In Other News

There’s an interesting story from the singer Paula Abdul about her first kiss. She says, “I had my first kiss under a tree near the school. It was with a boy named Michael who rarely spoke, but he would sometimes give me one of the cookies from his lunch. Maybe it was the gifts that made me feel special? I don’t know, but when our lips touched, it felt magical.” But this first kiss never happened. The story isn’t true—it was a joke published on ClickHole by Joe Kwaczala in 2015, really about her week so far. Yet when you look online, this joke has in some way become fact, with a made-up boy and a made-up event holding the form of truth. In actuality, Paula’s first kiss was from a boy named Craig Schiller during high school. She recounts the story in a fan mail video from 2010. This story—its purpose, birth, and conclusion—is the most fitting thesis for what we will discuss today.

There have only been three times in my life so far where I experienced a form of media that predicted the future to a T regarding this subject, and this past weekend was the third time. Network is a movie, in simple terms, about a news anchor, Howard Beale, who is asked to leave his network, UBS, after poor ratings and losing shares. As he begins to go through mental breaks after the loss of his job and the death of his wife, he starts to, in truth, speak his mind—for better or worse. What it does do, however, is boost his ratings and shares. Many throughout the company continue to exploit this—such as Diana Christensen and Frank Hackett—but Howard’s one true friend in all of this, Max Schumacher, tries many times to get him to stop, only to end up being fired himself. That’s the basic synopsis and the characters. But the beauty—and the worst part—of Network is how right it is. For it to have come out in 1976 and predict so much of what is present in the world today is staggering. It’s a sort of Nostradamic divination; to wax poetic and disinterested in better terms, it’s amazing. But aside from that, it is one of two movies that I have ever seen that I can, in my own terms of course, consider perfect. From its script to the performances, and the many subtle nuances it carries, it is a movie that—aside from its view and belief of society—is a perfect piece of media that deserves to be cherished as it has been. Every main, and even some side characters in the movie, had a beautiful line or speech spoken to perfection and carried out. The beauty, however, is in the very thing the film struggles to contain.

Journalism as we know it first began in Rome around 59 B.C.E know as Acta Diurna or the Daily Acts which was order by Julius Caesar as a form of public notices of government decrees, trials, and social events to be carved onto stone or metal tablets and displayed in public spaces. China about 7th century C.E during the Tang Dynasty know as Dibao which as basically hand copied newsletters held announcements, court affairs, and military updates. Venice in the 16th century merchants produced handwritten sheets called avvisi which reported on politics, wars, and trade routes. During the 15th and 16th centuries ere the birth of the Guttenberg press during the 1450s which turned news in from letters to the rich to a mass commodity. In the 1600s was the birth of what we would consider the idea of the modern day newspaper. 17th and Journalism, as we know it, first took shape in Rome around 59 B.C.E., with Acta Diurna—the Daily Acts—ordered by Julius Caesar to post government decrees, trials, and social events on stone or metal tablets in public spaces. In China, by the 7th century C.E., the Tang Dynasty circulated the Dibao, hand-copied newsletters announcing court affairs and military updates. By the 16th century, Venice’s merchants produced handwritten avvisi that tracked politics, wars, and trade routes. The Gutenberg press, born in the 1450s, transformed news from private letters for the wealthy into a mass commodity. By the 17th and 18th centuries, newspapers spread from Paris to colonial America, carving out what we now recognize as the public sphere. And in the 19th century, with industrialization and cheap printing, journalism matured into its modern form: mass communication and watchdog. What’s more telling than this chronology is the shifting purpose of journalism in each age. Caesar used news as both transparency and propaganda, shaping public opinion to the state’s advantage. The Tang Dynasty wielded it as internal control, feeding the empire’s bureaucratic machine. Venice’s financial elites used it to manage risk in an expanding global economy. The printing revolution blended profit with information, as publishers realized people would pay to remain informed. The 17th and 18th centuries gave the public its first platform to challenge authority, and by the 19th century journalism had become a force to inform, mobilize, and hold power to account. But journalism has never had a single, pure purpose. It has always been a dog of many tricks—part truth, part propaganda, part independence, part control. Its nature shifts with its owner. The very tug-of-war we see today played out in earlier centuries, only in as different figures. Social media is simply the latest incarnation. Caesar’s purpose to curtail the media landscape and public opinion is no different from world leaders using X for official updates, bypassing traditional journalism: Trump’s constant social media posting or Zelensky’s direct wartime updates. It’s information as a state performance, both transparency and propaganda. The Venetian avvisi saw merchants paying for reports on trade routes, war movements, and rumors. Today, it is figures on their Substacks, websites, YouTube, X, TikTok, and other platforms acting as niche experts, giving subscribers curated, insider takes on politics, economics, or culture—turning news and information into a commodity for niche communities, locked behind paywalls and training programs. Londoners once crowded coffeehouses to argue over the morning paper; now we swarm comment sections and threads, manufacturing the same chaos with even less credibility. The conclusion is inescapable: journalism has changed form, sometimes even purpose, but its central challenges remain. Information and influence. Gatekeeping and the public sphere. Watchdog and entertainment. Journalism has never been pure truth. It has always been a dance between what information we can access and what power we can hold. Each technological leap redistributes who controls the narrative. Each stage, invention, and innovation is the reincarnation of our human obsession with finding, fighting, and filling the world over what is true.

Journalism in today’s media landscape is an interesting thing. Journalism is the place, the avenue, the area where the public is informed of the “news.” It’s the act of collecting, editing, and presenting said “news” through the media. The news—being local, national, and international—is provided to the public to inform and educate, in theory, as it pertains to a world devoid of bias, merely to present what is. In basic words, the news and journalists are meant at all times to seek and look for truth, to press and berate those in power when they are wrong. They are not allies; they are the beating heart of the country, always asking for more, always wanting better. They are vox populi, and through them, our leaders and the world they seemingly rule must be as we see it—and they must bend under our want and will. That is why journalism is so important. That is why the news is so important. That is why I have spent this much time on the word “journalism,” and could spend more, because it is the binding vow between man and his voice, saying “I will” in every instance. And that is the problem with UBS and the problem with the news today. Howard Beale speaks from his anguish and mental breaks, but it seems genuine, real, and true—though his purpose is to generate money and entertainment for the public, who are told what they should believe. Later, he becomes the mouthpiece of Arthur Jensen. Fox News spreads racism, misogyny, climate denial, election denial, and so much more. And after the conclusion of the Rupert Murdoch inheritance, it will continue to do so for a long time. CBS will most likely soon fall under heel as well, with the hiring of Kenneth R. Weinstein as its new ombudsman for CBS News, which in theory is supposed to give CBS News an internal mechanism for accountability and credibility, especially in an era of high public scrutiny and accusations of media bias—a sort of watchdog, if you will. But Weinstein, as a man who formerly led the Hudson Institute among other roles—how unbiased and nonpartisan will he be? As we’ve seen before, most likely not very much. Though I am giving attention to the conservative news sources, the same is true of media conglomerates and companies such as CNN and MSNBC, for the other side of the aisle. But the problem is that this can be said at all—a right-leaning or left-leaning news program or journalism source. It is not the job or the purpose of journalists and those who conduct themselves in the space of the news to choose a side. They should be merely on the side of what is—and the truth. They are there to pursue and berate all political officials and leaders, those they hate and those they like, equally. The side they are on is the people’s, and those in power rarely have need to be true to us—so it is the journalist’s job to make them. Sadly, this is the place we are in today, as watching the news on either side, you are rarely presented with the truth. But there are those out there who help to alleviate this problem, usually found in independent media. Motaz, for example, through Instagram and other platforms, was able to expose the atrocities of the Israeli government toward the Palestinian people. This is what journalism and the news are. Their purpose is to puncture the tapestry of made reality by those in power. Instead, journalism has become too snug with power, like a scared child who sneaks into the bed of their parents at night. It’s very friendly and very kind—no follow-up, no pressing of the issue. Journalism should be adversarial, challenging power. Not campaigning for them and giving support. Not nursing lies, but smothering them. Not hiding what is, but dragging it into the light. As the line goes: “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.”

“So, this concept analysis report concludes, ‘The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them.’ What has always sold—and always will sell—is rage. People, whether they know it or not, watch the news for that very reason, and of course, in recent decades this has expanded to social media as well. Whenever anything hateful is said online, people weigh in from both sides—defense and support. It is almost irresistible most of the time, how enticing it is for people to call each other idiots or to throw out facts we believe will enlighten them. And this rage, this negative discourse, is what provides engagement, which is exactly what every company wants and needs. More rage, more engagement, more ads, more value to the company. It is its own ever-spinning wheel, providing profit to those in power while we remain none the wiser (though knowing what’s going on might change this) as we continue to argue and throw our hate at social media companies, who in turn fuel and encourage us as much as they can. All the while, we continue to divide ourselves—as a people and as a country—over topics that are sometimes important and difficult, but most of the time trivial and insignificant. I will admit this is not the same rage that Howard Beale spoke of, but it is the evolution of it. As Howard stood behind his desk and later on stage, breaking down and relaying his anger and mania, the people cheered and watched in awe, shouting along with him: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” It was a line, a form of thought, that once united the public in saying, I understand and feel your anger. He was, as Annie said, articulating the popular rage. Howard, though unraveling before their eyes, was energizing the public—telling them to realize the disgusting, oppressive, unjust world they lived in every day. A world where a man could be fired for trying to protect his friend, a man spiraling from grief and obvious mental trouble. A world that profits off such a human being. A world that tells its citizens how to think and what to believe. And yet, at the same time, we still tune in every day—just as people once tuned in to Howard—and watch them preach the gospel. We know by now how troubled our world is, whether we figure it out ourselves or someone tells us. Still, in this supposed enlightenment, all we do is continue to watch with blank stares, sunken eyes, wide smiles, and “informed” faces. Fox to CNN, YouTube to TikTok—it’s always some news pundit or political savant arguing with another about the upcoming election or the state of the economy. They have monetized our rage and anxiety, shifting their programming into the shape of sports commentary: two sides arguing about immigration instead of the best team in the NFL. And all of it is meant to profit off us—the ones who agree with one side and hurl expletives at the other. We celebrate and push the idea of destroying capitalism and ushering in a new age of justice and peace—a world rid of oppression and hardship. Or we celebrate going back to a mythical “greater yesteryear,” when supposedly there was nothing wrong with our country and we lived in perfect homogeneity. But at the same time, we have commodified even the struggle toward those ends. From your favorite YouTuber to the Instagram influencer preaching hate speech against the capitalist machine, we watch, we pay, we praise. Then we put our phones down, go back to work, and continue to support the giant. We, as a society, have in a way collectively agreed to follow the script that outlines our insanity. We all preach and scream, but then retreat into our anger, telling ourselves we cannot do it alone, that we are too small, that we do not have the ability to combat such grand forces.

“Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You’re television incarnate, Diana: indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You’re madness, Diana. Virulent madness.” In the film, Howard Beale’s—at the time—final show was superseded by an investors’ conference, where Max Schumacher, Howard’s friend and head of the news division, learns that the division will no longer be independent and will instead be held to the wishes of the overall network. The news had been operating at a $33 million loss on about a $100 million budget. Max’s revenge toward this decision is what results in Howard Beale’s “final” show becoming the launch pad for his future program—and his ultimate demise. Beale, through his truth, creates a revelation that not only greatly improves ratings but also presents an immediate solution to an overwhelming demand. Angry shows, as Diana Christensen—the content director—calls them, are shows based on counterculture and anti-establishment ideals. They are the articulation of anger, the unequivocal proof that it exists, that our madness is in no vacuum, and that our indignation has found its witness. It is important to understand that Beale and his rancorous band of furies are not supported or believed, in any sense of the word, to be true or worthwhile by UBS. The network merely sees that it is the audience itself that longs for the messiah of ire that Beale represents—and so, like always, they give it to them. This is not much different from how things are curated and represented today through news outlets and the various media platforms we consume. Much more sinisterly—and effectively—we now procure the content we want and desire the most ourselves. Through the algorithm we generate our rage, happiness, motivation, sadness, belief, want, and so much more. Whatever used to be there is now a hole—a chasm—that we willingly jump into.

The best example of this at the current time is TikTok. A media platform that is near perfect in its production and role in society, and in its ability to meet our wants as we know them. The algorithm, in simple terms, works as a sort of digital assistant, determining—based on your preferences—what content to show you and continuing to provide it each time you open the app and keep scrolling. It analyzes thousands, or most likely more depending on the user, of signals you provide: likes, comments, follows, time spent on videos—all to structure what you see on your For You page. Unlike Instagram or Facebook, following people is actually a great way not to see their content. TikTok’s perfection and rise were cemented during the pandemic. With people stuck at home and nothing to do, what better way to fill the overwhelming vacuum of time than with an app that provides consumption without agency or thought? Especially during that time, people had no desire for more. TikTok takes the control and labor out of the user’s hands, with search functions that are utterly useless, and simply allows you to scroll and scroll and scroll. You don’t choose what you see. You open the app, and it presents to you what it wants you to view—or, in better words, what you desire to see. It knows what will make you happy, angry, sad. It perfectly accommodates you. You choose what you want to watch through scrolling, not searching, and in turn you continue, beholden to engage. It carries you from TikTok space to TikTok space—one continuous thought to another, to a dance, to a discussion, to a rant, to a haze, to the glassing over of the eyes—into the hole, and deeper into a lacuna. Even more strange, or perhaps enlightening, is that TikTok so perfectly encapsulates you that it reflects your own biases—sexism, racism, and more—back toward you. If you like Black people, you’ll see more Black people. If you like skinny people, you’ll see more skinny people. And, of course, those you don’t like to see will not appear. Even if you don’t know or don’t believe you have these biases, TikTok shows them to you, clear as day. Sadly, I could keep going forever about this, especially when it comes to content creators themselves. One would think this almost Skynet-level evil is extremely complex, unique, and impossible for regular people to fathom. Perfect machinery, an incessant worker that has become a gluttonous god. But no—it isn’t at all. They haven’t cracked the code. The magic, the special thing, is you. What places them above all the other platforms—and why it works so well—is that they have an immense volume of data, users who engage obsessively, and those same users are willing to watch the content TikTok provides them. That is maybe not surprising, maybe not scary, but it is the interesting part. It’s the willingness to let go. The uniformity of the collective sigh, acquiescing our curiosity to gourmandize in the mire.

Social media today, much like UBS, makes everything a form of consumption, everything an avenue for entertainment, and collapses all things into a network of agreement. “Context is everything.” A line from The Wire, and a line that forever holds true, as context is the makeup that builds all conclusions in the world of rationality—or at least what exists in that person’s view. Context, however, like many things, is beginning to have less and less meaning in the world, as people focus on clips and single sentences from articles and research—knowing that now, that is truth and nothing else. Or at least it’s the truth in the eyes of those who watch and read the content, since most people will never read the full article, watch the full interview, or truly dive into the research. Why would they, when what has been presented to them is all that matters in “context”? It’s a development, among other things, that has transformed inconsistencies and abnormalities into constants and standards. Everything from famine to war, murder to genocide—once taken with certainty or reverence—has fallen into the same categories as reality TV and popular movies. All things to be discussed, argued over, divided into sides, and then replaced with the next. In truth, it’s not to say that these things truly hold commonality, but that in a glimpse of today’s world they have all merged into a place of pseudo personality traits, ideals, and beliefs. A war is now as popular—and to some, as meaningful—as the final episode of a popular series. There are people who share your opinion, and those who have the “wrong” opinions, and you argue why they are wrong in their thoughts. It is what drives social media—the engagement and the anger that fuel it all. For one war to end—or in reality continue—only for a new one to take its place, and for people to recite and pontificate their ideas all over again. It is a cycle created with purpose: to generate sides, and to give life to things people might otherwise see little purpose in, beyond the significance those events truly carry. We are adepts in our expertise for escapism, but reluctant and infantile in real experience that pertains to reality. Everything becomes spectacle and performance for those around us, not a thing in and of itself.

This all-consuming vortex eventually leads into the eye of the storm, which envelopes us in our own panopticon, surrounded by those much like us. The perfect word and term that describes this current-day struggle is that of the echo chamber. An echo chamber, in its general sense, is a place where sound reverberates, and in our current dilemma, it is much the same. It is an environment where one limits their exposure to diverse forms of thought and perspectives, restricting themselves instead to reinforce their own narratives and ideologies. It is an invention of the masses itself—one I doubt those who created social platforms ever truly thought would come to exist, though clearly some foresaw the conclusion long ago. And yet, we are all in our own forms of echo chambers, somewhat to our benefit and entertainment. We see things that pertain to us, to our way of life, and to what we seek when we venture onto these sites. There are sides of X that people have no clue exist, which I frequent—and vice versa. This is the norm today, the negative is the seclusion so absolute that nothing ever gets through—and neither do we want it to. What allows us to grow and expand is diversity of thought, the sharing in the forum of ideas and beliefs—it is what produces our continuation. But it is also what stifles, when replaced by undying loyalty that today is so important to all manner of people we consider to be famous. From celebrities to politicians to movie stars, everyone has their groups who follow and believe their every word, arguing until their hands begin to spasm in an effort to get a point across to someone who supports another. There is no need to provide examples of these back-and-forths, as I’m sure you can come up with numerous yourself. Those old conversations in London coffee shops have evolved wailing screens in the form of text and videos. This is not singular to social media—it is especially visible today in many news outlets, with Fox, of course, being the main example. Yet what is most interesting in all of this is that it is a symbiotic relationship. As much as one may complain, blame, and ridicule another—whether for being too devoted, too wrong, or too foolish to be on the site in the first place—it has quickly become who we are. These days, many people’s online personas and their social media accounts dictate who they are. They represent what their life is, and what they want it to look like. Social media tells them how to think, how to build a business, what love is, how to live, and so much more. Life and its experiences have been traded for the thought and discussion of it, for the scripts that say: If you do these things, this is how your life will go. Interactions on social media are the judges; our experiences have become tickets we present to the world as proof that we belong. It is in the belief and realization of an aesthetic—or a self—that births the hollowness in which we walk, with a confidence we have no right to bear. All of this, in order to prove to our prophets—the false gods we follow—that we are close to them in step. Like Howard Beale in Network, many figures of today—usually coined “influencers”—tell their audiences what to think, what to believe, and what to act on. Like Howard Beale they are chosen to become more, a pantheon of men and women who inexorably have been chosen to ascend, to represent the possible nature of godhood today.

Media has successfully become the structure our society surrounds itself with. “At the speed of light there is no sequence; everything happens in the same instant… everything happens at once.” Words spoken by Marshall McLuhan, a professor and philosopher out of Canada during the rise of television. The purpose of the quote is to say that during the birth of television—and in this age, especially with smartphones and social media—the sheer influx of high-speed information overwhelms our capacity as human beings, fragmenting our attention, collapsing time and space, and, as we have seen, deeply affecting our identities. This is the framework of media ecology, a movement and study formed by McLuhan and others during the rise of television in the 1960s. In media ecology, mediums no longer merely convey ideas we interpret; they are beings themselves that alter our behavior and the way we think and interact with the world. In a way, it has become an extension of ourselves. McLuhan believed that television—and its evolution into the phone—is an extension of our speech, communication, and language. Reading and television are no longer the way we digest news of any kind; they have fundamentally changed our perception and understanding almost to the core. Reading requires comprehension, quiet, and focus. Television, in the beginning of its life, was a fast form of reception that required almost no comprehension and was never meant to be quiet. And of course, phones and social media, as we’ve spoken about at length, are actually and quite literally everything, everywhere, all at once. We often forget how drastic the invention of the internet and smartphones really is. In a matter of seconds, you can scroll and see the latest political scandal, the most recent genocide, the newest TikTok dance, the top five ways to grow your brand, and a video explaining the importance of Plato’s philosophy—all in that short span. And it is an infinite cycle we’ve coined “doomscrolling.” To McLuhan’s point, we all receive and interact with this information at different times. For instance, when 9/11 happened, most people experienced the event in real time, live through the news and television. Compared to an event like October 7th, when Hamas launched the attack on Israel—it was televised, yes, but it was also an experience seen and reacted to at very different times.In the age of smartphones and social media, this compounds even further—we’ve become increasingly individualistic, curating our own algorithms and personalized forms of entertainment. These mediums were not created out of altruism. They are landscapes built to profit and to create spectacle. When we watch the news, we are presented with murders and crimes locally and internationally every day—followed immediately by an Uber advertisement. It’s striking to think about: when they show the latest update on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we see destruction, gunfire, screaming, powerful images. But besides that—and the small amount of context an anchor may provide—what does one truly know about the conflict without their own research? Depending on the channel, it’s skewed to favor whichever side’s agenda. Not to mention, the next segment will likely involve sports news or a story about someone’s dog. In the context of death and violence, combined with the need to generate revenue through ads—what does that do to how we interpret things of all natures, especially the bigger problems of society? Can real discourse and discussion be had when everything, at the end of the day, eventually becomes a form of entertainment, no matter how horrific or important? This applies to television, social media, smartphones, and computers—as these mediums evolve and evolve into one another. Rather than reading a newspaper the events of today and yesterday are shown on your TV. You can watch TV shows, news, and get the weather on your computer. Then you can carry all of that on your smartphone, which allows you to talk about it on social media, grow your following through likes, followers, and comments—and as you can see, we begin to sink deeper and deeper. McLuhan believed that mediums begin to envelop and build off one another, consuming the previous and incorporating it into the next. The mediums of television and radio become the servants of smartphones and computers. I could go on and on about this, giving it an article of its own—and maybe one day I will. But now is now, and hopefully the point has been made: where we are, what Network was alluding to back then, and what has since compounded into today. Much like McLuhan, this is not a diagnosis of where we are in today’s world. How could I say such a powerful invention, with so much good and potential, is entirely bad? Nothing is. I wouldn’t say I—or anyone—has the credentials to make such a sweeping claim. But it is an observation, a look into the glass at what was, what is, and what it could—or possibly already has—led to.

Sadly, these echo chambers and the absence of friction are not just apparent on social media but also deeply present in our everyday lives—or soon will be. Thankfully, I am painfully slow at writing, so things continuously happen that somehow orient themselves to be present in pieces such as these. The current administration under President Donald Trump has done many things worth talking about, but there are only a couple that will be focused on here—sadly—and there is not enough space to give focus to the rest. As it pertains to us, Network, and the whole of this discussion, the current use of the D.C. police force and National Guard for their agenda has been an attempt at something, to say the least. Without getting too far into details, the current purpose is a crackdown on crime while also removing undocumented immigrants and homeless people from the city streets. To someone who knows nothing about crime, D.C., or—as we have discussed—simply follows and listens to one news channel, this makes complete sense. Of course: more police equals less crime. Sadly, as we know well, neither does it make sense, is it useful, nor does it work—it usually has the opposite effect. First, if this method did work and the administration truly wanted to produce some good, D.C. is not the place to incorporate it. The highest homicide rates currently are seen mostly in the South, with the highest states being Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. This is no surprise, given the many factors that actually create violent crime: poverty, access to guns, lack of education, unemployment, mental health, and the vast swath that comes with so much more. Now yes, there is more leeway to incorporate this into D.C. because of the Home Rule Act, but the point is this: if change and a safer society were really important, D.C. and bigger U.S. cities are not the places they should be targeting. Cops placed on the streets in the name of chivalry and divine purpose don’t stop crime—they create criminals out of passersby and justify further budgets. Secondly, we are living in one of the safest eras of America—and the world—that we have ever lived in. Again, D.C., as of 2024, experienced a 31% drop in homicides. Yes, there was a spike in 2023, but regardless, the trend of decrease is constant. To beat a dead horse and prove the point:

• From 1990–1999 homicide numbers were: 489, 509, 460, 496, 437, 400, 412, 325, 294, and 256.
  

• From 2015–2024 homicide numbers were: 162, 135, 116, 160, 166, 198, 226, 203, 274, and 183.

From 1990 to 2024, the violent crime rate dropped by 62.6%. No matter what people may say or think, these are the numbers, and this is the reality—a congruent one across all major cities. Sadly, that nasty thing called social media—and its inherently adversarial features—rears its ugly head again. Because people can see more nowadays with phones and, again, social media, proximity to violence has increased our perception of crime. Phrases, monikers, and idiotic trends have only further warped it. Of course, there is an understanding that crime, death, and violence are very real and seen by those in their communities—that is the case. But at the same time, in our current year and in previous years, there has been a steady decrease. As I grew up, I saw and experienced less death from gun violence and other forms than my parents did, who lived through much harsher times. Now, this is not the solution to removing crime from cities and communities. It is investment into people and into communities that makes them, as a whole, tougher and safer. It is an increase of resources and care to communities, such as increased income from employment or public benefits, as poverty and income inequality are strong indicators of crime and violence. Not only from regular civilians, but of course those who were previously incarcerated face an almost unbreakable barrier when it comes to steady employment, which further pushes them back toward former activities, as we have discussed in previous articles. Access to stable housing is also of great importance, given the cyclical nature of housing insecurity and incarceration. Those who are homeless and experience housing insecurity are more likely to be involved in criminal activities, and those who are released from prison are likely to experience homelessness and housing insecurity. For lack of space and time, the last point we will briefly discuss is access to healthcare, mental health services, and treatment centers. Those who commit crimes are usually greatly in need of such services but lack the means to receive them, such as health insurance or the ability to pay for treatment. Lastly, the choice words “crime” and “undocumented immigrants” carry an apparent meaning to some but are merely words to most. There is no coincidence that the presence of the police and National Guard is mainly focused in neighborhoods of minorities and Black people, with a significant police presence in Anacostia, which is 92% Black for example. It is a shame most people never notice this. The ethnic cleansing we see internationally is reflected in the very places we live. It is global and systemic—whether through gerrymandering, urban renewal, redlining, gentrification, violence, or deportation. It may not always be violent; it may even be spoken of as “for the betterment of the nation.” But as the names and faces continue to change, the purpose and presence remain vast and continuous. There are countless more points and numbers that could be brought up here, but the point has been proven. The administration’s solution is not one of true care or prevention but of other purposes. And back to the original idea—why this long paragraph? Because if I singularly watched Fox News or stayed on a specific part of X (which, unsurprisingly, 75% of its traffic comes from bots), I would never know this—or feel the need to know it. What I would read would agree with me, and it would come from people I trust. Police are my solution. They are what will keep me safe, no matter the “nonsense” the left or anyone else spews at me. And this—here—is the true definition of the problem. It is the continuation of Julius Caesar's Acta Diurna reincarnated. More succinctly: the echo chamber.

All being fair and all being true, Democrats and Republicans  use the same tactics and ideas when it comes to moving public opinion. Even though the current administration and landscape may be a special case of horror, both sides use the same playbook. I think there is no better example than to look at Kamala Harris from this past election—not so much as a person, but as a figure, and what she represented rather than what she was actually seen as or could be. We know she went to Howard, is an AKA, and is a Black woman. More importantly, she was seen as someone who could help people—and to Black people, someone who could help Black people. In a similar case to Obama—which for some is a positive, and for others a negative, and for our case today, a negative—Harris’s candidacy raised questions. As great, charismatic, and brilliant as Obama is, he was a Black man in a high office, yes, but there was very little done for all Black people during his tenure or in the generous case he wasn't the solution or the problem solver many black Americans thought he would be. But this isn’t about him today—it’s about her. Though it was the same as back then: the mania of a Black person, a new political figure, representing a newfound hope, a new sense of coming equality and fairness, with someone who looks like us holding office. This was false then, and it would have been false today. First, similarly to back then, a lot of her support was garnered, of course, from Black people of all kinds. But most importantly—and the problem itself—was that much of it came from Black people who represent what is usually called “Black excellence.” Black excellence is a term, a framework, that refers to Black people who are of course pro-Black but, sadly, pro-capitalism and pro-status quo—often not wanting to break the harsh carriage we all ride in, but rather find a seat inside of it. This is the problem with the idea of Black excellence. What it really is: a few Black wealthy elites who have access to power through the management of those below them in the same socioeconomic system—other Black people. Harris is a hard person to pin down when it comes to determining what she actually believes and stands for. She always hid behind being a prosecutor and, in that respect, avoided taking a stance. Because of this, she rarely was the first person to champion an issue. Instead, she often checked the noise around her, gauged how the people reacted, and determined whether it would help her endeavors or not. Though in her defense, as a Black woman with ambition entering a political space where most people looked nothing like her, she was not offered the same ability, freedom, and opportunities as others. Next is the discussion of her prosecuting career, which is a mixed bag. In her more recent political career, she has shown herself to be very progressive, with programs such as Back on Track and criminal justice reforms to end cash bail and reduce mandatory minimums. On the other hand, in her past, there are policies and stances that make you question whether those later years make up for it—such as sending parents to jail for their children being chronically truant, which wouldn’t be of much help, as I hope our discussion on crime can illuminate. She also defied a federal court order to reduce California’s prison population. So this leaves us in limbo which is it exactly? A woman who ran as a progressive, caring prosecutor trying to change the justice system—or the former “top cop”? After research and thought, the answer is—as we have said—malleable and incongruent. Kamala stood where she needed to, never firm in any one point of view, policy, or thought, but wherever she believed would allow her to further her goals. This is further seen in her “Smart on Crime” approach. In the 1990s, being tough on crime was popular. Her statement told one side she would take a more progressive approach and not throw as many people into jail, but also reassured the other side she was still somewhat tough. In her 2020 campaign, she did become more progressive—but as was said before, it was more out of necessity than genuine belief. This leads to the past election of 2024. In truth, with what Kamala was given, she did fairly well—she outperformed expectations and sadly the second biggest reason that played a role in her loss won’t be discussed today. She received an overwhelming amount of support within a short span of time, picked Tim Walz as her running mate, and it almost seemed as though she might break away from Biden’s policy on Israel. It seemed as though she might win. And yet, we find ourselves at the same place. Despite all of this, Kamala must again do what she always does. In the DNC speech, she offered no real vision or agenda. Instead, she positioned herself as the opposite and better choice than Trump—but that isn’t enough. Compounding this, there was very little policy spoken about at all, but this was true of both Republicans and Democrats in 2024. She had the opportunity to leave Biden’s shadow—by distancing herself either with policy or style—but she either failed or didn’t want to. She positioned herself as a continuation, rather than anything else. Maybe the worst of all: the refusal to allow a Palestinian to speak, despite the protests, and her lack of a clear stance on Gaza while continuing to arm Israel. The most damning thing to this point of continuity was her appearance on the View October of 2024 where asked if she would have done anything differently than Biden during his tenure and here answer was, “There is not a thing that comes to mind. I’ve been part of most of the decisions that have had impact”. It not only sums up Kamala, but the Democratic Party as a whole: seeing its far-left supporters as disposable, leaving them on the fringe, and showing that popular policies like ending the genocide were not important enough to run on. This leaves Kamala looking more like  right-leaning Democrat. This isn’t a surprise, though. As we have discussed, Kamala has never held a true stance or strong principle. Rather, she has always embodied a singular persistent seed—willing and able to grow wherever land seems fertile, but never where branches can truly breathe. Just wherever gets her closest to the sun. After all this, I find that Kamala might simply have to act this way in order to be a successful Black woman in this space—always changing, never unmoving, because she is not allowed to be. She must do what she is told to do by those in higher places than her. And this leads us to the conclusion: this is not only Kamala, but the Democratic Party as a whole. It is not truly much different from Republicans themselves—not the current far right, but in upholding a standard status quo of much the same ilk. Both bend and move the truth as they see fit to prove their agendas. Every once in a while, we are given a new Black face to celebrate, and they pat themselves on the back—representation and equality disguised as the norm—while the system produces no new result. When there are people with real progressive ideas, thoughts, and principles, they are swallowed whole, consumed and forgotten, belittled or cheated, and seen as useless, tired figures. Instead, we are given again people like Kamala Harris to idolize. But she isn’t the only one—just the one singled out today. There are figures like New York Mayor Eric Adams with his tough-on-crime policies among other issues during his tenure. As much as your Tim Scotts and Daniel Camerons seem like the ones we should worry about, those are never the people with the most detrimental effect, as they rarely—if ever—operate in Black spaces and carry any significant voice. Those spaces are reserved for the Harris’, the Adams’, and the Jim Clyburns of the world—a man who, during redistricting, packed Black voters into his own district while undercutting Democratic chances across the state. We often complain the Democratic Party never does anything, and in particular, nothing for Black people. But these are the people who make that happen. As much as it is the fault of the party as a whole and those higher within it, it is also the Black figures they give us, present to us as idols to follow, to listen to, in order for our complacency to remain steady—our votes constant, our demands minimal. They are our holy artifacts, placed on pedestals, quickly sold as snake oil for the heretical effigies they truly are. And this will continue to happen. Much like the loss of truth, the self-positioning in echo chambers, the over-consumption, and the manufacturing of rage, it tells us what to think and how it is done. No real change. No truth. Just the continuation of a malleable and incongruent form. As much as we ask for truth, fight for it, and want people to believe in it, we are, in actuality, docile. We know these things. And yet we enjoy the simplicity of the system.

Truth is the one and only thing people feel they can stand on—the only thing that is unequivocally to be followed. That is why it has gained so much focus in this piece and these past couple of paragraphs: it is the one stalwart of reason we have. No matter the form it takes—whether numbers, history, firsthand accounts, or anything else—ultimately we can say, this is objective, and this is real. Today’s world has stripped one of the few words we have that is firm in its understanding and belief down to a fragile likeness of its former self. Whether it is what truly stops crime, or the people we choose to represent us and the rhetoric they spew toward us to garner support, truth has no durability. It takes me back to John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, as he sees truth as the one thing that will always persevere, no matter what surrounds it or who tries to tie it down. In his eyes, it always comes to light. In a strange way, the social climate of today would almost be what he envisioned as the birthing place of truth and real discourse. He believed the silencing of opinions was wrong, in the sense that the suppression of things—no matter how fantastical or idiotic—robs humanity itself of the opportunity to strengthen and test truth by comparison. False ideas are not useless; their mere existence coerces us to refine, defend, and deepen our understanding of the truth—or, if we are wrong, they become the guiding star we follow. Which, in his defense, can make sense. Galileo and the belief that the Earth was at the center of the universe rather than the Sun is an example of where this belief holds strong. Even more so, truth emerges from debate. Seeing as no one holds the complete truth themselves, we often each have pieces of it. The ability to debate and clash ideas allows us, in theory, to have these discussions and piece the truth together as a community. He further goes on to say that truth itself deserves to be challenged, because if not, it turns into a disgusting thing—a prejudice writhing in its absolution. Challenging it, and challenging it constantly, gives it vigor and substance to stand on. Truth is the living, breathing thing that we ourselves keep alive through debate with others. As he says regarding the topic: “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race... If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” After hearing this, one might think Mill figured it out, as all the old philosophers usually do—that there is no better forum than social media to conduct such practices. We all can have a say, an opinion, and determine what the truth is for ourselves. It’s a done deal, right? Signed and sealed? No. Clearly facetious—and Mill, as we have seen and discussed, was very wrong. But if I were him, I might have hedged my bets the same way. Social media and the world today, as a concept, seem like the perfect version of what Mill envisioned toward the avenue of truth: a place where everyone, from everywhere, can share ideas and discuss topics of all kinds, placing their beliefs in the arena to see if they stand the test and can become truth. In video game design, one of the responsibilities of the designer is to protect the player from themselves. This is mostly because, given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game. So designers tweak mechanics to ensure players approach the game in the way they believe is most interesting. You would think they might add a system that stops players from playing in a certain way—that discourages the player. On paper, this would work, but its adverse effect is a net negative, because players react negatively to punishment, and the game begins to punish them for playing in a certain way. The correct approach, instead, is to encourage players toward the behavior the designer wants rather than discourage the behavior they don’t. This isn’t game design, but the same logic applies when it comes to social media. The creators of the platforms, through likes, shares, follows, comments, and support, have implemented systems that encourage the individualist behavior we see today. It favors rage, rewarding it with support from those who agree with you; it incites the unproductive back-and-forth, with likes and comments providing virtual cheers.  (Tell me what you think about the video game section, not sure if I’m gonna add it yet)You see, as in Network, and as we see today, the world is more like a collection of Howard Beale replicas, telling us what to think and how to believe. And like UBS, we are given all sorts—from capitalists to communists—and we listen, determine which side we prefer, and begin to set up our defenses for the coming assault of expletives and hate. In a weird way, our opinions have become our personality, our defining traits, rather than just ideas. Simple opinions have become our truths. This seems like a fairly straightforward idea, but to beat the dead horse—it’s like in Spider-Man 3. All of Spider-Man, but specifically 3, where the symbiote takes over Eddie Brock and he becomes Venom. Spider-Man uses sound waves to split the two apart, saves Eddie, and throws the bomb at the symbiote. But Eddie jumps back toward it and dies with it. This happens every single day, and is most likely happening right now. Someone finds an idea, or a person tells them something, and it speaks to them so profoundly that they believe it to their core. They see other people with the same belief and join a community. But then there are people who hold the opposite belief, who tell them they are wrong, among other harsher words. And the rage and back-and-forth begins. And this happens for anything and everything. As big as politics and religion, or as small as dating advice and which superhero is the best. It sounds comical, but ideas and opinions now hold such weight, such belief, that any attack against them becomes a personal attack on the person themselves. Without that binding belief, the person is left without their identity—so how could they not defend it?In a way, everyone has become Captain Ahab, and those who oppose their view are their White Whale. A beast needing to be killed to prove their validity, their control, their belief. As if its death is more than redemption—it is salvation, declaring: my truth is real.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of truth is the one I land on nowadays as being closest to what we see today, and closest to what truth is as an idea and function of society. In the same respect, these next paragraphs—this detour—will help get to the crux of this whole thing. It is not only his evolution of truth but ours also. And to that point, our consummation, belief, and everything in between will help give cognizance to my ravings. He says so eloquently: “What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations, which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding.” Let’s break this down from succinct beauty to its organic evolution. The initial way to understand how Nietzsche sees truth is closer to something like water—it is formless and ever flowing, taking the shape of whatever it comes into contact with, fitting the desired need. Truth is human creation, beneficial for its perspective, power, and usefulness in any given environment or situation. The first place to start, and where he begins, is in On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, where he states that humans invent concepts to survive and function within the world, but forget that they are inventions and eventually begin to see them as objective realities. We invented them so that we could survive and function in groups. These rules, symbols, and predictable meanings allowed us to live together. This is the essay where he calls them metaphors and conventions, in the sense that something akin to heuristics—truths are things that in a way make life easier, more digestible, more appetizing for our palettes to consume. Truths are things we can stand on and believe in, that allow us to function daily. The problem lies in our forgetfulness—or rather our need—to make these metaphors objective, to give life to our illusions. He says, “Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions.” It is a line of reasoning where metaphors are created from our perception, they become concepts, and then these concepts slowly become reality. In our own human way, we must give solid form to our world and concreteness to understanding. We want stability, safety, and social order, as it gives meaning to the madness that just is. Our agreed-upon truths keep life predictable, and in turn make it livable and understandable. This also stops us from seeing life as it is, as it presents itself to us every day. Life has become our metaphors and concepts, so that we can condense it down to the parts we find functional. With all of our philosophies, religions, sciences, metaphysics—they are concepts, inventions, and metaphors made manifest into celestials, a divine assembly of creations given the directive of meaning where there isn’t one. The perfect example I can end on is a scene from the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, where Mr. Fox and his family are going home and they see a lone wolf amidst the wilderness on a hill in the distance. Mr. Fox—who throughout the whole film struggles with his identity, survival, and nature—raises his fist in solidarity, and the wolf, who cannot understand him or speak with him, raises his paw back. Both creatures we have given names to—fox and wolf—to give us ideas of what they are and how they act. Both are part of the same genus, Canis lupus. But even though we have given them names for their function and character, they simply are. The only thing that binds them and makes them counterparts is our truth. In our obsession to make things different and contrasting, we forget to simply observe each thing as it is—out of respect for its bound nature. It can only be that. But aside from the illusion made real—wolf, fox, or thing—it simply is, and nothing truly holds sway over it besides what we wish it to.

We’ve seen Nietzsche’s idea of truth as it pertains to this conversation, and it continues to expand in The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra—two great pieces, but pieces I would rather not have to read again. In them, he finds that truths and facts are mere illusions given false life—things we created to make our lives bearable. Few people, if anyone, really care about the concreteness of any real truth or fact—more so the comfort it gives, how it makes us feel, and the security and power we receive from it. The central idea leads us to “the Nietzsche thesis,” coined by Joseph Shieber. The rub of the thesis is that we accept or reject truths based on their utility to our circumstance, not their actual truthfulness. As Shieber says, “our goal in conversation is not primarily to acquire truthful information… [but] self-presentation.” This is at the center of what we have discussed and are currently talking about: that truth is personal and cooperative. It has purpose only in the perspective-proving nature that we bind to it, as Nietzsche says, “pleasant, life-preserving consequences.” Truth now lies in the fists of subjectivity. With a straight or right hook thrown, it is defended orthodoxly, and retaliated against with an offensive of its own. It’s the proof that defeats Mill. Sadly, if he were so right, why do conspiracy theories hold weight? Why can the Earth still be flat and climate change still be fake? We would be fact-checking and dismissing false claims as they come. But instead, false claims are interpreted as realities—and if spoken with enough charisma, they are made manifest.

We’ve discussed truth, social media, politics, and everything in between to lead us to story. Story as a concept and idea can be talked about at length, but its purpose here is to frame the discourse so far. Story is what made Network so brilliant. Story is what brought this unexpectedly long piece to life. Story is where the conclusion has led me—to places that were not thought about, but only made sense to go. That is what story is, and what is at the heart of Network and this piece itself. It’s the truth, the politics, the headlines, the thoughts, the ideas, the arguments and agreements. Story is Howard Beale, through his mental ravings, begging the audience not to clap with glazed eyes but to think and be mad for themselves. Story is the shallowness of Diana Christensen and the beauty of Max Schumacher. Story is personal and objective, overarching in its mass—it is the ambivalent being. It’s ultimately what’s missing and what matters most. All parts are indistinguishable in importance and place. The beginning beckons, orients, and binds—it’s a doorway. If unstable and dilapidated, few if any step in. But if it hums with reverence, with mystery and beauty, there is nothing left to do but to take the first step. The middle is the proving ground; it is the banquet that has gathered us all. It deepens us, it turns base and hollow beliefs into profound, solidified emotions. It is the bridge that takes us to the end. The end is the ancient agora, the great discussion that takes place—the true modifier of what the experience was. Here titans wager their experience and confirm or deny what is and was. If the story was loved, it is catapulted into the immortality of benevolence. If the story was hated and the ending bad, the agora gives the audience reinforcement in our belief of its hideous nature. A great example of this is a video I watched by a creator named Thomas Flight called How Disaster Media Fails. In the video, he describes the experience of Hurricane Helene hitting Asheville, North Carolina in 2024. It’s a personal account of not only being there, but being behind the camera, talking to and interviewing those in the community. We see many videos of events like these every year—and honestly, at this point, almost every three months, give or take, whenever the next natural disaster season starts. As he says, we see the world destroyed every day. It’s not a new thing for us—at least, not seeing the results and catastrophe on our phones as we scroll through videos and images. Before our current day, we would only be able to experience things like this firsthand, or hear about them from word of mouth. Now it’s at our fingertips, in our pockets, easily accessed and put away. A much more terrible example—but a poignant one—is the (at the time of writing) ongoing Israeli and Palestinian conflict. The situation looks to be beyond critical mass, but still it develops and grows, sides are divided, and people argue as we see terrible posts and read horrific articles. But as it continues to make itself visible, it can’t help but become more than a talking point, more a sense of perspective—or, better put, a personality trait depending on which side you take—falling into the place of discourse rather than remaining a real event. But back on topic: as Flight says, images can have an emotional impact and spur us to help, but they also end up being inadequate. And no one is at blame—it’s the medium itself that fails to represent disaster. He goes on to describe the destruction it caused, how it affected the community, and that he himself experienced it from the outside at first, through images online. But when he finally got there, the images could not do it justice. What really strikes me is how personal the destruction is. As he interviews a man named Josh Copus, he talks about how it’s not just any part of the town that’s gone—not just a building—it’s a friend. These pictures and videos are not just places in a vacuum. They hold significance and meaning. Flight himself goes on to talk about the loss of his favorite independent movie theater. Images from disasters like this—both Asheville and what is going on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—can help. They are useful. Pictures can convey emotions and feelings better than any amount of words and pages can. The interviews, the people on the ground—they help tell those on the outside what is and isn’t. This brings supplies into towns, generates donations, and can spark conversations that lead to rebuilding the community, or peace. Inversely, the fact of the matter is, as much as people want to share their story and receive help, images of suffering—as we have discussed with war or disaster—can be used for personal agendas as well. As Flight goes on to say, as more media and figures began to come to Asheville, it felt as though this perversion was taking place. He saw misinformation and discourse online that was disconnected from the reality of what people were experiencing—arguments that anyone who was in Asheville knew were false. As he says, the anonymity of the images, lacking the representation of the person who experienced them, can “turn a real-world loss into a symbol of destruction.” What you rarely think about in situations like these—and the horror we always see idolized—is the beauty and comradeship that is born from them. He goes on to talk about how the complexity of these situations is flattened, and as much as this destruction has taken away, it gives just as much back to the town. Copus, the man he interviews, says it has restored his faith in humanity—he has seen people who hate each other hug and help one another. In apocalypse media, and when media depicts the world as ending, it always brings out the worst: the marauders, the looting, the nihilism. It all comes to a head when disaster strikes—it has become the norm we feel we should expect. Reality, as Flight has experienced and shown, is very different. It usually brings out the best in most people, not the worst. Like all things, there is no singular nature. It is the exacting presence it holds—there is sorrow, defeat, love, togetherness, hope, and exhaustion all bottled up in one event. The most striking and harrowing thing about events such as these, though, is that they never really go away. Those people are still there. The images are eventually consumed by the feed with the next event or topic to discuss, but those people are still in that town—rebuilding, fixing, reminiscing on what was, and what will be. In a funny way, the world moves on without them—as though its gaze has much better things to perceive. Flight goes on to read the Susan Sontag quote, “An image is drained of its force by the way it is used.” She was discussing images in magazines, but the meaning is enhanced a hundredfold in disasters like this. The fault of media is the lack of ability to truly convey what is. The medium cannot explain the complexity, the sheer force, of any event. They are realities outside the realm of our comprehension if we have never experienced them firsthand. Flight gives another quote from John Berger: “These moments in reality are utterly discontinuous with time.” These are experiences that change the way we go on to see the world and time itself. These are events you cannot truly fix; they cannot be changed. They will always be there, in plain sight, in view of every being enveloped in their gaping maw of fury.

I have never experienced a hurricane and hope I never do, but I have experienced a tornado that hit Dayton, Ohio in 2019. Nowhere near the amount of damage and coverage given to most natural disasters, thankfully—and I have extensively covered how these things feel. That may be why the Thomas Flight video resonated so much. The birthing of friendships, the helping community, the disaster—all of it is truly a thing only to be experienced, not seen. What sticks with me the most is a clearing of trees down Main Street on the way to Riverside. Before the tornado, it was a forest—ever expansive, hidden with the grace of the unknown, something that had been there long before I was given thought. After the tornado, the forest was cleared and knocked down—by the storm itself, and then by whatever construction or lumber company came after. But that space is still there, empty and naked. What used to be so magnificent to me as a child and high schooler is now just another field on the way to downtown. A field of stumps and wood and dirt, seen clearly with the strongest impairment. A field that held not meaning, but presence. It held the distinction of a place I had known and wondered about for so long—inventing stories of what lived back there when I was a kid, and wandering past it as an inconsequential luminary when I was a teen. Now, for anyone who visits Dayton and sees that clearing, they may forget it in an instant as they drive past. They may see it as a simple clearing, they may think of it as an eyesore, or they may ask as they see its emptiness, the various stumps and disaster spread across the ground: “What used to be there?” One responds with what was, and they nod their head in reply—not understanding. This is true of all events and things, not just disasters. It is gun violence, gentrification, crime, birth, death, sports—whatever term involves life. Media shrinks it down to its most shocking or monumental piece, but it can never convey all the story that a simple image holds.

As we near the end, two stories come to mind. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is a short story written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It focuses on a man who contemplates the ridiculousness of his own life and believes that there is nothing of value in the world. He comes to think that his only freedom from this world and himself is to commit suicide. At the same time, he is unable to commit the act. In a brief encounter with a little girl, he begins to question—if only for a moment—why he cared about what would happen to her. Despite these thoughts, he still plans to commit suicide, but ends up falling asleep and dreaming that he followed through with the act. He falls into another Earth where the people live in complete peace and happiness, leading full and knowledgeable lives. Through this, the man finds that life is worthwhile—even if such a life cannot truly be possible in the real world. It is precisely because this form of existence cannot be realized that makes it worthwhile. By chance, the man ends up teaching the people how to lie. They become infatuated with the concept and grow to not just like it but to make it a part of their being. Jealousy, cruelty, pride, anger, the othering of others—all terrible things grow from this discovery. The man says, “They only vaguely remember what they had lost and they would never believe that they ever were happy and innocent. They even laughed at the possibility of their former happiness and called it a dream.” They begin to regress through their so-called enlightenment. They cling to science and reason, and the feelings and thoughts they once had—what made the man see such warmth in them—turn to the coldness of logic, laws, and consciousness. Leaders are propped up to feed the masses ideas of how to love themselves most above all, while at the same time living in a society that is communal in nature and mutually shared. This births wars fought over ideas. Religions are founded to uphold their newfound beliefs, to justify their wars, and to create peace in their emptiness. The man, seeing all this, begins to pity them. From a great feeling of sadness, love, and guilt, he tells them it was his doing that caused this—but they pay him no mind. He wakes and sees his gun but refuses the very idea of it, through his newfound love of life. He now wishes to preach and share with the world what he saw. People think of him as a madman for simply preaching the ideas of his dream. I will end this section with one last, but very important, quote. The man says: “And really how simple it all is: in one day, in one hour, everything could be arranged at once! The main thing is to love your neighbor as yourself, that is the main thing, and that is everything, for nothing else matters. And yet it is an old truth, a truth that has been told over and over again, but in spite of that it finds no place among men! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of happiness is higher than happiness—that is what we have to fight against!” It is a beautiful story and one of my favorites of Dostoevsky. I encourage all who read this to go read it themselves—my simple summary does it no justice. But the purpose of his piece and point finds itself here, laid the same as the preachings of Howard Beale and the refusals of Max Schumacher.

The next story that comes to mind is Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which follows the man Okonkwo. Okonkwo is a man who surpasses, but is ultimately burdened by, the past—by his disgust at his father’s weakness and poverty. He becomes strong, rich, and feared. But it leads to alienation from his family and others, and ultimately to his own seven-year exile from his village. During that time, European missionaries and colonial administrators arrive and bring their religion and governance to his village of Umuofia. It slowly deteriorates Igbo traditions and social structures. When Okonkwo returns from his exile and sees the changes, he urges his people to fight back and resist. But many are already hesitant and divided. Through his frustration and refusal to adapt, Okonkwo kills himself in an act of defiance and defeat. Another great and favorite book—one I cannot do justice with this short summary, as I cannot go into the depth, nuance, and complexity it holds. But what has always stood out to me since the first time I read it were the final words from the book. They are the thoughts of a District Commissioner sent to the village: “The Commissioner went away, taking three or four of the soldiers with him. In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learned a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details as cutting a hanged man from the tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. As he walked back to the court he thought about that book. Every day brought him some new material. The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.” It lacks its effect here, but think of any character from one of your own favorite books and reduce their life to a single paragraph. Not for reverence, or purpose, or insight, or understanding. Just as an anecdote, given the stature of a grain of sand among the beach. Both this and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man come to mind as I finish this piece and reflect on when I began it. Both, in their meanings, complexities, and stories, were the precursors to Network. And in the most serendipitous way—if not the answer—they are the right steps on the path toward it.

Story, as we see and know, is a powerful thing. It’s all-encompassing, and when told or shown correctly, it holds everything in the palm of its hand. As much as Network is about media and its lack of ability—or greed—and the realized abomination that is now social media and news channels, or the blind following we all love to do of figures we deem worthy in some way to lead without credence, it’s about story. The lack thereof, and also its truest representation. There is certainty that very few in Howard Beale’s audience knew about the loss of his wife, his mental instability, or what he really was in UBS before and now. The whole truth programming segment created by Diana Christensen—Howard Beale: The Mad Prophet, Sybil the Soothsayer, Jim Webbing and his It’s the Emmes Truth Department, Miss Mata Hari and Her Skeletons in the Closet, Vox Populi, The Mao Tse-Tung Hour—every show a mockery of itself. But in-universe and in reality, each presented a shallow need and want to an audience that never asked for it, yet interacted with it as though God ordained it. Segments fighting over their share of revenue and salary, each speaking truth to power in a hollow space sequestered from its former true purpose and point of creation. All for the sake of entertainment and the illusion of truth—and rage—given voice, given form. This lack of story, this lack of purpose, this lack of is is what haunts and drives Max Schumacher to leave. It’s what has happened, and what has grown en masse today. Story, as we know and have explained it, is rarely seen today. And when it tries to break free from its shackles, it is quickly reinstitutionalized and hidden by the very public it wishes to speak to. The failure in all of this comes back to us. We have all forgotten and made the illusion truth—that media itself is a flawed picture of what it represents. And in its current shortened form—and even in its long form—it never truly conveys the thing it shows us. Without comprehending the limitations of what we consume, it becomes an ouroboros—not one of cyclical nature, but a devouring serpent that ends. There is no real solution. You can understand the faults media has. One can find the whole story and piece it together for themselves—to get the real picture of it all, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Analyze, critique, and understand those sides, and each who put forth their part of the story—seeing what they intentionally add and leave out—in order to understand how the cogs turn. One can do all these things, and they are a recommendation, but not a solution. At the end of the movie, as Howard Beale is assassinated for what he was previously fired for—poor ratings—and various news outlets report the incident before it is drowned out by more commercials and other events, I like to think there was someone who stood up, lifted their head for a moment, and asked: “Why?”I think that’s as close to a solution as we’re going to get today.