The Great Lock-in of 2025: Are We All Sharing a Brain?

welcome to Training Camp.

It’s an innate human desire to be “first”, or the creator of something new.

The original.

The OG.

You don’t need an audience, perhaps it can be something you do that you keep quiet and feel really good about.

How many times has something happened and you say to yourself “Oh, I saw that coming..” and then you feel like the smartest person in the room.

More often than not, it’s a trap- but it’s also a look into collective consciousness, human energy, and societal trends.

This can be 10,000 words, but we’ll make it a short shot today so you can do what needs to be done before whatever your Saturday evening entails.

(Hopefully it’s Du Plessis vs. Chimaev, but if you just read that and thought it was a late 90’s Supreme Court decision regarding property rights, you’re forgiven and more than welcome here, too.)

The Training Camp Idea

Here in my little nest down in Florida, I started have some unusual feelings over the late spring/early summer time.

I was bored every time I went out, even in a new area meeting new people.

I was dragging my feet (and still am) regarding joining a big tennis group down here to participate in.

Even dating and “dating-adjacent activity” had lost it’s luster.

There was no more FOMO or feelings of longing scrolling through the IG stories from the homeland, either.

Sure, picturesque Long Beach scenes (with A-380's cruising low overhead), Huntington boat days, or the clanking of iron at my home gym infused a sense of missing, but it lacked that “ache in the chest” that had been there over the winter.

It was as if I was being gravitationally pulled towards other things.

Thus, I concocted The Training Camp Idea.

Hard Knocks and Hustle Porn

The training camp idea was unironically inspired by watching my Buffalo Bills on HBO’s Hard Knocks.

The scenes of the all the players going through the grinding and repetition, all the while handling media and business responsibilities, was inspiring.

There’s also the stereotypical male “consumed media ➡️ inspired behavior” loop, which is a very real thing. We’re visual creatures.

(This is why it’s better to watch the UFC at home, and it’s why I landed my first kickflip at 11 after binge watching Rodney Mullen clips)

Fast forward to present day, you watch a bunch of guys killing themselves chasing a dream in an uniquely regimented way? You want to do it too.

Anytime one of the younger guys at any of the firms I’ve worked at asks me for a word or two of advice, one of the first things I advise them is:

“Beware of the hustle porn”.

It’s easy to repost Michael Jordan quotes or performatively “work” on social media. It’s what’s behind the scenes that really counts.

So why not try and be a bit psychotic about it?

{Also- sidenote here…is millennial culture to blame for “This Porn” and “That Porn”? It’s inescapable…Pinterest boards are rife with shoe porn, map porn, food porn (that’s probably actual porn too)…

I remember strolling through the Cosmo in Vegas last year and seeing a breakfast spot called “Egg Slut”.

Idk. I don’t mean to lose the plot. I’ll save my railing against cultural decline for Elevated Thoughts…..but perhaps all this tacky “tee-hee” public innuendo is compensation for lack of proper internal sexual energy? 🤔

Now that’s a banger future article idea.}

ANYWAY.

Training camp.

The idea boils down to this, to spare droning on and becoming another hustle porn bro on the TL

(I am going to crash out if I see another Substack Note on the feed about “10K steps a day and drinking water!!”)

It’s basically a hyper-focus on creation, personal health, business/business ideas.

The theory at play being “if you just spend all your time taking shots on goal, something’s gotta land and something’s gotta shift. Things can get cool”.

There’s no cheat meals (I dearly miss Wawa’s Hoagiefest), haven’t been to McDonald’s in almost a month…we’re doing this for real.

I’l have a bev tonight during the main event, but I haven’t had one in weeks.

The initial painful 4 to 5 day stretch of doing this has subsided, and the compounding feeling has set in.

It feels good.

In the downtrodden moments, there would be a self-monologue that I remembered from a workout video I used to watch when I was coming up:

Nobody else is doing this shit!

This echoed through the gym as two world champions pushed unholy amounts of weight over their heads. It’s a line that always stuck with me in hard moments.

Naturally, earlier this week I was perusing social media in the midst of meal prep, seeing some interesting sights and sounds by proxy.

It is what it is.

Training camp mode, right?

Nobody else is doing this shit, right?

We’re unique and this is a cool solo journey, right?

I couldn’t have possibly been more wrong.

Also, stock images can go so hard sometimes 💀

The Great Lock-in of 2025

I was scrolling the fyp, which happens to be one of the most intelligent implements of technology I’ve ever seen.

Protein-heavy recipes, Carlos Alcaraz forehands, the aforementioned A-380, old Doc Emrick goal calls, Arizona State’s Alpha Phi…the machines know what you like more than you do.

(I keep it real with you guys, ok? I don’t wanna hear it)

However, what struck me the most was the posts about “The Great Lock-in of 2025”

WTF?

You mean my super unique, “only I thought of this” John’s Training Camp?

This was a collective thing? When was this announced?

Here’s the proof:

@shmeat27Ts been a hall of fame start already📈 #fyp #typeshyt #shmeat27

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Tik Tok’s engagement numbers can skew generous, but still:

North of 56,000 ❤️’s at time of writing.

This one has even more engagement:

@basedsportstakesIt’s finna get real #lockin #thegreatlockin

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This fascinates me to no end.

How did this all start? Is it what we predicted would happen in A Time to Build, just with a 10-month snag due to fractious sociopolitical stuff/general climate of the world BS?

The cause can be ruminated over all day, I’d rather marvel at it’s eminence.

It’s energy, it’s the collective consciousness at play.

To deny these forces as legitimate is absurdity in my eyes.

There’s also the element of excitement- if so many of us have found ourselves on the same page, what’s to come out of it?

Is everyone else bored of dive bars or “wine and board game nights” (never liked those) or repetitive socialization?

Have we all become psychopathically locked in at the same time for no reason at all?

Who knows.

What we *do know*, however, is that there’s a legit movement starting here.

One of the more interesting things we’ve uncovered together, and one I’m excited to see where it goes.

As always- would love to hear from any of the readers if you’ve seen or are undergoing this in your own life, and what you expect to get out of it.

I do Tik Tok Live almost nightly, where I’ll discuss this as well. We’ve got a nice core group in there, with judgement-free (but highly entertaining) discussion and banter.

You can find me on TikTok @johnabbate

Things can get real fun around here, let’s see.

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That’s all for today, I have to get back to training camp.

Apparently there’s a lot of competition.

Love always,

John Abbate

16/8/2025

P.S.- I got Khamzat by submission tonight…and a rare John Apology to my absolute boi Austin for the Kobe header photo 😝