What is a life softlock?
In games, a softlock means you are not dead — the run just cannot progress. No game-over screen. No clean restart. You are stuck in a room with no usable exit.
Softlock the product borrows that metaphor for real life: buffering decisions, infinite tutorials, prestige burnout, couch co-op alone. Naming the freeze makes it shareable — and slightly less lonely.
This is not clinical advice. It is a brutal-funny taxonomy for the stuck states people already recognize in group chats.