I’d avoid zooming out too far. it’s easy to slide into nihilism, where everything starts to feel equally meaningless.
You don’t need a total theory of life to act well. Having some grounded, positive orientation already does a lot of work.
When you hold a workable sense of meaning and let it guide concrete action, lt’s a practical way of staying oriented without losing yourself to emptiness.
I enjoyed this article but ironically it is guilty of a lot of the sins it lays at the feet of "franchise thinking"!
The "totalizing claim" - all of these wildly different phenomena all get attributed to one vague general mechanism that is "franchise thinking".
The position is "unfalsifiable" - any example of someone using an existing framework to explain something gets filed as "franchise thinking".
And, it fits nicely into pre-existing audience expectations, written for an audience already with the pre-conclusion that mainstream discourse is shallow.
"why people can't think originally anymore" is one of the oldest intellectual franchises in existence!
Humans love consistency and love shortcuts. It’s very uncomfortable to push past either of these things, and most people won’t build up the tolerance for the type of uncomfortable thinking that leads to new ideas.
There is an algebra to language, and the franchise thinking seems to get to the level of calculus where you start creation equations using the equations. I think that franchise thinking can be stifling, but it can also provide an easy basis upon which to build something further from the center since it gives a cache of language to draw from that leaps you all the way to a fleet of assumptions instead of just one. To your point though, as with everything, it must be done in moderation otherwise, the concept turns into the "truth" instead of just being a convenient way to talk about something.
Reminds me of franchise restaurants. I much prefer new, interesting, local restaurants overall, but I'll be damned if I don't want an easy peasy Mcdonald's french fry every now and again.
This article stayed with me longer than most—and I appreciate that. Lately, I’ve been feeling a growing frustration with what I think of as “franchise thinking” in wellness spaces. Practices like “go for a walk,” “put your phone away,” or “try red light therapy” are often offered as universal remedies for problems that are far more structural and nuanced.
Gaps in our day-to-day lives—community, health, meaningful work, spiritual grounding—tend to get flattened into a single bucket called wellness practices, without acknowledging the complexity of what’s actually missing or misaligned.
I’ll admit I’m not innocent here. In trying to reach a broader audience, I’ve also leaned into simplified, repeatable ideas—sometimes at the cost of depth.
What I’m still sitting with after your piece is this: how do you sustain originality and integrity in a world that so clearly rewards franchise thinking? How long can one hold onto nuance without sacrificing material viability or opportunity?
I’d genuinely love to hear how you think about this tension.
Super smart thinking! Media workers are particularly susceptible to this type of "franchise" or narrative alignment because they overvalue existing workflows and processes of national news media (The Atlantic, NYT, the New Yorker) as definers of the conversation, rather than as perpetuating a status quo.
That's also how we get "Google took all the traffic/ads/business from publishers" without media companies taking any accountability for why they underinvested in understanding digital audiences and then lost the traffic/ads/business.
Or how we get "the creator economy will save us!" when creator media essentially creates a talent pool similar to unpaid internships did in the aughts: super rich kids with nothing but free time and supportive families are prepared for success... while the folks who have are not set up for creator fame are ignored and burn out.
We're on a precipice of finding new media models that enable sustainable growth by meeting audience needs (beyond feeds, beyond platforms), but I think those will develop outside platforms and outside the mouthpieces of legacy media.
I’d avoid zooming out too far. it’s easy to slide into nihilism, where everything starts to feel equally meaningless.
You don’t need a total theory of life to act well. Having some grounded, positive orientation already does a lot of work.
When you hold a workable sense of meaning and let it guide concrete action, lt’s a practical way of staying oriented without losing yourself to emptiness.
I enjoyed this article but ironically it is guilty of a lot of the sins it lays at the feet of "franchise thinking"!
The "totalizing claim" - all of these wildly different phenomena all get attributed to one vague general mechanism that is "franchise thinking".
The position is "unfalsifiable" - any example of someone using an existing framework to explain something gets filed as "franchise thinking".
And, it fits nicely into pre-existing audience expectations, written for an audience already with the pre-conclusion that mainstream discourse is shallow.
"why people can't think originally anymore" is one of the oldest intellectual franchises in existence!
Humans love consistency and love shortcuts. It’s very uncomfortable to push past either of these things, and most people won’t build up the tolerance for the type of uncomfortable thinking that leads to new ideas.
Damn such banger of an article - most parts of contemporary life are franchised clothing, even reactions, slang etc..
My gripe is buying into the franchise with no sense of discernment
There is an algebra to language, and the franchise thinking seems to get to the level of calculus where you start creation equations using the equations. I think that franchise thinking can be stifling, but it can also provide an easy basis upon which to build something further from the center since it gives a cache of language to draw from that leaps you all the way to a fleet of assumptions instead of just one. To your point though, as with everything, it must be done in moderation otherwise, the concept turns into the "truth" instead of just being a convenient way to talk about something.
Reminds me of franchise restaurants. I much prefer new, interesting, local restaurants overall, but I'll be damned if I don't want an easy peasy Mcdonald's french fry every now and again.
This article stayed with me longer than most—and I appreciate that. Lately, I’ve been feeling a growing frustration with what I think of as “franchise thinking” in wellness spaces. Practices like “go for a walk,” “put your phone away,” or “try red light therapy” are often offered as universal remedies for problems that are far more structural and nuanced.
Gaps in our day-to-day lives—community, health, meaningful work, spiritual grounding—tend to get flattened into a single bucket called wellness practices, without acknowledging the complexity of what’s actually missing or misaligned.
I’ll admit I’m not innocent here. In trying to reach a broader audience, I’ve also leaned into simplified, repeatable ideas—sometimes at the cost of depth.
What I’m still sitting with after your piece is this: how do you sustain originality and integrity in a world that so clearly rewards franchise thinking? How long can one hold onto nuance without sacrificing material viability or opportunity?
I’d genuinely love to hear how you think about this tension.
Super smart thinking! Media workers are particularly susceptible to this type of "franchise" or narrative alignment because they overvalue existing workflows and processes of national news media (The Atlantic, NYT, the New Yorker) as definers of the conversation, rather than as perpetuating a status quo.
That's also how we get "Google took all the traffic/ads/business from publishers" without media companies taking any accountability for why they underinvested in understanding digital audiences and then lost the traffic/ads/business.
Or how we get "the creator economy will save us!" when creator media essentially creates a talent pool similar to unpaid internships did in the aughts: super rich kids with nothing but free time and supportive families are prepared for success... while the folks who have are not set up for creator fame are ignored and burn out.
We're on a precipice of finding new media models that enable sustainable growth by meeting audience needs (beyond feeds, beyond platforms), but I think those will develop outside platforms and outside the mouthpieces of legacy media.
We all want to be J.K. Rowling. lol. 😜