A satirical anatomy of the modern feed and the emotional weather of it
The age is one of continuous flow — a sequence of events presented as if they belong to an unfolding thought. Characters pop in and out of the feed like walk‑ons in a play no one auditioned for, each one triggering a different emotional reflex. Some arrive to immense satisfaction, others to an unquenchable rage, all at once, as if the system were conducting a symphony of collective whiplash.
And we don’t need to name them. There’s no purpose to that. Every reader will instinctively populate the cast with whatever characters and figures have been paraded across their personal feed. The machine code has already been central casting.
That’s the quiet bemusement: the machinery doesn’t only deliver information, it assembles the mood, drawn from a strangely personal feedback loop. A former official here, a resurfaced case there, a disclosure that seems to rhyme with the one before it.
An influencer, a comedian, a trailer for sale. None of these connect in a meaningful way, yet the environment stitches them together like a stream of conscience on steroids, as if the world were narrating itself in real time with no regard for plot, proportion, or even mental health.
The audience reacts accordingly. Queue satisfaction. Fury. Disbelief. You have yourself a full emotional workout before the kettle boils. And it reacts in your face the same way:
- abrupt,
- insistent,
- unavoidable.
You live as if the system is leaning over your shoulder narrating the day’s dysfunction like an avatar of your ups and downs.
It’s not that the events form a narrative. That happens exponentially but also dies instantly. It’s the exposition tricking the mind into thinking a narrative exists. The exposure becomes the story. The mood becomes the meaning. The feed becomes a river of psychology, sweeping unrelated events into the emotional channel until everything feels connected, consequential, and vaguely catastrophic.
Something to mull over on your way to REM.
The system doesn’t need to manipulate you. That is not its intention. That's superfluous. It simply arranges the view. But make no mistake. It’s not arranging a simulation. Those birth and death certificates are real, real consequences, real lives intersecting with the machine whether they ask for it or not. We’re not lecturing conspiracy here. Happenstance is bad enough.
The machine doesn’t sort out dysfunction, bad timing, or worse luck. It sweeps everything into the same current and presents it with the same breathless urgency, as if the universe is arranging to deliver a unified theme specifically tailored for you each day.
It isn’t. But the feed makes a fuss about it.
A scandal beside a recipe beside a war beside a meme. A tragedy beside a joke beside a conviction beside a cat video.
All flattened into one continuous strip of expose, delivered with the emotional subtlety of a fire alarm. It sounds so pragmatic, then, esoteric. Let’s hope. For the best. Because the alternative is much worse: imagining intention where there’s only indifference, design where there’s only random chance, orchestration where there’s a blind sorting mechanism unable to tell the difference between dysfunction, bad timing, or plain human misfortune.
The machine isn’t clever enough for conspiracy. It isn’t strategic. It isn’t plotting.
It’s just relentless.
It doesn’t weigh the stakes. It doesn’t distinguish between a ruined day and a ruined life. It doesn’t pause to consider whether the headline it’s surfacing is a minor embarrassment or a major tragedy. It simply arranges how things look at the moment.
And that’s a design flaw masquerading as a design. The system behaves as if it is curating meaning, when all it’s really doing is optimizing for reaction. It’s a machine built to amplify what spikes the pulse, whatever keeps the eyes locked, whatever produces the strongest measurable response in the shortest possible time.
Not because it wants to. Because it cannot tell the difference.
It goes back to the days of the town crier and the kid hawking newspapers on the corner — the original push‑notification system — but this version is deeper, more personal, and resolved to satisfy your demands. The old machinery shouted at the crowd. The new machinery whispers directly into your ears and eyes, in your kitchen, during your morning routine, flowing through your bloodstream.
The town crier never knew your preferences. The newspaper boy never tracked your reactions. The bulletin board never rearranged itself based on your pulse. But sure as hell this code of conduct does. Not because it’s sinister. Because it’s efficient.
It’s the same old-time impulse — “Hear ye, hear ye!” — but now tuned to your personal sensitivities, your private irritations, your unspoken anxieties. The machine has learned the shape of your attention, and it feeds you the world in that order. Not the world as it is, but the world as it lands on you.
The old systems announced the day. This new one occupies it for hours.
And that’s a shift — the quiet, decisive evolution that turned the machinery from a messenger into a presence. It doesn’t so much inform as inhabits. It settles into the private geography of your life until the emotional weather it generates feels indistinguishable from you.
A scandal halfway across the continent lands with the same immediacy as a knock at your door. A tragedy in another time zone feels like it’s unfolding in your living room. A stranger’s downfall feels like a personal affront. A public figure’s misstep feels like a private victory. And don't let us talk about tragedy. Or triumph for that matter.
None of this happens because the events are connected. They are not. The presentation is connected. World wide. A system that behaves like a bellowing town crier for every individual, distributing millions of parallel emotional climates, each one convincing the owner that this is what the world feels like today.
Not because it’s true. Because it’s near and dear. And in the nearness — that relentless, intimate proximity — the machinery becomes something the old systems never were:
- a narrator you didn’t hire,
- a companion you didn’t invite,
- a presence you didn’t notice arriving.
The old systems announced the day. This one occupies the hours. And the strangest part is: it is not even trying.
CLOSING KICKER
A world that never stops talking eventually stops sounding like the world — and starts sounding like you.
