 is a Junior Commissioning Editor. His early twenties were spent perennially interning at the likes of 

. By day, he can be found writing about pop culture, fashion, nightlife, politics and digital culture

but on weekends you'll likely find him watching 

or becoming a cautionary tale to shopaholics everywhere. 

Navigating reality has become an almost constant shock to the system. With the ongoing cost of living crisis, wars, political polarisation, and global environmental issues, life’s stresses are becoming increasingly difficult to escape. With individuals and collectives in a perpetual state of disturbance, people are increasingly seeking reprieve.

If the notion of escape was previously more transient, people are growing more invested in constructing a permanent refuge through world-building and community connections. Global fandoms, Australia’s board game renaissance, and the flourishing rave culture in the UK are examples of alternative realities that allow people to find joy and supportive networks. Many are also finding embodied escapes through psychedelics, VR meditations, and manifestations.

People are increasingly trading a quick hit of holiday serotonin for an emotional release one can get without leaving the home. Travel excess is undoubtedly on the rise, but TikTok’s #UltimateWorldCruise saw millions of people escape vicariously through their screens by witnessing creators share their experiences of a nine-month Royal Caribbean cruise, with its dramas, mishaps, and relatable characters. Elsewhere, one TikToker who decided to build a tunnel network under her house purely to keep herself “preoccupied” gained a captive online audience – demonstrating how people are increasingly interested in absurd departures from everyday life.

People are finding freedom in the unhinged by embracing new levels of honesty about mental health. ‘Yearnposting’ reflects a more deliberate engagement with anxiety and dissatisfaction, while others are opting for off-the-rails candour or just dissociating completely. Meanwhile, trends like ‘feral girl summer’, ‘bedrotting’, and ‘goblin mode’ have seen people construct new lifestyles and outlooks for themselves – because reality doesn’t cut it.

Essential Escapism

Circling back. Touching base. Pow-wows. These corporate buzzwords make working life feel eternal. But what if it actually was? This unsettling premise fuels 

, the Ben Stiller-directed Apple TV+ hit that has been rendering people’s darkest workplace nightmares in art since its arrival in 2022. At the show's heart lies a chilling concept: select employees at the secretive Lumon Industries undergo a radical procedure that divides their consciousness. After the death of his wife in a mysterious car crash, Mark (Adam Scott) turns to Lumon, where a memory-inhibiting implant splits his consciousness between work and home. Leading the ‘Macrodata Refinement’ team, he and his ‘innie’ colleagues – defiant newcomer Helly (Britt Lower), duty-bound Irving (John Turturro) and sceptical Dylan (Zach Cherry), navigate the eerie and increasingly surreal levels of Lumon, entirely severed from their ‘outie’ lives, and, essentially, never get to leave.

s return, three years later, feels eerily prescient. In 2025, the show’s themes of corporate distrust, the misuse of technology and the ails of capitalism speak to the current era of ‘

’ in which people are ensnared. The buoyancy and forgiving satire of 

feels like a bygone dream, as work feels less about purpose and opportunity than scraping survival. Only 51% of Americans genuinely feel fulfilled by working, while a further 61% harbour deep grievances for conglomerates, government and the ultra-wealthy. 

Pew Research

Edelmann

s novelty also lies in its ability to defy dwindling streaming figures and subscriptions, like Disney+’s staggering 700,000 subscriber loss in 2024. 

Indie Wire

garnered 589 million minutes of viewership in its first week. This speaks to what audiences want: serialised television, a compelling multi-platform mystery, and shows that have more to say about the current socio-political landscape than that of easy escapism. Perhaps also, deep down, viewers can identify with its sterile horror and unnerving proposition. For brands, it’s a lesson in performing an emotional temperature check on audiences, tapping into contemporary anxieties and relishing the power of a slow-burning mystery that gets inside our minds.

s narrative is the mystery of just what exactly the Macro-Refinement Team is working on, and what Lumon plans to do with it. In an era with so much content at our disposal, how is it that Apple TV+’s weekly series can keep audiences so involved? “These shows give you what the TV industry in the US has always relied on: repetition and continuity”, says Jorie Lagerwey, associate professor of television studies at University College Dublin. “You know, ‘this is my Tuesday show’, 'this is my Wednesday show.’ People want legacy television that doesn’t feel disposable.” 

Interview with Jorie Lagerwey conducted by the author

 Despite so much media at our fingertips, the reality that binge-watching has been linked to mental health problems such as depression, insomnia, anxiety, stress, and loneliness is increasingly clear. 

Northwestern Medicine

 Perhaps overwhelmed, viewers are relishing in the serialised format of appointment television. The 

 trend on TikTok has witnessed 32.8 million posts as hoards of creators pour over the minutiae and aesthetics, aiming to piece the puzzle together before the next episode. Not only does the mystery keep viewers hooked, but it also entices newcomers through a litany of user-generated social media content.

Neo-expressionist media is making a comeback, seeing projects like 

using this style to render our more suppressed and intangible feelings about the polycrisis real. 

YouTube

 From its sanitary colour palette, Hopper-esque use of forced perspective and airtight sound design disrupted by jolts of Lynchian horror, 

is famed, even beloved, for its heightened and distorted representation of work. “It doesn’t look like a standard workplace drama”, Jorie explains. “There are no shadows in this world; there’s harsh lighting with blue and green undertones. Through long shots with horizontal compositions, it's this very enclosed and cold space. The feeling of emptiness mimics the erasure of personality.” 

 The retroactive backlash to ‘norm-core’ workplace sitcoms like 

speaks to a desire for working people to have their everyday fears acknowledged and re-examined. 

SSENSE

taps into a growing desire among audiences for rebellion against corporate oppression. In 2024, Luigi Mangione was charged with killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and, controversially, was adopted as a vigilante against corporate greed in the eyes of many. 

Wired

 “There’s this emerging anti-corporate energy which isn’t new, but it’s new to the mainstream. With right-wing shifts in Europe and North America, more people are [identifying as] not anti-capitalist, but anti-global corporations,” says Jorie. 

 Edelmann’s 2025 Trust Barometer clocked the ‘Eat the Rich’ mentality sweeping America – 65% believe the selfishness of the wealthy is societally detrimental, and 67% feel they don’t contribute enough in taxes. 

offers a radical, almost surreal, vision of resistance, making it a perfect source of escapism for an era where exploited workers desperately want out. Indeed, the show’s logo is in SF Pro, the very same font as Apple’s, perhaps a knowing wink to the show’s eagle-eyed audience.

The proliferation of streaming services has given viewers more volume and choice than ever with regard to television – but 62% of people think there are too many streaming services with little to offer. 

The Motley Fool

 “What interests me is not the content itself, but how the industry is reacting to an overload of content across too many platforms, which has led to a decline in quality,” says Jorie. 

itself suggests a desire for serialised, detailed mysteries that encourage fans to solve the puzzle. Additionally, streamers are harnessing the ‘liveness’ of appointment television, like Netflix’s live WWE broadcasts or Hulu’s partnerships with networks like CBS, ABC and Fox to show weekly series. 

Vice

The Hollywood Reporter

’s success points to a slow-down of audience consumption, and its detailed and rewarding storytelling keeps viewers coming back for more. This shift signals an opportunity for platforms to focus on carefully curated weekly television, with quality over quantity, that builds long-term audience engagement.

It’s not controversial to suggest that we’re living through something of a dark age; successive wars, geopolitical tension and economic polycrises are leaving audiences feeling more than a little beleaguered. 

McKinsey

70% of Americans are financially suffering, and one in five are even resorting to doom spending amid uncertainty. 

Financial Health Network

 As a means of coping, people are losing themselves in DIY 

Variety

Dazed

, or skin-crawling blockbuster horrors like 

reveal a growing appetite for surreal narratives that harness contemporary anxieties in expressionist ways. Brands can channel this energy by finding imaginative ways to reinterpret polycrisis and stimulate discourse, fostering purposeful connections with today’s anxious, uncertain audiences.

Post-pandemic, workers regained power. But as 

, that power shift is sliding back to corporations and creating a renewed sense of grievance – especially as 80% of workers in the US say their pay hasn’t kept pace with the cost of living, 54% are struggling to pay their bills, and 77% are stressed about the economy. 

American Psychiatric Association

 from the 60s, with the recurring theme of the corporate drone. Every few decades, culture reflects on how bad this is,” says Jorie. 

harkened back to the American dream and the opportunities that work can offer, 

reflects the reality of where people are.

 watched in the US in the week of January 13 to 19

 of Americans hold grievances against business, government and the rich

 of Americans are satisfied with – and actively enjoy – their job

TV show Severance introduces a radical procedure where workers’ memories are split between work and home, stoking discourse around autonomy and corporate control

Severance taps into contemporary anxieties about capitalism, technology, and corporate dominance, resonating with a working populace that feels less empowered than ever before

The series’s weekly release has fuelled the #solveseverance trend, with fans dissecting episodes, speculating on hidden details, and sharing fan theories online

Jorie Lagerwey is an associate professor of television studies at University College Dublin. Hailing from the US, she uses industry studies, feminist criticism, critical race studies, whiteness studies, discourses of celebrity, and TV style to analyse contemporary US, Irish, and UK television. She is particularly invested in studying race, gender, class, and TV genre. She is half of a writing partnership with Taylor Nygaard, with whom she has written about shows including 

 and others. Together, they are the authors of a book about prestige sitcoms called 

Horrible White People: Gender, Genre, and Television’s Precarious Whiteness.

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Severance, Apple TV+’s chilling runaway hit, turns workplace monotony into dystopian horror – its characters are split into two selves to achieve ‘balance’ at work. As corporate distrust, economic anxiety and anti-capitalist sentiment surge, its unsettling vision of work feels more pertinent than ever.