Strange Loop Culture Index Part 2: Gaming is the New Mall

From "The Feed" to "The World": Why Social Media is dead, the Metaverse was a red herring, and Roblox is the new Main Street.

Last week, in Part 1, we explored the “Atomisation of Attention” and the violent decline of Linear TV. Today, we turn our eyes to where that attention is being rebuilt.

We are witnessing the death of “Social Media” and the birth of “Social Gaming.” The “Feed” was a decade-long experiment in shouting at strangers in a hallway. That experiment is over. The audience has left the hallway and gone back to the Mall.

If you are a Free Subscriber, you will receive The Map below. This is the narrative framework explaining why the “Feed” is broken, why the “Metaverse” was a lie, and why Roblox is the most important social network on earth.

Paid Subscribers receive The Compass. This is the hard data. I am unlocking the proprietary tables for the Interactive & Gaming sectors, the specific 2026 growth indices, and the “Brand Entry Playbook” for navigating the virtual economy.

Inside today’s paid edition:

• The “Divergence” Charts: I visualise the incredible gap between the stagnant Social Feed (Index 100) and the exploding UGC World (Index 200).

• I show you exactly where the graph broke and why the “cannibalisation” of TV time is fuelling this rise. You cannot “second-screen” a battle royale. You cannot watch The Bachelor while leading a raid in Destiny or hosting a fashion show in Roblox. Immersive environments demand 100% of your cognitive load.

• The “Skin Economy” Deep Dive: A forensic analysis of Virtual Identity. I explain why digital fashion is projecting a massive Bull Case Index of 250 (outperforming physical luxury goods!) and why “Digital Lipstick” is the new recession-proof status symbol for Gen Z.

• The Playbook: A strategic guide based on the valuation gap between “Pure Play” games and “Social Hubs.” I provide the “Do’s and Don’ts” for entering the Metaverse without looking like a desperate dad at a disco.

I. THE MAP (Free for all subscribers)

The Mall is Dead. Long Live the Mall.

If you were a teenager in the 90s, you understand that the “Mall” was never a place of commerce. It was a place of loitering. You didn’t go to the food court to eat Sbarro, you went to see who else was desperate enough to eat Sbarro. It was a “Third Place”: a spatial, synchronous hierarchy where social capital was traded, alliances were forged, and time was beautifully, aggressively wasted.

Then, we bulldozed the physical mall to build condos. In its place, we were promised “Social Media.”

For fifteen years, we tried to socialise in “The Feed”. But the Feed was never a mall. It was a hallway where everyone shouted at once. It was asynchronous, performative, and increasingly, inhuman. As we noted in Part 1, the Feed has mutated from a Social Graph (where you talk to friends) into a Broadcast Channel (where you watch strangers).

The result? The “Feed” is dying.

I need to be surgically precise about what is dying here. We are not seeing the end of “Media” consumption (that is exploding). We are seeing the violent death of the “Social.”

For a decade, Silicon Valley operated on the delusion that your digital experience should be shaped by who you know. But as we reached Index 100, the math broke. The Feed stopped being a place to connect and became a place to perform.

This explains why “Social Media” usage has flatlined. Social media evolved to become a failure of product-market fit for the human soul.

Exhibit A: The Cannibalisation of Connection

In 2010, you went to Facebook to see photos of your cousin’s wedding (and judge her dress; it was hideous, you’re right). In 2025, you go to TikTok to watch a stranger in Ohio bake sourdough or a comedian in London rant about the Tube.

The “Social Graph” (Friends) has been eaten alive by the “Interest Graph” (Algorithm).

The Consequence: You are no longer “socialising.” You are watching TV. The Feed is an asynchronous broadcast channel where you are the passive audience, not an active participant.

Exhibit B: The Exhaustion of Performance

The old “Mall” (and the new Gaming World) allowed for passive presence. You could just “be” there, leaning against a railing, saying nothing.

The Feed, however, demands active performance.

• To exist on Instagram is to curate (and mask the terrifying mediocrity of your suburban life).

• To exist on X (Twitter) is to debate (and be a dick to strangers).

• To exist on LinkedIn is to posture (and use AI to sound 40% more successful than you actually are).

This is cognitively expensive. We have reached the attentional ceiling of how much curated “self-presentation” the human brain can tolerate. We are tired of performing. We just want to hang out.

Exhibit C: The “Empty Calorie” Problem

The data is brutal. While global social media usage remains high (~141 minutes/day), the intensity of that connection has collapsed.

• The Flatline: In at least one major U.S. measurement, TikTok time-spent fell year-on-year in 2024, an early signal of “Peak Feed.”

• The Peak: We have hit “Peak Algorithm.” The feed can show you exactly what you want to see, but it cannot make you feel seen.

But the human need for the Mall (for unstructured, synchronous loitering) did not disappear. It migrated.

It fled the high-pressure stage of the Feed and moved to the low-pressure living room of the UGC World.

In Roblox or Fortnite, the pressure to “perform” is gone. You are an avatar. You are shooting zombies or building a house, or shooting zombies trying to build a house. The activity is merely the fidget spinner you hold while you talk to your friends.

The Feed is where we go to be entertained alone. The Game is where we go to be together.

The “Metaverse” Was a Trap

For three years, tech pundits (and Mark Zuckerberg) tried to sell us the “Metaverse.” They showed us sterile office meeting rooms and legless avatars floating in a void of corporate despair. They failed because they treated it as a technological revolution (and because we already had enough corporate despair on our own).

Instead of a tech revolution we got a social restoration.

While the adults were arguing about crypto protocols and “interoperability,” the kids simply went back to the Mall. They logged into Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft. They didn’t go there to “play games” in the win/loss sense. They went there to loiter.

Our Core Thesis for Part 2: Gaming is the New Social Operating System

We need to stop using the word “Gaming”. It is a linguistic trap that implies “toy”. It allows CMOs and investors to dismiss this sector as a niche hobby for teenage boys in basements.

The data in the 2026 Index demands a new vocabulary. We are not looking at “games” as much as Sovereign Digital Territories.

Roblox is the Nation-State, and Fortnite is a labor economy.

1. The Rise of the Nation-State (Roblox)

By late 2024, Roblox reported 88.9 million daily citizens (a population larger than Germany or the United Kingdom). But unlike a physical nation, this population is growing at 27% year-over-year.

• The Difference: A “User” logs in to consume content. A “Citizen” logs in to exist. Our data shows that for Gen Alpha, Roblox is their primary address. It is where they attend concerts, buy clothes (skins), and go to school (educational sims).

• The Implication: If you are a brand and you do not have an embassy (asset) in this nation, you do not exist to its citizens. You are effectively embargoing yourself from the largest emerging economy on earth.

2. The Rise of the GDP (Fortnite)

In 2024 alone, Epic Games paid out $352 million to independent creators.

• The Context: This is not “monopoly money” or crypto-speculation. This is hard cash paid to a distributed workforce of architects, fashion designers, and event planners.

• The Shift: Compare this to the “Creator Funds” of TikTok or YouTube, where payouts are often pennies per thousand views. The “Feed” pays you to distract people. The “World” pays you to build infrastructure. The economic incentive has decisively shifted from creating content to creating utility.

3. The Structural Break: Embodying vs. Scrolling

In these environments, you are embodying. You are not “liking” a post. You are sharing a space.

This shift from 2D Scrolling (Passive) to 3D Loitering (Active) is the single biggest structural break in the culture industry.

• Psychology: Feeds optimise for variable-reward loops and social comparison, which drive compulsive checking. Worlds optimise for co-presence and co-operation, which builds affiliation and stickier social routines.

• Retention: This explains why the Strange Loop Culture Index shows “Social Platforms” flatlining at Index 100, while “UGC Worlds” rocket to Index 200. You can churn from an app but you cannot easily churn from a community where you own a home, a wardrobe, and a social reputation.

The 2026 Implication: The Great Migration

What does this mean for the year ahead? It means the “Attention Economy” is over (I know. I literally just dubbed “The Atomisation of Attention” last week, but stay with me.) We are entering the “Immersion Economy.”

For the last decade, the winning strategy was Broadcasting: Buy ads, interrupt feeds, shout louder. For the next decade, the winning strategy is World-Building: Create assets, host experiences, facilitate loitering.

The “Feed” is a hallway. The “World” is a destination. In 2026, you will either be a landlord in the new Mall, or you will be shouting in an empty hallway.

This is just the surface. Inside today’s paid edition, I unlock the Interactive & Gaming Compass, revealing the proprietary data for the 13 specific sectors that are eating the internet.

I am not talking about “Video Games” broadly. I have broken the data down into the distinct battlegrounds you need to understand:

1. Short-Form & Micro-Dramas: The vertical screen addiction (Index 300).

2. Creator/UGC Video: The YouTube saturation point.

3. Social Platforms: The death of the “Feed” (Index 100).

4. Console & PC Gaming: The stable, high-fidelity core (Index 110).

5. Mobile Gaming: The massive but plateauing casual market.

6. Game Subscriptions: The “Netflix-ification” of play (Index 160).

7. Esports: The correction after the hype bubble.

8. UGC Gaming Worlds: The “Mall” that actually works (Index 200).

9. XR (VR/AR): The long, volatile bet on spatial computing.

10. Livestreaming: The plateau of real-time broadcasting.

11. Creator Monetisation: The direct-to-fan economy (Index 170).

12. Virtual Identity: The economy of skins and avatars (Index 250).

13. Digital/Crypto Culture: The collapse of the speculative bubble (Index 70).

Unlock the full report to see:

• The “Cannibalisation Coefficient” (Index 200 vs. Index 72): I visualise the “Zero-Sum Screen.” I prove why Gaming growth is subtractive, not additive. Unlike the Feed, you cannot “second-screen” a Battle Royale. I show you the exact data on how Immersive Worlds are mathematically stealing time from Passive TV.

• The “Digital Lipstick” Alpha (Bull Case: 250): Why is Virtual Identity outperforming physical luxury goods? I break down the recession-proof economic logic driving Gen Z to buy pixels instead of property. See why the market is destroying speculative NFTs (Index 70) while pouring billions into utilitarian Skins (Index 170).

• The 2026 Strategic Playbook: I outline the massive valuation gap between the “Movie Business” of Console Gaming (Index 110) and the “Infrastructure Business” of UGC Worlds (Index 200). Learn why you must stop buying Impressions and start building Assets to avoid being a “desperate dad at a disco”.

II. THE COMPASS (For Paid Subscribers Only)