The World’s Tallest Building Is Now Just a Hole in the Ground, and the Comments Are Savage
You know how your dad always says they don't build ‘em like they used to? Well, for once, he’s right, but not in the way he thinks. In a plot twist that feels ripped straight from a dystopian finance bro novel, the world is currently grappling with the fact that the title of "world's tallest building" is currently being held by a goddamn hole in the ground. No, I’m not making this up. It’s called the "Jeddah Tower" in Saudi Arabia, and it was supposed to be a kilometer-high middle finger to the sky, but instead, it’s just a massive, expensive crater with a few rebar spikes poking out, looking like the world’s most depressing modern art installation.
Let’s be real. The race to build the world’s tallest building has always been a dick-measuring contest for nations with too much oil money and not enough human rights. First, it was the Burj Khalifa in Dubai—a building so tall it has its own weather system, where the people at the bottom are sweating their balls off while the dudes at the top need a parka just to take a piss. That thing stands at 2,717 feet. It’s been the king of the concrete jungle since 2010, and honestly, it looked like we were all just waiting for someone to say, "Hold my falafel."
Enter Saudi Arabia. In 2013, they announced the Jeddah Tower, or "Kingdom Tower" as it was originally called, promising it would be the first building to break the kilometer barrier. That’s 3,281 feet of pure, unadulterated "we have more money than God." The plan was simple: dig a hole, pour a metric ton of concrete, and build a skyscraper so tall that the top floors would literally be in the stratosphere, or at least where the air is thin enough to make you forget about the whole "Khashoggi incident" thing.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t work. The project was supposed to be done in 2020. It’s 2024. The world has had a pandemic, three wars, and a Taylor Swift tour since then. The Jeddah Tower? Still just a hole. Actually, let me correct myself—it’s a hole with a foundation. The Saudi Binladin Group (yes, that Binladin, the one with the cave-dwelling uncle) started construction, got to about 60 stories, and then the whole thing went belly up when the Saudi government realized they had to pay for it and decided to "pause" the project in 2018. Classic rich person move: start building a monument to your ego, realize it costs more than the GDP of a small country, and just ghost the contractor.
Now, the internet is having a field day with this. Reddit, Twitter, and even LinkedIn (where the cringe is off the charts) are all roasting this thing like it’s a burnt kebab. The top comment on a recent thread about this was, "So basically, the world’s tallest building is just a hole in the ground. Kinda like my dating life." And honestly? That’s the most accurate thing I’ve read all week. Another gem: "Saudi Arabia spent billions to build the world’s most expensive pothole." Someone else pointed out, "This is peak late-stage capitalism: a monument to nothing. Even the building said, ‘Nah, I’m good.’"
But let’s dig a little deeper (pun intended). Why does this even matter? Because the Jeddah Tower’s failure is a perfect metaphor for the state of the world right now. We’re obsessed with being the biggest, the best, the most absurd. We’ve got billionaires launching dicks into space, cities building islands shaped like palm trees, and countries spending billions on towers just to say, "Look at me, I’m relevant!" Meanwhile, the rest of us are just trying to afford rent in a studio apartment that’s smaller than the elevator shaft of this ghost tower.
And the comments section? Oh, it’s a bloodbath. People are dragging Saudi Arabia harder than a Twitter troll drags a celebrity after a bad tweet. One user wrote, "This is the architectural equivalent of a ‘we have Burj Khalifa at home’ meme." Another said, "The only thing taller than this building is the amount of cope in this thread." There’s even a guy claiming he now has a new phobia: "Atychiphobia #2: fear of building a kilometer-high tower only to run out of cash and leave a giant hole in the ground that tourists will take selfies in front of for the next 50 years."
But here’s the kicker: the building isn’t technically "dead." The Saudi government recently said they’re "restarting" the project. They’re claiming it’s going to be done by 2028. Sure, Jan. I’ll believe it when I see it. Right now, it’s just a giant pothole in the desert, and honestly, it feels like a more honest representation of the Saudi "Vision 2030" than any glossy brochure. They want to diversify their economy away from oil? Cool. Maybe start by finishing the damn building instead of just digging a hole and calling it a "sustainable urban development."
The real question is: what does this say about us as a species? We’re so obsessed with building things that touch the sky that we forget to fix the plumbing in our own houses. We’re building towers that are taller than mountains while half the world can’t afford a roof over their heads. The Jeddah Tower is a monument to hubris, a testament to the fact that money can’t buy common sense. It’s the ultimate AITA post: "AITA for spending $1.2 billion on a hole in the ground because I wanted to flex on Dubai?" The answer, by the way, is YTA. Big time
Final Thoughts
After a century of chasing skyward records, from the Chrysler’s art-deco spire to the Burj Khalifa’s desert needle, the real story isn’t the height—it’s the hubris. These towers are less about architectural necessity and more about economic vanity, monuments to a nation’s brief moment of liquidity. The next supertall will likely rise not from engineering ambition, but from the desperate need to signal relevance in a world that’s finally looking down.