It started with a carousel. Or maybe it was a TikTok filter. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter where the spark first flew because once the phrase and around and around and around we go hit the digital slipstream, it stopped being just a lyric and became a universal mood. You’ve felt it. That dizzying sensation of being stuck in a repetitive cycle, whether you're doomscrolling at 3:00 AM or watching the same discourse play out on social media for the hundredth time.
Loops are everywhere now.
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We live in a culture obsessed with the recursive. From the sampling in chart-topping tracks to the literal "For You" pages that feed us the same three jokes in different fonts, the repetition is the point. It's a weirdly hypnotic experience. One minute you're just hummning a tune, and the next, you realize the phrase has been living rent-free in your head for three days straight.
The Viral Architecture of the Loop
Why did and around and around and around we go become such a persistent earworm? It’s basically physics. Our brains are hardwired to recognize patterns, but more importantly, we are suckers for "resolving" rhythms. When a phrase loops, it creates a tension that never quite breaks.
Think about the song "Circus" by Britney Spears. It’s the most famous modern use of the phrase, and it works because it mirrors the chaos of celebrity. But it goes deeper than early 2000s pop. The concept of the "eternal return" is something philosophers like Nietzsche used to lose sleep over. He called it Amor Fati—loving your fate, even if that fate is just doing the same thing over and over forever.
TikTok took this philosophical dread and made it catchy.
Digital audio loops are the lifeblood of short-form video. When a sound like this goes viral, it creates a shared linguistic shorthand. You don't need to explain that you're overwhelmed; you just play the audio. The repetition provides a sense of community. We are all spinning together.
From Carousel Lyrics to Modern Anxiety
It’s interesting how the context of "around we go" shifted from the whimsical imagery of a playground to something kinda dark. In the mid-century, carousel songs were about innocence. Fast forward to the 2020s, and the metaphor has morphed into the "hedonic treadmill." This is the psychological idea that no matter how much good stuff happens to us, we eventually return to a baseline level of happiness.
We keep chasing. We keep spinning.
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Take the "vibe shift" era. Every six months, the internet decides a new aesthetic is the "only" way to live. First, it was cottagecore. Then it was "clean girl." Then "mob wife." Around and around and around we go, buying new wardrobes and throwing out the old ones, only to find out that "vintage" is cool again. It is a commercialized loop designed to keep us spending.
Why Our Brains Crave the Cycle
Music theory explains a lot of this. Most pop songs are built on a four-chord loop. If you’ve ever heard of the "Axis of Awesome," you know that dozens of the biggest hits in history share the exact same progression.
- The tonic (home).
- The dominant (the journey).
- The submediant (the tension).
- The subdominant (the way back).
When we hear and around and around and around we go, our ears expect the music to circle back to the start. It's satisfying. It feels safe. In a world that feels increasingly unpredictable—politically, economically, socially—the predictability of a loop is a comfort. It's a digital hug that never ends.
But there's a flip side.
Neural adaptation means that if we hear the same thing too much, we stop "hearing" it. This is why viral trends die so fast. The loop spins faster and faster until it becomes white noise. Then, we look for the next thing to get stuck in our heads.
The Content Vortex
If you look at how streaming services work, they are built on the "around and around" principle. Netflix doesn't want you to finish a show and turn off the TV. It wants the next episode to start in five seconds. It wants the algorithm to suggest something "just like what you watched."
This creates a "filter bubble."
You end up seeing the same opinions, the same faces, and the same jokes. You are effectively trapped in a digital carousel. It’s fun for a while, but eventually, you start to feel a little sick from the motion.
Real Examples of the "Eternal Loop" in Tech
It isn't just music and memes. The tech industry is obsessed with the circular.
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- Infinite Scroll: This UI feature was literally designed to keep you in a loop. There is no "end" to the page. You just keep going... and around and around.
- The "Boomerang" Effect: Instagram’s Boomerang tool turned a three-second moment into a permanent back-and-forth. It’s the visual equivalent of the phrase.
- Re-commerce: Places like Depop and Poshmark have turned the fashion cycle into a literal loop. You buy, you wear, you sell, you buy. It’s actually a great example of the loop being used for something good (sustainability).
Breaking the Cycle (Or Learning to Love It)
So, what do we do when the world feels like it’s spinning too fast?
Honestly, you can't really escape the loops. They are part of how we process information. But you can change the quality of the loop. Instead of the "doomloop" of negative news, people are increasingly turning to "slow content." This is the antidote. Long-form essays, three-hour podcasts, and physical hobbies like gardening or knitting.
These things have cycles, too. The seasons change. The yarn moves from the ball to the needle. But it’s a slower, more intentional "around and around."
Actionable Insights for the "Looped" Life
If you feel like you're stuck in a repetitive rut, there are ways to hijack the psychology of the loop to your advantage.
- Audit your audio: If a certain song or phrase is stuck in your head, listen to it all the way through. Research suggests that "earworms" often persist because your brain thinks the task (the song) is unfinished. Completing the loop can break the spell.
- Vary your "For You" page: Force the algorithm to break its cycle. Search for things you hate or things you know nothing about. It breaks the "around and around" and introduces new data points.
- Embrace the "Season": Stop fighting the fact that life is repetitive. Laundry will always need doing. Emails will always be sent. If you stop seeing the repetition as a prison and start seeing it as a rhythm, the dizziness goes away.
The phrase and around and around and around we go isn't just a lyric or a meme. It's the pulse of the digital age. It’s the sound of a world that is more connected, more repetitive, and more frantic than ever before. We might be spinning, but at least we're doing it together.
The trick is knowing when to step off the ride for a second to catch your breath.
To take this further, start by identifying one "digital loop" in your daily routine—like checking your phone the second you wake up—and consciously breaking it for just forty-eight hours. Notice how the "spin" of your day changes when you're the one in control of the momentum.