Shadowing Practice: WTF happened after 2020? - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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I feel like a part of society and a part of me died in 2020.
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it's weird because 2020 has become this almost psychological dividing line pre and post covid but I don't know what it is.
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The collective conscious just completely changed.
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social media feeds completely change just the outlook on life and culture and i know this is
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i'm speaking very vaguely or almost ambiguously here but you might understand what i'm talking about it just seems like
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We used to be playful back then and not take things too seriously.
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And we had a good time while we were still...
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working towards something and then after it life just became so compressed where
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it seems like every day is how do I fit X, Y, and Z thing into the day and progress towards my goal?
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And then there's not that liveliness.
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Everything just sort of feels hollow.
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And I don't understand what exactly it was because obviously there's the aspect of, okay, the world got shut down.
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Everyone was forced to go online and that sort of propelled or started the momentum towards a more digital world.
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And when people get more digital, they start to disconnect in person and our world just becomes fragmented.
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And I think that's why.
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But there's even more to it than that, that I can't really articulate how I feel.
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But if you're still watching this video, I'm assuming you're kind of with me on that.
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i don't know so everyone retreated to the internet and
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that made sense because of lockdowns right and all of a sudden friendships dating entertainment work shopping it it became
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very heavily digitally influenced or done.
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So, I think what happened was we had this huge block where people weren't practicing social skills.
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And then when we resumed, when finally things went back to normal, we never were able to pick up from where we were before.
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the internet was no longer an asset that we sort of used It became what we live vicariously through.
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You know what I mean?
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You see your favorite influencer.
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And back in the day, like pre 2020, you might have been you might have found them interesting or whatever.
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Post 2020, you now like see yourself as a part of that world.
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Things are parasocial.
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It's very weird.
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But yeah, I want to reiterate that point that I was saying earlier.
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It's almost like reality has been fragmented.
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Everyone has a completely different feed, completely different.
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and what i mean by that is you could have someone
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that has gets similar videos but their perception of it is so drastically different and I alluded to this in previous videos,
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but I think that the algorithm has taken over the identity of most people,
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it's at least influenced the identity of all of us.
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But for some people, it has completely consumed their identity, where they're not capable of nuanced or critical thinking.
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now imagine all of the young kids in the future generations
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that are going to grow up on this
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and they don't even have a chance for their brain to
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develop they're instantly going to get hooked off this it's essentially a drug i do think
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that there needs to be a legitimate psychological diagnosis that we can give doom scrolling,
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because think about it, you literally have all of the smartest engineers,
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you have the smartest people alive that are working to make these algorithms as addictive as humanly possible.
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where you stay on the app as much as you can give in a day.
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i can't tell you how much time in my life i've just not all of it was wasted,
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but a lot of it was wasted doom scrolling or just going on my phone.
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And that has become a substitute for needing to do something else.
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Because think about our parents, right? older people they had to
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when they were growing up if they were bored they had to create something they had to use their imagination to
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make things fun with, you know, whatever they have in their house, or they would have to literally go out, knock on their neighbor's door, say, Hey, do you want to play?
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Or they would have to like set up
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times with their friends that they would all dedicate to going somewhere
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because it's not like you had a phone in your pocket that you could just take anywhere.
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Right.
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And so because of this, they learned these tangible interpersonal skills and that carried over into other aspects of life. But...
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our generation and even more more scary than our generation is the generations that are coming after gen z It is.
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I think when they enter the workforce, they're going to be almost they're going to be
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close to impossible to
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sort of work with and to be on a team with because they're just they don't And it's nothing against them personally.
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It's just they walked into this life where a lot of things were done for them.
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I AI wasn't a thing, at least like Chad GBT and that that wasn't a thing until after I graduated high school.
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And I'm thinking about it, I'm like, students are going to be using it in middle school, definitely high school.
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Definitely college, but in their early, more developmental years, they're not exercising their brain to problem solve.
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and yeah i don't know that just sucks i feel like
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2019 in the beginning of 2020 what like it was it
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was still life was still in a way kind of peaking and then yeah things just I don't know, it was like COVID hit and I actually really liked COVID,
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but I didn't realize how bad it was for its long -term effects on society until these past couple of years.
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So, I remember when it, when it, 2020 came out that was i think that tv show outer banks came out
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and that was so widely popular amongst my generation
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and i think in particular what everyone loved about this show was
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that you had a bunch of teenagers who were loyal to each other
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but they would just go out and do whatever they wanted.
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So the way that the show made it seem was like you could go out with no responsibility
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and just have fun and treasure hunt. And
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i remember that me and like every single person that i knew
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at that time was obsessed with that show because it was like oh my gosh
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I can't wait to like once we get out of COVID
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and we're just going to go and attack the day and just do all this fun stuff.
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And of course, it never happened.
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I had to get a job at real life happened.
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But there was that weird obsession with all my like you can go and make anything of the world and then.
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Funny enough, After 2020, everything just went downhill from there.
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in that front and so i recently came across some youtube videos of these people they're like very rich
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they were going to like Monaco F1 races, spending like over a million dollars or something like that on these vacations and all this stuff. And
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i remember watching it and thinking bro how did someone get there like how it's it's
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incredible that an individual can reach that level of
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of i can do whatever i want you know what i mean
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and the reason that i think that's relevant to what i'm talking about is because If you're not in that top 1%, it seems like it's 99 % versus 1%.
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The middle class is going extinct.
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If not, it's already extinct.
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and the rest of us are just sort of doing whatever we can to get by.
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And don't get me wrong, there was still a negative or a downward trend in terms of the purchasing power of the working class,
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the consumer class, and the way that you would be in the cost of living.
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those two things so you're you you simply don't have as much
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freedom to afford the things that you would like to do
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or like to have nowadays for the equal amount of work or labor that you're doing in comparison to
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you know earlier generations and that's one of the biggest issues i think I'm 22.
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If you're around my age, I think one of the reasons too that 2020 was so
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pivotal was
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because after you had you were forced everyone was forced to
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spend a lot of time alone what happened was people realized okay let me think about my future
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because that's naturally what happens you often think about the past
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and the future it's very rare that someone is just focused on the present especially
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when you are stuck in your room all day but I was so focused on, oh, how do I get to where I want to be in the future?
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OK, I got to do X, Y and Z thing now.
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And I've talked about this before.
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It certainly isn't impossible to climb your way to the top.
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And there is still a window to escape, but it is growing increasingly harder.
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It's less common.
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And that's sort of the bigger issue. But...
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I don't know, after we got out of...
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out of 2020, you know, post COVID social skills noticeably declined.
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less eye contact or more anxiety and conversations.
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People start ghosting became very popular, although it was kind of a thing before then,
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but all these sort of new ideas that were brought about via the Internet or the mass psychology of people change.
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There's just less patience overall.
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I don't know.
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It just seems like people are now interacting via scripts that they subconsciously have inherited instead of just naturally blending a flow.
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What am I thinking of?
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But yeah, dude, work changed forever.
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I don't know, work, it wasn't just that you have you're getting
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less for the labor that you're doing in comparison to the purchasing power or how far the dollar will get you.
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But it's more about everything turn remote.
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and then now that's completely normalized and so i've talked about this before
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but there's this thing called the three place theory
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so one place is your work one place is home and then another place is
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um somewhere that you go to be social Now, that third place is eliminated for a lot of people.
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it's it needs to be a place where you can have a community
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and be social but that's eliminated for a lot of people people aren't leaving their homes
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and a lot of this was influenced heavily by when we turned remote so now we're much more isolated than before
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But here's the thing.
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a lot of people work from home
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so the first two places working home are really just one so now instead of three places we have one
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for an alarming percentage of the population.
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and so that's where we're at that's where people aren't going out
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and they're not doing things myself included but as you guys know in four hours, in five hours, I'm actually going to the airport.
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and i'm because i i'm trying to go out and like experience the world more so That's my goal.
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And in relation to you i've realized that you are the only one that's actually going to
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make a change in your life you've heard this a million times over it's such a tired talking point
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but no one internalizes it because they're not actually creating change
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because they they love a familiar hell than an uncomfortable heaven
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so or than unfamiliar heaven because it's so foreign to them
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that they have to go out and do this thing but it's like bro it's like the first time that you
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that you kissed a girl or whatever you were so nervous
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and it was like you worked it up in your head But you just had that.
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that step needed to be crossed you needed to do it at some point
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or another so it's like bite the bullet just do it and then you know, in the future, it becomes easier.
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It's the same thing for life.
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You just need to try something.
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If you want to live a better life, you have to cross jump this border.
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At some point, you need to cross that
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that point otherwise you're never going to change and
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so 2020 made it so that people feel less comfortable doing those things
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because we've just been much more isolated as a society and But yeah, and then and then like, Also, in addition to that,
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side hustles, creator careers, they became much more desirable.
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Everyone now wants to post videos on the internet, Which is good, I think.
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it's an amazing I think it's the best side hustle I
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made videos about you need to build a personal brand but
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people really started to question whether or not climbing the corporate ladder was worth it.
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And I think that has been a net positive.
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That was one of the best things that happened.
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But AI seems to have arrived overnight.
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before 2020 ai was futuristic after 2020.
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once again i think there were two or three years i don't think it was until 2023 that
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like chat gbt came out or something like that but
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it did change the expectations of what work would be like and creativity and productivity.
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It completely changed that fundamentally.
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David Pérez: Yeah.
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But another thing, and this is just my observation, in the way that I'm perceiving things, but I feel like trust declined after 2020.
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There's number one, less trust in institutions and
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big pharma, And big medical all that stuff there's less trust in the media there's less trust in people
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that are so -called experts less trust in strangers just all around And instead, what people rely on is niche online communities.
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they go to these communities and they find people that are so similar to them that have the same mental framework
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and really they're the same archetype of person and they think that those people are now going to
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they're the ones that
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are going to give them the most real answers
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but really it's just confirmation bias without people realizing it
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but with good reason people stop trusting in institutions and experts and all that stuff As we know, dating...
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Dating is cooked.
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And that app started to dominate really around 2020.
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I mean, they obviously existed before, but after 2020, it became so commonplace and in part of the culture that it just is what it is.
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You know, attention spans have collapsed.
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That's nothing new.
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But around 2020 was a time where these algorithms really started to tap in to be as addictive as humanly possible.
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I mean, they just got so good at it.
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It's scary.
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but yeah of course i mentioned the cost of living everything feels more expensive housing, groceries, cars, entertainment,
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young people like myself if you're watching this and you're young we feel increasingly
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as though traditional milestones are slipping further and further away
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when am i going to get a house
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when am i going to be able to have kids at what point am i going to be at a stable
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situation in my career or position in my career.
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All of that seems to now on average be pushed further back.
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And so most people aren't starting their lives until their mid 30s instead of their mid 20s.
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And this is going to have long -term implications on society, especially the birth rate.
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But yeah, I mean, society in general feels more cynical.
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It feels like irony dominates, optimism is often mocked, even though everyone knows at the end of the day, the optimist is the only one that wins. But...
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I used to work this.. door to door job.
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And I remember that
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I would go to these houses and I would expect to get rejected
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because you're getting rejected by about 99 % of the doors that you knock or whatever percentage it is.
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And so you get to a point where you expect to be disappointed.
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And I feel like that same feeling could be applied,
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across society people have started to expect to be disappointed And As a result of that,
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that sort of cynicism Doom scrolling became kind of like a coping mechanism, if you will.
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But yeah, people become far more isolated.
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I was certainly one of them.
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It was yeah, it was my sophomore year of high school that was 2020 and the year before, anyone that's uh
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a fan of mine on my channel or whatever
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and you guys watch my videos you know that freshman year was the last year where i was
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somewhat social and then after that
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so it was like 2020 it was it to be fair was before the pandemic
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but the pandemic just crushed any chance of that just being like a
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a phase in my life and it just turned into something that's permanent
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but people are so so isolated people are desperate for connection And it was right around that time.
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I don't know, it's like the pace of change accelerated for everything, AI, viral trends, news cycles, technology.
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internet culture in general.
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I don't know, it just feels like every month introduces something entirely new now, but it's in a weird way,
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just repurposed old versions, old trends. And it's.
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It just lacks substance.
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I don't know.
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But, Those are my thoughts.
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Thank you guys for watching.
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Why Post-2020 Life Feels Different: A Cultural Shift Explored
The video captures a relatable observation: life after 2020 feels fragmented, with less liveliness and more digital disconnection. It describes how lockdowns pushed social interactions, work, and entertainment online, creating a world where parasocial relationships (one-sided connections with influencers) and doom scrolling (endless, mindless phone use) have become normal. This shift isn’t just cultural—it’s changing how we communicate and perceive reality, making it a rich topic for english speaking practice.
Useful Chunks & Collocations to Master
- Psychological dividing line: A mental split between two periods (e.g., “2020 became a psychological dividing line for many”).
- Propelled momentum: Pushed forward a trend (e.g., “Lockdowns propelled momentum toward a digital world”).
- Vicariously through: Experiencing life via others (e.g., “We now live vicariously through influencers”).
- Nuanced thinking: Complex, detailed reasoning (e.g., “Algorithms can hinder nuanced thinking”).
- Drastically different: Extremely distinct (e.g., “Our social media feeds are drastically different”).
Your Shadowing Challenge: Mimic the Tone & Rhythm
Shadowing is a powerful way to improve pronunciation and fluency. Here’s your task: Find a 30-second clip of the video and use a shadowing site to practice shadow speech (repeating the speaker’s words immediately after them). Focus on mimicking the speaker’s hesitation (“I don’t know what it is”) and emphasis (“completely changed”). Notice how they stress words like “hollow” and “addictive” to convey emotion. This shadowspeak exercise will help you sound more natural in casual conversations. After 5 tries, record yourself and compare—you’ll likely hear a boost in your English pronunciation and flow. Ready to start? Hit play and let the dialogue guide you!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to be · used to work |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has become · has been fragmented · has taken |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was forced · has been fragmented · was wasted |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.