YA-YA Crash Out - #001

CHECK IT: I’m sprawled on my millennial grey couch, mindlessly toggling through YouTube videos that promise the secret sauce for raising capital for art projects.

It’s 4am.

I should be knee-deep in REM, not drowning in an endless cascade of corporate jargon.

One video leads to another until I’m bombarded with buzzwords, as if some boardroom L. Ron Hubbard were whispering, “Conform or die.”

Meanwhile, I’m wrestling with the anxiety monster of overdue bills and missed meals, praying these lights don’t go out while I dissect ROI like it’s my new religion.

Naturally, I swipe over to LinkedIn—the digital purgatory for those of us who once dared to be different. I scroll through my profile, desperately trying to condense my legacy as an artist, teacher, and aspiring Muppet body double into neat, cubicle-worthy bullet points. Corporate adulthood isn’t about purpose or passion; it’s about survival.

Once again forced to acknowledge that Severance is a reality TV series.

Before I can even muster the will to click on the “Jobs” tab, a post catches my eye. A friend from college just got promoted—officially ascending into the realm of middle management. His caption drips with obligatory gratitude, complete with mentor shoutouts and sentimental reflections on the “journey.”

The comments flood in: an endless stream of “Congratulations!” and “Welcome to the team!” His replies, stiff and punctuated with too much emotion !!, sound as if a corporate AI finally got its chance to be a real boy. “I’m so lucky to be apart of such an amazing company!!” A small amount of cartilage grows. Not because he isn’t happy, but because this is the game.

This is how you survive.

I set my phone down.

I cry.

I laugh at my own tears.

I laugh until the laughter turns back into tears, and then I simply sit, numb with resignation.

This is reality—a relentless parade of performative success and personal struggle. The fortunate get to wallow in their illusions, while the rest are condemned to hustle through a system designed to drain our spirit.

But what if the true solution isn’t to bend further to this warped system, but to tear it down entirely? Radical socioeconomic change isn’t some far-off fantasy—it’s a desperate necessity born from our collective exhaustion. Souls battered by the corporate farce, daring to dream of a world that values genuine humanity over conformity.

Yet, dawn starts to break.

What good ever came from dreaming at 4am?