uber eats and a fatigued generation
Noticed: 8 May 2026
Location: Euston Station
social media
social media
I found this advert to be worth capturing because it says a lot about the state of Gen Z, convenience services, and how social media is supplying advertisers with valuable rhetoric.
Situated in Euston station, Uber Eats says, ‘Changed the duvet by yourself? You deserve a deal for that.’ Whether you find changing your bed sheets worthy of a takeaway as reward probably depends on who you are, but I actually find Uber to have their finger on the pulse here.
This sentiment, that doing something productive and ordinary is worthy of self-reward, is emblematic of social media discourse around ‘adulting.’ In the last 5-10 years, particularly via Tiktok, a trend has emerged that normalises and validates how adult responsibilities are simply just exhausting.
Why? If someone living in the last century saw this advertisement, would they not double take at the absurdity, as if doing laundry is difficult?
I would argue that the level of engagement with this feeling, to the extent Uber uses it for public marketing, tells us something about how adult life today genuinely feels. While often light-hearted, the adulting trend draws on real topics like corporate culture, burnout, and stress management.
For example, the phrase ‘bed rotting’ is a (wonderfully hyperbolic Gen Z) term for relaxation and rest to cope with nothing more specific than existence itself. These sentiments are funny because they are extreme, but for me, they still point towards a collective fatigue when you look closer.
To that end, I find this advertisement to be another moment in time for 2020s, post-Covid culture. Not that advertising for fast-food and delivery services did not exist, but there is something in the way they are including themselves in young people’s affects.
Public spaces today look more and more like they want to be on your Tiktok feed. This advert may be selling to you, but they want you to feel as cosy to them as you do to that adulting meme.
Compared with ‘hustle culture’ that was prominent in a metropolis’ like London post-millennia, advertising now seems to reflect what we are saying online right back to us.
None of this is not to say the average Gen Z or millennial finds life so difficult they are suckers for this type of advertising. I’m sure most of us could reduce this to the pretty clunky attempt to sound Gen Z that it is.
But they are evidently listening, and understand that an overwhelmed, stressed, and fed up group of young people are a very good market for convenience.
Had a stressful day? No need to cook, you can order Uber Eats. Tube strikes again? Wouldn’t an Uber be less painful than the bus.
Yes it would. Watch how Uber targets the adulting with some very comforting, short-term solutions.
