Fauxdulthood
It's on the rise.
A few months ago at Book Club, I had an 83 year-old neighbor of mine describe the cruising experience to me: “It’s a good way for those who aren’t actually rich to feel rich.”
Having been on two cruises now myself at 44, both of them in the past 18 months, I would say that resonates.
Now, cruises are generally considered the domain of “the old” and/or “the very old,” but this insight kinda resonates down the youth ladder as well.
In fact, there’s a very small subset of thought-driven content creation that talks about “fake adulthood.”
What is that, you ask?
Well, it means that the conventional concepts of adulthood have eluded you, I.e.:
Car
Home
Spouse
Babies
Well-paying job
(Sadly) Friendships
As these things elude you — and again, I am speaking broadly, not accusing you specifically of lacking friends — then you need another way to feel good and successful in your own skin.
For some, that is as simple as UberEats. Much as it’s possible that “convenience” replaced “community” writ large (which I do believe), it’s also possible that “access to comfort and convenience” is the new “adulthood,” because some of the old markers of adulthood feel financially-unreachable.
This video lays out some of these themes:
Now, is there anything abjectedly wrong with the pursuit of convenience? No. I think Americans have been pursuing that forever, and the rise of Amazon’s capital reserves + the post-2008 recession on-demand economy (with essentially free money bankrolling it) helped scale it. At the same time, we have a ton of teenage mental health problems, and those spill over into early adulthood, and I think ordering a taxi for your burrito is more comforting to some young people than actually walking into a Chipotle and having to order a burrito.
So no, on face there is nothing wrong with pursuing convenience. Could it potentially cause a sixth mass extinction event? Of course it could, but you’d be dead by then anyway.
The interesting thing here, maybe, is that for the past four years we had a lot of language about inclusion and privilege and standing up for people who are marginalized. Much of that was unfortunately flowery Instagram bullshit to digitally “fit in,” but some people did a good job with it. However, it’s literally almost impossible to pursue traditional convenience — i.e. UberEats sushi when it’s pouring rain — and then preach a worldview of “standing up for the marginalized,” because well, it’s the marginalized who have to leave their own house, go get the sushi, and then drive it to you. I think this is traditionally an argument against disaffected, financially-secure liberal-worldview people. I know I have felt this way about subdivision moms who post “ALLY” all the time, for example.
Basically, there is nothing inherently wrong with pursuing convenience, because we are taught that it’s a marker of success — and absent so many other markers (fertility, home prices are like $434K for a dump, etc.), this is the marker many choose. But if you’re going to pursue convenience and your own comfort above all, you also need to understand that convenience cannot exist without exploitation of someone, somewhere.
If you choose convenience and understand that your convenience requires the exploitation of someone, and you’re all good with it, then go on and do your thing. Plenty of people hated Trump as a person and voted for him. We all split ourselves in some form or fashion. It’s how we cope with the world.
The other interesting thing, at least to me, is that so much of modern young adulthood feels fake: post about shit that isn’t real or important, send a peasant to fetch your food, go to a job that probably could be automated and talk about “actionable insights,” etc.
It makes me wonder if we’re broadly losing purpose.
I still think we’re finding it through friends, families, and communities — but it does seem to be slipping a bit.
Your take?