By Mariam Karagianni,
Welcome to the new Hunger Games, where the prize isn’t survival but who can flex harder on social media while their credit scores and the economy burn to the ground. Does this sound absurd or even far-fetched to you? Look around for the cues. Everything is curated to perfection online: low-exposure pics and clips of overpriced oat lattes, endless clothing hauls, and performative, extensive self-care routines. Nothing is out of order. But more often than not, there’s a sort of hide-and-seek going on with people’s indebted bank accounts, overdue rent payments, and mounting bills. So yes, let’s go through the new dissonant reality of the first quarter of the 21st century.
It’s not 2008 anymore, but there’s no shadow of doubt that recession is back—perhaps stronger than before. It’s everywhere, even if officials and economists refuse to call it that. That’s because this new version is quieter and bears some key differences from ’08. Instead of an austere public discourse, we perpetuate a feigned imagery of luxury, propped up by the dominance of social media, which wasn’t nearly as prominent back then. Ever-evolving AI is replacing not just creative, but also white-collar jobs that were always deemed “safe.” And most importantly, this recession isn’t playing out in the same pre-Trump, pre-Brexit, pre-global-authoritarianism world—but in a cultural theatre plagued by geopolitical instability, wars, climate disasters, and a concerning rise in fascism, served with a side of existential dread.
Remarkably, we’ve reached a stage of late capitalism where the majority of people are broke—in the sense that they live from paycheck to paycheck—but pretend not to be. Prices have skyrocketed in the blink of an eye, wages are as stagnant as lake water, and housing feels like a distant dream. Yet on the surface, our lifestyles do not reflect that reality. No one bats an eye at €30 cocktails, at sourcing vintage Gucci heels from Vestiaire Collective, or paying a thousand dollars for floor seats at a Drake concert. Most of us live beyond our means, and the voice of logic in our heads—reminding us that our minimum-wage jobs and overdue credit cards can’t fund all this—is shoved aside by our vanity to keep up appearances. For who? Everyone, either offline or online. Why? Perhaps it’s a distraction. “Just go there/do this, even if you can’t afford it—you only live once,” many posts suggest. And surprisingly, it’s not bank advertisements seducing us into another loan, but a collective urgency to satisfy ourselves as a subconscious trepidation that a collapse is lurking around the corner begins to set in. As if we’re running out of time.
People with not just one, but two bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, or even doctorates can’t find jobs that match their educational qualifications. Applications are everywhere, but it seems no one is truly hiring. And if they are, they require years of experience for junior roles, the positions are unstable, or the internships unpaid. As a result, people resort to gig work or roles unrelated to their studies, creating a mismatch between the investment they put into education and the economic return. In light of this, going to university no longer feels like a path to stability and upward mobility, as the market rewards hustle and performance over knowledge and expertise. The biggest victims of this shift are students in the social sciences and humanities, often mocked as future baristas. Many creatives, in turn, are pushed toward STEM, tech, and business—fields that are perceived to have a better guarantee.
