Being "Conservative and Religious" Fixes Social Media Addiction?, Biggest Movie Franchise in the World...Makes Zero Cultural Impact. Remote Work Causing the Marriage Crisis? (The Five for 11/26/25)
Plus, why a top fitness influencer regrets his parenting.
Welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter, but don’t always make the front page.
It’s Thanksgiving week, so there isn’t much news worth writing about…so let’ do back-to-back culture issues, shall we.
The next one will drop on Black Friday…but I won’t bel selling you anything.
[one]
Jonathan Haidt has released two of the most important books of this century: The Coddling of the American Mind and The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.
In conversation with new CBS head Bari Weiss this week, he dropped a rather unusual piece of research…being religious and Conservative keeps kids from succombing as badly to the traps of social media.
Girls spend a lot more time on social media than boys. Liberal girls spend a lot more time than conservative girls. That didn’t used to be the case, but as we get into the 2010s, when everything gets so politicized, we get into the great awokening, we get into the polarization, the illiberalism. That is, you know, that, that you and I have really been.
And my previous book, the Codling, the American Mind with Greg Luciano was exactly about that. Here’s three terrible, terrible ideas, and if you believe them, you’re almost guaranteed to be a failure in life.
You know, it’s what doesn’t kill you, makes you weaker. Always trust your feelings. And life is a battle between good people and evil people.And for liberal girls, a lot of them got sucked into that kind of mindset. And it happened on Tumblr in 2013. That was the transition point when certain ideas were developed. So that’s when girls mental health takes a tumble. If you graph out liberal boys and liberal girls and conservative boys and conservative girls, it’s the liberal girls who really rise first and fastest on depression and the conservative boys.
Are not up that much, so everyone is worse off, but being conservative seems to root you. You’re not as easily pushed into this crazy world. Being in a religious family seems to root you. Uh, and those two things seem to be protective.
Haidt, a political liberal, describes himself as a “Jewish Athiest,” so he’s definitely not following his own advice here, so you can’t take away the argument as one being made by a religious Conservative in the name of conversion…
[two]
Entrepenuer, researcher and podcaster Scott Galloway, one of the most interesting voices on the political left, says that remote work is destroying young people’s lives.
From his appearance with Bill Maher:
The second worst thing to happen to young people is remote work. Uh, one in three relationships begin at work. This is where you find friends, mentors, and mates and especially young men, need the guardrails of a workplace. But in my view, the worst thing that’s happened to young people is the anti-alcohol movement.
I’ve had huberman on who I’m a big fan of, on. And my point is that the risks to your 25-year-old liver are risks are, are dwarfed by the risk of so social isolation in some, think of all the amazing relationships you’ve had in your life and be honest, did alcohol play a role in some get out, drink more and make a series of bad decisions?
Yeah…that checks out.
[three]
Avatar: Fire and Ash, will almost certainly become one of the biggest films in history, just like the first two entries into the series.
But YouTube commentator The Critical Drinker asks an important question here…why doesn’t anyone TALK about these movies?
The problem is that spectacle without substance is like dating a really hot girl with no personality. It gets old real fast, and once those good looks start to become familiar and mundane, there’s not much to keep you hanging around.
The other problem is that what was magical and awe inspiring back in the simpler days of 2009 isn’t in 2025 after more than a decade of superhero movies and Star Wars and God knows what else. Audiences today are all maxed out on visual spectacle. If anything, I’d say they’re actually kind of bored of it all now because movies have become so big, and CGI is so ubiquitous that we’ve basically reached the limits of what you can throw at the audience.
The Critical Drinker describes the Avatar series as "a cultural smokescreen” that’s quickly blown away and you forget it was ever there…and his take is that lack of character development is the main issue.
This, I think, is what’s really missing from the Avatar movies: an emotional core that everything else was built around. It’s not to say that they don’t try to give you something — the first Avatar is really just a story about two people from vastly different cultures falling in love in the middle of an epic conflict. The second movie is about those same people trying to hold a family together in the middle of another epic conflict.
The difference is that they and the characters that make them up feel like they were injected later into a story that had already formed, instead of being the emotional core that everything else was built around. The result? They come across as obligatory rather than unique, like some mandatory checkbox that had to be ticked to justify everything else that happens in the movie.
If you want an interesting social experiment at Thanksgiving, ask those around the table if they have seen the Avatar movies…then ask them what they remember about them.
Movie theater attendance is way down (October was abysmal) and a lot of the right-wing commentary class want to blame “Wokeness” for the myriad of empty seats at the Multiplex.
In reality…it’s simpler.
Mediocre scripts.
[four]
Well, I hope you’re getting benefits from AI…because AI is sucking all the air out of the room. Electronics (PC’s, gaming consoles in particular) are already increasing in price.
Yahoo Tech reports:
Sweeney explained to his social media followers that “Factories are diverting leading-edge DRAM capacity to meet AI needs, where data centers are bidding far higher than consumer device makers.” That’s simple economics, where DRAM makers shift production to more profitable lines. It is hard to blame them for making hay while the sun shines, with the boom/bust cycles the industry is prone to. However, the Epic boss’s statement avoids pointing fingers at consumer-facing companies like Amazon or Crucial for engaging in any pricing shenanigans.
Of course, the AI server building frenzy isn’t just affecting DRAM markets. In recent months, it has also been sucking bargains from consumer SSD-land, and effects are even now being felt on storage solutions like HDDs and high-capacity microSD cards. Where will it end? Some financial soothsayers have gotten more vocal about an AI bubble popping in recent weeks. However, Sweeney doesn’t seem to feel like an AI bubble is anywhere near popping pressure, going by his “several years” prediction.
But hey, if you can’t afford a new PC right now, at least you’re using less electricity…that’s going up in price as well.
The data centers that power the artificial intelligence revolution are driving up electricity prices for households — and price relief may not be coming anytime soon, according to energy experts.
Residential retail electricity prices in September were up 7.4%, to about 18 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the most recent data from the Energy Information Administration.
Electricity prices closely tracked inflation from 2013 to 2023, but will likely outpace inflation at least through 2026, according to an EIA forecast from May. Some regions will be hit harder than others, it said.
Energy experts and economists point to electricity-hungry data centers that underpin AI projects as a key reason for the price inflation.
These data centers are vast warehouses of computer servers and other IT equipment that power cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other tech applications.
The basic reason for rising prices: Electricity demand — including actual and forecasted demand — is outstripping new supply.Data centers are expected to consume anywhere from 6.7% to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy estimated in December 2024.
John Quigley, senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, pointed to the “data center frenzy” as the primary driver of higher electricity prices for households.
“They’re pretty much the whole boat when it comes to increases in electricity demand,” Quigley said.
“It’s going to get worse,” he said.
My entire business is built on AI. Good thing I figured it out, cause now I have to be able to afford electricity for my house…
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
[movies] The cast of Michael Mann’s Heat 2 includes Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale (both confirmed), as well as (rumored) Al Pacino, Austin Bulter, Adam Driver, Ana de Armas, Jeremy White, Bradley Cooper and Channing Tatum. Wow.
[shows] Prime Video is expanding on the popular Stargate universe with an upcoming new TV show.
[games] GTA VI officially moves to a November 2026 release date. // Leaks show that Far Cry 7 will be inspired by the HBO show Succession. Well, that’s interesting.
I wouldn’t call myself the target demo for rom-coms (obviously), but Charlie Cox (Daredevil, Treason) and Zoey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer, New Girl) are a very watchable duo, as an ex-couple who must reunite to cure their dog’s depression.
“Stay together for the dog,” is, sadly, the most Millennial of rom-coms. Stream it 12/10.
Huh. Justin Long (Accepted, Dodgeball) is mainly known for comedy, but I’ll take him in vampire/survival/horror cop movie. Cool to see rapper Freddie Gibbs, who I interviewed circa 2005 when he was starting to make some noise in the Chicago music scene, pop up in a leading role.
Bradley Cooper (American Sniper, Silver Linings Playbook) proved he’s a pretty good dirctor with A Star is Born. Now, Cooper is puling double duty as actor/director with a new dramedy starring Will Arnett (Arrested Development, The Lego Movie) as a guy going through a divorce who tries his hand at stand up comedy…badly. Laura Dern (Big Little Lies, Jurrasic Park) co-stars.
It will probably win some awards or something…I’m not personally sold.
Kristen Stewart (Twilight, Snow White and the Huntsmen) makes her directorial debut with a biopic about Lidia Yuknavitch, a an Olympic swimmer enduring an abusive relationship and battling drug addiction. This is in the same vein as Dwayne Johnosn’s mma flick The Smashing Machine and Sydney Sweeney’s boxing picture Christie…which both fell straight on their faces at the box office. Can’t imagine this is going to be much different. The fact that I had to Google the plot because the trailer is so weird probably isn’t going to help sell this one.
It might be good, but the public just isn’t into these kinds of movies at the moment.
[new music]
The new EP from Michigan based rapper NF contains one of the best verses of the yearwhen MGK gets on the mic—as the rapper/pop-punker managed to pack in his thoughts on being raised by an abusive father, falling into drug addiction, raising his oldest daughter as a single father, and splitting with actress Megan Fox around the time of the birth of their daughter…with a turn towards faith.
MGK weaves a lot into just a few lines, telling his own story of repentance with a mix of emotional vulnerability and some pop culure zingers thrown in. The whole EP is worth a spin, but this is the high point:
o I’ll follow my heart, but my heart is scattered
Like my father’s ashes in the back of the rental after I dropped his urn
Probably a metaphor for everything I’ve learned
Like how the only love I’ll have is gonna crash and burn
Or how the poorest I’ve felt was after the most I’ve earned
The biggest lie told is that no one should be concerned
There’s gotta be another highway that don’t lead to Hell
A star to lead me through the darkest night like Christian Bale
I hid from God for more than two decades of life
And when I came back to the light, He didn’t ask me if I’m Christian still
Just opened up His arms and embraced me like I’m His Son
Erasin’ all the archetypes of what people like me become
Before Green Day got smart and satirical on their most famous album, American Idiot, they were snot-nosed punks out of the East Bay, spend the 90’s playing loud and sloppy…with very juvenile lyrics.
On Warning, the trio grew up a bit, keeping their feet off the distortion pedals and picking up acoustic instruments and leaning into deeper songwriting.
Critics loved it…but their fanbase turned on them….which is partially what pushed Green Day so hard to make their biggest album to date (American Idiot). As time has passed, Warning found it’s audience, and has become one of the most beloved entries into the band’s catalog. The 25th anniversary re-release, which includes a bunch of demos/alt takes and a live concert recorded in Japan in 2001, is something special.
Goo Goo Dolls on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series…do not miss this one.
[read and learn]
“I pushed those boys way too hard.” Archer and ultra runner Cameron Haynes is the perhaps the most iconic name in the hunting world, but made a surprising comments about raising his now-adult sons (who are also physical monsters, one of whom is a special forces soldier).
Haynes told podcaster Chris Williamson that he regrets his parenting style, claiming he pushed way too hard, and would do it differently. Dang.
Until the next one,
-sth