the.com/backlash
The universe's way of billing you for progress you moved too fast on.
means A strong, usually collective, negative reaction against a recent action, decision, or trend.
from A 19th-century mechanical term first: the 'lash back' of gears or machine parts when there's slack between them, causing a jarring, uncontrolled snap in the opposite direction of motion. By the mid-20th century it had jumped from workshops into politics and culture, describing the jolt of reaction that comes when something has pushed forward too hard, leaving room for a sudden, violent swing the other way.
- origin
- from mechanical slack in gears, 1815
- pattern
- grows proportional to how smug the announcement was
- irony
- often outlasts the thing that caused it
- modern form
- arrives before you finish reading the headline