Spain and Portugal Experience Power Outage, Accidentally Rediscover Meaning of Life

A massive blackout swept across Spain and Portugal, cutting power, internet, and the ever-present hum of digital distraction. For a brief, accidental moment, humanity was rebooted.

With no screens to swipe, no emails to ignore, and no GPS to mislead them, people emerged from their apartments blinking like mole people. Stripped of notifications and Bluetooth-enabled purpose, they were forced to engage in a terrifyingly analog activity: being present.

Suddenly, conversations happened without group chats. Meals were shared without photographing them. Children discovered outdoor play. Adults remembered silence. Nobody cared what Elon Musk was tweeting, because nobody could. Older generations, weeping, explained the ancient concept of reading for fun.

For six hours, life was slow. It was everything our smartphones promised to optimize out of existence.

By the time the lights came back on, a collective groan rose across the peninsula—not from inconvenience, but from the crushing return of pixelated life. The algorithms had missed us.

Utility companies have promised that this will probably never happen again, people across the region quietly hope it will.

And in surely unrelated news, search trends for “how to move to a cabin permanently” have spiked 700%.