What the attacks on Steven Bartlett say about a shift in our culture

Over the last six months, Steven Bartlett has been in the firing line. Twice.

First came the NYE special with Chris Williamson, where both men discussed declining birth rates and implied that women’s freedom might be part of the problem - suggesting society should do more to encourage motherhood. In peak Manosphere era, you can imagine how that landed.

Then, just as the dust was settling, a clip went viral from his podcast where Bartlett described how a few glasses of wine after a long period of sobriety “ruined three days” of his life - worse sleep, bad food choices, skipping the gym, underperforming at work and on the pod.

The backlash for both wasn’t really about what he said. It was about the extreme optimisation culture mindset he represents. And I think that matters more than anyone is acknowledging.

For the last four years, I was fully in the church of Bartlett. Huel advocate. Oura ring. Apple Watch. My house became a wellness museum, filled with tools and trinkets that promised a longer, better life - most of which now gather dust in the corner. I, too, fell into the optimisation trap.

So when Greg James, BBC Radio 1 presenter, posted a video last week taking direct aim at this whole world, it hit differently.

His point was blunt: “Optimisation is killing fun.” And: “You can have ambitions and goals and get good at a skill and do well in your life professionally and also have a great time. Not everything has to be like work.”

He was clear he had no issue with Bartlett quitting alcohol. His problem was the relentless tracking - sleep scores, recovery scores, productivity metrics - and the quiet misery that follows when you don’t hit them.

I’ve been sitting on this thought since Christmas: we are in the middle of a cultural shift away from perfection.

After a decade of being told to optimise everything - wake up at 5am, track every calorie, measure your HRV, become the best version of yourself through sheer discipline - people are exhausted. With the world in chaos and the economy squeezing us to the bone, the idea of adding personal KPIs to the mix feels increasingly absurd.

The attacks on Bartlett aren’t really about him. They’re the most visible symptom of a culture that is done with the decade of perfection.

The clearest cultural evidence came in 2024, with Charli XCX’s Brat. The album wasn’t about self-improvement. It was about self-acceptance , being messy, making mistakes, partying, having a breakdown, and still being worthy.

Critics called it “messy, imperfect self-acceptance.” It became one of the defining cultural moments of the decade because it offered something the optimisation era simply couldn’t: relief.

The most influential cultural movement of 2024 wasn’t about becoming better. It was about becoming less polished.

@4inthe5 are four friends in their twenties - Yvanna, Drew, Gabriella and Madisen - living across New York’s five boroughs and documenting their lives. Fashion, private equity, media, client services. Their content is essentially a modern Sex and the City: dinner reservations, career ambitions, girls’ nights, dating and figuring out adulthood together.

The account exploded because it feels aspirational without feeling unattainable. Not “how do I become the best version of myself?” but “how do we build a life we actually enjoy living?”

For years, the ideal online person was disciplined, sober, up at 5am, tracking everything. @4inthe5 represents a completely different kind of aspiration - one built around connection, community, and collective joy rather than individual performance.

Gen Z’s obsession with disposable cameras, flip phones, Y2K fashion and indie sleaze points at the same thing. It’s not really about the objects. It’s a longing for an era that felt less monitored, less measured, less online.

I’m personally tired too.

I’ve cancelled plans with friends because I was worried about my sleep score. I’ve avoided drinking on a night out because of my HRV. I genuinely know that looking after your health matters - but I think this has quietly become a bigger life question than we’re admitting.

Because what does optimisation actually cost us? Not just in cancelled plans or skipped drinks, but in the slow accumulation of all those small moments unlived because we were too busy measuring?

The optimisation era sold us a very seductive vision of the future self - leaner, sharper, more productive, longer-lived. But I think a lot of us are starting to sense that we’ve been so focused on extending life that we forgot to actually live it. You can track every hour of sleep and still feel deeply alone. You can hit your macros and miss your friend’s birthday dinner. You can have the perfect morning routine and spend the whole year feeling like you’re failing because your recovery score was amber.

The attacks on Bartlett are uncomfortable for those of us who bought in - because they force us to confront something we’ve been quietly sensing for a while. That the relentless pursuit of perfection is, paradoxically, making us worse. Not worse at work. Worse at being human.

What Brat understood, what @4inthe5 understands, what Greg James was pointing at - is that a life well-lived is not a life well-optimised. Connection, mess, spontaneity, joy that doesn’t serve a goal — these aren’t things you can track. And maybe that’s the whole point.

The culture is shifting. The decade of perfection is ending. And the question I keep coming back to is a simple one: when did we start measuring our lives instead of actually living them?