse.

I went from using my oculus headset a lot, to hardly using it, and Meta’s founder gave a creepy/cringy interview on Joe Rogan where he discussed the dream of being able to command his artificial universe with a flick of his spindly wrist.

The NFTverse, closely tied to the metaverse, all but collapsed. Even Art Basel, the cradle of the NFT community, basically had no NFTs this year.

I still think the metaverse contains a great and wonderful potential, but it’s not going to be Meta’s universe. This year’s development of ChatGPT, may also usher in the dystopian reality of Metarats, another one of my 2022 predictions, faster than we think.

Recession Times

Along with the metaverse failing and the NFT market collapse, we saw the collapse of the stock market, the crypto market, the housing market in many places, and one could argue, the collapse of social media as we know it, not to mention the FTX scandal.

In addition to 2020 Part 2, 2022 feels like 2008 is looming and I hope that isn’t what 2023 has in store for us.

I’m not a finance expert, so I don’t want to say too much more, but I miss the 2021 NFT boon days and the exciting promise of NFTs ushering in a boundless new world of potential returns for authors, artists, musicians, and photographers. Instead of humans cashing in on their artistic value in new ways, we basically got AI art and pictures of monkeys.

Though shoutout to author Tim Ferris for still crushing the NFT game during a recession with an “Emergent Long Fiction (ELF) project,” CockPunch, featuring illustrations of fighting cocks, which immediately and triumphantly outsold a certain former president’s simultaneously launched NFT project. This is a victory for writers.

SkinnySkinny

Like our wallets, waistlines also contracted this year and I don’t think it was good.

BBLs are out and diabetes injections are in.

I’m not talking about the waistband of the average person; that might still be expanded from the “pounddemic.” But for rich celebs, 2022 was the year to model the SkinnySkinny (aside from Lizzo, bless her wonderful soul. LOVE HER.)

In my mind, the Slim Thick trend really ended this year when Kim K strolled out at the Met Gala 21 pounds thinner in Marylin Monroe’s old dress. Yes, post-divorce she flaunted a real revenge body.

Likewise, Khloe Kardashian withered to a twig and allegedly reversed her thick girl BBL to a “Country Club BBL.”

Many suspect the Kardashians used diabetes medications, known as semiglutides, to achieve their intense 2022 thinness.

It feels like a return to the heroin chic of the 90s, and Kim K even shared photos of herself with Kate Moss in bed, admitting she’d long admired the model world-renowned for her waif-ness.

The NY Post declared, “Bye bye booty: Heroin chic is back,” and Elon Musk sucked the last bit of fat out of the curvy waist trend when he declared Wegovy, one of the popular semiglutides, was what actually kept him looking “ripped.” And how convenient for a busy CEO to not need to eat…

Hollywood's new secret to losing weight is a diabetes injection

The rise of semiglutides on TikTok for weight loss caused an actual diabetes medication shortage.

Here is a fascinating write-up by about how semiglutides could change the world:

Astral Codex Ten

Semaglutidonomics

2 months ago · 188 likes · 759 comments · Scott Alexander

Some of my own friends injected themselves with this anorexia-inducing magical elixir, and boy did I notice. They dropped 30-40lbs from spring to fall. I started to feel the pressure myself, but with an approximate $2k per month price tag, and a whole host of negative side effects, I can’t bring myself to do it.