US national debt

As Snapchat users have grown, the national debt has grown, a correlation of 0.976 that connects disappearing messages to accumulating obligations with the fiscal-ephemerality confidence of a chart that treats snaps and deficit spending as equivalent forms of expenditure that someone will eventually regret. The snap vanishes, the debt does not, and both numbers climb because the 2010s economy produced growth in all categories including social media users and government borrowing.

Snapchat DAUs grew from about 110 million to over 400 million between 2015 and 2022. National debt grew from about 18 trillion to over 31 trillion. Both smooth upward curves. The shared variable is the same expanding economy: tech companies grow because the digital economy expands, and debt grows because government spending exceeds revenue. Eight data points, both up.

Eight years of Snapchat and national debt is a correlation between two forms of accumulation that both feel unsustainable: digital attention and fiscal obligation, both growing because the systems that produce them have no built-in brake. The snap disappears in seconds. The debt does not disappear at all. Both keep going up.