Watching The World Burn on Our Phones
Why we doomscroll.
There's this play by Eugene Ionesco called, "Rhinoceros."
You should read it sometime.
It's about an ordinary dude named Berenger, a Lebowski type who drinks too much and never shows up anywhere on time.
Things get interesting when he meets up with a friend for coffee, but their conversation gets interrupted when...yep... a rhinoceros charges through the town square. Over the course of three acts, Berenger watches everyone he cares about, including the woman he loves, transform into a rhinoceros.
Nobody believes him.
The transformation into a rhinoceros starts off with a mild cold. As people transform, they get cranky and aggressive. They accuse Berenger of paranoia. They tell him to stop obsessing over rhinos.
They lose all their empathy.
They start talking about letting everyone live their own lives and getting back to normal. It's ironic, because after they transform, all a rhinoceros wants to do is chase everyone else down and turn them.
Scholars have described the play as a meta…