nothing in the rulebook

Ah, the buffet. Is there a more perfect metaphor for modern life than a long table laden with overcooked pasta and rogue cubes of cheese, standing as both a challenge and a threat to the already wafer-thin veneer of human civility? Apparently, the Great Buffet Crisis has now been given the full Guardian treatment, and why not? We are, after all, a people in peril. Forget climate change, income inequality, and the small matter of impending economic collapse—what truly keeps us awake at night is the sight of a middle-aged man pilfering seven sausages when he only has plate space for four. I, for one, sleep easier knowing the fine minds of British journalism are finally addressing these egregious abuses of buffet etiquette.

Of course, I could scarcely believe it when I read that we — those of us who thought the world still cared about things like, you know, investigative reporting — are supposed to be fining buffet abusers now. Fining. At a buffet. It’s like a Black Mirror episode co-written by the editor of Which? magazine. And there’s something almost poetic about that; it speaks to our cultural moment. A moment defined not by the grand sweep of history or the striving for greatness but by the bizarre minutiae of our own irrelevance. Yes, folks, while the world burns and the ice caps melt, we’re on to sausage policing.

But don’t think that’s where the absurdity ends. No, no, dear reader. If you’ve got time (and let’s face it, you do because it’s either this or another scroll through Twitter — I’m sorry, X — to witness the masses of bots boosting misinformation and rage bait about one thing or another), why not also plunge into the deep, existential analysis of Britishcore? No, that’s not a subgenre of metal. It’s a list of 100 things we apparently must experience to truly feel British, like being ignored by a bus driver or eating a beige meal in a beige pub while contemplating your beige life. And what a relief it is to know that my identity as a Brit is defined not by the complex interplay of history, politics, and social change, but by whether or not I’ve stood on a beach in the rain or watched a seagull nick my chips.

This, then, is where we find ourselves: cataloguing the human experience in bite-sized chunks of banality, all dressed up as profound cultural commentary. It’s journalism as wallpaper paste — thick, bland, and utterly forgettable. You’ll scan it, perhaps nod along in faux recognition, and then toss it aside like yesterday’s Metro. But the system doesn’t care. It doesn’t need you to remember; it only needs you to click. And click you will, because what else are you going to do? Read a novel? Engage in meaningful conversation? No, we both know you’re too busy watching someone dissect the subtle horrors of buffet queue etiquette.

And yet, I can’t even bring myself to fully blame the writers of these articles. They’re just playing their part in this giant hamster wheel of content generation. It’s not their fault that we now live in a world where the purpose of journalism has been reduced to feeding the algorithm. Like industrial farmers shovelling slop to the pigs, the media shovels content at us — endless, unrelenting, and utterly devoid of nutritional value. They give us the slop; we consume the slop. We repost it, retweet it, share it with our mates as though passing off a meme with a philosophical bent constitutes deep social commentary. We are the ones clicking, scrolling, and scrolling again, so desperate for distraction that we’ll consume anything — anything — that occupies our brains for even the briefest of moments.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, this endless cycle of content and consumption. Like zombies in a Romero film, we lurch forward with our slack jaws and vacant stares, hungry not for brains but for pixels. The most terrifying part is not that these articles exist, nor even that they are read by millions. No, what chills me to the bone is the fact that, despite knowing all of this, I’ll read the next one. And the one after that. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll even share them with a snarky comment about how vapid journalism has become — thus contributing to the very machine I claim to despise.

So here we are, at the end of this article, itself a bloated, overlong brain fart of an idea stretched to breaking point. Am I, too, guilty of feeding the machine? Undoubtedly. But look at us: we’ve made it to the end, and for what? You’ll forget this article in precisely three minutes. Just in time to click on something else. After all, why bother with thought, reason, or discernment when there’s a fresh plate of digital slop waiting at the buffet of content?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check if I’ve had all 100 Britishcore experiences. I wouldn’t want to miss the one about being mildly annoyed by the wrong shade of grey in the sky.

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