I'm Going To Try A Pork Belly Recipe Next Week!

Sunset in Woodward is straight out of Maxfield Parrish paintings.

Going to Tumblr to do a little anthropology is a fraught business, I know. I’d prefer to ignore that world. The trouble is that elite culture for the past decade has to a remarkable degree been influenced by ideas, language, and tendencies that escaped from Tumblr. You can look at adult ADHD culture for a good example. You can hardly have avoided it, at this point, if you’re active online.

ADHD seems like quite a difficult condition to live with, and I think I have some idea of what it’s like, thanks to the cognitive effects of antipsychotic medication. I hope everyone who suffers from the disorder gets appropriate medical care and manages it effectively. But the culture is something different than the condition. ADHD discourse has become inescapable, and as it’s become more popular, the concept of neurodivergence has grown to include more and more of what’s really just ordinary human behavior. People don’t seem to want to think of ADHD as a medical issue like hypertension, one to be managed and then set aside, but as an all-encompassing, all-explaining source of the self. I find it all very odd.