Red pill on escapism
Red pill or blue pill? Would you face the reality of consumerism and responsibility, or stay lost in escapism? Let’s explore the struggles of modern adulthood and the escapes we choose to cope.
I was stuck on this topic for a while, but I believe I finally understand it. Everywhere I look, I see adults addicted to blind boxes. Every year, another big one hits the shelves—so popular that it creates entire economies through resellers. We shut off the world and turn on our phones, immersing ourselves in TV show after TV show. Living through thousands of Pinterest boards—some more inspiring than others. From video games to club scenes, capitalism has given us it all.
I walked past Pop Mart today (the capital of blind boxes), and 80% of their clientele appeared to be over 20. Why is my generation so obsessed with these things? I've bought some in the past, and I don’t shame anyone for it. But it feels like we’re becoming more and more obsessed with them as each year goes by. At first, I thought it was great—seeing everyone hold onto their childhood, squeezing out every drop of their youth. But what if there’s a deeper layer to all of this?
It’s as if, instead of moving forward, we keep looking backward. Is the future really that scary? Instead of embracing responsibility, we glorify irresponsibility with trends like 'Now I have adult money' and 'girl math.' Because if it’s cash, it’s free—right?
Addictive coping mechanisms
Capitalism often rides on nostalgia, transforming cherished memories into marketable products. The term "Consumed Nostalgia" refers to how big corporations repackage elements from our past to stimulate current consumption. We are looking for comfort and they are happy to offer it. It would explain part of the blind box culture. With characters that have a cute and childish look and childhood reminiscence themes.
The beauty of a blind box lies in its ability to provide instant gratification—a quick dopamine boost. It’s much like trading card collecting (think Pokémon, for instance). Could it be a form of gambling? Quite possibly. After all, there’s always the chance of finding a rare item, one that could potentially yield a significant profit on the resale market. But, like anything that triggers a dopamine response, it stimulates the brain’s reward system, which can lead to a compulsion to keep going—even in the face of negative consequences. In human words: lots of these things can give us a nasty addition.
Just like how we're all addicted to our phones or to buying things we don’t need. Deep down, we know that the instant gratification of retail therapy won’t fix anything. But we will still buy those new sneakers. We binge-watch the latest shows, doomscroll endlessly, and let YouTube play on repeat, all in a desperate attempt to escape our reality But nothing really changes—at the end of the day, all we really want is to hold on to our youth and never grow old.
Most of this behavior could be considered escapism. And even though I love the idea of escapism, we need to start thinking about what we are escaping from. The Cambridge Dictionary describes it as: 'a way of avoiding an unpleasant or boring life, especially by thinking, reading, etc.' So, it’s essentially a way of distracting the mind.
What are we trying to forget?
Being in your mid-20s or 30s is a weird age. Either people are doing better or worse than you, but 80% of the time, it feels like everyone is doing better. Especially if you only look at their Instagrams. We need to stop using social media as a comparison tool. Life isn’t a competition; we all just die at some point. That’s it—there’s no winning or losing.
So why are we escaping reality? Maybe it’s because the world is getting too complicated and it kind of sucks. We’re programmed to believe we need to buy a house and have kids before a certain age. We need to go to school and get a good job. And I want all of that, don’t get me wrong. But achieving all of that in 2025 isn’t as simple as it once was.
So we hold onto our childhoods, maybe because they remind us of simpler times. Times might not have been that much simpler; we were just in a simpler phase of life. We came home from school, and the only thing we had to worry about was our grades.
My only goal in life now is to buy a house, but coming from a normal middle-class household makes that quite difficult.Housing prices in the Netherlands have risen over 120% in the last 25 years, while salaries have only gone up about 25%. With the cost of living climbing, we're just falling further behind. Honestly, this reality check stresses me out too much. We're rich enough to live a comfortable life, but too poor to start one. And yes, I could absolutely rent an apartment, but if the average price of a two-bedroom is hitting €1,800, I'd rather just be off myself.
An adult might say, 'If only you wouldn’t waste your money on all those expensive coffees.' My mistake—how could I forget that spending 3 euros five times a week, 52 weeks a year, would save me a grand total of 780 euros? With the average house price at 500k, I’ll have enough to buy one in just... 641 years.
Let’s dream away
So it makes sense that we're escaping—running away from reality. And we don’t just do this by reliving our childhood; we also do it by following influencers who are living their 'best life,' treating it like it’s our own. Rooting for a stranger through our phone. And guess what? I believe we need it. We need to stay in the clouds of our minds—being too aware of reality can be incredibly depressing. A little bit of dreaming is needed to cope. The human brain isn’t built to handle all the negativity modern life throws us. We just can’t forget about reality entirely.
I genuinely feel like life gets more complicated every day—new rules, modern but scary technologies, societal pressures, and more. Some say AI will steal our jobs; others say Tesla bots will. Some did get that important piece of paper and still struggle to find a job. But modern times also given us good things. We read less but see more. We do less but know more. Our efficiency has increased so much that the same tasks take less time.
We have the luxury to worry, and we have the luxury to escape from that worry. The pressure to "figure it all out" in your 20s is overwhelming, and capitalism doesn’t just sell us survival—it sells us dreams, identities, and distractions. If it's wrapped up as another hobby, I'll take two, please!
The sad reality
To not go around it—in the end, we cannot escape. We are stuck in our reality, our lives. And as scary as that might be, it all comes down to appreciation. Life isn’t always bad, just as it isn’t always good. We can’t move backward— we can only keep going. I started this piece by saying that escapism is a way to distract our minds. I assume everyone has seen The Matrix—would you take the red pill and wake up from the illusion, seeing the world for what it truly is? Or would you keep living in your forms of escape, surrounding yourself with comfort and ignorance?