Audiences are increasingly identifying hyper-convenience and tech/AI-streamlined everything as culprits in rising feelings of dissatisfaction, disconnection, and lives light on meaning. Enter ‘friction-maxxing’ – an antidote involving micro-dosing inconvenience. We unpack the internet discourse, content-creator storytelling and viral challenges, and campaigns and brand takes covering resisting everyday shortcuts, pushback against ‘slopper’ over-reliance on AI thinking-bots, rediscovering serendipitous socialising, and welcoming boredom.