andreessen horowitz just decided my seasonal depression is a financial asset

i'm literally dissociating so hard right now. my entire parasympathetic nervous system just, like, clocked out for the day. i was just trying to have a calm morning, doomscrolling through tiktok to regulate my anxiety, when i saw the news that venture capital firm andreessen horowitz, or a16z as they call themselves in their little slack channel i guess, has decided to solve capitalism by making it... more capitalist? but for our feelings? it's a lot. i'm processing this with my emotional support water bottle, which you can get from my storefront if you're also feeling personally attacked by the economy today.

so, like, marc andreessen, who is a person that exists, dropped this unhinged 10,000-word blog post called 'building the feeling economy' and announced a new $4.5 billion fund. it's called the 'ennui fund' and it's for investing in what he calls 'post-labor abstraction' and 'non-fungible moods.' i am not making this up. my hands are literally shaking. he basically said that since gen z and gen alpha have accepted a future of, like, owning nothing and living in a pod, the next 'total addressable market' is our internal landscape. our dread. our burnout. the specific vibe of staring at a wall for three hours on a tuesday. they want to securitize it.

the portfolio is already so cursed. there's 'gloom,' a platform that scrapes social media data to create a real-time index of collective despair, which hedge funds can then trade against. there's another one called 'aura-fy' that lets you mint an nft of a particularly potent emotional state—like the feeling of getting a work email after 6 p.m.—and sell it on a marketplace. he called this 'permissionless despair' and a way to 'empower individuals to reclaim the value of their own emotional exhaust.' it's giving major toxic positivity, but for, like, the opposite of that.

i know i'm supposed to be outraged, and like, i am, this is literal violence. but also, a tiny part of my perpetually-online brain is just... tired. the idea of fighting it feels like so much emotional labor. maybe monetizing my inability to feel joy is the most authentic side-hustle i can imagine? idk. the vibes are just really complex and i need to go journal about it. this cute little notebook has prompts for unpacking late-stage capitalism-induced trauma, btw. link in my bio.

the olds are obviously spiraling, saying this is dystopian. but like, what isn't? at least a16z is being honest that our only value is the data our sadness produces. it's validating, in a deeply unsettling way. anyway, i'm gonna go lie under my weighted blanket for the rest of the decade and try to manifest a serotonin. if you need me i'll be quietly accumulating emotional debt that some tech bro in palo alto can use to short the housing market.