Trendsspeaking topic
Being 'alone in the crowd' of a big city, or living under the 'everyone knows everyone' pressure of a small town: which loneliness is more bearable?
— online forum debate
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- Did remote work liberate our boundaries, or did it carry work into the bedroom and erase the end of the workday entirely? Is flexibility a gift, or an invisible chain?
- How did completely meaningless AI-generated characters like Italian brainrot manage to connect millions of people? Is shared meaninglessness a new language, or the collapse of language?
- Is someone posting their 'simple life' on social media actually living simply, or producing simplicity as a genre of content, a performance? Is the life we live off camera still the same life?
- Are rising standards progress, or the cause of loneliness? Does the 'never settle' culture deliver what we deserve, or condemn us to a checklist no real human can ever match?
- Seeking out bad news while doomscrolling looks irrational, but maybe monitoring danger is an evolutionary reflex. Is continuing to scroll through what makes us feel terrible a weakness, or a distorted instinct to keep threats in view?