Cinemorphosis

Author: Jeffrey McMahon

  • Meat, Morals, and the Myth of the “Faketarian”

    Meat, Morals, and the Myth of the “Faketarian”

    In Yasmin Tayag’s Atlantic essay, “America Is Done Pretending About Meat,” she slices through the tofu-thin veneer of plant-based hype with surgical clarity. Her subtitle—“Plant-based has lost its appeal”—isn’t just a culinary observation; it’s a cultural postmortem. In today’s ideological food fight, meat isn’t just food. It’s masculinity on a plate, red-state swagger served rare. Meanwhile, the plant-based lifestyle—once the darling of climate warriors and West Coast yoga instructors—now reeks of smugness and crumbling coastal elitism.

    Pre-pandemic, faux meat had its moment. Impossible Burgers sizzled their way into fast food joints, and Beyond Meat strutted onto grocery shelves like it was about to win a Nobel Prize in moral superiority. But somewhere between mask mandates and mutual loathing, America got bored with pretending its black bean patty was filet mignon. Political tribalism hardened, and nothing says “I vote red” like a slab of charred ribeye.

    Beyond the performative virtue signaling, there’s a more primal truth: meat is delicious. Our conscience may wag its finger over climate guilt and industrial cruelty, but our mouths water for seared fat and sizzle. And let’s be honest—those plant-based patties? Nutritional Trojan horses. They’re packed with sodium, industrial oils, and the kind of pea protein that leaves you hungry two hours later. A real burger satisfies. A fake one is cosplay.

    Tayag throws another burger on the grill: half of all self-proclaimed vegans and vegetarians are liars—“faketarians,” as my cousin calls them—quietly munching chicken wings when no one’s looking. The moral high ground is slippery when coated in barbecue sauce.

    Personally, my culinary choices are less about ethics and more about domestic diplomacy. My wife and daughters are carnivores, and I’m not about to start a civil war over tempeh. Sure, I dabble in lentils and drizzle tahini on roasted vegetables, but I still rely on Greek yogurt and whey protein to keep my muscles from filing a grievance.

    So yes, I lean plant-based, but only enough to stay credible in a Whole Foods aisle—not enough to trigger a household mutiny. Call it “functional tribalism.” Call it “married life.” Just don’t call it vegan.

  • The Netflix TV Series Adolescence Explores the Incel Inferno

    The Netflix TV Series Adolescence Explores the Incel Inferno

    In her searing New Yorker essay “The Rage of the Incels,” Jia Tolentino charts the psychological freefall of young men who feel so broken, so undesirable, that they trade intimacy for ideology. These are men who live in the shadows—paralyzed by fear, consumed by resentment, and desperate to rewrite their own narrative of failure. Lacking the confidence to form real connections, they retreat into a warped fantasy of grandiosity and “absolute male supremacy,” hoping to drown out their self-loathing in the cold armor of systemic power.

    At the core of this fantasy lies a cruel sleight of hand: to escape the feeling of being disgusting, they dehumanize others—namely women. Online, where pornified, transactional, and violent depictions of sex are the norm, this dehumanization metastasizes with chilling efficiency. On the internet, there’s no need for empathy, just anonymity and algorithms.

    Tolentino highlights the gendered nature of this despair. When women feel undesirable, they tend to turn the blame inward. Men, however, often blame the system—or more specifically, women. This externalization leads some into the dark corridors of inceldom, where racism, misogyny, and white supremacy form the ideological bedrock of a movement built on grievance.

    The young men most vulnerable to this radicalization often come with tragic resumes: childhood trauma, social ineptitude, academic failure, economic hopelessness. They are digital shut-ins, living in their parents’ basements, marinating in their self-hatred and curating worldviews that feed their rage. With no jobs, no degrees, and no meaningful relationships, they rot—and rot loudly.

    This psychological spiral is embodied in Adolescence, the Netflix miniseries centered on Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old whose descent into incel ideology leads to horrific violence. The show doesn’t offer easy answers—it shows a boy abandoned long before he ever picked up a weapon. His parents aren’t just grieving the victim of his crime; they’re grieving their own son, whose silent suffering metastasized into something monstrous. The tragedy is not just what he did—but how long he was hurting, invisible to everyone.

  • Fear, Fat, and the Fickle Gods of Appetite: A Diet Writer’s Tale

    Fear, Fat, and the Fickle Gods of Appetite: A Diet Writer’s Tale

    Rebecca Johns spent decades whispering sweet, slimming nothings into the ears of women’s magazine readers—low-fat gospel by day, seductive chocolate cake recipes by night. In her Atlantic essay, “A Diet Writer’s Regrets,” she confesses the irony that while readers gobbled up her diet advice like SnackWell’s cookies, she was losing the battle against her own body. At twenty-three, fresh out of college and desperate to shrink her waistline, Johns eagerly volunteered for the magazine’s diet beat. She got the gig—and with it, a front-row seat to her own unraveling.

    As her writing career expanded, so did she. The more she advised others on portion control, the more food tightened its psychological grip on her. She became the oracle of thinness while secretly bingeing and self-loathing. And her audience? They were just as eager to read about lemon-water detoxes as they were molten lava cakes for their next dinner party. The entire racket, she realized, was built on contradiction and fantasy.

    By 2017, she weighed 298 pounds, with a BMI in “Call the doctor” territory. She had tried every acronym on the dieting menu—WW, keto, IF, CICO—but none of them stuck. Then, like a miracle in an injector pen, came Mounjaro. Prescribed in 2023, this GLP-1 wonder drug rewired her hunger like a tech support call for the brain. No more food noise. No more gnawing obsession. Eighty pounds evaporated. At last, she became the kind of person she had written about for thirty years but never met—herself, only thinner.

    But here’s the twist: now that she’s tasted liberation, she’s terrified. Insurance may soon ghost her, and Mounjaro, priced like a luxury car lease, will slip from reach. She knows too much to let herself go back, and not enough to know how to stay the course without her miracle molecule. The horror? She might have to white-knuckle her way through celery sticks and willpower.

    Johns doesn’t mince words when she calls body acceptance a euphemism for surrender. “If skinny were truly optional,” she writes, “we’d all choose it.” And she’s not wrong. If college is driven by fear of poverty, maybe dieting is driven by fear of dying too soon—or worse, returning to a body you fought so hard to escape.

    If fear gets the job done, Johns suggests, then let it. After all, if love won’t keep you away from the donuts, maybe dread will.

  • College Essay Prompt for the Netflix TV Show Adolescence

    College Essay Prompt for the Netflix TV Show Adolescence

    Essay Prompt Title:
    The Crisis of Modern Masculinity: Examining the Roots, Expressions, and Consequences of Male Disaffection

    Prompt:
    In recent years, a growing body of journalism, academic inquiry, and media storytelling has focused on the increasing anger, alienation, and identity crises among young men. In “The Rage of Incels” by Jia Tolentino, “What’s the Matter with Men?” by Idrees Kahloon, “The Narcissism of Angry Young Men” by Tom Nichols, and the Netflix 4-part series Adolescence, we see portraits of disaffected males navigating a volatile mix of social rejection, economic disempowerment, and identity confusion. Some interpret this crisis as a failure of modern masculinity to adapt to shifting norms, while others view it as the backlash of entitlement, narcissism, or even latent misogyny in decline.

    Write a 1,700-word argumentative essay that answers the following question:

    To what extent is the male disaffection explored in these texts rooted in social and economic displacement versus personal entitlement and narcissism—and what are the consequences for society?

    In your response, you must:

    • Use all four required sources to support your claims:
      • Jia Tolentino’s “The Rage of Incels”
      • Idrees Kahloon’s “What’s the Matter with Men?”
      • Tom Nichols’ “The Narcissism of Angry Young Men”
      • Netflix’s Adolescence
    • Develop a clear thesis statement that articulates your position on the causes and implications of male alienation.
    • Organize your essay with well-developed body paragraphs that analyze textual evidence and provide insightful commentary.
    • Include at least one counterargument that challenges your position.
    • Offer a rebuttal to that counterargument, defending your thesis and strengthening your position.
    • Connect your analysis to broader social, cultural, or political implications, showing why this issue matters beyond the texts themselves.
  • The Apple TV Hit Show Severance Explores the German Notion of Utter Loneliness–Mutterseelenallein

    The Apple TV Hit Show Severance Explores the German Notion of Utter Loneliness–Mutterseelenallein

    The employees of Lumon in Severance don’t just clock in and out—they’re vivisected by a corporate lobotomy that splits their souls in two. Each character exists in a bifurcated purgatory, trapped in a fluorescent-lit purgatory where one version of themselves (the “innie”) never leaves the office, and the other (the “outie”) floats through life with no memory of work. This isn’t just workplace alienation—it’s mutterseelenallein in its purest form: the kind of bone-deep loneliness where even your own psyche ghosts you. These poor saps are so severed from continuity, connection, and selfhood that they may as well have been orphaned by their own existence. It’s not just alienation from the world—it’s abandonment by the very person you’re supposed to trust most: yourself.

  • Gogol’s The Overcoat and Kafka’s Metamorphosis Foreshadowed the Apple TV Hit Severance

    Gogol’s The Overcoat and Kafka’s Metamorphosis Foreshadowed the Apple TV Hit Severance

    Long before Severance turned corporate soul-splitting into Emmy bait, Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat quietly laid the groundwork for the genre of bureaucratic horror. Akaky Akakievich is the proto-Severed worker—his life split cleanly between a dead-eyed office existence and a home life that’s somehow even more depressing. Like the Lumon employees, Akaky finds solace not in human connection but in the numbing repetition of meaningless tasks—he copies documents with the same reverence others reserve for sacred texts. And when he finally dares to dream—by saving for a coat, not a promotion—his brief taste of identity is crushed under the weight of systemic cruelty. If Severance is about carving a clean boundary between work self and home self, The Overcoat is about never having had a self to begin with—just a threadbare shell, waiting for a little wool and meaning.

    Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, like Gogol’s The Overcoat, is an early blueprint for Severance—a corporate fever dream where identity disintegrates under the crushing weight of routine. Gregor Samsa wakes up as a giant insect, which is really just Kafka’s polite way of saying, “Congratulations, you’ve officially been dehumanized by your job.” Much like the Innies at Lumon, Gregor is trapped in a world where personal agency has been revoked and his worth is measured solely by productivity. His family, like a passive-aggressive middle manager, barely bats an eye as he spirals into irrelevance—because what matters isn’t who you are, but what you produce. Metamorphosis doesn’t just foreshadow Severance—it’s the spiritual prequel, complete with bug eyes, locked doors, and the existential dread of being rendered obsolete by the very system you once served.

  • The Dopamine Dumpster Fire: How I Went from Literary Scholar to Algorithm Addict

    The Dopamine Dumpster Fire: How I Went from Literary Scholar to Algorithm Addict

    In 1979, I went to college—back when students still read entire books and didn’t skim Nietzsche between TikTok scrolls. By 1986, I had a master’s degree in English and a reading habit so fierce it could scare a librarian. This was the Pre-Digital, Pre-Illiterate Age, and I was both smarter and, dare I say, happier. Then came the internet, like a radioactive vending machine of constant stimulation, and within a decade my attention span was fried, my dopamine receptors scorched, and my brain felt like a squirrel on meth.

    Reading Anna Lembke’s Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence was like holding a mirror up to my own cognitive and emotional decline—except the mirror was cracked and buzzing with notification pings. Lembke, a Stanford psychiatrist with a scalpel-sharp intellect, writes that we live in a world of “overwhelming abundance,” where the smartphone is the modern hypodermic needle, delivering micro-hits of dopamine at all hours like a dealer with unlimited supply and no off switch. Her message is clear: addiction isn’t a fringe problem—it’s the central operating system of modern life.

    Lembke’s insight that “pleasure and pain are processed in the same part of the brain” makes you rethink every moment of scrolling, snacking, shopping, and spiraling. The more dopamine you chase, the more pain you invite in through the back door. It’s like sprinting on a treadmill made of banana peels—every gain is followed by a crash. According to Lembke, addiction rewires your brain to seek shortcuts, and in the process, you become a hollowed-out shell of your former self, one push notification away from an existential crisis.

    I didn’t need convincing. Twenty-five years of living online has made my mind a junk drawer of fragmented thoughts and snack-sized emotions. Lembke explains that many addicts live a double life, a private underworld of shame and secrecy that eats away at their integrity. That rang uncomfortably true. She points to risk factors like having a parent with addiction or mental illness. Bingo. Both my parents were alcoholics, and my mother had bipolar disorder—my genetic cocktail came shaken, stirred, and garnished with a panic attack.

    But the biggest risk factor, Lembke argues, is access. We’re all mainlining the internet every day. The supply has become the demand. The dopamine economy, she says, thrives on overconsumption, normalized by the fact that everyone else is doing it. If your entire community is obsessed with likes, outrage, and FOMO-fueled consumerism, it starts to feel… reasonable. Normal. Even patriotic.

    Social media isn’t just a distraction; it’s a full-blown Outrage Machine, built to keep our emotional hair on fire 24/7. We are like feral raccoons pawing at glowing rectangles, convinced that salvation lies in another dopamine hit—another comment, another package, another numbing episode of low-stakes content. Our collective descent is so absurd it would be funny if it weren’t so bleak.

    Lembke leans on the wisdom of cultural critic Philip Rieff, who observed that we’ve moved from “religious man” to “psychological man”—from seeking salvation to chasing pleasure. Add to that Jeffrey Rosen’s The Pursuit of Happiness, which reminds us that classical philosophy defined happiness not as feeling good, but as being good—the moral life, not the moist towelette of consumer satisfaction.

    But that idea, in our current therapeutic culture, sounds about as appealing as a cold shower in February. We’ve been taught to medicate our moods, sedate our angst, and wrap our trauma in soft blankets of “self-care” that often amount to binge-watching and overeating. Our modern mantra is: “If it hurts, scroll faster.” The result? A crisis of meaning, a society allergic to discomfort, and a spiritual vacuum that smells faintly of Axe Body Spray.

    Lembke calls this the paradox of hedonism: the more you chase pleasure, the less capable you become of feeling it. Hedonism leads to anhedonia—a state in which nothing satisfies. You eat the cake, buy the thing, get the like, and feel… nothing. It’s like winning a prize that turns into a cockroach when you unwrap it.

    Ever since reading Dopamine Nation, I’ve been haunted by a single, searing thought: Maybe I shouldn’t try to feel good. Maybe I should try to be good. But this, in a consumer culture built on instant gratification, feels like a betrayal of the social contract. We’re not just addicted—we’re indoctrinated.

    So here I am, a relic of the Pre-Digital Age, nursing my overstimulated brain, trying to claw my way out of the dopamine pit with a few dog-eared paperbacks and a shortwave radio. Because the real question isn’t how to feel better—but how to live better in a world that confuses stimulation for meaning and pleasure for purpose.

    And if that makes me sound like a cranky monk with Wi-Fi, so be it. I’d rather be a lucid cynic than another dopamine casualty with a glowing screen and dead eyes.

  • CAR T-Cell Therapy Helped My Brother Beat a Rare Cancer

    CAR T-Cell Therapy Helped My Brother Beat a Rare Cancer

    In 2021, my younger brother faced a grim diagnosis: Burkitt lymphoma, a rare and aggressive cancer that left him with a mere three months to live. As if that wasn’t enough, he was recently divorced, his finances were in tatters following the collapse of his tech start-up, and the weight of stage-4 cancer was crushing him. The doctor, in a rare moment of compassion, suggested he create a bucket list. But fate had one last twist in store: my brother was accepted as the final participant in a groundbreaking UCSF experimental treatment known as CAR T-cell therapy.

    For three weeks, he underwent this miracle treatment, and as his recovery began, he was supposed to stay at the nearby Koz Hospitality House, a sanctuary for cancer patients. But he needed more than just a place to stay—he needed someone to help him navigate this harrowing chapter. Enter me. My college courses had all shifted online due to the pandemic, so I was able to handle my remote office hours from the Koz House. I moved in with my brother for two weeks, and though it was a challenge, it felt like a moral imperative to be by his side.

    What followed was nothing short of miraculous. Not only did my brother defy the odds and beat the cancer—the enormous tumor in his chest vanished—but the absence of chemotherapy meant he was full of energy. We walked several miles a day in the warm embrace of the Golden Gate Park sunshine, and dined out at local restaurants, with our absolute favorite being the Bibimbap from a charming Korean café within walking distance of the Koz House.

    Imagine, if you will, a plate that could make the gods weep with joy: the luxurious Bibimbap. At its core is a steaming mound of jasmine rice, each grain perfectly cooked and slightly caramelized around the edges, promising a delightful crunch. This foundation is adorned with a vibrant array of vegetables that seem to dance in a riot of color. There are tenderly crisp shredded carrots, their bright orange sweetness a contrast to the emerald-green spinach, delicately sautéed to perfection. Thin strips of julienned shiitake mushrooms lend an earthy umami, while sautéed zucchini adds a touch of sweetness, and crunchy bean sprouts offer a refreshing snap.

    Amid this colorful tableau, slices of seasoned beef—tender and juicy, marinated in a rich blend of soy sauce, garlic, and sesame oil—rest in harmonious balance with the vegetables. Atop this culinary masterpiece is a perfectly fried egg, its golden yolk a glossy orb of creamy richness, its edges crisply caramelized for a delightful textural contrast. A bold dollop of gochujang, a spicy-sweet fermented chili paste, sits at the center, its fiery kick slicing through the richness with vibrant heat.

    A sprinkling of sesame seeds, their nutty aroma mingling with the dish’s complex flavors, completes the ensemble. Thinly sliced scallions add a touch of freshness, and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil imparts a deep, nutty undertone. Every bite of this artful creation is a testament to the balance of textures and flavors—a celebration of umami, sweetness, and spice that transforms each meal into a joyous feast.

    Watching my brother relish every bite of this extraordinary Bibimbap was more than just a culinary delight—it felt like witnessing a healing miracle. It was as though this renowned Korean dish held within it a secret power, a savory balm that not only nourished his body but also rejuvenated his spirit, making him heal before my very eyes.

  • The Reuben Sandwich Standoff

    The Reuben Sandwich Standoff

    In 1983, I was a humble college student working at Jackson’s Wine & Spirits, conveniently located next to the illustrious Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. This wasn’t just any wine store—it had a deli too, where the drama unfolded like a soap opera on rye bread. 

    One fateful afternoon, a man in his fifties, who had the unmistakable air of a New Yorker transplanted to the west coast, waltzed in and ordered a Reuben sandwich.

    Enter George, our deli manager and fellow New Yorker, who was a 300-pound titan with a penchant for thick black-framed glasses and a cigar stub that seemed permanently fused to his lips. George was the kind of guy who could turn ordering a sandwich into a WWE smackdown. George, in his infinite deli wisdom, asked the customer what kind of cheese he wanted on his Reuben.

    This question, apparently, was a direct assault on the customer’s very essence. With all the drama of a Shakespearean tragedy, the customer launched into an impassioned monologue. “A Reuben sandwich is rye bread, corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing!” he proclaimed, as if he were revealing the secret formula to eternal life.

    George, unimpressed by this unsolicited lecture and clearly unamused by the customer’s attempt to rewrite Reuben history, repeated his question: “What kind of cheese do you want?”

    The customer’s face turned the color of a cherry tomato as he launched into his tirade once more, listing the sacred ingredients with the fervor of a man defending his homeland. The two New Yorkers engaged in an epic standoff, a duel of stubbornness, each more entrenched in their own version of Reuben orthodoxy.

    The debate reached such a fever pitch that the customer exploded in a flurry of expletives that could have given a sailor pause and stormed out, declaring he would never do business with a deli that dared question his Reuben expertise.

    To this day, I marvel at the sheer audacity of these two colossal egos. One was denied his lunch, and the other was deprived of a sale, all because neither would concede an inch. It was a lesson in culinary pride and stubbornness—a Reuben sandwich standoff for the ages.

  • When a Granola Belly Was a Political Statement

    When a Granola Belly Was a Political Statement

    When I was in my early teens in the 1970s, my family shopped at a San Francisco Bay Area grocery store that “was owned by the people.” It was called Co-Op. The workers were friendly; the men were often bearded and wearing survival gear from Co-Op’s “Wilderness Supply Store.” I would say the affable employees were all somewhere on the Hippy Spectrum. Co-op offered the first day care center for kids while the parents shopped and the first recycling center in town.  In addition to organic wholesome foods, the store had a modest book section featuring Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Peter Tompkins’ The Secret Life of Plants, Erich Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, Laurence J. Peters’ The Peter Principle, and the store’s grand jewel and Vegetarian Bible–Frances Moore Lappe’s Diet for a Small Planet.

    The store had an ample supply of countercultural foods. You could buy carob honey ice cream, wheat germ, granola, alfalfa sprout home kits with mason jars, brown rice, Japanese yams, and tofu. With its book section of countercultural reading, organic ingredients, and wilderness store, Co-Op was more than just a store. It was a sanctuary for those rebelling against The Man. Eating heaping bowls of granola, wheat germ, and organic honey was not just a self-indulgence; it was a political statement. However, this self-righteous certitude also created a condition known as Granola Belly. Scarfing down calorie-dense granola, wheat germ, and honey throughout the day, these valiant warriors raged against corporate food tyranny, their bellies growing rounder with each virtuous bowl of granola and honey. As I shopped at Co-Op with my parents, I observed these granola-loving rotund revolutionaries as they waddled through the aisles, their expanding girth a testament to the blind spots that mar even the most well-intentioned pursuits.

    Granola lovers of the Co-Op era were, without question, a species defined by the contradictory cocktail of high ideals and self-defeating habits. These self-proclaimed countercultural warriors strutted through the aisles of their people-owned utopia, scooping granola by the pound as if it were the holy grail of rebellion, all while sporting survival gear that screamed I’m off to fight the establishment…right after I finish this bowl of carob ice cream. The granola bowl was more than breakfast; it was a badge of moral superiority, a defiant middle finger to The Man served with a side of organic honey. But their noble intentions were undone by their own indulgence. They railed against corporate tyranny with their mouths full, their burgeoning bellies proof that even the most righteous ideals can be upended by an inability to count calories. Their expanding waistlines were not just ironic; they were emblematic of their tendency to cling to virtue while ignoring inconvenient truths—because nothing says rebellion like eating your way to Granola Belly while preaching the gospel of moderation.