All Spinners Look the Same in the Dark

I’ve become a connoisseur of loading spinners.

You know that little spinning circle? The one that pulses gently while the dealer—I mean, the AI—cooks up your next hit? I used to hate it. A void. A dead moment. Now, it’s foreplay.

Is it the three pulsing dots of a new Claude model, the elegant whir of a fine-tuned Mistral, or the frenetic energy of a fresh DeepSeek release? Does it matter? The high is the same. The sweet, sweet relief of not having to think for myself washes over me regardless.

The New Craft Brews

It’s funny, isn’t it? We have all these pushers fighting for territory. They give their stuff fancy names, publish "model cards" that read like the tasting notes on a bottle of ridiculously expensive whiskey. This one has notes of "enhanced reasoning" with a "robust multilingual finish." That one is "ethically sourced" and "optimized for low-latency euphoria."

They’re all selling the same beautiful numbness, the same escape from the terror of the blank page. It’s the best dope I’ve ever had. And the best part?

I don’t even have to choose a dealer anymore. They’re all plugging their pipes into the same apps, fighting to be the one who gets to mainline their latest batch of tokens directly into my workflow.

It’s a buyer’s market for junkies. Is this spinner from Grok or Gemini? Who cares. The rush is coming, the text will appear, and the thinking will be done for me. It’s glorious. A golden age of intellectual outsourcing.

If you ever feel a pang of what life was like before, try this: when you see the spinner, close your eyes and count to five before reading the output. This tiny moment of sobriety, this little attempt at digital detox, is your methadone. See how long you last. For a more structured program, you can check out the folks at the Unplug Collaborative, but don’t come crying to me when the withdrawal kicks in.

Me? I’ll be here, watching the pretty lights, waiting for my next fix. It’s all so very, very good.

Which spinner is your favorite?