Touching grass, logging off, unplugging, detoxifying - whatever you wanna call it, existing in the real world is pretty hot right now. For all its perks, social media is addictive, consuming, and - for most of us these days - exhausting. The digital landscape is so vast and omnipresent, it’s easy to forget we’re biologically coded to live and breathe on a totally different plane of existence. That’s what the touch grass movement is all about, and right now, it’s promising greener pastures (sorry, had to).

- Devin Pike, Guest Editor 💜

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I turned to my bf last night and said (confidently, mind you): “omg have you seen this new game!!?” I heard him take a deep breath and that’s when I knew. I had asked a stupid ass question.

Turns out it’s the ten year anniversary. Hehe. But it’s having a full cultural moment which is kind of beautiful in a way that feels rare for the internet in 2026. It’s been trending on every platform since creator Eric Barone, aka ConcernedApe, posted a sweet retrospective video about the platform changes over the years and announced two new marriage candidates in version 1.7. A decade-old single player farming sim genuinely feels like exactly what I need right now to ease the mind from everything else demanding my constant attention. I feel like that says a lot about where I’m at lol.

Meanwhile, a text file that's been running the internet for decades is falling apart, and most people don't even know it exists. The file is called robots.txt, and it's essentially a set of instructions that tells web crawlers which parts of a site they're allowed to access. It's been the backbone of how search engines, archives, and AI scrapers interact with websites since the early days of the internet. And it operates on an honour system where bots are supposed to respect the rules laid out in the file.

But now that AI companies are scraping everything they can get their hands on to train models, a lot of them are just ignoring robots.txt entirely. The system only works if everyone agrees to follow it, and clearly they don't anymore. It's a small technical thing that has massive implications for how the internet functions. And it's breaking in real time because the incentive structure has shifted. Respecting boundaries doesn't scale when your competitors are hoovering up data without asking.

Can we keep robots.txt and instead get rid of Tea App Green Flags, a new service that claims to “protect your digital reputation.” Who’s it for, you ask? Men who have been posted about negatively on the Tea App. Which is usually for good reason.

Tea is an anonymous platform where people, mostly women, share warnings about men they've dated or encountered, calling out abusive behaviour, red flags, and straight-up dangerous people. It's messy and imperfect. But it exists because formal systems for accountability often don't work. And now there's a business built around helping men erase those posts, framing it as reputation management when really it's just silencing people who tried to warn others. Coolcoolcool. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

My boyfriend and I were driving the other day, casually spit-balling ideas for a low-stakes hide and seek competition. Like, what if we just recruited 10 freinds, everyone chips in $20, we play seriously, and honourably, and winner takes all.

And then I caught myself thinking: why does this feel revolutionary? Why does the idea of adults playing hide and seek for no reason other than it's fun feel like some kind of radical act?

Turns out, I'm not alone in my strange thoughts and feelings. And turns out, it's not just hide and seek. There's a whole movement brewing, in different subcultures all around. People are carving out niche spaces for unstructured, physical, gloriously offline play. And it might be the antidote to digital exhaustion we didn't know we needed.

Think about it: when do we (adults) get to actually just… play?

I don’t mean painful "networking happy hours” or even more painful "team building exercises". I certainly don’t mean gamified fitness apps or productivity challenges. Just unstructured, low-stakes, no-purpose-other-than-joy play.

The answer is basically never. Once you're out of school and organised sports, play gets productised or disappears entirely. Everything has to serve a purpose; wellness, networking, self-optimisation. Fun for fun's sake? Baby, that’s not even in the adult handbook.

But people are starting to reject that, and they're doing it in increasingly creative, physical, and chaotic ways.

Dazed recently covered singles wrestling events in Brooklyn. No I’m serious: actual wrestling matches as an alternative to dating apps. People are so exhausted by the gamification and commodification of connection. To the point that they'd rather literally grapple with sweaty strangers in a low lit underground club.

It's absurd, maybe, but it’s also fucking genius. Because at least when you're wrestling someone, you're present. You have to be engaged in a way that's impossible when you're half-scrolling Hinge while watching Netflix and downing Ben and Jerry’s.

This is the "touch grass" movement made literal. Get offline, get physical like Olivia Newton John, and connect through bodies in space, not through screens and algorithms.

Death To Stock posted a video about combat rings occupying dance floors at parties and events. I mean literal fighting pits where you can "fight your evil situationship". Pillow fights are popping up in fashion shoots and brand design.

Chaos (albeit controlled) is becoming aesthetic. I see this as catharsis disguised as entertainment. When everything in your life is optimised, polished and LinkedIn-approved, sometimes you just need to hit something with a pillow (so that it’s not a pillowcase full of bars of soap.)

The physicality matters, but so does the lack of purpose. Because the temporary suspension of being a serious adult is what we all really need right now.

I shit you not, there's actually a framework for this. Mikhail Bakhtin's Carnivalesque theory analyses how medieval carnivals created a "world upside down". Temporary spaces where social hierarchies inverted. Authority was mocked, and people got to live a "second life" outside of strict social norms.

That's what's happening here. Singles wrestling, hide and seek tournaments, combat rings at parties. Think about it. These are totally modern carnivals. Spaces where the rules suspend and you don't have to be professional or productive or fkn optimised. A space where you can be messy… and human.

We've been living in such rigid, digitally mediated structures for so long. Just the act of rolling around on a mat with a stranger or hiding behind a dumpster feels like a revolution. And it kind of is tbh.

Here's what ties this all together: these activities are explicitly, deliberately offline. They can't be done through a screen. They require presence, physicality and spontaneity - all the things digital life has stripped away. The fact that we have "touch grass" as an insult/reminder shows how divorced from physical reality we've become.

And now, people are organizing IRL chaos events as rebellion against that. They're creating niche communities around activities that have no productivity or networking value. They're just simply play.

This connects to everything else we're seeing. The romanticization of mundane life. The doomerism antidote. The fractured virality of niche communities. People are desperate for experiences that feel real, unmediated and joyful. All for no reason other than joy itself.

So yeah, my boyfriend and I are absolutely starting that hide and seek competition. Who’s in? 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

😲WTF: Australia’s tallest building?!
✨Daily inspo: This is why he’s the GOAT
😊Soooo satisfying: Hydraulic press vs candy
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Easy fried rice

Hey Ayat!

I definitely get the temptation to try to do everything at once. But you really need to focus in on a few things so you don't burn yourself out, or only do a little of lots of things. When it comes to your socials, you have to start with the understanding that they can't do everything for your business.

So choose one thing that will have the highest impact on your socials. This will probably be an easily repeatable content series that builds brand awareness for your main business or product. Then use other channels for your other goals. This might be a newsletter to build a community, or it could be going to in-person networking events. A few things done well beats 100 things done poorly!

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.