The limp of progress
The direwolf is coming back, and yet nothing ever really changes.
What a week to be writing a newsletter called How Absurd. This could’ve been about a lot of recent absurdities: Cults about not dying. A fabricated report moved the stock market. Inflatable designer boots. A defendant represented by an AI avatar. Em dashes were momentarily cancelled. A de-extinction startup resurrected the Direwolf.
Absurd, sure—yes I’m still using the em dash—but not shocking. Maybe what’s more surprising is that Time Magazine covers still exist... and still look exactly the same?
I visited my niece’s elementary school recently and it was like stepping into a freeze frame: cinderblocks, beige walls, laminated signs in Comic Sans. Those motivational posters from the Clinton administration. The exact same metal crank paper towel dispenser I used in the ’90s—still rusting, still slightly bent, still scraping out paper like it resents you. Really, nothing there felt different.
That same week, I was asked by a college student I was guest lecturing for whether my company was planning to “replace people with AI.” I got served an ad for an electric spoon that makes things taste better with tiny currents. And when I scroll, I now feel a need to look twice to make sure things are real and not AI-generated. It felt like everything was going too fast, until I really looked around.
There’s a lot of noise that we’re living through a time of unprecedented change. But most of the world (the world we actually move through) looks much the same.
So here’s a few things to admire on your next walk—everyday relics that remind us the world mostly feels like an adjustment while doomscrolling:
Mailboxes
This blue box has been in use since 1971. The sloped top was designed to prevent people from sitting on it and it hasn’t been reimagined since.
Strip Malls
Still hosting the same chains. As of 2023, over 60% of anchor tenants in U.S. shopping centers had been there since 1998. Some of those immortal chains include: Target, Bath & Body Works, Foot Locker, GameStop, T-Mobile (née Sprint), Petco, Old Navy, The UPS Store.
Even Build-a-Bear is a high performer these days. Though, Edible Arrangements pivoted to….edibles. Yes, you read that right. They now sell weed.
Public Schools
Same desks. Same bulletin boards. Same floors that squeak if you drag your sneakers. Same architecture modeled after military barracks and prisons for "visibility and control." 90% of U.S. public schools were built before 2000.
Elevators
Simple buttons. Doors closing the same way. Sometimes a screen inside. Sometimes made with more glass. But still weirdly slow. I had to check I wasn’t making this up, but it turns out 60% of elevators in the U.S. are over 25 years old.
Crosswalk Buttons
Still here, even though most of them don’t work. They were disconnected when cities moved to automated signal systems, but engineers left the buttons there so people wouldn’t lose their minds. In traffic engineering, they’re called “mechanical placebo buttons.” In NYC, only 10% of crosswalk buttons actually function.
The Anthora cup
It’s been happy to serve you since around 1963 and hasn’t changed. Over 180 million sold, officially in the MoMA, and unofficially in every bodega that ever mattered.
Junk Mail
Still mostly no idea how you got signed up for it. Still promising “Exclusive Offers” and addressed to the “Current Resident.” Okay, we all hate it. But it is an everyday relic.
Laminated Menus
The sound it makes when it wobbles. The shine. I don’t know, these somehow never change to me. They’ve got their own design philosophy and if you are handed one, you must treasure the moment. Bent corners and all.
Hot Dog Carts
Some icons deserve to remain exactly as they are. New York’s chrome-and-umbrella design was first introduced in the 1960s and hasn’t changed much since. And according to a 2011 street vendor study, industrial designers officially called the design “functionally perfect.” They were so right about that and I’m begging, please don’t ever change this one.
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The thing no one tells you about living in the future is that progress isn’t evenly distributed. It doesn’t feel like a sprint forward, it’s more like a limp.
Lately, I find joy in the mixed pace. Tell me if you find any, too.