The Year Tech Bro Lunacy Was Exposed

2022 Year in Review

Douglas Rushkoff

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Photo by Valeria Zoncoll on Unsplash

I think 2022 will be remembered as the year we finally saw the billionaire tech bro narrative for what it is: an insane fantasy held by adult children with too much money and too much power too early in their lives for them to do any good.

The Big Threat of Big Tech has become the Big Joke practically overnight. We are watching the real-time implosion of the Silicon Valley mindset under the weight of its own hubris. Happy New Year.

Just hours ago, it seems, Elon Musk was considered the great threat to civic discourse. By using his money and network of like-minded investors to take over Twitter, it appeared that the closest thing we had left to a “public square” would be surrendered to the whims of this would-be Trump. Most frighteningly, perhaps, Musk threatened that he would unleash “thermonuclear name & shame” on companies that chose to suspend their advertising on the platform.

But over the course of the next few days, Musk reversed his plans and policies on a moment-to-moment basis, first saying he’d establish a moderation council before making any major decisions, then reinstating Kanye and Trump, then kicking off Kanye again, then lambasting Trump and supporting Rick Desantis once Trump made it clear he wouldn’t return to posting on the platform. Finally, in a…

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Douglas Rushkoff

Author of Survival of the Richest, Team Human, Program or Be Programmed, and host of the Team Human podcast http://teamhuman.fm