I'm Not in the Conversation

Bo Burnham. My guy.
He says it over and over, and we still pretend we don’t hear it:

Your phone was designed to keep you on it.
Your computer. Your tablet. Your apps.
Not to connect. Not to inspire.
To occupy. To delay.
To make sure you never have to sit in silence long enough to wonder what it’s all doing to you.

Because every second of your attention is a data point.
Every hesitation, every click, every flicker of boredom avoided —
is another micro-moment of your soul for sale.

And then we act surprised when physical media disappears.

Books out of stores.
Theaters showing one movie across six screens, while the weird stuff gets a week, maybe.
CDs gone.
Vinyl surviving only because it became an aesthetic.
Games, movies, literature — available only secondhand, or not at all.

Why?
Because they can’t track what you borrow from a friend.
They can’t build an algorithm around the moment you shut your laptop and feel something.
That doesn’t sell ad space.

What sells?
Identity.

You used to like a musician.
Now you identify as a Swiftie, or Army, or Beyhive.
You used to enjoy movies.
Now you have to be Team Marvel or Team DC —
because belonging gets you engagement, and engagement gets them money.

Because if you’re a fan, you’re a consumer.
But if you’re a thing, you’re a demographic.
And demographics are predictable.

And once you’re predictable, you’re profitable.
And once you’re profitable, you’re no longer human.
You’re a heat map.

It’s why I don’t go to the movies much anymore.

Not because I don’t love movies.
But because the kinds of movies I love — the quiet ones, the weird ones, the ones that haunt instead of trend —
they’re not made anymore.

At least not by the system.

So I write them.
Not because I think they’ll sell.
Not because I think anyone’s listening.

But because somewhere out there, I know someone else is tired of being a data point too.

And they don’t want to join the conversation.
They don’t want to be a fanclub.
They don’t want to be monetized.

They want to feel something real.
And real is all I’m interested in.