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Earlier this year, TikTokers declared the start of the Great Meme Depression of 2025. In the months since, things havent picked up much. As 2026 approaches, some internet users have decided to take matters into their own hands rather than risk yet another year of AI slop and brainrot humor. Its time to take it back to 2016. The Great Meme Reset of 2026 was first proposed by TikTok creator joebro909 in a video from March, according to KnowYourMeme, in the thick of The Great Meme Depression. In the clip, he suggested that all memes be wiped from memory in an effort to rescue TikTok from the drought. In September, TikTok creator golden._vr took up the call, proposing a time and a date for what they dubbed, The Great Meme Reset. “The last resort for memes,” the video’s caption read. “The Great Meme Reset. December 31st, 2025, 11:59. Memes are rising from the grave.” Since then, internet users have been reup0ping classic memes, like Nyan Cat and Harambe, made popular before TikTok was even a glint in millennials eye, thus wiping clean the last decade of internet culture. With Elon Musk threatening to bring back Vine but in AI form and a new six-second app backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey reviving more than 100,000 archived Vine clips, now seems as good a time as ever to introduce such classics as FRE SH VOCADO” and Damn Daniel to the youth of today. Everything old is new again. The appeal of a return to an internet undiluted by AI slop is undeniable, but is 2010 humor really so much better than the brainrot trends of today? Awkward Turtle and Annoying Orange just dont hit the same in the cold light of 2025. With the rapid pace of the meme cycle these days (who even remembers the Conclave memes earlier this year?!), the pull of nostalgia for a time where memes evolved at a slower pace is strong. Yet, the algorithm marches onwards, in some cases eating itself in its insatiable demand for viral content. Trying to force it backwards is futile. Inevitably, The Great Meme Reset Of 2026 will soon meet the same fate as Evil Kermit and Big Chungus before it. Its the circle of life.
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E-Commerce
Stories about AI-generated fabrications in the professional world have become part of the background hum of life since generative AI hit the mainstream three years ago. Invented quotes, fake figures, and citations that lead to non-existent research have shown up in academic publications, legal briefs, government reports, and media articles. We can often understand these events as technical failures: the AI hallucinated, someone forgot to fact-check, and an embarrassing but honest mistake became a national news story. But in some cases, they represent the tip of a much bigger icebergthe visible portion of a much more insidious phenomenon that predates AI but that will be supercharged by it. Because in some industries, the question of whether a statement is true or false doesnt matter much at allwhat counts is whether it is persuasive. While talking heads have tended to focus on the post-truth moment in politics, consultants and other knowledge producers have been happily treating the truth as a malleable construct for decades. If it is better for the bottom line for the data to point in one direction rather than another, someone out there will happily conduct research that has the sole goal of finding the right answer. Information is commonly packaged in decks and reports with the intention of supporting a client narrative or a firms own goals while inconvenient facts are either minimized or ignored entirely. Generative AI provides an incredibly powerful tool for supporting this kind of misdirection: even if it is not pulling data out of thin air and inventing claims from the ground up, it can provide a dozen ways to hide the truth or to make alternative facts sound convincing. Wherever the appearance of rigor matters more than rigor itself, AI becomes not a liability but a competitive advantage. Not to put too fine a point on it, many knowledge workers spend much of their time producing what the philosopher Harry Frankfurt calls bullshit. And what is bullshit according to Frankfurt? Its essence, he says, is not that it is false but it is phony. The liar, Frankfurt explains, cares about truth, even if only negatively, since he or she wants to conceal it. The bullshitter, however, does not care at all. They may even tell the truth by accident. What matters to bullshitters isn’t accuracy but effect: how their words work on an audience, what impression they create, what their words allow them to get away with. For many individuals and firms in these industries, words in reports and slide decks are not there to describe reality or to conduct honest argumentation; they are there to do the work of the persuasive bullshitter. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? ","dek":"Faisal Hoques books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and techturning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/faisalhoque.com","theme":{"bg":"#02263c","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420512,"imageMobileId":91420514,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Knowledge work is one of the leading providers of what the anthropologist David Graeber famously called bullshit jobsjobs that involve work that even those doing it quietly suspect serves no real purpose. For decades, product vendors, analysts, and consultants have been rewarded for producing material that looks rigorous, authoritative, and data-driventhe thirty-page slide deck, the glossy report, snazzy frameworks, and slick 2x2s. The material did not need to be good. It simply needed to look good. And if that is the goal, if words are meant to perform rather than inform, if the aim is to produce effective bullshit rather than tell the truth, then it makes perfect sense to use AI. AI can produce bullshit better and more quickly and in greater volume than any human being. So, when consultants and analysts turn to generative AI to help them with their reports and presentations, they are obeying the underlying logic and fundamental goals of the system in which they operate. The problem here is not that AI produces bullshitthe problem is that many in this business are willing to say whatever needs to be said to pad the bottom line. Bullshit vs. quality The answer here is neither new policies nor training programs. These things have their places, but at best they address symptoms rather than underlying causes. If we want to address causes rather than apply band-aids, we have to understand what we have lost in the move to bullshit, because then we can begin figuring out how to recover it. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig uses the term quality to name the property that makes a good thing good. This is an intangible characteristic: it cannot be defined, but everyone knows it when they see it. You know quality when you run your hand along a well-made table and feel the seamless join between two pieces of wood; you know quality when you see that every line and curve is just as it should be. There is a quiet rightness to something that has this character, and when you see it, you glimpse what it means for something to be genuinely good. If the institutions that are responsible for creating knowledgenot just consulting firms but universities, corporations, governments, and media platformswere animated by a genuine sense of quality, it would be far harder for bullshit to take root. Institutions teach values through what they reward, and we have spent decades rewarding the production of bullshit. Consultants simply do in excelsis what we have all learned to do to some degree: produce something that looks good without caring whether it really is good. First you wear the mask, they say, and then the mask wears you. Initially, perhaps, we can produce bullshit while at least retaining our capacity to see it as bullshit. But over time, the longer we operate in the bullshit-industrial complex, the more bullshit we produce, the more we tend to lose even that capacity. We drink the Kool Aid and start thinking that bullshit is quality. AI does not cause that blindness. It simply reveals it. What leaders can do Make life hard. Bullshit flourishes because it is easy. If we want to produce quality work, we need to take the harder road. AI isnt going away, and nor should we wish it away. It is an incredible tool for enhancing productivity and allowing us to do more with our time. But it often does so by encouraging us to produce bullshit, because that is the quickest and easiest path in a world that has given up on quality. The challenge is to harness AI without allowing ourselves to be beguiled into shortcuts that ultimately pull us down into the mire. To avoid that trap, leaders must take deliberate steps at both the individual and organizationl levels. At the individual level. Never accept anything that AI outputs without making it your own first. For every sentence, every fact, every claim, every reference, ask yourself: Do I stand by that? If you dont know, you need to check the claims and think through the arguments until they truly become your own. Often, this will mean rewriting, revising, reassessing, and even flat out rejecting. And this is hard when there is an easier path available. But the fact that it is hard is what makes it necessary. At the organizational level: Yes, we must trust our people to use AI responsibly. Butif we choose not to keep company with the bullshitters of the worldwe must also commit and recommit our organizations to producing work of real quality. That means instituting real, rigorous quality checks. Leaders need to stand behind everything their team produces. They need to take responsibility and affirm that they are allowing it to pass out of the door not because it sounds good but because it really is good. Again, this is hard. It takes time and effort. It means not accepting a throwaway glance across the text but settling down to read and understand in detail. It means being prepared to challenge ourselves and to challenge our teams, not just periodically, but every day. The path forward is not to resist AI or to romanticize slowness and inefficiency. It is to be ruthlessly honest about what we are producing and why. Every time we are tempted to let AI-generated material slide because it looks good enough, we should ask: Are we creating something of quality, or are we just adding to the pile of bullshit? That questionand our willingness to answer it honestlywill determine whether AI becomes a tool for excellence or just another engine that trades insight for appearance. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? 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Early this year, Mark Zuckerberg made headlines by saying corporate culture needs more masculine energy. This sentiment was echoed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseths call for the militaryan employer of 2.1 million Americansto return to a warrior ethos, promoting traditional masculine standards like aggression and athleticism. And yet, according to recent news reports, recruits at ICE (another workplace) are struggling to pass basic fitness tests, and Hegseth allegedly installed a makeup room at the Pentagon. Such contradictions remind me of a former manager who once criticized a potential hire for being kind of girly, yet spent most of his free time online researching spa treatments and shopping for floral polos. Masculinity standards can be nebulous and conflicting. GQs 2025 State of Masculinity Survey asked 1,929 American men their thoughts and beliefs on masculinity, and men surveyed defined masculine as strong, protective, and toughbut when asked how theyd like to be described by a friend, they said respectful, honest, and responsible. It seems even men themselves are confused about what masculinity is. Meanwhile, the GQ survey also found that 68% of men think about how to be masculine every single day. Men are navigating mixed messages, says gender equality and masculinity researcher Dr. Sarah DiMuccio, Head of Research and Development at Above & Beyond, a DEI consultancy and leadership academy based in Copenhagen. Be more open and empathetic. But also: ‘man up’ and be decisive. In todays world, workplace leaders are doubling down on a narrow, quasi-toxic version of masculinity, determining who gets heard, who gets promoted, what behaviors are rewarded and what the tone of the organization is. This impacts the way men behave, define success, and shapes business, as well as larger culture. The consequences are real: Economically, harmful behaviors associated with masculine stereotypes cost the United States over $15.7 billion each year. Masculine performanceand anxiety As a gay man, Ive never been naive about how masculinity is used as currency. But because I was raised in what I now realize was a very progressive household, it wasnt something I worried much about. I started rethinking how I performed it after being passed over for a work promotion. My then manager (the floral-polo-bedecked one) encouraged me to apply for this interview, telling me I was a natural fit. While Id never mentioned being gay to him before, it somehow came up during an interview hed sat in on. The unofficial, non-HR-sanctioned feedback I got from him when I didnt advance? I think they were just looking for, like, a sports-and-beer guy. Can I absolutely prove it was being gay? No, but Id bet money on it. A 2022 study published in Sex Roles: a Journal of Research found that both gay and straight men tend to prefer gay colleagues who are in leadership roles to present as masculine. And while I subjectively feel I present pretty masculine, masculinity and sexuality are routinely conflated. Even at more progressive companies, I now strategically choose when to acknowledge my sexuality. Its hard to blame me, when work culture (and the wider culture) rewards a very narrow idea of masculinity, putting it on a pedestal for others to conform to. Dr. Travis Speice, a sociologist specializing in gender and sexuality studies, says, Sometimes, it doesnt actually matter how we perform our gender or our sexuality in the workplaceit’s other people who decide whether its acceptable or not. This can lead to some absurd-seeming contradictions. One might think Pete Hegseths installation of a makeup studio in the Pentagon flies in the face of warrior ethos, but if others have already deemed him (or any man) the right kind of masculine, it might not matter. And yet: I dont know that any performance is absurd if the performer feels like there is a social advantage by following through with that performance, Speice says. On top of the muddied definitions and public displays of masculinity, the pressure for men to perform as masculine at work worryingly has an adverse effect on everyone involved. A 2018 study published in the Journal of Social Issues, entitled “Work as a Masculinity Contest,” found that workplaces prevalent with men attempting masculine performance tend to be ones also filled with toxic leadership and bullying, as well as fewer opportunities, more burnout, and worse wellbeing for the women in the office. Success comes to focus not on meeting performance goals, the study says, but on proving you are more of a man than the next guy. Thus, being a top performer is tantamount to being a manor for the winners, the man. The need to prove masculinity at work can cause men to behave aggressively, embrace risky behaviors, and sexually harass others. Half of men have taken time off from work to cope with mental health struggles, but less than one in ten would disclose said struggles. DiMuccio was a researcher on a 2021 study entitled Masculine Anxiety and Interrupting Sexism at Work, which found that 94% of men at work experience masculine anxiety: the stress men feel living up to masculine expectations. She points out how the way this anxiety manifests doesnt always look like nervousness: Sometimes it looks like bravado, competition, or withdrawal. Speice adds that In some work environments, straight men may feel even more pressure to perform traditional masculinity, desperate to prove their real man status. The tech bro: Our loudest archetype At the moment, few industries capture the celebrated absurdity of masculinitys narrowest view more than Big Tech. Silicon Valley is embracing a new era of masculinity, Zoe Bernard wrote in her 2023 piece for Vox entitled Silicon Valleys very masculine year. (An award that Silicon Valley is about to win for the third year in a row, and maybe then we can retire the trophy.) Tech’s “leaders are powerful, virile, and swole,” Bernard writes. Todays tech brosMark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Mukhave become the unofficial poster boys for performative masculinity, trading in hoodies and office foosball tables for MMA and bow hunting. Nick Clegg, former Meta Vice President of Global Affairs, recently critiqued the tech bros (though it should be noted he spoke highly of Zuckerberg as a colleague), in an interview with The Guardian, hinting at the fragility of performative manliness. He called the trend cloyingly conformist, adding: I couldnt, and still cant, understand this deeply unattractive combination of machismo and self-pity. Dr. Peter Glick, a Professor of Psychology at Lawrence University (and co-author of the Work as a Masculinity Contest study) told me that traditional masculine roles provided men with a set of privileges that some feel are slipping away due to gender equality and DEI advances. My own sense is that if anything, we have moved into a phase of highly reactive, defensive, aggrieved masculinity, he says, especially among many men who resent loss of status, power, purpose, and clarity with respect to how to fulfill masculine identity. DiMuccio agrees, citing the influence of the manosphere: a loose, online network of blogs, forums, and social media promoting traditional masculinity and highly critical of anything it deems feminist. Men are promised belonging and purpose, but in a way that is deeply problematic, misogynistic, and reinforces narrow versions of masculinity even more, she says, noting that these spaces thrive on masculine anxiety. They turn the fear of losing status or identity in a changing world into resentmentand performance. If youre accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression, says Clegg. Rethinking masculinity Growing up, being perceived as masculine wasnt something I worried about. I attribute that to my father, who, on paper, embodies traditional masculinity: Hes tall, not super emotive, and possesses the authoritative air befitting a retired Marine Colonel. But his is actually a more nuanced version of masculinity: While he certainly has protective and imposing traits, hes neither aggressive nor bombastic, embodying a quiet confidence that seeks neither attention nor approval. He modeled being a decent guy, not arbitrarily proving he was the man. Perhaps those qualitiesa steadying, grounded presence that doesnt default to performing toxic traits or demanding others to comply with themis what masculinity in the workplace could look like instead. DiMuccio thinks that deep down, Most men do know, at some level, that these [toxic] behaviors silencing others, overcompensating, refusing to ask for helpundermine teamwork and performance. But she points out that, in many workplaces, the social rewards of being perceived as masculine still justify the performance. Its not that men dont care about the greater goal. They do. But the cultural script of masculinity is so strong that it can override logic. Changing that requires shifting what we reward and recognize as leadership and success at work, DiMuccio says. For better or worse, the concept of masculinity will continue to shape the ways we live and work. We can point out its hypocrisies and absurdities all we want, but the reality is that the ways men choose to telegraph masculinity shape who gets ahead, who gets heard, and how teams functionreflecting a broader cultural tendency to reward appearances, conformity, and social signaling over substance. Recognizing this dynamic might empower individuals to identify and call out the smoke and mirrorsand allow more men to stop playing pretend.
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E-Commerce
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