Scrolling Will Become Cool...Trust Me

I saw this photo during a bedtime scroll. It’s one of my favorite bands, The Belair Lip Bombs. They’re pretty cool. Their music’s pretty good. And here they are, making fun of a PSA to stop scrolling…by performatively scrolling. It’s a joke. I know that. But then again, maybe one day it won’t be.

I also watch Mad Men. A lot of Mad Men. Too much Mad Men. And anyone who’s seen Mad Men knows smoking is undeniably cool in Mad Men. Until it’s not. Every morning, Don Draper wakes up like he’s been to hell and back. Because his lungs, liver, and heart most likely has. Then 25 minutes and one 1960s Alka-Seltzer later, he rips a Lucky Strike like God herself begged him to and becomes really really cool again.

Fast forward to the present. 4 out of 5 surgeons lied to us. Smoking will most definitely kill you. But in a world that did its best to rid the filthy practice, a crowd still emerges outside of bars. On balconies and fire escapes. At cafe tables in the 9^th arrondissement. Doing the thing we’re not supposed to. Grasping onto a far more dangerous time. Friend of the newsletter, Ryan Matera, said it best in the New York Times in a 2022 piece about the comeback of hobby smoking.

But what if that thing changes? Overexsmokesure could be fast approaching. Such as splitting the G or anything else perceived to be cool, fun, and community cultivating - the weak and desperate use it as a steez crutch. Abuse it as a substitute for personality. This might happen to smoking. And as the xynsurrection fully conquers nicotine, smoking could be rendered uncool again. So we’ll need a new thing to signal rebellion. Something dangerous, obviously. That thing will be scrolling.

We all scroll. A lot. All day. While eating. Drinking. After waking up. Before going to sleep. And for now, scrolling is uncool. We’re all trying to quit. Suddenly aware of just how detrimental it is. But it’s also dangerous.

Therefore it will become cool. In 20 years, once scrolling is legislatively shamed, reformed, taxed, and marooned to designated sections of parking lots and glass cubes at the Vegas airport, it will become countercultural. Mark my newsletter. And that is the day some kid, born during the third term of the Baron Trump administration, will grow up to look like Elordi. Or Dua. This kid will want to explore the space. Toe the line of rebellion. Do some serious Icarusing. As Ryan says, assert their flamboyant death wish on the rest of us. Then they will step outside the bar, pull out their iPhone 37, and pay $13 to scroll for 5 minutes. Scott Galloway. AI Charlie Kirk. Gwyneth Paltrow using 15 cast iron pans to make a damn boyfriend breakfast. The dopamine will hit unbelievably different. The forbidden dopa always does. But most importantly, their scrolling will look really really cool. And hot. And also did I mention cool. Others will want to be like them. Do what they do to signal that they are also hot and cool. Then I’ll collect $200 cause we’re back to square one. Known doomscroller and occasional writer Mark Twain said it best…

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

So I’ll see you outside of The Thirsty Crow in 2046. Getting a quick scroll in between glasses of vino.