I own a book called Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit? It was published in 2005, and actually got a follow-up a little later. It's basically a humorous A to Z guide of things that are shit about life in the modern day… well, 2005, anyway. I read a bit on the toilet earlier, and I was not at all surprised to determine that things are indeed still shit — and quite possibly worse than they were in 2005.
The only real difference is that at the time Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit? was published, the Labour party were in power and Gordon Brown was just starting to slobber over the possibility of becoming Prime Minister, whereas now… I just don't want to talk about it, really.
Actually, no, that's not quite true. Looking back on these books after a few years is quite an interesting and sobering experience when you consider the context of things. Back in 2005, many of the things we take for granted today were just getting started and in some cases didn't even exist yet. Twitter wasn't a thing, for example, so it does not put in an appearance — and besides, it was a good few years between Twitter launching and it becoming the absolute cesspit it is today. Ah, for the good old days — manual retweets and all. Better than cancellation by quote-tweet, anyway.
I suspect a new version of this book written today would look quite similar in some ways, but there are plenty of new and annoying things to add to it — many of them simply from the world of technology. Cryptocurrency, NFTs, DLC, "live service" games, in-app purchases… very few of those things (if any) existed back at the time Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit? was first published, and yet they would be an important part of it today. And that's to say nothing of COVID.
I guess this is part of getting older: assuming that things are getting worse rather than better. But, y'know, things really are pretty shit.
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