Every few months, your feed goes crazy with panic: “The markets are crashing!” CNBC
anchors start to sweat through their suits, finance dudes tweet long threads with graphs that
no one understands, and your one friend who is obsessed with crypto goes missing for “a
weekend of strategic reflection.”
When the market crashes, it’s like adults hearing a strange noise in their car and turning up
the music instead. You’re eating $14 takeout on a Tuesday and thinking, “Is this bad?” We all
agreed to live in financial instability, trying to find a balance between dread and iced coffee
refills.
Yes, the markets are going down again. But don’t worry, you’re not making up the dread that
everyone else is feeling. Let’s take a look at this capitalist rollercoaster together, starting with
sarcasm and then moving on to stocks.
Step 1: Everyone Acts Like They Know Economics (Until They Remember Math)
As soon as someone tweets “markets crashing,” half of the internet becomes Warren Buffett
with Wi-Fi. Your cousin who flipped NFTs all year in 2021 now “understands cycles.” The
person who prepared your latte this morning is talking about “macroeconomic correction.”
And you? You are searching for “what even is the market?”
A reality check: half of the folks who are worried about the markets wouldn’t be able to
describe what a bond yield is even if the whole Federal Reserve was watching.
That doesn’t stop the turmoil, though. Nothing says “financial authority” like broadcasting live
on TikTok to talk about inflation while drinking iced matcha and having lousy lighting.
Let’s be honest: most of us see the stock market as a casino that sometimes hurts our
401(k) and our self-esteem. We just want our app to be green, our bitcoin to not seem like a
crime scene, and our retirement account to not make us think of war.
Spoiler alert: When the market goes down, everything you got at “a great time” suddenly
looks like a sad episode of Extreme Couponing.
Step 2: The billionaires start tweeting and the experts start screaming.
Yes, yes. When things start to go bad, CNBC anchors lose their cool and millionaires get
onto X (which used to be Twitter, but we’re all pretending it’s still 2022) to post “motivational”
stuff like “Buy the dip.”
Elon, buy the dip? I can hardly afford to buy food, babe.
“Markets are in freefall!” is always how the panic starts.
“Experts say it’s only for a short time.”
“Jim Cramer is yelling for seven minutes straight.”
“At the same time, Jeff Bezos quietly buys another yacht the size of Connecticut.”
When the markets crash, it’s like a natural disaster that you can’t get away from. Instead of
FEMA help, you get credit card debt and emotional instability.
And through it all, the millionaires post cryptic “stay strong” platitudes on their islands while
they tan, as if they were doing us a favor. This isn’t the Great Depression; it’s the Great
Passive-Aggressive Tweet Storm.
When every financial influencer’s “calm investing strategy” video opens with “Okay, guys,”
you know things are awful. So this isn’t advise about money, but—
(Spoiler: it’s always money advice.) And it’s always horrible.
Step 3: Your portfolio becomes a sad and funny museum exhibit.
Let’s have a look at your investments. Oh, wait, no, let’s not.
When the market crashes, opening that portfolio app is like hurting your own sense of hope.
The nice green figures that made you feel good last week? Gone. It is now crimson. So very
crimson.
Three Things You Might Say When the Market Crashes:
“This is okay.” It’s all about the long term. (You’re sweating.)
“I’ll just buy more; it’s a sale!” (You won’t.)
“At least I still have a job.” (somewhat freaks out during company-wide Zoom updates)
It’s like getting whiplash in your finances. Your index fund is doing great one week. Next,
you’re telling your own economic story: “And this is where I lost everything.”
But really? You are not the only one. Everyone is appearing to “hold” while privately saying,
“Maybe I should have sold.”
The markets crashing is like a group therapy session for capitalism, except there’s no
therapist, no plan, and you still owe interest.
Step 4: All of a sudden, everyone cares about the Fed
When the markets crash, Americans do something quite strange: we start to care about
Jerome Powell.
It’s the one time every twenty-something suddenly becomes a policy analyst and says things
like “interest rates are killing liquidity.” In other words, we read one article on Reddit and now
we think we can restore the economy by feeling good.
Do you remember when no one knew who the head of the Federal Reserve was?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Now he’s the bad guy everyone loves. When Powell raises rates, equities go down, and your
buddies start making jokes about “moving into the woods and trading for beans.”
Real investors talk about “economic cycles,” but the rest of us talk about “cycles of
self-doubt and regret.”
Markets that are perfect would fix themselves. In real markets, mood fluctuations can cost
billions of dollars.
And every time Powell talks, the Dow Jones acts like a teenager who is being forced to clean
their room.
Step 5: Freak Out, Deal With It, and Do It Again
The mourning cycle starts after every crash. The five stages of money grieving are:
Denial: “It will come back tomorrow.”
Anger: “Why didn’t I sell when it was at its highest?”
Bargaining: “I’ll never day trade again if it goes up 1%.”
“Guess I’ll just live off vibes and black coffee,” says Depression.
Acceptance: “At least I’m not the guy who bought Dogecoin for 70 cents.”
We all deal with it in our own way. Some people drink. Some people deal with it by refreshing
stock apps every minute. Some people act like it’s “a good time to buy” while they cry in the
corner.
Caffeine and faith are what make markets work. A lot of caffeine. If you’re going to watch
your money disappear in real time, you might as well do it with a venti iced latte in your
hand.
And through it all, financial gurus will tell you the same thing: “Don’t freak out.” “Markets
always come back.”
Of course, buddy. My ex does too, but then they go back to being crazy.
Step 6: The Rebuild (or, How We All Pretend to Be Hopeful Again)
In the end, markets settle down. CNBC settles down. The color green comes back to your
screen. And all of a sudden, the internet is like, “See? I told you that investing for the long
term works.
You take a breath for the first time in weeks, but then a new headline declares “recession
fears return.” And the loop starts over.
This is the capitalist trauma bond. We all know it will crash again, yet we stay anyhow.
Watching our little digital charts dance gives us optimism that maybe we’ll get it right next
time.
It’s sweet that you think that.
The stock market doesn’t care about you. It never did. It basically flirts with you, takes all
your money, and then disappears until the next rally.
Congratulations, you made it to the finish, either because you care about economics or
because you like to watch the world burn. The markets will go down again. They always do.
Until then, drink your coffee, check your app with one eye closed, and know that all of these
stats are made up and managed by people who own 10 houses.
And what about you? You’re just aboard on the ride of life. Get ready, champ.
