The Frictionless Lie
Why the generation born with a glass rectangle is trying to chew its way out.
Gen Z is going to the movies. They’re knitting. They’re playing board games. This isn’t a “vibe” or a TikTok trend. It’s a survival strategy. They’re finally realizing that tech has a grip on them, and they’re trying to chew their way out.
We spent fifteen years making everything “frictionless.” That was the goal. Don’t walk to the store. Don’t go to the theater. Don’t even think; just let the algorithm finish your sentence. We succeeded. We made life very smooth. We also made it feel thin.
I’m an IT guy. I spend my life behind screens. I know the “grip” better than most. But when I sit down to play dominoes or cards, something changes. I’m not a big fidgeter, but I like the feel of a tile in my hand. The weight of it. You can’t fidget with a pixel. A touch screen has no resistance. It just absorbs you until you’re numb.
The social side is even more important. Face-to-face games have “grit.” You have to look at the person across the table. You have to deal with the messy reality of a human interaction that hasn’t been edited or “liked.”
Tech takes the thinking out of the game. I play the NYT Crossword apps, but they’re too helpful. They tell you you’re wrong before you even have a chance to be wrong. You end up just guessing letters until the red highlight goes away. You aren’t solving a puzzle; you’re just clicking a box until it gives up.
In a real game, if you make a mistake, you own it. There’s no “Command-Z” on a card table.
Some people say this is just an aesthetic. “Grandmacore.” Whatever. I think the aesthetic is just the hook. It’s like traveling to a new city because you saw a cool photo. You go for the landmark, but once you’re there, you find the cool hole-in-the-wall bar by accident. You wouldn’t have found the “real” spot if you hadn’t made the trip.
The hobby is the trip. They start knitting because it looks cool, but they stay because it’s slow. It’s rhythmic. It’s physical. You can actually hold the result in your hand.
The corporate world is trying to monetize this with “immersive hubs” and QR codes on every table. They think the draw is the tech. They’re wrong. The draw is the absence of the tech. The silence of a dark theater is the most valuable thing they have to sell.
People are tired of being ghosts in their own lives. They want things that are slow, heavy, and inconvenient. Because those are the only things that still feel real.