094 - Addicted to Doomscrolling: Politics, Algorithms, and Mental Health

Alyssa is joined by Taylor (Skeptical Heretic) for a chaotic, deeply online dive into politics, Christian nationalism, social media addiction, and why the U.S. feels like a reality show right now. They start with creator life and ADHD brain rot: “fake jobs,” unpaid activism, being glued to their phones “for research,” and how doomscrolling politics content wrecks their mental health. From there they go straight into Trump’s briefings, the cult-like “suck fest” around him, his likely cognitive decline, and the truly embarrassing way he talks about “insane asylums” because he doesn’t understand what asylum means. Alyssa and Taylor dig into white nationalism, Christian nationalism, and the normalization of Nazi symbolism on the right, plus the conspiracy-brain antisemitism driving the Manosphere and far-right influencers. They connect that to moral panics over trans people and immigrants—tiny percentages of the population that conservatives obsess over despite rarely interacting with them in real life. They also unpack a huge social media addiction lawsuit, where a 20-year-old woman sued over intentionally addictive algorithms (infinite scroll, engagement-maximizing feeds) and won millions. That case could be Big Tech’s “big tobacco moment” and raises hard questions about personal responsibility vs. corporate accountability when apps are literally designed to keep you hooked. Later they touch on X/Twitter as the Wild West, Elon’s “dark MAGA” era, AI tools being used for genuinely harmful stuff, and how impossible it feels to opt out of AI when employers and platforms are all-in.