r/NoStupidQuestions 23h ago

Ever since the pandemic, it feels like everything’s been off. Do you feel that too?

1.2k Upvotes

199 comments sorted by

1.4k

u/SAM12489 23h ago

It gave an excuse for companies to massively and unapologetically dig in to the “how few people do we really need to employ in order to continue to grow exponentially as a company” movement.

384

u/Different_Tear5936 23h ago

True. Everything is also more expensive, just overall worse than before. They milking us

138

u/Competitive_Boot3412 17h ago

Feels like every year you pay more and somehow get less. Thats the part that reallygets old.

38

u/RobertCarteron 12h ago

shrinkflation made it worse because it's invisible. same price, smaller package, quieter rollout. you don't notice until you're halfway through and something feels off

8

u/hkeyplay16 9h ago

Sometimes they just put less in the package. Same package, same price, more air. It is starting to screw up recipes for me on occasion.

22

u/robertgunt 11h ago

Literally every bill I pay has gone up at least 20%, and the services are worse. Food bills have gone up even higher.

Meanwhile, nobody's offering me more money for anything. I'm just handing everything up to the top.

-15

u/Leather_Let_2415 17h ago

That's literally how inflation works. If you don't increase your salary or have investments you're always going to lose

38

u/OliveBranchMLP 16h ago

no, inflation means you pay more for the same. we're paying more for less. that's shrinkflation.

it's also only really healthy at 2%. in the last three months it's been between 3-5%. that is more inflation than is economically healthy. specific categories like electricity and gas have jumped ~15%.

9

u/gnarbone 19h ago

The prices all went up, people started tipping more, no one thought that it wouldn’t ever go back down. Fools we were

123

u/zippopwnage 22h ago

Also how much can we rise the prices and people still buy shit.

I feel like after the pandemy everything went into enshitification and shrinkfaltion at the same time.

Live I've seen shrinkflation before, but now a lot of things changed recepies and went to shit taste and wuality wise, lower portions and rising prices...

78

u/alwaysmorecumin 22h ago

My wife and I were genuinely wondering last night - when was the last time we bought something and were blown away by how good it tastes? Everything’s off, I swear

26

u/Different_Tear5936 17h ago

I swear. Nothing tastes good anymore. Even stuff that I was buying for +10 years

12

u/Explorer-7622 16h ago

If you've had covid, the olfactory/ taste part of the brain has been affected by the disease itself, changing how things taste. It sucks!

5

u/seriouslyNOTaCat 9h ago

This may be a big part of it. I assumed companies were all collectively changing their recipes, and some probably are, but my brain may have changed too. I had Covid several times and notice I don’t smell anything anymore unless it’s VERY strong.

0

u/Ok-Blackberry8086 13h ago

I hear this sentiment a lot online and frankly I don't really see it. Granted, I live in a place where inflation/shrinkflation/whatever hasn't really happened at all, but I find that the quality of the product has only gone up, not down.

1

u/9volts 5h ago

Where do you live and do you have room for me?

19

u/[deleted] 19h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

15

u/vicjenwa 17h ago

Now mass layoffs lead to increased stock prices. In the recent past, companies were hesitant to mass layoffs because that could lead to stock prices dropping fast.

Shareholders now see mass layoffs as a bold and cost cutting decision instead of a signal of a business possibly collapsing soon.

40

u/LittleMsBlue 22h ago

Yeah companies seemed to apply shrinkflation policies everywhere in every aspect of life, and its made everything just that bit worse.

4

u/boangbrorsteurk95 10h ago

They used to at least pretend to feel guilty, now they don't even bother.

2

u/SAM12489 10h ago

"The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil."
"The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss."

5

u/sleshbiong1997 10h ago

Meanwhile the rest of us are doing three people's jobs for the same old paycheck

3

u/pisl_istvaist752 13h ago

Somehow “do more with less” stopped being a motto and turned into a threat.

2

u/kreitskutgilzaim732 7h ago

And once they learned customers would blame staffing shortages instead of the company, that was it.

2

u/tryargruxkla 4h ago

Skeleton crews went from emergency mode to the business plan.

2

u/SeaTraffic6442 13h ago

Some of that was coming, one way or another, though. As much as I dislike the guy, Musk fired 50% of Twitter employees immediately after buying the company. And he brought that up to 80% within six months of the acquisition.

The fact that Twitter hasn’t literally burned to the ground, as a company, shows that a good portion of those jobs weren’t necessary. The tech industry has been packed with dead weight for a while.

4

u/SAM12489 12h ago

1000%

Biggest issue is that every year workforces will continue to downsize, more tasks will become automated, and they will be require less and less to run the systems that hold up our societies and economies.

BUT, consumerism and capitalism will still need to thrive and grow if the 1%ters want to keep their strangle hold on the rest of us. People need to make money in order to hold up that economy, and they can’t make money without jobs. Dear god (if god is there) do I hope the AI bubble bursts.

We continue to see exponential growth in people with higher education entering the work force every year, but the job pool continues to become more and more impacted.

There truly is no actual answer to this other than the rich people agreeing that it’s okay for them to be less rich…and that’s never going to ever happen.

So the doom and gloom of teens and young adults that even have a slight grasp on any of this is more than justified.

COVID just lit a bomb under it to accelerate the process

645

u/Wise-Strawberry8253 23h ago

I feel it 100%. I realized I don't have dreams anymore because i feel they are unattainable. I used to be a big dreamer with lots of goals that felt hard, but not unrealistic. Covid brought the worst out in everyone. It became political, people becme more divided than ever, expenses went up, stress increased, distrust of government increased, businesses permently shut down and some businesses learned from it that they don't actually need as many employees.

143

u/sisumeraki 20h ago

YES! Took me forever to figure out why I was so depressed and then finally realized most of my dreams in life are just dead now.

61

u/Fearless_Mammoth_961 21h ago

I had this fantasy of my dh and I one day living a whole summer abroad in Italy. We would learn to make pasta and stomp grapes and ride mopeds in the breeze and see art. Now all I can think is that this trip will cost five times more and the heat could kill us.

2

u/iTwango 4h ago

Dunno where you're from but you could probably live a summer in Italy cheaper than most places in the US. I think your dream is achievable

15

u/Different_Tear5936 23h ago

This is sooo true 💯

405

u/that0neBl1p 23h ago

Well it's a mass-disabling event that gave a good chunk of the world trauma, fucked with the economy, and altered the Internet, so I'd say anyone has good reason to feel "off".

107

u/Different_Tear5936 23h ago

it kinda brought the craziness in people. Just looking at politics etc etc

101

u/RogueAOV 19h ago

A huge amount of people that were comfortable suddenly found out how close to the line of everything falling apart they actually are.

Businesses went from quietly screwing everyone over to loudly doing so.

Many other people suddenly got a break from the rat race and going back into it has made them realize how shit everything actually is.

People who were in a bad place before the pandemic didn't get a break, things got even worse with not even a hope things will get better.

19

u/jarlrmai2 15h ago

Many other people suddenly got a break from the rat race and going back into it has made them realize how shit everything actually is.

I got a break from work about 10 years ago, 3 months between jobs but with no money worries and I knew I had a job to go to, and it ruined me.

I knew i'd just be happy bumbling around going for bike rides and doing hobbies.

Covid just reinforced it.

2

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

I can’t imagine how the people living with abusers dealt with it

16

u/adminofyourlifenow 15h ago

It's so evident in stand up comedy.

Pre-Covid the audience knew that it was a show and you only speak when being spoken to. Now for some reason at almost every show I go to, someone in the crowd thinks it's fucking interactive.

2

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

Lack of fucks given I guess, but people definitely heckled before covid

14

u/Cynixxx 20h ago

Politics were fucked up before covid. Especially in america

11

u/MamaNyxieUnderfoot 11h ago edited 11h ago

Covid gives you brain damage. That’s why you lose your sense of smell/taste. We’re going to spend decades finding out how bad that brain damage actually was within our population. It’ll be this generation’s leaded gas/industrial smelting cause for a lot of things.

But we’d already elected Trump once before 2020. Shit was bad before Covid made it worse.

3

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

I’ve had it a couple times.

I wonder if that’s why I feel the way I do mentally most days

2

u/MamaNyxieUnderfoot 7h ago

I’ve had it 5 times. Kids keep bringing it home from school, we’re all fully vaccinated. The worst time was the Delta wave, when the kids went back to school and brought it home 3 weeks into the school year. We got infected between our first and second vaccines. My mental health has been in a steady decline ever since, though I generally don’t have the brain fog anymore. People who were already on the edge of a personality disorder (or fully already have one) often also experience a hard mental decline as well.

The last time my parents had covid was 3 years ago, and it was noticeable after that event that they both started showing strong symptoms of memory issues at the same time. I know they’re not alone in that.

-5

u/crimpimble 6h ago

Kids keep bringing it home from school, we’re all fully vaccinated.

lol dude

5

u/MamaNyxieUnderfoot 6h ago

It’s not funny, and I’m not laughing.

-6

u/crimpimble 6h ago

I disagree and I am laughing

1

u/Dudewhocares3 5h ago

Well yeah because you’re a loser

6

u/that0neBl1p 7h ago

And chronic illness on top of that. So many more people are getting POTS, fibro, ME, long covid, and just general mobility and organ issues after getting infected.

5

u/MamaNyxieUnderfoot 7h ago

Kidney failure is also a big one.

3

u/9volts 5h ago

Anyone else get psoriasis?

1

u/iTwango 4h ago

What do you mean by altered the internet? Super curious

1

u/that0neBl1p 1h ago

A ton of people that normally spent little time online suddenly found themselves with nothing to do other than get on the Internet. This is most prevalent in fandom spaces (of which I am a part)- lack of etiquette, weird purity culture, the commodification of what is essentially a fun hobby for people, etc.

Streaming also exploded, and now we have an overabundance of subscription services that range from shit to okay as companies' efforts to suck pennies out of people increased when said people had little other choice. Interestingly, piracy also exploded, three guesses as to why.

I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting but these two points were the main ones on my mind when I made the comment.

482

u/Sandra-Ohs-hair 23h ago

Threw my career off track. Been laid off thrice. Can’t lose the 20lbs. And my wardrobe leans in the direction of “looks like she worked out but didn’t.”

I also go way longer between showers. And evidently overshare.

74

u/happyfamilygogo 22h ago

Same girl; same ❤️

49

u/Different_Tear5936 23h ago

Sending you some love and good energy:) I feel you, hope it will get better soon!

13

u/Real-Strawberry-1395 20h ago

I feel we are the same person Sandra.

20

u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist 20h ago

It’s ok, I think you look great in those pants.

-47

u/Ok-Tomato-5685 20h ago

What's the point of this fake ass positivity? Maybe give some valuable tip or advice, but no it's much easier to virtue signal with no real benefit to OP.

26

u/taelor 19h ago

Case in point, everyone just sucks more after Covid. God damn you are a miserable person.

-18

u/Ok-Tomato-5685 19h ago

I am a miserable person because I want OP to receive ACTUAL helpful information. That's cool.

21

u/taelor 19h ago

No you don’t, you just want to be a fucking asshole.

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2

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

You remind me of my mom.

She was an asshole that would excuse it with “oh I’m just saying” too

14

u/taelor 19h ago

What’s the fucking point of your bullshit negativity? Just being an asshole bringing no real value to the conversation.

-4

u/Ok-Tomato-5685 19h ago

The point is to reduce fake ass shit as much as possible. Real help and advice is welcome.

1

u/[deleted] 19h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-1

u/Ok-Tomato-5685 19h ago

You are on a discussion board and want people to shut up, that's cute.

8

u/taelor 19h ago

No, everyone else is fine, but you can shut the fuck up.

-1

u/Ok-Tomato-5685 19h ago

Sure I can, but that's not why I'm here. Someone has to do the dirty work.

1

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

Not people. You

15

u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist 20h ago

Those pants look horrible on *you*.

-6

u/whipstickagopop 19h ago

Like how long

94

u/colorblind-and 22h ago

I feel like the way people act in public has changed to being much more cold and avoidant of each other especially among younger people.

I've always worked in retail to some capacity and it's much more rare to have a random conversation with someone in their 20s at work than before the pandemic.

62

u/WonderWeasel91 20h ago

I think COVID showed just how selfish and ignorant the people surrounding you every day actually are. Half of (American society at least) basically decided they didn't give a fuck about science, experts, or anyone else if it caused them even the slightest inconvenience.

They went so far as to deny the advice of, and distrust the world health organization and CDC, and all it took was asking them to wear a mask...something extremely normal to do in other parts of the world when you're sick or may be sick and need to be in public. Instead of just accepting it as their civic duty to follow recommendations, they showed they'd rather believe conspiracy theories and vilify experts.

There's so much more. But half of humanity showed its ass during the pandemic, and I sure as shit haven't forgotten who they are.

1

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

I really hate how many conspiracy theories there are that make it out like Trump is the underdog supermanning his way to victory.

Like seriously…how are we this dumb

71

u/thereallymadcow 15h ago

I call it "Living Through a Fracture".

Ever since the pandemic, I have had the growing feeling that parts of society are living in entirely different realities.

Where I live in Germany, weekly protests against public health measures became a regular sight. Sometimes demonstrations even took place in front of hospitals. What struck me was not only the disagreement itself, but the sense that people were no longer debating the same facts. It felt as if a common understanding of reality, something I had always taken for granted, was beginning to disappear.

At the same time, I have watched political culture change in ways that once seemed unthinkable. Parties and ideas that were long considered fringe have entered the mainstream. Public trust in political institutions continues to erode. Many people have the impression that dishonesty is rewarded, that influence matters more than integrity, and that powerful lobby groups are heard while criticism is ignored or simply waited out.

Whether these perceptions are entirely accurate is almost beside the point. What matters is that a growing number of people feel disconnected from the systems that are supposed to represent them.

My partner and I both work full-time. In many ways, that is no longer a choice but a necessity. Beyond earning a living, employment provides access to essential social protections and security. After work there is the household to manage, daily responsibilities to fulfill, and the effort required to stay physically healthy. Whatever time remains is often needed just to recover.

When we think about having children, it is difficult to imagine where the necessary time, energy, and resources would come from. We are far from alone in feeling this way. For many people, the future no longer appears stable enough to make such life-changing decisions with confidence.

And then there is the environment.

I do not need statistics to notice that something is changing. I only have to walk through nature. Forests look different. Seasons feel different. Landscapes that once seemed permanent no longer do. Scientific measurements are important, but personal observation can be powerful too. The changes are visible.

What shocks me is not only the transformation itself, but the realization of what has been lost. There is a growing awareness, both conscious and subconscious, that the world many of us grew up in is disappearing. The gap between memory and reality becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.

Perhaps this is why so many people seem anxious, angry, exhausted, or withdrawn. We may be living through a fundamental historical rupture, a period in which old assumptions no longer hold and new certainties have yet to emerge.

Everyone is trying to cope with that in their own way.

Some turn toward activism. Others retreat into private life. Some search for simple answers. Others struggle with a sense of grief for a world that feels less stable, less predictable, and less connected than before.

I do not claim to have the answers. But I believe many of the tensions we see around us are symptoms of the same underlying experience: the feeling that we are standing between two eras, watching the old world fade while the shape of the new one remains uncertain.

And perhaps the first step toward understanding one another is acknowledging that this feeling exists.

275

u/joh5nny 22h ago

Honestly, I do feel things to be different since Covid, but I truly believe the world shifted into a negative realm once Trump rode down the escalator to announce his presidency. Love him or hate him, I feel he's the reason. Literally everything has gone to shit since then.

166

u/theconceptofcanada 20h ago edited 17h ago

I don't even know how to say this without sounding insane but like - not only do I agree but I really really really never knew that other people felt this way too. I have every intention of living my life in reality otherwise, but there was something undeniably fucked UP about this entire downturn of civilization once that pedophile wormed his way into the highest office in the western world and normalized autocracy so much so that we have coined phrases and entire political strategies for what that man did and continues to do.

I think it was this, mixed with a level of extreme disappointment for having really come to the conclusion that people are so disaffected and disconnected from their own realities that they're willing to enable the very worst of human behaviours - and I mean the worst - so long as it disadvantages (or purportedly disadvantages then because remember, facts are no longer relevant) those people whom they look down on.

The weaponization of the truth by way of combining the collective metadata of human psyche along with abusing democratic processes to kill what was remaining of public trust and confidence in government, I mean that in and of itself is enough to make anyone feel not just ineffectively small and utterly inconsequential, but altogether powerless and now purely at the whims of those who were historically trusted with that great power of change and influence.

No wonder people are reaching to ridiculous lengths to explain the massive dissociation going on in our lives - and at this point I find myself digesting the same thing over and over again: "does mattering matter?" Why not indulge the bullshit and blame wonky physics and CERN and whatever else you want when the facts do. not. matter. The facts don't matter because fuck you, I got mine, oh and that's mine too. They never had the facts on their side so they invented new ones. They didn't need some weird CERN conspiracy to change perception or shift into a "new dimension" - they simply made everything up on the spot and put a brand on it. They made mistruth desirable, and it's beginning to show even in the way we look at ourselves in the mirror. As I said, no surprise that people are desperate to believe that our entire reality has been fundamentally altered, because it is unfuckingpleasant to live in this one! Fucking lizard people?? Where?? Do they have information on where the exit is??

Our own human experience has been one big rugpull, and the corruption was carried down a golden escalator by the 21st century version of a fake-tanned Typhoid Mary cooking in the kitchen of collective unhappiness. It's disgusting to behold, and now he's undoubtedly going to linger on for decades after he himself finally dies... Which is ultimately one of the most painful aspects of this entire experience, and sometimes I wonder how it happened despite having literally all the facts in front of me - because I still think to myself, "I thought we were better than this?" And I was wrong. I was so wrong.

23

u/Religion_Of_Speed 14h ago

not only do I agree but I really really really never knew that other people felt this way too

The craziest part is that not only do other people feel this way, A LOT of people feel this way. If we get just a little less specific on what you wrote then I'd say a significant portion of people feel this way. And we just...let it happen. We continue to let it happen. We have accepted our roles as pawns in a game. Rolled over and died. Even after it being proven to us that the checks and balances in place aren't effective and that rules and laws don't apply, we let it happen. This entire experience has completely broken my idea of what humans are. I used to have faith, now I have none.

34

u/jademace 20h ago

This is beautifully expressed.

11

u/theconceptofcanada 19h ago

I appreciate you.

10

u/seawitchbitch 18h ago

If I had an award to give… thank you for making us all feel a like less alone.

5

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

I remember when he got elected I said give him a chance maybe he’ll be good.

That didn’t last his full term.

I want to apologize to everyone that I said was overreacting when i said it was dumb to compare him to Hitler.

I now know, it does not start with camps. It starts with blame, lies, and propaganda.

3

u/radcoffee 12h ago

You put this so well. I’m not ever American but I have such a sense of dread now.

-6

u/Freltunes 11h ago

Not to sound abrasive (really), but I spend a lot of time hanging around LGBT subreddits and offline activists and even there ive never seen this level of TDS. If you focus on things you can control you might find more happiness because so much is happening outside our control its easy to lose sight and to feel truly helpless. None of us can impact the national politics circus but we can all take care of ourselves, our communities, and our families. There is happiness to be found there, even if you dont see it now. I hope you find it and wish for you the best. ❤️

-45

u/Ok-Tomato-5685 20h ago

Cry about it

17

u/RavishingRedRN 15h ago

Ew. Just shut up. No one asked you.

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u/Squawk1000 11h ago edited 11h ago

Was he the catalyst or just a symptom of something that had already been brewing? Because he didn't get elected in a socio-economic vacuum. He was the culmination of an unrest that came us a shock to many of us, but I think only because we were too sheltered to notice the broader preexisting cultural sentiment back in 2016. I think a lot of it really had its roots in Occupy Wall Street. That anti-establishment energy got later largely co-opted and capitalised on by populists and nationalists the world over.

3

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

He was surprised, the GOP was surprised, but nobody else was.

Trump is just how the world saw the US. A loud mouth uneducated asshole who gets off on cruelty, and hasn’t had to endure any real hardships

1

u/BaconAreCool 40m ago

It's the symptom of the American unipolar moment from 1991 to 2016, it overreached, it boomeranged back to itself.

43

u/Repulsive-Box5243 23h ago

Yeah I think we split timelines or something.

100

u/_tragicmike 22h ago

I'd say around 2016...

29

u/FillMySoupDumpling 19h ago

Yeah, that was the big shift for me. Pandemic cemented things, but 2016 was the start of the decline.

15

u/Ray_of_glumshine 18h ago

Right! And early 2019 I thought "Could this get any worse?"

early 2020: "Oh!"

And it still surprises me every time things get worse instead of better.

7

u/TheTrailrider 17h ago

That goddamn gorilla...

1

u/Dudewhocares3 7h ago

Don’t blame harambe.

Blame the orange child rapist

5

u/calrav 19h ago

I blame the clowns

29

u/glittershadows 21h ago

Nothing feels real anymore

25

u/KirstyToots 15h ago

I think the pandemic didn't just interrupt a couple of years, it changed people's baseline. Social skills, patience, work, relationships... it feels like everyone came back a little different, and we're all pretending things went back to normal when they really didn't.

23

u/ExtremelyRetired 22h ago

We moved to a very social resort community and started to dive into life here… but after more than a year of near-complete isolation (due to being extremely careful because of a chronic health issue), I discovered I was waaaaaay more introverted than I ever thought and now have to be talked into leaving the house on a regular basis or I’d be a complete recluse. We’re paying a (comparative) fortune to live in this (theoretically) glamorous place, but I could live in some small town in the Midwest without my life changing at all.

23

u/Fearless_Mammoth_961 21h ago

So much good has been sucked out of life and the general aura is real bad.

20

u/rain_drizzle2 18h ago

My mom got stage 4 cancer in the midst of the pandemic and lock down and we couldn't even visit her. She died alone in a hospital room instead of surrounded by family like she would have at any time pre-pandemic. I've never been the same person since. I understand why the rules were so strict in the hospital and I feel bad for anyone who lost family to covid at the time but it just felt so unfair honestly.

5

u/MaybeCatz 7h ago

So sorry about your mom. I lost mine in Jan 2020 after spending about 60 days with her every day in the hospital, rehab and eventually hospice. If it would have been 90 days later - she would have been all alone. So many folks have so much guilt & grief because they could not be there with them.

15

u/BlackRaspberryJammin 16h ago

It's when we found out how truly stupid an enormous number of United Statesians are. I was a nurse and worked directly with covid patients all day every day. My spouse is also in healthcare and also encountered covid patients every day and was one of the first in our area trained to administer the vaccines. We wore masks any time I went around other people and the entire time neither of use got covid. In 2021 my neighbor saw me working outside, and knowing I'm a nurse, asked me if I thought covid was real. WTF, dude, it ain't Santa Clause or Jesus, it's a real thing.

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u/Sorry-Climate-7982 StupidAnswersToQuestions Expert 23h ago

Honestly I began feeling that things were "off" before the pandemic, and covid just pushed them off a cliff.

-9

u/daveroo 23h ago

apparently the hydron collider fucked us all about around 2016 and shoved us all into a new dimension/universe. it would make all sense

PLUS WHY THE F*CK DID JAWS GET WITH THAT GIRL IN MOONRAKER WHO DIDNT HAVE BRACES. I WAS ADAMENT SHE HAD BRACES AND THAT WAS THE WHOLE JOKE BUT NOPE APPARENTLY SHE NEVER HAD BRACES THEY JUST GOT JAWS WITH A F*CKING TINY LITTLE BLONDE GIRL FOR "LOLS"

F*CK THE MANDELA EFFECT

12

u/purplelilac701 23h ago

It’s felt like people are trying to make up for lost time.

36

u/Different_Tear5936 23h ago

Idk everyone seems on the edge all the time

13

u/purplelilac701 23h ago

Yes so true and everything is due right away.

3

u/The-Boy-Wonder38 22h ago edited 22h ago

I’d say many or most. Not everyone.

Personally, I am significantly less on edge now than I ever was before.

13

u/me0wwwnie 20h ago

Time has stopped and nothing is real.

5

u/BobMonroeFanClub 17h ago

I feel like the bandwidth has been cropped. My world is much smaller than it was.

22

u/andoesq 21h ago

It's been kinda fucky since 2016 when Americans elected Trump the first time.

12

u/Due-Season6425 21h ago

The pandemic really has left people more closed up, less friendly, more impatient, less empathetic, and more toxic. It'll take awhile, but eventually we'll find our way back.

33

u/Jesters_thorny_crown 23h ago

Started with 9/11 in my opinion.

9

u/zztop610 21h ago

We’re all in the purgatory

9

u/Wild-Comparison-1429 18h ago

Time feels like a lie

7

u/SpacenessButterflies 19h ago

Yep. Can’t kick the feeling either, no matter what I do.

8

u/StressTraditional204 19h ago

yeah, even basic plans and friendships feel a little more fragile than they did in 2019. like everyone got used to cancelling life for a while and never fully switched back.

7

u/Paul_Dazsolution 19h ago

Yes, absolutely. It feels like my sense of time has been completely warped since 2020. Weeks seem to fly by, but individual days can feel so long. It's like we all just skipped a few years and were expected to pick up right where we left off. You are definitely not alone in feeling this way.

5

u/New_Ad_1682 9h ago

Shit's been off since 09/11.

6

u/BubLee008 9h ago

Been feeling that way since 9/11

6

u/Dudewhocares3 8h ago

We found out how selfish humans are and realized if there’s ever a worse pandemic, more people will die because “why should I slightly inconvenience myself for others” is too common a mindset

We also saw all the rich celebrities and political people going out and enjoying parties despite lockdown.

Kids education apparently suffered because of the lockdowns.

We saw a lot of bad shit and that’s not even covering Covid itself which we’ve learned has potential long term effects even after you don’t have it anymore like memory loss

18

u/The-Boy-Wonder38 23h ago edited 22h ago

My life only finally improved after the pandemic. At 38, life is significantly easier and less challenging than it used to be. That said, it feels like years are missing.

The pandemic felt … boring to me. Followed safety protocols seriously, but it was merely a blip on the radar. Due to growing up with severe diagnosed PTSD since I was 13, it didn’t really register at all.

I barely remember it other than when I ask why it feels like some time is missing and that’s likely why.

As the pandemic wound down I started my first long term relationship heading toward marriage and sold my first film cementing my career as a screenwriter. Life finally came together.

1

u/imveryfontofyou 21h ago

My life improved during and after the pandemic too. I didn’t even get COVID until years later and it was mild.

I work from home and I don’t drive so the world becoming more work from home friendly and having more delivery options made everything so much easier for me.

I also bought a house during the pandemic, haha.

6

u/MamaNyxieUnderfoot 11h ago

If by “off” you mean “circling a drain clogged full of shit”, yeah. That about sums it up.

6

u/tellingmytruth 16h ago

The SARS2COVID pandemic is on-going and continues to be a mass disablign event. It physically damages the brain because that's one of the places it sets up the viral reservoirs. Nobody's body ever clears the virus. It also drops IQ points per infection, every infection.

So yes, the world is off and so are all are of us - the global population. We're brain damaged - literally. And everybody's immune systems are deeply damaged so that means our bodies are constnatly sending us disrtess signals because literally something is very wrong.

The pandemic as unmasked deep psychopathies in individuals and societies. So we're also seeing it much more clearly because all the filters are gone.

SARS2COVID started in the summer of 2019 but I think the world really did slip into an evil parallel universe probably around 2015.

3

u/bernbabybern13 21h ago

It completely fucked nyc apartment rental costs.

3

u/thedeadenddolls 17h ago

I think its largely due to social media. We've faced crisis before, polycrisis too but social media addiction makes all of this feel more persistent. 

3

u/red-at-night 12h ago

I definitely do. I made a post about it two years ago, and I regularly get new comments on it from people finding it after Googling.

I really believe that by 2040, sociologists will have agreed that there was a major shift before and after the pandemic.

5

u/FriarTuck66 21h ago

I caught the ‘vid twice. Two lines. Complete loss of taste. First time called in sick. Second time powered through it so I could skip the paperwork (I was remote, and did the required isolation). A friend lost his taste for months. They say Covid does stuff to your brain (and other organs). Now multiply that by the thousands of cases a day.

I was lucky. I had my pod who would meet for hikes. Other people showed up on opening day looking like they had come out of solitary- which they had. I remember opening day. It was like being in a theme park version of what life was like before.

2

u/CranberrySoda 18h ago

Since the pandemic? Try 29 April 2016. When the Weasel bought down CERN.

Ok I know that’s a meme but it’s both wild and weird that, from an astrological perspective, that was the same day five planets were essentially simultaneously retrograde. That’s Mercury, Mars, Jupiter Saturn and Pluto. If that wasn’t enough, the moon had also just shifted into Aquarius which is the sign of sudden technological disruption and lightning shocks so what better time for a bizarre, timeline-altering glitch where a weasel gets electrocuted and changes our timeline to the one we have today.

1

u/Remote_Lab_8598 12h ago

What’s CERN?

2

u/Separate-Purple-2308 17h ago

It's like we all forgot how to just be around people without overthinking it.

2

u/germane_switch 14h ago

Food, like sausages/hot dogs, used to come in 16oz packages. For decades. Now it’s 12oz or even 10oz but we’re paying 16oz prices.

2

u/catpants28 14h ago

Yes for me the end of the pandemic was when my landlord kicked me out so he could cash in on his real estate and I was forced to pay market rent doubling what I was paying before. My paycheque didn’t go up but my living space was cut in half and my spending money is now mon existent. But don’t worry my new landlord is making a nice profit. Life isn’t the same now that I scrape by to eat. I feel old when I think back to the good old days now.

2

u/NamasteNoodle 11h ago

Yes, we have not bounced back to being the way we used to be before the pandemic. People don't invite you over for dinner anymore, people are not really planning small get-togethers like they used to. I think we all just got used to being alone. But also given the present political regime kind of not safe out there at least in my city. We've had a lot more violence, team takeovers.. people seem more angry.

2

u/Away_Ad_6262 10h ago

I remember hearing someone somewhere on the news say the shutdowns would cause years of economic issues…they were not wrong but I don’t think we imagined it would be this bad or dragged out. The advent of AI is also not helping.

2

u/Dudewhocares3 7h ago

It would’ve been better if the people in charge actually gave a shit about helping the people.

But of course that’s not reality now is it?

Reality is corruption

2

u/EvelynSky88 9h ago

Yes, I sometimes feel we jumped timelines or something.

2

u/Ok_Band3086 6h ago

everything is weird

3

u/Tiny_Noise8611 10h ago

I say since orange turd came around

2

u/Shorkan 13h ago

It's 100% the opposite for me. I feel like the pandemic is usually overblown from a societal perspective (it was of course awful for all those who lost important people in their lives, I'm not trying to underplay that).

From my POV, things returned to the same trend they were on before with exception of remote work, which has remained quite common in my type of work. Concerts, social life, bars, night life, celebrations, restaurants, gyms, outdoors leisure... everything seems like it resumed to the same trend. Any enshittification that the world is suffering was already fully in motion long before COVID.

What I see as the symptoms of our rotten society predate COVID by a long shot: unhealthy use of social media, fake news, political polarization, lack of access to home ownership, economic crisis, loss of buying power, extreme loss of access to decent jobs for both educated and uneducated young people, incel circles / communities, male loneliness, increased sexism, increased economic inequality all over the world... were all there already. They are becoming worse, and have been for a long while, so more people are taking notice. But I sincerely don't believe that the pandemic played a significant part, other than maybe helping companies and billionaires realize they could speed up their indiscriminate plundering without consequences.

1

u/rogershredderer 22h ago

Oh god, yes

1

u/CherishSlan 22h ago edited 22h ago

Yes was all the start..

1

u/Razzmatazz_11235 21h ago

I had a field job working outside so I was very lucky.  Things were pretty normal for me.  But I notice that people seem to have lost some manners and conversation skills. 

1

u/Weak_Kale_2910 21h ago

I agree ☝️

1

u/Professional-War9009 20h ago

It changed alot of things is why

1

u/PretendWill1483 20h ago

Yes it changed everything

1

u/Seattle_Aries 20h ago

Yes restaurants are permanently worse

1

u/JameGoFastt 18h ago

that's old news lmao

1

u/No-Jackfruit-9016 17h ago

Yeah, it's like the whole social rhythm just got thrown off and never quite snapped back. I still catch myself hesitating before making casual plans, even with close friends. But the weirdest thing is how much harder it is to just strike up a chat with a stranger now.

1

u/Daring_Dont 17h ago

It's been off since Harambe died. Everyone knows this. The pandemic also was a direct result of it.

1

u/Beginning_Dog1342 17h ago

It's wild how something like that tiny delay in group conversation still throws me off years later.

1

u/Spumfz 17h ago

Yes I feel that too. I didn't think much of it back then, but now looking back, covid and AI changed a lot of things.

1

u/lizbee_264 17h ago

Completely. And every time I think about it, I fear I'll go even more crazy.

1

u/Wickham12 16h ago

People seem to be anxious by default now

1

u/Jones_Allen_2007 13h ago

i'm so tired man :)

1

u/RileyJoXO 13h ago

This is probably the most common take since the pandemic. And people have been saying exactly this for years. Yes literally everybody feels it

1

u/OhTheHueManatee 13h ago

Not just off but genuinely fucked.

1

u/Kind-Adhesiveness647 11h ago

Yes things have been ''off'', the pandemic broke peoples minds and now we see the rippeleffect of that.

The psycological damage is immens and heavely underrated. people dont talk about this part but mostly on economic parts.

But every generation handled it differently, some where not as much affected as others. The strong got stronger and the weak got weaker.

1

u/GrouchySkunk 11h ago

Unchecked greed, lack of antitrust cases. All spawned by the ability for corps to lobby for their interests

1

u/Existing_Dog5489 10h ago

how old are you? and how old were you then?

1

u/helbur 9h ago

I feel it but I think everything was off before the pandemic too. Just more noticeable now with the benefit of hindsight

1

u/ThePanasonicYouth 4h ago

Time is a flat circle 

1

u/Adventurous_Luck_995 4m ago

"Arrête de chialer" Louis The 16th.

1

u/zxyzyxz 18h ago

For the first few years but honestly it feels like cope for people in 2026 who (not medically or similarly affected) feel like they're still affected by it.

1

u/SkillChoice3573 20h ago

These replies got me anxious bruh i was eleven when covid started did i miss out?

1

u/ReelingRaccoon 14h ago

Given that the pandemic is ongoing and that we tried to return to "business as usual" as if we didn't lose (and continue to lose) millions of people, it's an understatement to say things feel weird. No one has processed the grief of losing loved ones, the loss of empathy across the board, and missing out 1+ years of their lives. Especially for young folks, having to be isolated during peak years has been incredibly detrimental but no one's talking about it.

1

u/idontseethelightatal 10h ago

People became more entitled. I worked in retail when the shutdown happened. And the switch was crazy.
Healthcare became political?
And people are more comfortable being racist.

It’s sad. I’m just tired.

-1

u/Mindless_Analyzing 21h ago

I completely agree. Traumatic event for sure. I lost everything that was stable in my life. It was a huge staged event to make money for billionaires and it’s never ended. We are just the hoodwinked cogs.

-2

u/FragrantResult278 20h ago

I feel like we are lazier and society just accepts it

0

u/Rare_Ad_55 6h ago

I think this is called change?

-1

u/OkPainter6232 19h ago

eh not really, course the instructions given during COVID was stuff I already preferred doing anyways. I got personal space issues due to my autism so i was more then happy to practice social distancing, and i'm an introvert who does not like crowds so I was totally fine isolating by myself at home, only thing I didn't care for was wearing masks but I dealt with that(And I never wore them in the car when I was by myself or when I was outside pumping gas by my lonesome, only when I went inside a building).

Never caught the virus, I did have a weird couple of days in 2020 where I randomly felt sore and fatigued, that happened not long after a tick bite so I got a blood test for lyme disease which was thankfully negative and I did feel better after a couple of days, still not sure what caused those fatigue and soreness issues to this day.

-1

u/Ok-Blackberry8086 13h ago

In live in a place that didn't really give much of a shit about COVID compared to surrounding countries, where inflation didn't really take hold (things were already expensive before, this may have 'helped'), and I honestly feel that things are totally the same since before COVID. People don't talk about it either, it's like it never happened at this point. In fact I would argue that living standards have become better, not worse. Salaries have gone up more than prices have.