is social media real life?

Everything you could say about Clavicular — the 20-year-old looksmaxxer who is one of the internet’s first main characters of 2026 — feels optimized for algorithmic traction. He has lived his life in order to be a hook for a social media post.

One of Clavicular’s first real brushes with internet fame came from this photo which got popular on Reddit... See more

A cringey New Year’s Eve fail warns of what happens “when you believe everything you see on TikTok” (Creators)

A viral TikTok video captured a crowd eagerly awaiting a New Year’s Eve fireworks show near the Brooklyn Bridge, only to realize it was a hoax. The incident sparked a discussion about media literacy and the dangers of believing everything... See more

To me, we pedestal “moving in silence” and those who are chronically offline because they don’t need to be seen to feel worthy. They don’t need our attention or validation. They are immune to the grand illness of our age, which is to believe that if it’s not logged, it’s not real.

A boarded-up house in Plainfield, Illinois, caused a stir on TikTok when its porch lights appeared to be blinking in a distress signal pattern, sparking concern and prompting police visits. However, it turned out that the lights were just malfunctioning solar-powered units, and the house was unoccupied, leading the family to auction off the lights... See more

This is a classic case of the 1% rule.

"In online communities, around 1% of users produce almost all of the content. As such, what you see online is not representative of humanity, but merely of a loud, obsessive (and often narcissistic, psychopathic, low-IQ) minority. Social media is literally a freakshow." (h/t Gurwinder)

Six major media conglomerates own 90% of what Americans see1, and a small fraction of creators capture the vast majority of online attention.

I spent the better part of the weekend watching Black Friday hauls on TikTok, and while Bloomberg reported that shoppers across the country were “underwhelmed and unimpressed,” the young people on my social media feed looked anything but.

In an effort to break out of the TikTok bubble, I’ve been making time to visit restaurants not just in the West Village, but to get out of my algorithm and go see the real world that lies beyond the influencer-saturated West Village. And there’s a whole other world out there. Some places that are not touched by social media or can’t be bothered

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But you shouldn’t see these figures as disengaged from ideology because they treat the real world solely as a field in which to sow content and reap online engagement. Instead, Clav’s total submission to content is an ideology in itself — and an increasingly influential one.