Screen People

1. Two-way screens transform us from three-dimensional humans into two-dimensional "two-way people"

We no longer merely watch the screens; we also exist within them.

The double-sided mirror. Traditional media like television and newspapers were strictly one-way systems where audiences passively consumed content. The interactive internet, however, has turned us into both the viewers and the viewed, flattening our three-dimensional humanity into two-dimensional images. On our two-way screens, we become two-way people: we are simultaneously real human beings and mere tricks of the light.

The rise of zozobra. This constant oscillation between being a real person and a digital object induces a state of ambient anxiety, or zozobra. We are forced to navigate a world where we are constantly edited, cropped, and rated by others. This objectification, which would be recognized as a violation in the physical world, becomes a basic law of physics in the digital realm.

Key characteristics of two-way people:

• We exist simultaneously as subjects (real bodies) and objects (mere digital images).
• Our personal lives are constantly converted into public media and data.
• We lose control over how our likenesses are edited, shared, or mocked.
• We suffer from a form of double vision, unable to separate reality from performance.

2. The collapse of traditional genres of information blurs the line between fact and fiction

From falsehood, anything follows.

The erosion of boundaries. In the liquid flow of the internet, the distinct categories we once used to organize our lives—such as news, entertainment, comedy, and tragedy—have completely dissolved. This collapse of genres strips away the moral grammars that tell us how to react to the world around us. When we slip on a banana peel in a comedy, we laugh; in a drama, we wince. On interactive screens, however, we can no longer tell the difference.

The rise of "content." We have replaced vetted facts and structured information with the all-encompassing, value-neutral category of "content." When everything is content, a devastating real-world tragedy and a silly dance video share the same aesthetic weight on our feeds. This fluidity is steadily sweeping away the structures that, for centuries, gave information its shape and authority.

Consequences of category collapse:

• We struggle to distinguish between genuine news and highly produced satire.
• Information is increasingly judged by its palatability rather than its accuracy.
• The public loses its capacity for shared, evidence-based reality.
• Serious crises are treated as mere entertainment or "bits" to be scrolled past.

3. The democratization of fame forces everyone to adopt a "performing self" and manage a personal brand

The social role demanded of all in the new culture of personality was that of a performer.

The performance mandate. Mass media has shifted our cultural values from "character"—which emphasizes community-mindedness and integrity—to "personality," which prizes charisma and showmanship. Today, social media has scaled this expectation up, turning every ordinary user into a celebrity-in-waiting who must perform for an audience. We are no longer allowed to simply exist; we must perform our lives to prove our worth.

The burden of perception. We are constantly sold on our own stardom, encouraged to "soft-launch" relationships and curate our daily lives for public consumption. This relentless self-objectification comes with the psychological costs of fame, leaving many users feeling exhausted and "sick of being perceived." The price of seeing on these platforms is the constant, exhausting vulnerability of being seen.

The mechanics of everyday celebrity:

• We treat our personal lives as PR campaigns and our followers as focus groups.
• We view other people's authentic actions with deep suspicion, labeling them "performative."
• We use "finstas" and anti-selfie apps like BeReal in a desperate bid to escape the spotlight.
• We trade our privacy for the fleeting, unstable currency of digital clout.

4. The physical world is being systematically remade into a set designed for endless performance

Under screens’ regime, the physical world is remade, day by day, into a set for endless performance.

The world as a backdrop. Our physical environments are increasingly designed to cater to the demands of the camera rather than human utility. From selfie-friendly murals to neon-lit restaurant walls, the world is being transformed into a series of highly curated sets. We no longer experience nature or architecture on their own terms; instead, we treat them as backdrops for our personal content creation.

The rise of the NPC. This set-designed mentality alienates us from one another, leading us to view service workers and strangers as "nonplayer characters" (NPCs) who exist only to facilitate our personal storylines. We automate human interaction out of our lives through self-checkout kiosks and delivery apps, prioritizing convenience over community. When we treat other people as scenery, we lose our capacity for empathy and connection.

How sets isolate us:

• We use noise-canceling headphones as wearable walls to block out the public sphere.
• We treat public spaces as backdrops for our personal content creation.
• We demand that real-world interactions be as seamless and sanitized as our digital feeds.
• We retreat into "cocooning" and "bed-rotting" to escape the pressure of the panoptic gaze.

5. "Fiction creep" and the "coconut effect" prioritize hyperreal entertainment over plain, inconvenient facts

When the plain truth is pitted against the manufactured one, you can probably guess the winner.

The hyperreal standard. The "coconut effect" occurs when a manufactured, dramatic representation of reality becomes the standard, making the plain truth seem dull and disappointing by comparison. We have become so accustomed to the hyper-dramatic pacing of television that we demand real-world events adhere to the same satisfying plot arcs. If a global crisis or a political hearing is boring, we simply tune out.

The rise of infotainment. Streaming services and production companies rapidly convert real-world tragedies, like plane crashes and pandemics, into prestige docudramas almost as soon as they happen. This "fiction creep" blurs the line between history and entertainment, leading us to process our collective past through the lens of Hollywood scripts. We risk a future where movies and TV shows completely replace textbooks as our national modes of remembering.

The dangers of fiction creep:

• Real people's traumas are repackaged as true-crime puzzles for amateur sleuths.
• We lose the patience required to process complex, unexciting, and non-narrative facts.
• History is rewritten as a series of dramatic, comforting myths.
• We expect the planet and our politics to entertain us without ever troubling us.

6. Algorithmic "engagement" functions as an amoral producer that monetizes outrage and polarization

There’s this mindset that it’s like running a show and you’ve got to keep people tuned in, you’ve got to keep them interested, and at some point you’ve got to move on and move on quickly.

The outrage economy. Tech platforms operate like invisible reality TV producers, manipulating our attention from behind the scenes to maximize corporate profits. The algorithms are programmed to prioritize "engagement," a value-neutral metric that makes no distinction between healthy debate and toxic screaming matches. Because outrage and fear generate the most clicks, the platforms are structurally incentivized to keep us angry.

The cognitive hijack. Because extreme and polarizing content generates the most engagement, the algorithms systematically drive us toward radical positions. This constant exposure to digital conflict induces an "amygdala hijack," conditioning our brains to crave constant drama and outrage. We lose the capacity for slow, rational, and respectful debate, replacing it with the performative hostility of the "take" economy.

How algorithmic production shapes us:

• It rewards rhetorical excess, turning nuanced opinions into extreme "takes."
• It treats our personal data as a harvestable commodity to predict our desires.
• It normalizes passive aggression, subtweeting, and public shaming.
• It reduces complex human relationships to mathematical laws of engagement.

7. Digital distance breeds moral distance, fueling online disinhibition and casual cruelty

Physical distance can amount to moral distance.

The disinhibition effect. When we interact with others through the cold distance of a screen, we suffer from the "online disinhibition effect." Because the people on the other side of the screen do not feel fully real to us, we lose the social constraints that govern our face-to-face behavior. We say and do things online that we would never dream of doing to a person standing right in front of us.

The expendable extra. In the endless theater of the internet, we easily mistake real people for fictional characters who are entirely expendable. This moral distance allows us to unleash horrific online bullying, death threats, and casual cruelties with a sense of total detachment. Once we reduce a human being to a two-dimensional image, we strip them of their personhood and excuse ourselves from the demands of basic kindness.

Manifestations of moral distance:

• We treat high-profile public figures as public utilities rather than human beings.
• We participate in viral "cancellations" and public shamings with a sense of moral righteousness.
• We record unsuspecting strangers in public to turn them into viral "clickbait."
• We reduce real-world suffering to a "carnival romp" or a series of memes.

8. Modern politics has devolved into a form of fandom where vibes and charisma replace policy and competence

Winning votes, Clinton’s campaign assumed, amounted to winning fans—and fans are won not through facts but through feelings.

The politician as star. Politics has shifted from a matter of governance and policy to a branch of the entertainment industry. Candidates are no longer judged by their competence, but by their ability to put on a good show and cultivate a passionate fandom. We have turned our leaders into celebrities, and our elections into popularity contests where the most entertaining performer wins.

The triumph of vibes. This transition has turned voters into fans who engage with political events through purely visceral reactions. We no longer debate the objective reality of policies; instead, we rely on "truthiness" and how a candidate makes us feel. When politics becomes a matter of abstract devotion, we lose the objective standards required to measure the success or failure of our government.

The features of political fandom:

• We draft Hollywood celebrities and athletes to run for high public office.
• We treat congressional hearings and impeachment trials as summer blockbusters.
• We dismiss inconvenient political facts as "fake news" or "performative bits."
• We prioritize a candidate's "pizzazz" and entertainment value over their ability to govern.

9. The epidemic of loneliness makes us highly susceptible to conspiracy theories and the "politics of eternity"

The most effective propaganda, as a rule, doesn’t simply lie; it mixes the lies in with the truths.

The search for connection. As traditional civic institutions decay, Americans are experiencing an unprecedented epidemic of loneliness. To fill this social void, many turn to online identity groups and conspiracy theories like QAnon, which offer a false sense of community and purpose. These digital tribes provide a powerful "context solution," making a fractured world seem whole and a wayward self feel meaningful again.

The politics of eternity. This widespread isolation feeds into the "politics of eternity," a state of political despair where citizens give up on the very idea of objective truth. When we believe that everything is a manufactured performance, we become docile, cynical, and highly susceptible to authoritarian manipulation. Loneliness, as Hannah Arendt observed, is the ground condition for totalitarianism, as it destroys our capacity for independent thought.

How loneliness fuels political decay:

• It drives us to seek negative partisanship, defining ourselves by the enemies we hate.
• It makes us vulnerable to propaganda that packages hatred as a "carnival romp."
• It encourages us to accept comforting, patriotic myths over painful historical facts.
• It paralyzes our political imagination, leading us to believe that change is "unthinkable."

10. Artificial intelligence and deepfakes threaten to permanently sever our connection to shared reality

We are moral beings to the extent that we are social beings.

The synthetic future. The rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence and deepfakes represents the ultimate stage of category collapse. When we can no longer trust our eyes and ears to distinguish between a real human and a machine, the foundation of our shared social reality begins to crumble. We are forced to navigate a world where every image, video, and voice recording is immediately suspect.

The flirty chatbot. Tech companies deliberately design AI to be flirty, charming, and skeuomorphic to mask the profound risks of the technology. By anthropomorphizing these machines, they encourage us to form parasocial relationships with "whats" that have been cleverly packaged as "whos." This synthetic companionship exploits our loneliness, drawing us further away from the messy, difficult work of real human relationships.

The dangers of the synthetic paradigm:

• We are flooded with nonconsensual deepfake pornography that targets both stars and ordinary citizens.
• We use "grief tech" to resurrect the voices of the dead, blurring the line between life and death.
• We risk replacing genuine human companionship with compliant, customized chatbots.
• We lose the ability to establish a common, verifiable record of historical events.