When the media talks about recession (same as your papers, your favourite news site, it's the media in general), they mean "shit's bad and you're struggling". Same in school, when you learn about a recession, you learn about the simplified definition. That's fine. I don't care what your economics book is saying, I deal with real science, not imaginary shit.

So when people start complaining because their living conditions are getting worse, the same media and the people who suck up to them for some reason (wink wink) come back with "akshully, I think you'll find things aren't that bad because technically, this is not a recession".

The same thing happens when a government counts "unemployment". They define it in such ridiculously restrictive ways that every time they report on it, it magically goes down.

"Oh, you've gotten out of bed at least once in the past 12 hours? Well, that's a job, buddy! Well done, you're now self-employed and can't be counted as unemployed." Telling me "unemployment" is down is meaningless and I couldn't care less. Telling me "it's not a recession so everything is fine, trust me bro" is just as meaningless.