I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers

‘Mark Zuckerberg is a different kind of cringe – but cringe all the same. His cringe moments drip through more sparingly but, when they do, my body tries to turn inside out at my bellybutton,’ Rebecca Shaw writes. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this but everything seems to be going down the tubes quite fast. And not fun tubes, like at a waterpark. The “ending in shit” kind. The issues are complicated, the reasons diverse, but there are a few culprits who have been making themselves extremely visible.

Alongside those holding political office, tech gragillionnaires (I had to invent a new number) like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg obviously wield huge global influence with their computers and numbers and whatnot. There has been a lot written about them and there will be more, as they continue to shape the world and win favour with Donald Trump. Big, scary, probably ruinous things lie ahead. But I’m here to discuss the smaller part. The insult to injury, the sprinkling of salt in the wound.