BEING A BETTER HEDONIST

WITH CHEAP THRILLS RUNNING RAMPANT AND INDULGENCE AS ROUTINE, HOW DO WE REDEFINE OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH PLEASURE?

By Morgan Becker

There was a tweet that went viral last summer: “I’m calling it right now: abstention is the next big thing. Sobriety, celibacy, digital minimalism, dumb phones, religion. The age of hedonistic hyper-consumption is over. We’re moving into a new and peaceful age marked by moderation and self-discipline. I can’t wait.”

A few accounts nodded their heads: “there’s a [squalidness] to hyperconsumption that it’s great to see people wake up to.” “That actually sounds really nice.” “Amen.”

Everyone else—the resounding majority—fell in somewhere between scoffing and cynicism: “Loser era?” “abstaining from liking this tweet.” “Neo Puritanism.” “I can’t wait to package that and sell it to suckers.” One such reply fetched a good bit of attention: “The idea that we live in a hedonistic world is one of the biggest myths of our time. American culture is surveilled, sterile, joyless, and uptight. Being addicted to the internet should not be mistaken for a lust for life.”

What, exactly, does hedonism look like in the digital-capitalist age? As a society, we can’t (and probably won’t ever) decide. One pleasure-seeker’s habits might seem self-denying to the next. In 2025, hedonism is all tied up with pop culture: sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, rejection of morals, rejection of religion, phone addiction, hyperconsumption, hyper-consumerism. It might be a feast and endless goblets of wine, or a TikTok scroll that lasts for hours.

But strictly speaking, hedonism is not one definitive thing. It’s a collection of theories about how and why we might choose to engage with pleasure. If you come at it philosophically, you might think about the Carvaka, who advocated around 600 B.C.E. that the right choice is always that which begets the most pleasure, in its most immediate form. Or the Cyrenaics, also maximalists: They insisted that was not a good, but the ultimate good. Then there’s the school of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), English jurist and social theorist, who preached a utilitarian arithmetic (each decision weighed by its “happiness” net, pleasure-minus-pain), making a moral case for hedonism with the collective in mind. Prudential hedonism says that pleasure is the one thing in existence with intrinsic value. Psychological hedonism, that people act only in self-interest.

Then, of course, there’s religion. Paganism, which incorporates pleasure and has a less strict moral code, fell out of favor for many and got beaten out of even more. Most of today’s big theologies look down on hedonism, advocating for some form of self-denial in the pursuit of spiritual fulfillment. Gluttony, lust, and sloth are three of Christianity’s Seven Deadly Sins; Buddhism promotes the Middle Way; Islam forbids waste and urges moderation across the board. There are a few outliers, of course, but the general idea is that to suffer in this life will reward us in the next.

Folk hedonism is a mash-up of all of the above—referring to the layperson’s understanding of the term, in the context of the time in which they happen to live. It’s what we tend to see debated on social media and in the day-to-day. The notion that we’re living in an era of unprecedented excess is so woven into the capital-d Discourse it’s become an article of faith.

But is it true?

Some of the points are, sure, if hedonism-equals-immoderation. Every second in America, for illustrative purposes, enough trash is tossed to fill three Empire State Buildings. According to the World Population Review, our per capita ecological footprint surpasses most Europeans by 50 percent. Our national screen time comes out to seven hours, three minutes; that’s half an hour and some change longer than the time we spent sleeping per night, on average, in 2024.

But this Age of Hedonism we’re supposedly living through (with the BBC, Forbes, and so on speculating on the onset of the “Roaring 2020s”) isn’t all that, if hedonism-equals-gratification. Excess is our reality. Indulgences aren’t indulgences, so much as self-soothing, compensatory behaviors—dopamine-loop pacifiers for the anxious, isolated, and overworked. Ye Olde Pleasures (dancing, drinking, casual sex, rich meals, shopping sprees) are steadily on the decline. And instead of trying to get them back, we’re cynically debating whether a monastic lifestyle might counter the absurdities of late capitalism.

These days, most pleasures are quick, dirty, and immediate. They leave us less happy, not more. Economist Henry Sidgwick named this phenomenon the “paradox of hedonism” back in the 1800s, and it’s only grown more relevant since. One online encyclopedia illustrates the paradox with a line from the Rolling Stones: “I can’t get no satisfaction. / ’Cause I try, and I try, and I try, and I try…” In other words, the more you seek, the less you get back. Because any endless pursuit is self-defeating. Because short-term gratification has long-term consequences. Because we don’t understand what will actually leave us feeling good. A single candy is nice; the whole pack is nauseating.

The paradox of hedonism is especially important right now, in the face of a generation making meaning from a cultural vacuum. It’s also uniquely complicated—because it’s not just about overindulgence. Our primary sources of pleasure are increasingly passive, solitary, and algorithmically optimized, designed for engagement rather than fulfillment. Its flip side, digital minimalism, is another commodified, branded, unrealistic “lifestyle” to subscribe to. If hedonism is a trap, and hyper-restraint is a trap, we need a third option.

Here’s another corner of that online debate: A popular Substack post titled “The Mainstreaming of Loserdom” attempted to diagnose the case of the “bedrotter” (wherein you lie flat all day, no IRL socializing, no work), arguing the existence of a dominant internet ethos not just ambivalent to pleasure but allergic to it. Above all else, it rails against the bedrotter’s argument that “doing nothing” is a valid hobby. Josh Lora, the writer, cites these sorts of posts as evidence of a growing pro-loserdom lobby: “weird how ‘living life’ is associated with just stuff extroverts like to do.” “I just want to eat, lay in bed, and watch my shows and not feel guilty about not wanting to do anything else.” “is brat summer just about watching rich people have fun.” This isn’t yesterday’s introversion, Lora argues. In fact, it’s an “over-identification with the introvert label,” building community on the shared interest in not wanting community. “I’ve been on the internet for twenty years,” he writes. “I’ve been on Livejournal, I’ve been on Tumblr. I was surrounded by people who spent time alone, but they were creating. They were writing, they were generating, they were knitting and sewing and painting and dreaming. The specific activity I’m talking about is a lack of any of this… It feels more sinister. Posting fanfiction online is a bid for community. Scrolling on your phone is not.”

More sinister, really? Lora’s extremely-online case study is indeed troubling. But he’s speaking on a vocal minority. Proponents of bed-rotting illustrate the futility of a term like hedonism in the modern vernacular. It gives pleasure in the form of dopamine hits; it also isolates us and sends us on that endless chase. People still have fun in other ways—they just don’t have as much time to post about it. This catch-22 isn’t a brand-new phenomenon. The 1950s, for instance, marked a golden age of New York clubbing, with venues like Copacabana, Vanity Fair, and the Village Barn hosting A-listers, an artsy underground, and a slew of can-can dancers, showgirls, promoters, strip teasers, jazz musicians, and the like. Outside, it was post-war America: a surge in conservatism backed by anti-communist panic, strict gender roles, sexual taboo. The point is, any era can be effectively labeled both prudish and decadent.

Today, offline, there are other stories in which the youth carves out its own path. Most generations are perceived to be more hedonistic than the last—Gen Z included. The Guardian reported that it’s more likely than any other age cohort to agree with the following claims: “It’s important to [me] to do things that can give [me] pleasure,” and I “seek every chance… to have fun.” At least in vague terms, a good chunk of teens and twentysomethings value a healthy dose of hedonism; and studies show that that’s a positive—within reason, risk-taking is important for young people’s development.

But what about, for instance, the rise of the “sober curious,” the most-often-cited sign that Gen Z is having less fun? Since the turn of the century, we’ve seen a steady decline in youth drinking across the US, Australia, and Western Europe, picking up over the course of the pandemic. The stats are similar for tobacco, cannabis, and sedatives. Lisa Story, CSO of the consultancy that commissioned the aforementioned survey, explains the contradiction like this: “[Pleasure is] very different for different people in different environments. So, to be hedonistic might be about … going for a really good run and meeting friends for a juice at the end of it.”

If that doesn’t sound like hedonism to you, you’re certainly not alone. But a redefinition of pleasure, which might encompass healthier pastimes, could be the thing we need to get the truly isolated out of bed and out the door. There’s a defensiveness amongst youth today, who don’t want to be told that they’re opting out of life. The worst thing we can do in the face of a supposedly increasingly anti-social culture is critique and thus alienate further. Instead, we ought to make sense of the factors that have led us here, incorporating them into new pathways toward the living of full lives.

These are simple facts: Social anxiety is on the rise; hookup and dating app culture, for many, has lost its appeal; we’re chained to devices that overstimulate in one moment, soothe in the next. Classic community-building activities (going with friends to dinner or to the club; seeing concerts, shows, and movies), which could mitigate all three of those pains, aren’t as accessible as they used to be—especially when you venture outside the realm of walkable or transit-connected cities. “Between 1999 and 2022, rent has grown 135 percent,” reported the Times. “Incomes have only increased by 77 percent.” Earlier generations (and still, many today) circumvented financial challenges by getting online, chatting up strangers, forming local clubs or discussion-based forums to dig into their niche interests. Gen Z, more broadly affected by income inequality and a lack of public community infrastructure, has set itself apart by gravitating toward a simpler lifestyle, valuing, in particular, their health and close (albeit smaller) social networks. That doesn’t mean they’re choosing abstention, or that they’re losers, or that they never party or splurge. It’s more of a general pendulum swing, reaching for longer-lasting pleasure.

Orsolya Lelkes coined the term “sustainable hedonism,” which helps frame this shift. In her writings, she references Greek philosopher Epicure and his concept of eudaimonia, or “flourishing life.” This is hedonism that takes full advantage of the present moment, while avoiding the temptation of “vain and empty desires.” Crucially, Lelkes points out: “[Epicure] believed that one cannot achieve [eudaimonia] alone, and a community of like-minded people is needed as support… We can cultivate our ability to enjoy life to the fullest, but at the same time we can retain our inner freedom.”

In this school, eating healthily is pleasure. Exercising is pleasure. So is socializing wherever possible, consuming art, advocating for and taking care of the Earth. It might iterate on that spirit of excess (endurance sports, cold plunge) or take the form of a return to free fun (book clubs, DIY shows). Sustainable hedonism starts with needs and adds wants on top, maybe resulting in a “simple life” of green juice, celibacy, and dumb phones. More likely than that, it’ll manifest in small, personal choices: to be present conversationally, to save up for vacation rather than that new bag, to stay out past bedtime or to sneak home early. This isn’t about wellness, or any pre-packaged aesthetic; it encompasses what’s “good” for you as well as what’s “bad.” What’s pleasurable and worth pursuing becomes our decision to make—as long as it doesn’t hurt us or the world at large, and as long as we don’t go it alone.

Dionysus (the god of wine, ecstasy, and festivity) and Apollo (light, healing, order, and beauty) are often pitted as enemies. But the Greeks never saw them this way. Chaos and order were cut from the same cloth, the former turning revelry into revelation, the latter chasing enlightenment through reason and the arts. They represent a dichotomy of the human condition; a neutral one at that. We fare well in the middle, folding in the best of both ends of the spectrum—something the Greeks intuited back when life was a little more black and white. Hedonism is a fraught term in this day and age. While I’m of the opinion we need more and better pleasure, we ought to be creative about where we find it. We can emulate the past to get there, or we can dream of radical futures. The scale will tip regardless, weighted by instinct and human spirit.

In 1976, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm wrote To Have or To Be, marking the Industrial Age as a pivotal moment when unlimited production seemed to promise unlimited consumption, and thus unlimited happiness. He urged a return to a culture that privileges being over having—cultivating our inner selves over our catalog of worldly possessions. That battle is still playing out today; it might be reaching its apex. For now, we can rest assured that there are paths forward, that the youth have no choice but to see them through, that humans are social creatures, and that there’s always pleasure to be found for true pleasure-seekers. In the face of immense hurdles, revolutionary solutions emerge.

Hedonism isn’t the problem; it’s a proxy battleground for the fight to lay claim to our free time. The real test we face now is not to resist pleasure, but to make it our own.