By coincidence the Euphoria series finale just aired, and there's a relevant bit of text in the Guardian's review:..
Beyond the distracting shootouts and drug cartel wars, season three of Euphoria was at its strongest when it reflected the increasingly nihilistic world young people are consuming online, where they’re being raised to believe that they either have to be the hunter or the prey. As the show ends with the American flag rippling in the wind, I was reminded of Trick Mirror – a 2019 book of essays by Jia Tolentino, where she argues that scamming is becoming central to American life. Tolentino writes that to be American is to learn that “one of the best bids a person can make for financial safety” is to get “really good at exploiting other people”.
In other words, this manga is more than just a toxic relationship, it's the entire streaming ecosystem, globally.
This critic’s read of Jia Tolentino is basically asking a personal question she could not have any possible insight into, like what influencer is making her kids tie other children to lampposts. How is scamming just “becoming” central to American life? Historically it’s been very profitable to just lie to people and say you have what they need, and strivers coming to a land they have no real connection to are going to be a particularly lucrative source of income for this kind of thing. Almost every regulatory body and protection the US has is a response to this, and with the sanction of corporations - the more monied and sophisticated of the swindlers. This is par for the course, not an aberration, these regulations are sclerotic by design and the American middle class does not have the power it did once for a very brief time 80 years ago or the power it thought it did for like 70 years after that. But that has nothing to do with this manga, which is about what is happening to the Rizzler right now, and it has nothing to do with Euphoria, which is a show about hating younger women for getting naked or not getting naked enough depending on how you’re feeling about your relationship with your father that day
This is fair, though my impression is that scams contribute more to economic growth in general than what we were used to. Right now the hottest thing in the hottest sector which is tech, is Gen-AI. A few years ago it was the metaverse and crypto. I'm calling these scams because even their claimed benefits to consumers are bogus. Fake products and fake services; for devastatingly high costs in the case of gen-AI. And I think all of this is related to the manga because even before I came to the comments, I got a pretty dystopian feeling from it.
last edited at Jun 3, 2026 12:51PM
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