Instagram is turning you into a GOONER. Here's how to stop them.

If you're a normal red-blooded American,

your Instagram feed is probably a

healthy blend of racism and car crash

videos. But if it seems like every other

real features one or more half- naked

20something girls shaking what their

mamas gave them, you might just be a

stage one gooner or maybe a pre-gooner.

I'm not a doctor. When algorithms

switched from followerbased feeds to

what sells, the digital attention

economy shifted forever. And if there's

one major rule in marketing, it's that

sex sells. But this isn't just about

spicy sites being more accessible than

ever. This is now about the safe for

work content that we consume every day.

Your social media feed has become a

prolonged subconscious goon session and

the centers of our brain dedicated to

intimacy have been hacked and

productized. It's time to get our hands

dirty and take a look at the goon

economy. Hi there. I'm a chronically

online cognitive scientist and software

product developer who specializes in

human computer interaction in the world

of intimacy. This channel is dedicated

to how technology is rewiring

connection, attention, and identity. We

have a lot to cover, so make sure you

subscribe if you like this kind of

content. And let's get into the video.

Oh, and if you're my mom, dad, or

equivalent elder in my life, this video

is not for you. You can go now. Bye. So,

what is gooning? I saw it on social

media. Instagram posts of pretty girls

with captions like,

>> "You're a gooner, aren't you?"

>> Although I was certainly not the target

demographic, I swear I only read Playboy

for the articles, my feed does relate to

a lot of what I study, including the

loneliness epidemic and how technology

is solving or exacerbating it.

Exasturbating,

which happens to make my algorithm

functionally identical to a recently

divorced middle-aged man with a bit too

much time on his hands. Simply put,

Gooning originally referred to

prolonging the euphoric state before

quite frankly, I'm already feeling so

awkward about this without all the

science jargon to soften the blow that I

bet a cat would do a better job

explaining it.

>> Mooney explained by cats. Kitty lies in

bed. Phone glowing. Kitty scrolls

Instagram. Little kitty appears. Bikini

only. Kitty eyes wide. Kitty brain

melting. Kitty sneaks to CatHub. Videos.

More videos. Kitty playing with tuna.

Minutes pass. Kitty forgets time. Eyes

glazed. Tail twitching. This is

>> The term originated on online forums

like 4chan and Reddit in the early 2010s

where communities formed around this

practice as a form of extended pleasure-

seeeking behavior. The key here is the

translike state. People describe losing

track of time, being completely

absorbed, chasing that next hit without

ever quite reaching satisfaction. It's a

loop, an endless dopaminefueled loop.

But but here's the twist. That same

physiological loop, that translike state

is baked into our short form media feed,

even without us going to the hub and not

GitHub. Think about it. Have you ever

opened Tik Tok or Instagram reels just

for a second and then suddenly it's 45

minutes later and you don't even

remember what you watched? That's the

goon state. Just with your clothes on

and in public. Social media algorithms

models work just like this. The more

time and attention you spend on a post,

especially beyond the 3se secondond

mark, and the more you engage with or

send that silly, slightly dirty thing to

your friends as a joke, the algorithm

will promote that content to both you

and other people who fit similar

psychographic consumption profiles. It's

called personabased filtering, and it's

scarily accurate. Although we're not

voluntarily engaging in a sexual or

explicitly intimate act, we're

exchanging our time and attention for

this service and Instagram use what's

called a recommendation system powered

by collaborative filtering and neural

networks. Every second you watch, every

rewatch, every hesitation before

swiping, it's all data. The algorithm

doesn't care about who you follow

anymore. It cares about what keeps your

eyes glued. And what keeps our eyes

glued? the promise of intimacy, novelty,

and sexual suggestion. Recommendation

algorithms amplify content that triggers

emotional arousal because it increases

time spent on the app, the holy grail

metric for these platforms. More time

and attention equals more revenue. It's

that simple. The intimacy script in

short form content looks like this. Eye

contact crops, close body framing,

rhythmic loops,

>> just two lonely gooners staring at each

other,

never to break eye contact, forming a

close, tight-knit digital bond.

[Music]

>> You think you're just watching content,

but you're actually in a dopamine driven

trans state. the same one Gooners

describe, just trigger differently.

Let's do a thought experiment. Take a

freeze frame from one of these pieces of

content and imagine putting that same

person in the same clothes doing the

same thing in the room that you're in

right now. Maybe you're home alone.

Maybe you're at work or on a bus or in a

car. If that suggestive person was

physically in front of you, you'd be

expecting mental and physical arousal

that would cyclically feed off of one

another and potentially lead to

which would satisfy your biological urge

to reproduce. This is our basic

programming for existence. Your

subconscious mind takes the bait, but

there is no other person to bounce this

energy off of. So, you swipe to the next

one and the next and the next, chasing

that feeling. Never really satisfied.

Just like gooning, except you're

scrolling instead of well,

you know. So, some historical context on

all of this biological hacking. Now,

none of this is new. In the 1900s, there

was the food hack. Calorically dense

food became mass producible. Before

this, humans evolved in environments of

scarcity. Our brains are wired to seek

out sugar, fat, and salt because they

were rare and meant survival. Then, we

figured out how to make Coca-Cola and

donuts. The result, an obesity epidemic.

Between 1960 and 2000, obesity rates in

the US tripled. Studies show that hyper

palatable foods, combinations of sugar,

fat, and salt, activates the same reward

pathways in the brain as addictive

drugs, specifically the nucleus, which

releases dopamine. We hacked the food

system and our bodies paid the price. In

the 2010s, we had the attention hack.

Smartphones hacked our mental states.

>> Smartphones had wide reaching changes

all over the brain. These are MRI images

from a recent study in Korea.

>> Do you want your brain to be this

colorful?

>> You don't.

>> Why?

>> Well, because this is showing where the

brain is working extra hard compared to

a non-addicted brain when asked to do

actually a pretty simple task.

>> Addicted smartphone users brains were so

colorful, so active it made them less

attentive and more easily distracted.

What's now informally called brain rot.

The average person now checks their

phone 144 times per day, according to a

2023 study. We hacked attention and our

mental health suffered. In the 2020s, we

have the intimacy hack. Short form

content hacks our need for emotional and

sexual connection. Let's talk about

parasocial relationships for a second.

In the way that we're using the term

here, parasocial relationships refers to

the one-sided emotional bond a viewer

develops for a content creator. There's

a connection here. Even if the parties

don't know each other's names, this

parasocial dynamic is critical because

it mimics real intimacy without any of

the actual work or risk of real

relationships. Mental social media

foreplay, my incredibly academically

coined term. Parasocial intimacy cues

are designed to mimic real intimate

interactions. When someone makes eye

contact with the camera, prolonged eye

contact,

your brain's fusifform face area and

superior temporal sulcus activate as if

you're making real eye contact. When you

hear breathy close mic audio, your brain

interprets spatial proximity. This

person is close to me. Thank god we

can't detect bad breath through screens.

Fun fact, around 50% of adults in the US

have heltosis.

the good boy.

Reals are particularly insidious because

they're tapping into attachment needs,

specifically the need for affirmation

and validation that typically comes from

romantic or parental relationships.

Mommy. Mommy. A 2019 study in computers

and human behavior found that parasocial

relationships activate the neural

circuits just like real social bonds do,

particularly in people reporting higher

loneliness. So, you're getting the brain

chemicals of connection without any

actual connection. It's intimacy junk

food. Creators are only getting better

at creating a convincing faximile of

real intimacy. This is parasocial

intimacy on steroids. We are now hacking

the deepest, most vulnerable parts of

human experience. Our need to be seen,

wanted, and affirmed. This is harder to

talk about than food or phone addiction

because, well, it's about intimacy, damn

it. And that's weird to talk about

addiction are hard enough to discuss,

but needing emotional connection from a

screen that may be even harder to

acknowledge for most people. All right,

let's get into the nerdy. How our brains

are actually being hijacked and how the

trance state works. Our brains run on

prediction errors. Dopamine isn't

actually the pleasure chemical. It's the

anticipation chemical. Wolf from

Schultz's famous studies with monkeys in

the 1990s showed that dopamine is

received not when you get the reward,

but when you learn to predict it. Here's

how the cycle works. One, micro novelty.

You swipe and see something slightly

different. A new face, a new outfit, a

new angle, prediction error. Your brain

goes, "Oh, what's this?" Three, a

dopamine hit. You get a small surge of

dopamine. Remember, that's the

anticipation chemical, not the reward

chemical. Four, baseline creep. After a

while, your brain adapts and now needs

more novelty to get the same hit. Seeing

a girl in a bikini doesn't quite do it

anymore. Now she has to be bent over in

weird camera angles that make you think

funny thoughts. Anidonia. So eventually,

after prolonged cycles of this, normal

life feels dull because your baseline

dopamine threshold is so elevated. Have

you ever scrolled for hours and felt

absolutely exhausted and empty

afterward? This is called hedonic

adaptation and it's the exact same

mechanism at play in gooning. The trance

keeps you chasing but you never actually

catch satisfaction. So this infinite

scrolling keeps you trapped. These

methods of providing content are

designed with something very important

in mind. Variable reward schedules. If

you've had even a basic psychology

class, you'll know that BF Skinner

figured this out with pigeons in the

1950s. If you reward a behavior

randomly, sometimes yes, sometimes no,

the behavior becomes incredibly

persistent.

>> Now, we'll just watch its behavior a

bit. It's not doing anything in

particular. You see,

>> slot machines use this. Social media

uses this. Every swipe might be the one.

the perfect video, the perfect thirst

trap, the perfect dopamine hit. So, you

keep swiping. But what does this have to

do with girls jiggling their lady lumps

on the internet? Everything.

Everything. Because the uncertainty is

what keeps you locked in the trance. So,

why can you scroll for hours without

realizing? This is called flow state,

but the shitty version. real flow state,

like when you're deeply focused on

creative work, as shown in that one

actually good Disney movie, activates

the prefrontal cortex in a balanced way.

>> What is this place?

>> You know how when you humans are really

into something and it feels like you're

in another place? Feels like you're in

the zone, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Well, this is the zone. It's the space

between the physical and spiritual.

Scroll trance actually suppresses

prefrontal activity, which is the part

of your brain responsible for a ton of

important stuff. Executive functioning,

time awareness, and self-control. An

fMRI study from 2022 showed that passive

social media consumption reduces

activity in the dorsal lateral

prefrontal cortex, which is literally

the I should stop doing this part of

your brain. This could be classified as

a very important part of your brain,

especially if you're, I don't know,

touching a hot stove or watching

softcore for two hours while sitting on

the toilet, which isn't good for you.

Hemorrhoids are not cute. This is the

same trans gooners describe time

disappears, awareness shrinks, and

you're just in it, locked in the loop.

So, desire versus satisfaction. What our

brains actually want is satisfaction. I

can't get no. But all social media seems

to give us is a loop of desire with no

end in sight. So this is happening for a

few different reasons. One, because the

engineers building these platforms have

put millions, if not billions of dollars

into making sure you're always wanting

more, but also because desire and

satisfaction actually use different

neural pathways. Desire activates the

messolympic dopamine pathway, the

wanting system, and satisfaction

activates the opioid system, the liking

system. Short form content is engineered

to maximize wanting while minimizing

satisfaction. So, you're in a perpetual

state of almost

almost satisfied, almost fulfilled, but

you never really get there. So, you keep

scrolling. Sound familiar? That's

gooning. That's gooning. That's gooning.

That's the exact same loop. You're just

swiping instead of another loop, the

loneliness loop. The final nail in the

proverbial goon coffin is that all of

this reinforces isolation instead of

curing it. Because parasocial

interaction is junk food for your social

brain, like we talked about, it gives

you the neural hit of connection without

the actual relational nutrients,

reciprocity, vulnerability, growth. Your

brain thinks it's getting intimacy, so

it stops seeking the real thing. We're

stuck in a trance thinking we're

connected, but we're even more alone

than ever. So, the attention economy's

role. Let's be clear, social media

platforms know exactly what they're

doing. Internal documents from Facebook

released by whistleblower Francis Hogan

showed that the company's own research

found that the algorithm amplified the

most divisive, emotionally provocative

content because it drove up the most

usage time. They know they don't really

care because it's profitable. Engagement

equals time on platform equals ad

revenue. The platforms don't create

content. They just push out what people

want to see. It's easy and popular to

on Instagram and Tik Tok, but the

reality is that they are companies with

a profit motive. So, it's easy to

understand why they know, but don't

really care. Is there some blame to be

placed on creators of this Gooner

content? There's a reason women don't

walk around on the street in their

underwear. We know how men will react.

Why is it suddenly okay to assault the

world with sexual imagery when there's

no risk of immediate consequence except

for

and attention? The algorithm amplifies

desirebased content because it works.

And your feed isn't neutral. It's been

AB tested into oblivion to figure out

exactly what makes our monkey brains

light up with emotion. Hoohoo. Haha.

We're not weak though. Our biology is

being exploited. Tristan Harris, former

Google design ethicist, calls this human

downgrading.

These are not neutral tools. And it's

important for us to understand this.

They're designed by teams of engineers,

neuroscientists, and behavioral

psychologists whose entire job is to

extract maximum attention from you.

You're not failing at willpower. You're

up against a multi-billion dollar

industry that's literally engineered to

bypass your prefrontal cortex. And it's

not just social media. Now, another

billion-dollar industry has gotten a

hold of this psychology, and they're

using social media as their primary

marketing funnel. Only friends. Ever

wonder why OAF detected opinion rejected

is so accurate? These creators use this

exact psychology hack as their entire

marketing strategy. Most of them don't

even need to do crazy stunts or buy

billboards. They just need to understand

your neuroscience and hack your brain

through short form content. So, while

you thought you were making fun of these

demo girls, they're quite literally

exploiting the neuroscience of your

brain and laughing all the way to the

bank. Respect the hustle, I guess. Or

don't. I'm conflicted.

Okay. So, what the hell do we do about

this? If you want out, awareness is step

one. Metacognition, thinking about your

thinking, is the first step to breaking

automaticity. The more you research this

topic, the better. I'd suggest healthy

gamer GG here on YouTube. If you're

looking for more content like this, his

content is amazing. The first step to

breaking any cycle is admitting you're

in one. So, let's take a moment of

silence for all the gooners out there

and let's all speak one giant m of unity

for those hours lost to social media

goon trance

[Music]

two tangible action app limits on short

form platforms specifically iOS and

Android both have screen time control

set a 30 minute daily limit on Tik Tok

Instagram reels and YouTube shorts there

are many other solutions, but I'm not

yet sponsored by them.

Research from the University of

Pennsylvania found that 30 minutes or

less significantly reduce loneliness and

depression. Three, content curation.

Train your algorithm intentionally.

Unfollow creators who bring no value to

you. And beyond that, block creators who

post content you find stimulating in a

way that you don't like. Use that not

interested button aggressively. Tell the

algorithm you don't want to see this

stuff. And if you watch educational

content, nature content, hobby content,

even if it's less stimulating, the

algorithm will adjust. One way I

retrained my algorithm recently, I went

to an amusement park despite being

deathly afraid of roller coasters. And

for days before, I went on the platform

and watched every POV of every roller

coaster in that park. After a few days,

my feed changed from programming memes

and horny mail content to roller coaster

death stories, which was much better.

>> Four, replace the dopamine source. Your

brain needs novelty and reward. Give it

a healthier source. Real conversations,

hobbies, my comment section, exercise,

creative projects, join a club, take a

class, text a friend to hang out in real

life, your brain will literally rewire

itself. Neuroplasticity is not just an

overhyped buzzword. It is one of the

realest things we can rely on. Five,

digital detox periods. Even 24 to 48

hours off social media can reset your

dopamine baseline. Studies show the

dopamine receptor density can begin to

recover after just a few days of reduced

stimulation. If you're staying in the

cycle, at least you understand the

mechanism. Knowledge is power. So, if

you're being manipulated, you can at

least make an informed choice. But set

some boundaries. Time limits. No phone

in the bedroom. No scrolling before bed

or first thing in the morning. Protect

your sleep and your morning mental

state. Acknowledge the trade-off that

you're making. You're trading time,

attention, and mental health for micro

hits of parasocial intimacy. And that's

fine. Just be honest with yourself about

it. My conclusion, our minds have been

hacked. First our physical bodies with

food, then our attention with

smartphones, and now our need for

intimacy and connection via short form

video content in the 2020s. The hardest

part, this is taboo, so people suffer in

silence. We can talk about our being

addicted to phones. We can barely talk

about being addicted to the feeling of

being wanted, seen, affirmed, even when

it's coming from a screen. I made this

video because somebody needs to say it

out loud. If this resonated with you,

drop a comment. If you're struggling

with this, just know that you're not

alone. And if you know someone who needs

to hear this, send it to them. We can

rewire our relationship with technology,

but first we have to acknowledge what's

happening. But what do you think? Who's

primarily to blame for society scale

terminal goonerism? Is it the content

creators putting themselves on display

for the world? Is it the users who can't

just turn their phones off and touch

grass? the platforms themselves for

distributing the content. Let me know

what you think in the comments. If you

watch the whole video, please drop a

comment below with the keyword thanks

void to let me know. It helps recommend

my content to other digital wackadoos

like ourselves and gives me a giggle. If

this was of any interest to you and you

want to keep up to date with this kind

of stuff, subscribe. I'll be making

weekly videos researching how tech is

quietly rewiring what it means to be

human. Thanks, CyberNuggets. Your

favorite void. Now, get off of your

phone or computer and go talk to a real