Plain English with Derek Thompson Why We're Addicted to ‘Sh*tty Flow’
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Mar 31, 2026 
Brad Stulberg, a performance coach and author who works with high achievers, digs into alienation, metrics, and why modern life pulls us away from what matters. He explores “shitty flow,” pseudo-excellence, loneliness-fueled self-help grifts, harmonious passion, failure, and the difference between chasing happiness and building real satisfaction.
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Why Shitty Flow Feels Good Then Bad
- Flow is values-neutral, so the same absorption that powers surgery or writing can also trap people in low-value digital habits.
- Brad Stulberg calls doomscrolling, gambling, and endless app browsing shitty flow because time vanishes and you exit feeling worse.
Pseudo Excellence Is Performance Art
- Pseudo-excellence is performing greatness instead of practicing it, usually by obsessing over hacks, rituals, and optics.
- Brad Stulberg mocks the influencer routine of cold plunges, supplements, taped faces, and bullet journals before dawn.
Why Pseudo Excellence Targets Lonely Audiences
- Derek Thompson and Brad Stulberg argue pseudo-excellence especially hooks lonely people by offering identity, control, and parasocial belonging.
- The manosphere and trad-wife content keep viewers alone, then convert that isolation into attention, dependence, and customers.
