Analog Apocalypse?
Tech isn't going anywhere, but here is what's going on!
The kids are disconnecting.
In this issue:
💽 The Vinyl Junkies Are Hoarding PVC While the Grid Burns
🚨💥 When Your Neighborhood Goes Hot
🍉 Summer in a Bottle: Watermelon Wine
I find it interesting that we’ve reached one of those moments in history that’s a true reflection of something we’ve already lived through, but backwards.
The kids are disconnecting, wishing it was the 80s again, while we’re on the verge of the largest technological leaps humanity has ever accomplished in some ways. I think it’s gonna be rad for those that find the balance!
Also, we talk about surviving civil unrest in the city and making watermelon wine.
Let’s fuckin’ gooooo…
CUE THE BEST DAMN NEWSLETTER THEME SONG EVER!
💽 The Vinyl Junkies Are Hoarding PVC While the Grid Burns
The kid behind the counter—twenty-two, sleeve tattoos, analog bag slung across his chest like a bandolier—was explaining why he couldn’t get the pressing I wanted.
Not wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
The plant in Nashville was backed up six months because the raw materials were stuck in a supply chain that looked like a post-apocalyptic game of Jenga. PVC shortage, he said. Same plastic that keeps the lights on is the same plastic we’re using to escape the lights.
“Everything’s connected,” he muttered, scanning another customer’s haul. “That’s the problem.”
Or maybe that’s just how it works now.
2026 is the year people started noticing the contradictions. Fifty-three percent of the planet is running AI tools in their daily routines while fifty percent are actively trying to reduce screen time. That’s not a paradox—that’s just what happens when convenience becomes claustrophobic.
The culture analysts are calling it the “phygital pivot.” I’m calling it what it is: people remembering what their hands used to do before they learned to scroll.
Sierra Campbell kicked this off on TikTok—because everything starts in the attention economy before it becomes actual culture.
She made a bag. Not a purse. Not a tote. A bag. Filled it with journals, watercolor sets, film cameras, anything that couldn’t ping her phone or demand a software update to function.
Gen Z is carrying these things everywhere. Forty-five percent of them find the online world stressful—five points higher than the general population. They’re not rejecting technology. They’re just giving their hands something else to do.
“I learned the only way to change a habit is to replace it with another,” Campbell said. Simple. True. You can’t just stop scrolling. You have to give yourself an alternative.
The bag is a portable workspace. A toolkit for existing outside the feed for a few hours. It’s not revolutionary. It’s practical.
The RIAA mid-year 2025 report says US music revenue hit $5.6 billion.
Streaming still owns the infrastructure, but vinyl owns the premium experience. Three-quarters of all physical music revenue. The needle dropping into the groove matters to people. It’s a ritual. Proof that something exists outside the server farm.
Film photography sales are up 127% since 2020. Gen Z—kids under twenty-five—are 41% of new customers buying film. Not because it’s objectively better. Because it’s different. The grain of a 35mm frame, the scratch on a record—these are characteristics the algorithm can’t replicate.
But here’s the interesting part: the vinyl records people are buying to step away from digital culture are caught in a global PVC shortage. The same polyvinyl chloride that keeps medical supplies sterile and electric grids functioning is the raw material for every record pressed in 2026. We shifted from “just-in-time” manufacturing to “just-in-case” inventory management, and now the analog revival is bumping up against material reality.
Turns out you can’t escape industrial systems by buying industrial products. Who knew.
The gadget makers figured out that constant notification pings were burning people out.
So they pivoted. Instead of screaming for attention, the new devices whisper. They’re calling it “Quiet Tech.”
The Focus Desktop Board: an E-ink panel that syncs with your phone but only shows selected notifications. Mimics paper to reduce eye strain. It’s another screen pretending not to be a screen, but people seem to like it.
The Dreamie: a phone-free sleep device. Sunrise alarm and sleep sounds without the temptation of doom-scrolling at 2 AM. It’s a clock that costs two hundred dollars because most people can’t trust themselves around their phones.
The Mediahub study calls it “Slow Dopamine.” The idea is to design technology that respects your focus instead of hijacking it. Whether that’s what’s actually happening or just better marketing for the same addiction is up for debate.
By August 2026, the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation made sustainability mandatory.
Not voluntary. Not suggested. Mandatory. They’re calling it the “Circular Plastics Renaissance” and it runs on two tracks:
Bioplastics: Polylactic Acid (PLA) made from corn and sugarcane, projected to hit $45 billion by 2030. Renewable crops turned into plastic. Whether that’s progress or just shifting the problem is a longer conversation.
Advanced Recycling: Converting post-consumer waste into “Circular Naphtha”—virgin-quality plastic feedstock. Creating a closed loop. The technology exists. The infrastructure to scale it is the question.
The enforcement mechanism? The “modulated EPR fee structure.” Extended Producer Responsibility. The harder a product is to recycle, the more it costs. Recyclability just became a line item on the balance sheet, not a marketing tagline.
We’re not necessarily saving the planet. We’re making it more expensive to be wasteful. Which might amount to the same thing.
AI as Emotional Support
Here’s the weirdest finding in the Dentsu report: 32% of people feel that AI understands them better than their own friends and family.
We’re carrying analog bags to reduce screen time while simultaneously using Large Language Models as therapists. True Wireless Stereo earbuds with built-in cameras—”Electric Dreams,” they’re calling it—provide real-time visual processing and audio feedback without looking like a tech bro in smart glasses.
Abbey Klaassen from Dentsu Creative says the successful brands in 2026 will “blend technological intelligence with emotional intelligence, pairing efficiency with empathy and innovation with imagination.”
What that actually looks like in practice is still being figured out. But people are clearly hungry for technology that feels less transactional.
Cash Stuffing and Physical Proof
Gen Z is using physical envelopes to manage their budgets. “Cash Stuffing.” Holding actual currency because digital transactions are invisible, frictionless, designed to make spending feel like nothing. Physical cash has weight. It runs out. You notice it.
B2B brands are rediscovering print. Stripe publishes Work in Progress. Oatly publishes Hey Barista. High-quality physical objects that demonstrate a brand has substance. Not content marketing. Actual objects you can hold.
We’re saturated enough with pixels that holding something real feels significant again.
The Great 2026 Reset isn’t a rejection of technology.
It’s a recalibration. People want the convenience of AI navigation and efficient supply chains, but they also want to hold a record in their hands and feel the weight of cash in their pockets.
We’re building something in between. Part high-tech efficiency, part analog depth. The contradictions are built in. The vinyl shortage proves it. Every record pressed, every film roll sold, every analog bag filled with watercolor sets—it’s all downstream from the same global systems people are trying to take a break from.
But that’s not necessarily a problem. It’s just reality. You don’t have to choose between digital and analog. You can use both. Most people already are.
The question isn’t whether you’ll keep using technology. The question is: what parts of your life work better with a screen, and what parts work better with your hands?
Figure that out, and 2026 starts making sense.
3 Cool Things:
GZS Radio is live! 24/7 streaming.
I brought new life to an old Pixel using GrapheneOS.
🚨💥 When Your Neighborhood Goes Hot
The first thing you need to understand about civil unrest is that it moves like water finding the lowest point. It follows the main roads, the big intersections, the places where momentum builds. And if you’re standing there when it arrives, you’re not a bystander. You’re an object in the path.
I saw this in Iraq. Different context, same physics. Crowds operate on raw energy and primal navigation. They don’t plan routes. They follow lines of drift—the wide boulevards and bridges where people naturally congregate. During a riot, these turn into kill zones. Not because anyone’s targeting you specifically. Because you’re in the way when the pressure finds the valve.
Your job is to not be there when it does.
The tactical gear you bought because it made you feel prepared?
That’s what gets you noticed. Your $500 tactical pants and MOLLE-webbed rucksack aren’t assets. They’re neon signs that say “I have things worth taking” or “I’m looking for a fight.”
Human perception is wired to notice contrast. If you deviate from the local baseline—the average appearance of everyone around you—you lose the advantage of invisibility. True preparedness is looking unremarkable. Neutral colors. Normal clothing. Purposeful walk without aggression.
The Grey Man is the person who leaves no impression. The one nobody remembers five minutes later.
If you’re in a vehicle when things go sideways, your only metric is momentum.
Keep moving through obstacles until you reach a known safe location—pre-identified police stations, hospitals, rally points—before you stop.
Once a vehicle stops moving in a hostile environment, it becomes a cage. A “mobility kill” is the point of maximum danger. You might need to prioritize survival over traffic laws or vehicle damage. Run the red light. Clip the curb. Keep moving.
If the car stops and won’t restart, you’re on foot. Immediately. Don’t sit there hoping it’ll turn over. The crowd doesn’t care about your insurance deductible.
Urban evasion is psychology, not just distance.
A pursuer doesn’t track you. They track a mental image of you—jacket color, hat, gait. To break contact, you disrupt that image within the first 30 seconds of breaking line of sight.
Round a corner. Shed the jacket to reveal a different colored shirt. Don a ball cap. Adjust a shemagh. This resets their search criteria. Then hide in plain view by adopting local behavior—sit on a bench, walk with the relaxed gait of someone who lives here.
By the time they catch up, the person they’re looking for doesn’t exist anymore.
MARCH: What to Do When Help Isn’t Coming
Medical intervention becomes statistically necessary in high-tension environments. When help isn’t coming, you work the TCCC “MARCH” protocol:
Massive Hemorrhage: Apply tourniquet high and tight over clothing. Transition to bare skin 2-3 inches above the wound when you’re behind cover.
Airway: Ensure passage is open. Use nasopharyngeal airway for unconscious casualties unless skull trauma is suspected.
Respirations: Seal open chest wounds. Monitor for tension pneumothorax.
Circulation: Check for shock via radial pulse or altered mental status. Bleeding control first, fluids second.
Head Injury/Hypothermia: Manage blood pressure and oxygen. Prevent hypothermia, which starts regardless of temperature once blood loss begins.
The goal is to move through chaos without becoming part of it.
Peaceful but not harmless. Your ability to disappear into the baseline is your best protection.
If your neighborhood went hot tonight, would you be caught in the drift, or do you already know the side streets nobody else remembers?
📰 Articles I Enjoyed This Week:
🍉 Summer in a Bottle: Watermelon Wine
There’s a song that plays every August down here—”Watermelon Crawl” drifting through county fair air thick enough to chew. Watermelon tastes like fleeting summer, especially in the Northeast where our 100-day frost-free season feels like a desperate race against the first frost. So naturally, idiots like me try to trap that summer sun in a bottle.
On paper, watermelon seems perfect for wine.
It’s basically a giant orb of sugar water. In practice, it’s one of the most temperamental, uncooperative fruits you’ll ever ferment. Turning this watery giant into clear, pink wine requires respect for volatile chemistry. Here’s what you need to know before you’re mopping disaster off your cellar floor.
The Funk Problem
Watermelon is a petri dish for the wrong bacteria. Its native microbes will rot your must before your yeast wakes up. I learned this the hard way—my first batches developed a funk I’d never experienced with any other fruit wine.
The fix? Campden tablets. Sodium or potassium metabisulfite. One crushed tablet per gallon of juice. Wait exactly 24 hours for the sulfur dioxide to dissipate before pitching your yeast. Don’t boil the juice to sterilize it—cooked watermelon loses its bright floral profile. You’ll end up with wine that tastes like a scorched afternoon.
Juice It or Build a Bomb
Fermenting whole chunks in a narrow-neck carboy is building an explosive. Watermelon fiber floats to the top during primary fermentation, creating a pulp mat that seals the vessel’s neck. CO2 builds underneath until you get a violent eruption of pink sludge across your workspace.
You need roughly 15 to 18 pounds of whole melon to yield 3/4 gallon of juice for a one-gallon batch. Juice it. Trust me.
Chemistry Isn’t Cheating
Watermelon has a dangerously high pH of 5.2. To make stable, drinkable wine, you must intervene:
2 lbs sugar per gallon (watermelon isn’t as sweet as grapes)
2 teaspoons Acid Blend powder per gallon (or 2 tablespoons lime juice)
1/8 teaspoon tannin powder per gallon (adds mouthfeel)
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient per gallon (watermelon lacks nitrogen)
Use proper wine yeast. Lalvin K1-V1116 is my choice—vigorous worker, 18% alcohol tolerance, emphasizes floral notes. Bread yeast makes nasty wine. Period.
The Wait
After 7 to 10 days of primary fermentation, you rack into secondary for at least three months. Rack it again every few months to leave the dead yeast sediment behind. If you’re lazy, you get hydrogen sulfide rotten egg smell.
The payoff? A bottle of July that survives winter. Sweet summer wine that brings back sunshine on the darkest days. It’s worth the chemistry and patience, but only if you do it right.
Watermelon Wine Recipe (1 Gallon Batch)
Ingredients:
15-18 lbs whole watermelon (yields ~3/4 gallon juice)
2 lbs sugar
2 tsp Acid Blend powder (or 2 tbsp lime/lemon juice)
1/8 tsp tannin powder
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 Campden tablet (crushed)
1 packet Lalvin K1-V1116 wine yeast (or Champagne yeast, D47, MA33, Cotes de Blanc)
Water to top off to 1 gallon
Process:
Juice the watermelon. You need 3/4 gallon of juice.
Add crushed Campden tablet to juice. Wait exactly 24 hours.
Add sugar, Acid Blend, tannin powder, and yeast nutrient. Stir until dissolved.
Add water to bring total volume to 1 gallon.
Pitch yeast. Cover with airlock.
Primary fermentation: 7-10 days in fermenter.
Rack to secondary (clean carboy). Leave sediment behind.
Age minimum 3 months, racking every few months to clear sediment.
Bottle when clear.
Age at least another month before drinking.
Target specs: Start with SG around 1.090-1.100 depending on desired alcohol content. K1-V1116 will ferment to ~18% ABV if you feed it enough sugar.
🧠 ON MY MIND
We’re back to almost Spring weather here again. Which means we’ll have a blizzard next week or something…
Always punch down. That means you’ve already knocked them on the ground and need to finish the lesson so they don’t try again.
If you made it here, that means you should…
That’s it for this week. I’m gonna need to see more fire setting from the community this coming week. Until next time…
~ J.D.
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I've been an influencer for decades, carrying around tote bags and backpacks with notebooks, pens, books to read, etc. And my clock radio with sleep sounds that was like $15 lol.
I'd never heard of watermelon wine before. Very cool.
Gen z did hit on something solid with the tire bag. I remember carrying a book, a notebook, pens, and sometimes a sketchbook and a set of markers in my backpack 🎒
It'll be interesting to see how the tech companies react to this.