The Existential Reader

The Existential Reader – Issue One: Information Distortion

Where truth gets twisted, and clarity becomes resistance.

In the age of algorithmic confusion and performative certainty, The Existential Reader emerges as a space for intellectual rebellion. This debut issue takes aim at the subtle violence of distorted information — the warped narratives of the self-help industry, the moral acrobatics of Hiroshima’s justification, and the smug incoherence of the right-wing faux intelligentsia.

Drawing on the hauntological insights of Mark Fisher, the moral rigour of Simone Weil, and the mirror-world critique of Naomi Klein, this issue doesn’t just expose misinformation — it unpacks how narratives are bent to serve capital, empire, and ego.

Featuring long-form essays, fragments, reflections, cultural critiques and original writing from Craig Snelgrove, The Existential Reader is less a magazine and more a dispatch from the fractured now — where propaganda wears a podcast mic and despair is repackaged as hustle.

Inside:

Mindset is the New Morality: A takedown of self-help's neoliberal gospel

The Cowardice of Empire: Reframing Hiroshima through suppressed truths

Faux Intelligentsia: When reactionaries cosplay as rebels

Reflections on Klein, Graeber, pop culture, AI, alienation and the architecture of bullshit

Hauntological fragments and field notes from the culture war fatigue