Name: Friction-maxxing.
Age: Brand new.
Appearance: A lifetime of happy inconvenience.
Is this another example of something that already exists, but people think is new because someone rebranded it? Yes, obviously it is that.
Great! Let’s all save time by you telling me what it used to be called. Happy to oblige. It used to be called “character-building”.
Got it. So friction-maxxing means doing hard things that will ultimately make you a better person? That’s exactly it, although “friction-maxxing” is cooler because it sounds vaguely futuristic.
How did the term come about? Via a piece in The Cut called “In 2026, we are friction-maxxing” in which writer Kathryn Jezer-Morton advocates for avoiding things that make your life more convenient.
Like penicillin? No, obviously not penicillin. But things such as ChatGPT, location sharing and Uber Eats, which help you achieve things that historically took significant amounts of time and effort. Jezer-Morton argues that this culture of slick convenience only serves to infantilise us.
But it’s so easy. Yes, and that robs us of our sense of satisfaction. So you just used AI to write a school essay. Congratulations, you have achieved nothing of worth.
Whereas if you friction-maxx? Then you’ve searched inside yourself. You’ve nudged your own personal boundaries, and discovered that you are more capable than you ever knew. You are building a foundation of perseverance and resilience that you cannot get from typing a prompt into a chatbot.
I love this! What else does Jezer-Morton advocate? She also suggests sending your children on small errands (adding the friction of knowing they’ll do a bad job) and inviting people to your house without cleaning it properly (so you can enjoy the sweet friction of being judged).
What the hell? That’s weird. No, it’s friction-maxxing, although admittedly at a higher level than I would be comfortable with.
Anyway, hooray for banishing convenient things. Let’s ban automatic gearboxes while we’re at it! No, there’s no need for that.
Dishwashers? Refrigerators? No, both of those are probably fine as well.
Mechanised agriculture? The printing press? I see what you’re getting at. You’re saying we live in a world that is already filled with thousands of inventions which have, for hundreds of years, improved the lives of millions of people through increased convenience, and therefore it does seem slightly arbitrary to choose this exact moment in time to draw a line in the sand. You’re saying we should only use friction-maxxing when it comes to things that we didn’t grow up with.
No, I’m saying that I really hate mechanised agriculture. Oh, fine then. That’s probably allowed.
Do say: “I hope a book comes out about friction-maxxing.”
Don’t say: “I don’t want to read it, but I’m sure ChatGPT could turn it into some really great bullet points.”
