I grew up in the suburbs; I found it really boring; I watched a lot of TV, especially cartoons.
For better or worse, a good portion of my sense of justice came from Bugs Bunny.
Which is actually a lot more healthy than what passes for justice these days, I’d say!
During that time artificial reality did not blur so readily with actual reality. Now when I watch any media I see cartoons everywhere. I see cartoons when I look at people, too. So many have created caricatures of themselves it is clear there is too little authentic left to matter in them anymore. It’s like a return to the primitive, only plastic. Surface obsessed–the inner world collapsed in order to buttress the phony outer world of a manufactured jungle.
The following I copied and/or jotted down from still more media consumption, from a writer I imagine is real, who calls himself Stylman. Interesting name. I stopped following, despite his many wise expressions, when he wrote he thought the crazy weather is being controlled by the fears of the people who believe in geoengineering. A lunatic, obviously. And yet, some prescient views nonetheless.
“And it’s a road to nowhere—a few winners, millions of casualties, and an entire generation taught that their value lies in their ability to perform rather than create, to influence rather than contribute, to be seen rather than to matter.”
Now we live in an era where TikTok influencers who dance for thirty seconds make more than teachers, nurses, or the engineers who build our bridges. We’ve moved from celebrating skill to monetizing attention, from honoring achievement to rewarding performance and exhibitionism.
The fame machine isn’t just anti-human—it’s filling the void left by our disconnection from authentic community and natural guidance, while simultaneously being the logical response to living under constant surveillance.
But this isn’t cultural drift – it’s social engineering. The same institutional forces that have systematically replaced real information, real money, and real community are now replacing authentic human development with performance for strangers. This reflects a broader pattern: we live in an era where every essential human system has been replaced with artificial substitutes designed to harvest our energy rather than nourish our souls.
We’ve built a system that teaches them to treat their lives like content. That tells them: if you’re not being seen, you’re not really here. That your private self has no value unless it’s validated by strangers. We’ve stripped away something essential—the right to exist without an audience.”
While I agree, it’s actually much worse, in my experience.
The invasion of privacy of public systems and the individuals willing to force this state on everyone have deeply influenced inter-personal relationships as well–corrupting them, disfiguring them into parallel invasions–where expectation, extraction, exploitation has become the nauseating norm, and accountability has become entirely absent.
The public and private realities mirroring each other. Recently when I was visiting a dear friend who is Uber-Tech-Attached I had a Truman Show Moment, where she was gushing over her new air-fryer and I got the uncomfortable and uncanny sense I was unvoluntarily in an infomercial.
It’s a very creepy feeling I knew she would not understand.
Folks are faking their way through life, and this will have continued disastrous consequences.
The invasions will continue, until the trespasses are rejected and honor is restored to privacy and to nature.
The dangers of such a system, where access is assumed–access to your private spaces, your private thoughts, from your micro-expressions to your quotidian habits–is a culture of mutual parasitism, not even close to mutual understanding. This is not a culture more connected, it’s a culture more devolved. Incapable of boundaries, non-chalant around respect and autonomy, mocking of custom and structure, collapsing into a decaying emptiness. The nothingness of perpetually dissolving illusions, like the garish carricatures of a cartoonish, substanceless life.
A life perpetually romanticising illusion.
Even as its entire life support system slips away.
Even as the answer is so very simple.
